Quick PSA: If you are a smoker and library user, please do not smoke while reading library books. The smoke and its corresponding particles stick to the pages and the next person who checks out that book (such as myself) will have to smell that and it can trigger allergies (once again, myself). In the worst circumstances, if the book cannot be rid of the stink, it might have to be damaged-out of circulation and you could be charged for it (I've seen this only once in all my years in libraries, but once should be enough to scare you).
OK, rant over, on to the reviews:
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw (2020)
Short stories, Women, African American Women, Family, Religion, LGBTQ+
A thin volume with the gravity of a star.
The stories of Black sisters, mothers, friends, wives, lovers, daughters. These are tales about women seen and unseen. Women in control of their lives and women on the verge of breaking free.
Philyaw’s women will break your heart, make you cheer them on, embrace you in a blanket of familiarity. Some tales take the path of poignant humor, such as the long form letter that comprises “Dear Sister.” “Peach Cobbler” confers a sense of desperation knowable to any reader denied their own potential, while “How to Make Love to a Physicist” assures us that love and acceptance are possible through our personal choices. “Instructions for Married Christian Husbands” has a sharp emotional twist I’m still processing. Personally, I found “Snowfall” especially moving with its tale of a woman dealing with painful nostalgia for a home and family that severed themselves from her life. Read it, trust me, you’re gonna cry.
Every story is told in a unique voice, every character fully realized within a few short pages. The Secret Loves of Church Ladies will stay with you long after you finish reading it.
The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket by Benjamin Lorr (2020)
Food Journalism
In The Secret Life of Groceries, Benjamin Lorr explores many of the unseen worlds responsible for bringing food to your local grocer. When you purchase something from a supermarket, it marks the end of that product’s long journey to you. Spoiler: A lot of these journeys are very unpleasant, and you will rethink some of your buying habits after reading this book.
For your consideration: Is long-haul trucking really a modern version of sharecropping? Was the shrimp from last night’s dinner the product of slave fishing? Is Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods really the more responsible shopping choice?
Will you like the answers to any of these questions? Probably not, but the tougher realization is how little consumers can change the supply chain processes we are not comfortable with.
The Secret Life of Groceries won’t change the world, but it highlights the larger crises that drive commerce. By showing this interconnectivity, modern consumers can at least understand their place in conjunction to it, and more awareness means there are better possibilities for large-scale transformation in the future.
The Library of the Dead by T.L. Huchu (2021)
Paranormal, Scotland, Supernatural, Mystery
Welcome to the mind of Ropa Moyo, fourteen-year-old professional ghost-talker and student of magic.
Ropa lives in a similar, but undeniably alternate universe version of Edinburgh, where magic is a licensed profession, even though it still operates mostly in the shadows. As a messenger for the dead, Ropa delivers correspondences to the living for a nominal fee, barely enough money to care for her aged grandmother and younger sister in a dystopian Scotland. She is a survivalist competing with her own good nature, a fault that gets in her way after agreeing to help the ghost of a mother find her missing son. It’s bad for business and more dangerous than Ropa could’ve imagined.
Readers will travel with Ropa through the twisting streets of Edinburgh, into its secret corners and passages, into the titular library of the dead, and beyond the veil to the junction where the deceased stopover on their way to their final rewards. T.L. Huchu maintains a lingering tension throughout the story that, combined with a world that is only slightly off from our own, leaves the reader just the right kind of unnerved until the last page.
Overall, this was a perfectly spooky read, and Ropa is a great character. Huchu combines both his Zimbabwean and Scottish backgrounds by borrowing heavily from both their folkloric traditions. The mystery is decent, with a few surprises and one (unfortunately) obvious turn. But this book is established as the first in a series and, just like a good TV pilot, it generates great world building and character introductions that are worth the exploration of future volumes. If you are looking for a good, spooky read this Fall, The Library of the Dead is a book well worth cozying up with.
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