2022 read #3: Beetle & the Hollowbones by Aliza Layne.

Beetle & the Hollowbones by Aliza Layne

Coloring by Natalie Riess and Kristen Acampora

256 pages

Published 2020

Read from January 30 to January 31

Rating: 4 out of 5

My partner R asked for this book for Christmas, and I made an attempt to read it myself right after the holiday, but for whatever reason it didn't click with me at the time. Then I picked it up again yesterday, began at the beginning once more, and couldn't get enough of it.

This book is marvelous. It's so adorably drawn, the characters are delightful, and the story was exceptionally sweet and moving. I want to soak in the world's warm pastels and charming details. Of course, as always happens when I get into a graphic novel, once I got to the halfway mark I sped through and didn't pay enough attention to each panel in my eagerness to follow the story, so there's probably a lot I missed.

2022 read #2: Meadowland by John Lewis-Stempel.

Meadowland: The Private Life of an English Field by John Lewis-Stempel

294 pages

Published 2014

Read from January 9 to January 18

Rating: 3 out of 5

British nature writing, especially the kind that supplies deft insights into the tiny pockets of nature and biodiversity remaining in the British Isles, has long been one of my favorite genres of nature writing, largely thanks to the books by Roger Deakin, Helen Macdonald, and Robert Macfarlane. I had high hopes for this entry, my first book by Lewis-Stempel, and even put it as a suggested Christmas present on the list I gave my partner R late last year.

Despite its lovely cover and intriguing title, Meadowland is merely serviceable, an annual round of both natural events and the rhythms of running a working meadow on a small farm. With my Rust Belt background, for me the word "meadow" invokes a restored wild space, but Lewis-Stempel's more English definition is purely utilitarian: "A meadow is a place where grass and flowers are grown for hay...." While flowers and grasses (and birds and bugs and wild mammals) receive plenty of attention here, cows and sheep and hay-mowing receive almost equal billing.

At times Lewis-Stempel's descriptions approach the ecstatic wonder of Macfarlane or Deakin, but he also has, shall we say, a middle-aged obliviousness to more sensitive phrasing. He employs two casual Nazi metaphors, for instance, both utterly unnecessary and far more distracting than descriptive. I'm not so much offended as struck by how bizarre the choice was.

2022 read #1: Black Water Sister by Zen Cho.

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho

370 pages

Published 2021

Read from January 7 to January 9

Rating: 4 out of 5

I love the rhythm and flow of regional English. I especially love it when words from other languages are integrated into the text rather than italicized, the meaning left for the reader to infer or look up rather than explained through awkward parentheses or footnotes. So much of the dialogue in this novel pops with Manglish poetry. It's a delight to read, lingering in my internal narration long after I put the book down.

The story itself starts strong and zips along with satisfying momentum. I adore its rich texture of petty ghosts and gods hungering for closure.