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Ivy Blog

08.22.20

Shirley's Corner August 22nd

Posted By: theivybookshop

I seek relief all week, the kind I can share with you.  I locate some about homes lost and found.

Sharp, smart, strange and darkly funny, Luster by Raven Leilani has nothing to do with the world I live in.  A young Black woman engages in an erotic relationship with a middle-aged white man, becomes homeless, is invited to move in by his white wife, and mentors their adopted Black daughter.  Teetering on the edge of too muchness, Leilani crafts metaphors that are vibrant and insightful with floating sentences about loneliness that magically stretch on forever. I generally avoid stories pulled from headlines because they don’t breathe on their own, but this one sashays right off the page into a new room in my head.

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08.09.20

Shirley's Corner August 9th

Posted By: theivybookshop

Family is all. When I don’t have access to my own, I look for windows to peep through—a literary voyeur if you will—generations of secret-keepers and dream-chasers preferred. I find two emotionally nuanced family sagas: Daughters of Erietown by Connie Schultz and Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland. Both are character-driven, take-my-mind-off-my-distanced-family historical fiction. Both have enough grace and compassion to plug the holes of my leaky Mama/Grammy heart. I am satisfied.

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08.02.20

Shirley's Corner August 3rd

Posted By: theivybookshop

There was a time I would have skipped right over Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet in my to-be-read pile. Yes, it is a superb portrayal of a mother losing her child to the Plague (not a spoiler) and struggling not to lose herself in her grief or her husband’s (never named) prodigious shadow, both timely and timeless. Yes, her language is transporting, particularly the heart-wrenching scene at the husband’s theater. But Hamnet is another name for Hamlet: deserving of acknowledgment, like beets and liver, but not my cup of tea.

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07.19.20

Shirley's Corner July 20th

Posted By: theivybookshop

I’m doing my best, trying my hardest, holding on for dear life, hanging on by my fingernails, using every trick in the book, one day at a time. There are insufficient clichés to clear the fear. I’m even plucking at my last nerve. It wasn’t supposed to last this long. I can’t remember why I thought it would be over by now. To center myself, I spend as much time as possible with books, including those I formerly eschewed. With literary lariats aloft, they lure and lasso me. As you can see, my urge to alliterate is out of control as well. The more I pull, the tighter the knot. Home Before Dark by Riley Sager has ghosts for goodness sakes. I wouldn’t have been caught dead (there I go again) reading that BC (Before Covid).

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07.12.20

Shirley's Corner July 13th

Posted By: theivybookshop

I have not physically traveled beyond my zip code for months other than to deliver food and meds to my mother in Owings Mills. Yet, I am all over the place. My travels commence when a lovely-accented man, Loren, in Managua, Nicaragua, assists me in cancelling my Sam’s Club membership (I prefer Costco). From Central America I journey to Bali where I order “Batik Magic” facemasks from craftspeople at Novica (handmade, fair trade). And my two current reads, Shadowplay by Joseph O’Connor set in London and The Chestnut Man by Soren Sveistrup in Copenhagen complete my itinerary for the week. I always go first class.

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by Dr. Radut