Shirleynature > Recent Status Updates

A novella of charming and lyrical storytelling paired with music and singing?!?!

A gift worth slowly savoring. Nostalgic and sentimental candid.

I'm still wrapped in suspense.
Grateful Everett is reckoning with generational and institutional environmental racism.
And I discovered from the publisher's blurb there is an element of espionage within this crime novel.

Many of the characters are not very likable or relatable, except I like for Soot a lot. He's sentimental and thoughtful and feels the connection of his ancestors to the land where his family's roots and those who have passed are buried.

A cinematic, fast moving, high interest crime story only slowed by my busy life interruptions.

In this fictional account Everett is asking the reader to think about contextual history. Interspersed throughout are abstracted excerpts that feel factual, yet I believe are fictional representations. For greater understanding I'll plan to also read this https://books.openedition.org/pufr/5464

I am spellbound with this charming and whimsical volume!

Pausing listening to the audio in the middle of chapter 6, but I will return!

Every fan of the anthology Well-Read Black Girl will also devour this cultural biography centering Octavia Butler.

Powerful "hellcat fury!"

I am quite a novice at reading surrealism and yet I have a vague recollection of this same or similar experience. This crucial point in the story is giving me goosebumps much like reading Kafka many decades back!

Gratitude for generous insight from the author's interview with Sullivan Summer via NewBooksNetwork.com!
Dennard Dayle shares a reference while writing comes from G.K Chesterson's classic satire The Man Who was Thursday.

Despite the scarcity of female characters so far, the lively wry dialogue is marvelous. I'm hopeful the author will do a book tour!

I agree with the earlier reviewers who noted Dayle so generously loaded this tale with provocative quips and witticisms that reading more slowly is required. I don't want to miss any details!

There is much silly irony in this wry retelling from the era of the US Civil War. A fine comparison to James McBride's work, especially The Good Lord Bird.

Fun intrigue and a sympathetic heroine sharing inner thoughts such as suffering restless sleep due to "the brain cubby holes had other ideas. Hoisting a noisy conference when I roused at 2 am with questions and theories winging across my brain matter until the birds began to sing.'

Fun intriguing and a sympathetic heroine sharing inner thoughts such suffering as restless sleep due to "the brain cubby holes had other ideas..."

Cash Blackbeard is a favorite heroine and sleuth!
She is admirably resilient and realistic, including her gift of 6th sense!

Riveting!

I found the audiobook read by David Attenborough via internet search. Provided by Audiobooks for Children.
I paused at 17:18 of 1:53:00.

Awesome fun, an interwoven prairie-river love song! If you haven't yet picked up Frazier's 1st book you're in for many vivid visual delights to celebrate wildness in our region plus historical context. If you have read Frazier before you'll find the continuing thread here to experience deep time, more recent history, and our region's resilient wilderness.

This is my first book by Macfarlane; impassioned and inspiring, I now understand more fully how and why friends have such deeply passionate reviews of Macfarlane's writing!

So deeply touching. Of course this is one of the books Elif Shafak celebrates among “The five emotional books that have shaped me”!
If you love this, you'll want to read Shafak's novel There are Rivers in the Sky. And vice versa.

MacFarlane's care of the greater than human living world is on par with his skill and agility to turn a phrase and vocabulary!

The honor to listen to this passionate author narrate his adventures and introduce friends is sweetly endearing.