The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

528 pages / 16 hours, 3 minutes

Read by Gabra Zackman

Published October 2020 by Orbit

Publisher's Summary: 

In 1893, there's no such thing as witches. There used to be, in the wild, dark days before the burnings began, but now witching is nothing but tidy charms and nursery rhymes. If the modern woman wants any measure of power, she must find it at the ballot box.

But when the Eastwood sisters―James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna―join the suffragists of New Salem, they begin to pursue the forgotten words and ways that might turn the women's movement into the witch's movement. Stalked by shadows and sickness, hunted by forces who will not suffer a witch to vote―and perhaps not even to live―the sisters will need to delve into the oldest magics, draw new alliances, and heal the bond between them if they want to survive.

There's no such thing as witches. But there will be.

My Thoughts: 

The Once and Future Witches is not my usual reading fare. But my dad, in a little sleight of hand, aided and abetted by the same people he was tricking, got my sister and I to each send the other a copy. The reason for that? Well, in my family, I've been known as the Wicked Witch of the West and my sister as the Wicked Witch of the East for going on twenty years. Plus, this is a book about sisters and feminism. When my dad heard about this one, he thought it was the perfect book for the two of us to read. 

This was meant to be a read/listen combination once I discovered that it was readily available on audio from my library. But some extra time in the car and a home project that gave me plenty of time to listen caused me to end up listening to the whole book. It's a good thing I found it on audio because I'm not sure when I would have gotten to such a long book in print, but it's the perfect time of year to be reading this one.  

What I Liked About This Book: 

• I'm always happy to read a book about sisters and how life may cause them to grow apart, but the bond will never be broken. In this book, that's true even into eternity. 
• Equally, I love a book filled with strong women and this book has a lot of them. Juniper comes in hot (and mad) and remains a force to be reckoned with. Agnes has the kind of anger within her that leaves little doubt that her strength can be counted on, even when she tries to avoid it. But it's Bella, the quiet librarian, who surprises everyone with her strength and her unwillingness to stop trying when it appears all is lost.
• Harrow is an equal opportunity writer when it comes to passing out the ways of witchcraft, pulling in Native American and African American witch ways (for the most part ways that we would recognize as homeopathic and natural remedies). She even allows men the opportunity to use witchcraft. I would have liked to have seen more of these other witches. 
• I appreciated that Harrow included gay characters. It felt a little bit like they might have been included as a tool to expand the reader base but it wasn't over done. 
• Gabra Zackman's reading of the book. She did an excellent job of voicing the different characters. 

What Didn't Work For Me: 

• I was really excited to read a book about suffragettes and was looking forward to how that might work with the witchcraft. Unfortunately, the suffragettes were pushed to the side with the emphasis on wanting to bring back witching ways rather than advancing the rights of women. To be fair, the suffragette leaders in this book were the very kinds of rich, white women that themselves pushed out black women in reality and an agenda aligned with their religion. Still, if you're going to write a book with an alternate reality, you could do a lot to blend the two. 
• It's a little thing, but I wish Harrow would have landed on the way each of the sister was going to be known. Sometimes James Juniper was just that, other times she was Juniper, and still other times Juni. Agnes was nearly always Agnes, but often Agnes Amaranth. Beatrice's change made more sense; in the beginning of the book, she was almost exclusively Beatrice until she claimed her power and then she became Belle. Except when she was Beatrice Belladonna. 
• This is a really long book that I felt could easily have been cut down 100 pages as it often felt like it was repetitive and somethings were just too over the top and could have been left out. 
• The last 20-25 minutes or so of the audiobook. It just felt like the story could have been finished up in the final big "scene" with a short epilogue. 

The Once and Future Witches was named one of NPR's best books of 2020. Their reviewer absolutely loved this book. Clearly it was a book that was right up her alley. It is not, as you know if you've been around for any period of time, up my alley. Sometimes those books surprise me, sometimes they do not. And sometime, like with this one, I find enough to like about the book to enjoy the story; but not enough to make me want to rush out and pick up another book about witchcraft. 

This counts as my kickoff to Reader's Imbibing in Peril (R.I.P.) XIX with Peril of the Listen. 

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

400 pages

Read by Louise Erdrich - 709 minutes

Published November 2021 by HarperCollins Publishers

Publisher's Summary: 

Louise Erdrich's latest novel, The Sentence, asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the reader and to the book. A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls' Day, but she simply won't leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading "with murderous attention," must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning. 

The Sentence begins on All Souls' Day 2019 and ends on All Souls' Day 2020. Its mystery and proliferating ghost stories during this one year propel a narrative as rich, emotional, and profound as anything Louise Erdrich has written.

My Thoughts: 

I was gifted this book last year at my book club's annual Christmas party and thought it would make a great choice for my book club for this year. I mean, Louise Erdrich always gives you a lot to think about and talk about, right? Hmmm, not so much for my book club; no one else was all that thrilled with this one. Which made me the odd man out, because I really enjoyed it, despite what I perceived to be its flaws. 

I'd be interested to find out when Erdrich began writing this book because it feels a bit like she might have started it in 2019, intending it to be one book, and then 2020 arrived and the book went an entirely different way. There are, in fact, a lot of different kinds of book within this one. It begins with a kind of tragicomic crime escapade that results in Tookie being incarcerated, sentenced to 60 years. Which, of course, made me immediately think this book had veered into a completely different direction. It did, just not the direction I expected. It's a story of redemption, it's a ghost story, there's a supernatural element, it's an homage to books and reading, it's a love story, and, for a time, there's an element of nonfiction. In lesser hands, this could have been a disastrous mess. Even as skilled as Erdrich is, it sometimes felt a bit disjointed. But I was willing to forgive Erdrich that because I was so invested in these characters. 

As always, Erdrich explores native culture and the Indigerati (her term for urban, intellectual Native Americans). To that end, she talks about the foods (including the commodity foods that the government handed out), traditions, solidarity with black people, and white appropriation (there are two characters who seem unable to understand the boundaries). 

This book touches on so many themes: racism, Erdrich uses the ghost to explore hauntings in all of its forms (personal pasts, colonial haunting and how it has played out): 

"Think how white people believe their houses...are haunted by Indians, when it's really the opposite. We're haunted by settlers and their descendants. We're haunted by the Army Medical Museum and countless natural history museums and small-town museums who still have unclaimed bones in their collections." 

The Sentence is not just the title of this book; it is a running theme. We start with Tookie's sentence to prison ("This light word lay so heavily on me.") then the sentence in language, many of which play an important part in the book. There is the sentence in a book that Tookie believes killed Flora, the sentence that Tookie believes will cause Flora to pass on, the sentence that actually does cause Flora to leave the book store, the sentence that Pollux waits years to hear Tookie say, and the final sentences of the book, "The door is open. Go." Finally, there is the death sentence given to George Floyd and the hundreds of thousands who died of Covid. 

I loved that books saved Tookie in prison, that they became so important during 2020 that bookstores were considered essential, that a book plays such an important role in this novel, and that the book store is a central fixture of the novel. The books in the novel forge relationships, unveil history, bring hope. 

An interesting bit in this book is that the bookstore Tookie works in is Birchbark Books, owned by a woman named Louise. Yes indeed, Erdrich owns a bookstore of that name in Minneapolis. This was a listen/read combo for me and I don't think you could go wrong either way. If you listen, try to find the book list that Erdrich includes at the end of the book. My to-be-read list exploded! 

Catstrology: Unlock The Secrets of The Stars With Cats by Luna Malcolm

Catstrology: Unlock The Secrets of The Stars With Cats by Luna Malcolm

Published October 2020 by Grand Central Publishing

Source: Christmas present from my daughter

Publisher's Summary: 

A delightfully quirky, cute, and funny guide to horoscopes told through adorable cat photographs. 

With the help of a collection of sweet and hilarious cat pictures, Castrology will unlock all the secrets of the stars that you need to know, including: 

Each of the signs at their best and worst (and the perfect cat to illustrate them) 

The common traits of each element and modality in the zodiac 

What do you and your “sister sign” have in common? Find out, with the perfect cat picture to complement it… 

And of course: the right cat for you, based on your star sign!

My Thoughts: 

For Christmas my daughter bought me a gift that hadn't arrived by the time she left to come home for the holidays. An emergency to trip to Target was in order so that I could have something to open from her. One of the things she got me was an Idris Elba coloring book because she knows I love that man. This was the other thing she got. Because she knows I love cats, even more than I love Idris Elba. Also, I think she secretly hoped that when I was finished gleaning all the knowledge this book has to offer, I'd pass it on to her because she, too, loves cats and also astrology. 

Of course, I loved the cute kitty pictures, like the cat curled up napping inside of two hula hoops and the kitten snuggled in on the back of a pony. Seriously, how does anyone not like cats? If you prefer dogs, you can find Dogstrology, which I'm sure is filled with adorable pictures of puppies. 

As for the astrology, I can't speak to how accurate it is but I suspect someone who goes by Luna might know a thing or two about it. Because I've never studied astrology, I did brief lessons about the impact of planetary positions, inner and outer planets, the elements, and modalities. 

Malcolm tells me that, as a Scorpio, I'm passionate, resourceful, and distrusting. All true. On the other hand, on a page entitle "What To Know Before Inviting Each Sign To A Party," Malcolm says that a Scorpio will trap someone in an intense conversation for hours. I would prefer not to be at the party in the first place and I'm more likely to find a spot to sit and hope that people will come talk to me. I discovered that I'm best paired with a Taurus, which is surely news to the Aquarius I've been married to for 38 years. And now I know that my next cat should be a black moggy, a cat breed I've never heard of before. Looky there, even a just-for-fun book has me off to do more research and you know how much I love that in a book!