The heart wants what the heart wants, and our hearts want books.

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Now that we’re officially half way into October and the leaves are falling off the trees, are you ready to talk about scary things, like horror books?  Yeah, me either, but I’ll be ready by 7:30 p.m. CST on Friday, October 30 to talk about The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix.  Whether you’d like to read this with us or just join in the conversation about vampires, southern book clubs, and a book wherein they meet, we’d love to have you at Virtual Book Club, but only if you register here.  

In an alternate reality very similar to our own, this blog doesn’t exist. I don’t mean to frighten you, dear readers, but if we travel back in time to the summer of 2001 you will find me on a family trip to Boston and the surrounding areas. This might not seem out of the ordinary to you, but the primary purpose of this trip was to tour the Boston University campus – with a side trip to Harvard for a tee-shirt! BU was my first choice school until late 2002 when I realized I could probably go to school for free if I stayed in state. Imagine then had I not attended UTC with Nikki, both of our lives would have been so changed. Bonus tidbit: this trip is where I collected my first Presidential Library, the JFK Presidential Library and Museum, thanks mom! Back in the days of 2002, I wanted to study medieval history… thank the lord I got over that…

However, my point here is that maybe I didn’t really get over it and in 2009 when The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane was published I found myself doing mental gymnastics over applying for graduate school – specifically in museum studies or historic preservation as I had been wanting to do since I did an internship in undergrad with the Chattanooga Regional History Museum – which is now defunct. I found out at the time that Middle Tennessee State University has one of the premier Historic Preservation programs in the country, so the possibility is still on the table for the future. I have digressed long enough from my possible past in academia to bring you the story of Connie, and ABD (all but dissertation) American History PhD candidate at Harvard who is tasked by her mother to clean out her grandmother’s cottage near Salem – with no electricity or telephone! – during the summer of 1991. She finds a key hidden in the family bible with the name of Deliverance Dane scrawled on a piece of paper and in her search for the person attached to the name, meets Sam in the local church. He’s a preservationist with his masters from BU and he helps her search the church archives. These two characters bring together things I have always wanted to do – preserve the stories and buildings of the past for the future. Obviously at the time of my first read these trappings of academia and preservation and symbology and romance drew me into the book more than the possibilities of witches – even though witches is what has predicated this re-read. Sitting here in my mid-thirties instead of the mid-twenties of my first read, my feelings are much the same: a solid 4 stars and I would read it again. I might just wait until my mid-forties to see what differences another decade makes. 😉

Author Katherine Howe says many thanks in her author’s notes, but my absolute favorite is to Bostonian author Matthew Pearl, her “sensei, without whose guidance, cheerleading, and mentorship this book would never have come into being.” And, TBH, his praise on the cover of the book is probably what drew me to the title in the first place. I read his The Dante Club the summer before college and loved it. Being reminded of his works makes me want to visit his backlist in the near future, but how can I decide between his and the rest of Howe’s work? Including The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs ($2.99 on kindle as of publication of this post!) that continues Connie’s story in the year 2000! Difficult decisions abound! Physick debuted at #2 on the New York Times bestseller list in 2009 and Howe has both other adult and young adult fiction on her backlist. Most notably for our discussion here she was the editor of The Penguin Book of Witches for Penguin Classics, a primary source reader on the history of witchcraft in England and North America – a title this armchair academic must needs read!

~Ashley

Dear readers, sometimes knowing nothing but your reading buddy adores a title enough to reread it is the best thing!  I knew that and WITCHES going into The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe, and I REGRET NOTHING.  (You know that’s not true, and you may have already predicted there wasn’t enough epilogue for me.  But Ashley found more epilogue and I’m so excited!)  I want to tell you all about this book, but then I don’t, so instead I’m going to tell you a story. 

Last weekend, I took my little people on their regular trip to the library and had a delightful conversation with the librarians while I was there (as usual).  The librarian who checked out our books for us shared that she’s reading spooky tales this month, so we chatted about which titles she was reading and I mentioned that Ashley and I were reading witchy books this month.  Naturally, like any good lover of books she was interested in what titles and what we were enjoying (*hint* we adore them all).  I mentioned the list of titles we’re bringing to you this month and she started taking notes.  She inquired as to Practical Magic (“I didn’t know it was a book.” “Oh yes, and there are two additional books as well, one brand new last week”) and The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane as well.  I mentioned it was set in the 1990s and focused on a Harvard graduate student who’s asked by her mom to clean out her grandmother’s house just outside of Salem.  I also added that Howe’s ancestor was killed during the Salem witch trials (y’all, don’t sleep on the author’s notes!), which made it even more interesting to me.  This particular librarian was born in the late 1990s, so I did share with her that I adored how there were no cell phones and even computers were limited.  The other librarian on duty (who probably remembers the 1990s better than I do) was also listening to our conversation, had looked up the book, and was also interested in it.  She mentioned she likes reading about the days before technology because she started working as a librarian back when card catalogues were a piece of furniture rather than a web application.  Oh how I too miss those days!  There’s something about paper that draws me in, even though I do most of my reading on kindle.  

The younger than me librarian also shared that she’s been debating if she’s too old for YA titles.  Since she and I chatted in August about all the fun titles coming out on September 1, I knew we had some shared reading interests and promptly told her that I am over a decade older than her (per her age she shared, I assumed nothing) and was very excited to start Blood and Honey by Shelby Mahurin on Monday, with my reading buddy, who is about my age (we’re both over half way through and SO excited to bring you more on this title soon!).  I also shared that I enjoy a good middle grade book now and again.  Sometimes because I’m previewing it for, or buddy reading it with, my 8 year old.  Sometimes because I feel like it.  Here’s the thing, you do you darling readers.  Life is too short to read books that aren’t for you or aren’t for you right now, so don’t do it.  Also, don’t skip a title just because it’s in the “wrong section” of your library or bookstore.  

What did I think of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe?  Great question and thank you for bringing me back around.  I give this title 4 enthusiastic stars and will reread it, and will be adding Howe’s backlist to my TBR (and The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs is already awaiting me on my kindle thanks to Ashley).  The descriptions were thorough, but not over done, and the writing was beautiful.  Also, I loved the story.  Even with a bit of mystery in the story, this title is a quieter, calm tale that feels realistic, assuming one is inclined to believe in witches. (Am I the only one who once spent a summer cleaning out a deceased relative’s house that was stuck in decades past?  Yes, well, perhaps that is a part of it then, but at least my mother and grandparents were along for the adventure.  There was electricity, but no A/C, and the windows were painted shut, in the South, in the summer.)  The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane also includes real struggles of power, gender, and family included in the delightful glimpse of New England architecture, which is something this Southern girl hasn’t gotten to experience in real life, much (I too got to spend a glorious weekend in Boston, but it was spring 2002).  I also wanted to go down two rabbit holes that I have, as of yet, refrained from exploring – steeplejacks and the University of Virginia’s Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project.  

What rabbit holes has a book inspired you to go down adventuring lately?

~Nikki

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As we enter yet another round of doing hard things IRL, we’re doing hard readerly things for Virtual Book Club – reading a horror novel!  If this is a hard thing for you, please consider joining us for a discussion of The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix on Friday, October 30 at 7:30 p.m. CST (and we won’t judge you for not finishing it!).  If reading horror novels is a thing that you do, then PLEASE join us to help us learn more about how this one fits into the genre.  Register here to let us know we get to chat books with you!

I’ve spoken before about my friend who suggests books that are out of my comfort zone, like thrillers.  She also suggested Nnedi Okorafor as an author I should read maybe a year or so ago.  We were having lunch (remember when we got to do that with friends?) and discussing books (shocker) we were reading and what our children were reading.  One of her children was was reading Are you There God? It’s me, Margaret by Judy Blume (which I promptly consumed for the first time, then cursed all the readerly adults in my middle school life for not putting it in my hands), and one of mine was reading Harry Potter.  That said, I understand why Akata Witch and Akata Warrior are compared to the series, but also, it’s SO much more than that.  

Dear readers, if you, or your people, love a magical realism meets hero’s journey tale, please meet twelve-year-old Sunny as she learns about her powers, a world she never knew existed, and finds herself through the process in Akata Witch and Akata Warrior!  One note for those with young readers at home, these titles are listed for age 12 and up, and grades 7-9.  They are definitely for a more mature middle grade reader.  There’s the saving the world I’ve come to expect in the hero’s journey tale, but there’s also a bit of romance among the young characters that some may not appreciate for their readers who need high level and low content.  I’ve considered how my eight-year-old advanced reader would love this book.  While I’m not going to hand it to him, I wouldn’t ask him not to read it if he picked it up and showed interest.  That’s me though, you do you, and let us know if you have specific questions.  

Let me count the ways I love Akata Witch:  We have four children (Sunny at 12 is the youngest) who are learning to be responsible Leopard People.  Sunny is an albino and an American born to Nigerian parents, now living in Nigeria, so there’s lots of “other” going on, and she’s a free agent, meaning her family of origin are not Leopard People (aka magical).  Sunny is trying to be a normal kid, and learns early in the book that she’ll never be normal, and then finds out that’s okay as we proceed through these gorgeously written books.  I love a tale of adversity and hope, and I thoroughly enjoyed getting transported to Nigeria as I read this story.  

Part of our diversity goal is to read more diverse authors, and another part is to read about diverse topics through the books we chose.  This fits both camps as Okorafor herself is Nigerian-American and these books take place entirely in Africa, mostly in Nigeria.  I learned so much about Nigerian culture and the ways it’s similar and different from American culture from Sunny and Sasha in this four star series that definitely has re-read potential. The magical world building is beautiful and encompassing. Okorafor’s backlist is on my TBR now, and I may have already downloaded several Shuri graphic novels.  I want to say so many things about this book, but here’s how I’ll end.  I still hate the trope of spiders in fantasy novels.  While it was fine to read about it on the page, I will 100% turn into Ron Weasley (or Zeus Berger, take your pick) if Akata Warrior comes to the screen.  

~Nikki 

Dear Readers, when Nikki and I started bandying around witchy titles a couple of months ago for this month’s theme (remember how our library holds are full to bursting – I think Nikki was most recently at a high of 90…) she mentioned Nnedi Okorafor’s Akata Witch duology of books and not only was I here for the diversity but also because the plot seemed really super cool! I’ll get back to the plot, but let’s talk about the author. As Nikki mentioned above, Nnedi Okorafor is a Nigerian-American author who writes in the genres of Africanfuturism and Africanjujuism (African continent and peoples focused science fiction and fantasy). She has won a Hugo award, a Nebula award, a World Fantasy Award, and a Locus Award for her work. Okorafor holds a PhD and MA in literature and an MA in journalism and lives in Illinois with her daughter and family. You can find out more about her on her website www.nnedi.com.

I have loved getting to know Sunny, Chichi, Orlu, and Sasha, their juju teacher and mentors, and all the Leopard People and magical creatures of Leopard Knocks and other Leopard communities. The term ‘Leopard person’ is of West African coinage and comes from the Efik term ‘ekpe’ or ‘leopard.’ “All people of true mystical ability are Leopard people.” Important to note is that the term ‘akata’ is a very derogatory word meaning ‘bush animal’ and is used to refer to black Americans or foreign-born blacks. A school bully calls Sunny a “stupid pale-faced akata witch” in the very first chapter and she explains the term to us then. I think Okorafor uses the term in the title to reclaim the word and to have Sunny embrace all of the things that make her ‘other’ because those are the things that give her power and define her. 

Learning about the differences of the global Leopard world was interesting and brought back some memories, let me explain, as I type this in New Orleans with Hurricane Delta on its merry way to the Gulf Coast by way of the Yucatan Peninsula… Sasha, the Chicagoan boy sent to live with Orlu’s family after he got himself in trouble, explains to Sunny, Chichi, and Orlu that the Leopard headquarters in the United States is in New York, but since they’re biased towards European juju, the African American headquarters is on the Gullah Islands in South Carolina. The Gullah sea islands and other low country areas of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida are filled with the creole culture and language of formerly enslaved Africans, mostly of West African descent. I have fond memories of watching Gullah Gullah Island with my sister on Nick Jr. as a kid – it ran from 1994-1998. For those of us needing a more adult reminder of Gullah culture, there’s always Minerva from John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil working her voodoo in Savannah, GA, and Beaufort, SC. It does not come as a surprise to me that black Leopard people in America would have their headquarters there or that they would call it Tar Nation. 

At the end of Akata Warrior, Sunny is anticipating her next adventure, and I am willing to re-read both books as a reminder of what happened once Okorafor has the next Akata book slated for release. I read Akata Witch with the intention of just posting about that book, but it was SO GOOD, I immediately informed Nikki this post was going to be a double header. What’s the last beginning book in a series that made you immediately jump into number two?

~Ashley

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