The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo (2013)

Oh my gosh, I LOVED this book. I have no idea where it came from, why I requested it but it's marvelous.

Li Lin lives in colonial Malaya with her opium-addicted father and her beloved Amah. All is satisfactory pretty much until she receives a marriage proposal from the son of an influential neighbor. However, the son is dead and the proposal is for Li Lin to be his ghost bride. When her intended haunts her in her dreams and she falls in love with the new (live) heir to the family, Li Lin embarks on a fantastical voyage among the dead. 

Choo creates a marvelously rich and detailed world of the dead, from paper funeral offerings and hell money, to the Plains of the Dead and the afterworld bureaucracy. Along the way, she meets Er Lang, a guardian spirit who is not at all what he appears to be. 

This novel is utterly original and impossible to label in a particular genre. It's historical fiction, and fantasy, and a bit of horror, and a bit of romance as well as being wonderfully suspenseful and beautifully written. Much of the mythology is based on Chinese folklore, and Choo's notes section outlines the original stories and her own creations. CRIPES, I loved this book.

The Girl From the Well by Rin Chupeco (2014)

This young adult horror novel is narrated by Okiku, a 300-year old ghost who avenges murdered children by killing their murderers and freeing their spirits.

Some excellent imagery--very much as if you were reading a novelization of The Ring (but well done) and quite interesting back story and info on Japanese ghost stories. I love the imagery of the ghosts of the murdered children clinging to the murderers, as well as the occasional people who can see Okiku and other spirits.

Quite a well-done and original young adult horror novel.

The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo (2013)

You MUST read this book.

I hear about books from a lot of sources.  Blogs, friends, reviews, whatever.  And then there's the books that I just run across in the library catalog while looking for something else.  Which is to say, I have NO idea how I found this book.  But I'm so glad I did!

Set in colonial Mayala, among the Chinese who reside there, the story is about Li Lin, a young woman of marriageable age who lives with her opium-addicted father and her beloved Amah.  Despite the loss of her mother at a young age, all is pretty much satisfactory until she receives a marriage proposal from Lim Tian Ching, the son of an influential neighbor.  A promising engagement with one small detail: Lim Tian Ching is dead and the proposal is for Li Lin to be his ghost bride.

Lim Tian Ching begins to haunt Li Lin in her dreams, and she is quickly drawn into a dark world of murder, hungry ghosts and restless spirits.  She also falls in love with Tian Bai, the new (live) heir to the family.  Li Lin ventures into the Chinese afterlife, travelling to the Plains of the Dead on an errand for the mysterious Er Lang, a man who may not be what he seems.

Choo creates a marvelously rich and detailed world of the dead:  paper funeral offerings and hell money, afterworld bureaucracy and the shifting corporeal nature of ghosts.  This novel is utterly original and impossible to slot in a particular genre.  It's historical fiction with elements of fantasy, wonderfully suspenseful and spooky with more than a touch of romance.  It's also just beautifully, vividly and cinematically written.  Much of the book's world is based on Chinese folklore, and Choo's notes section outlines the original stories as well as her own creations.  CRIPES, this is a good book.

Who Asked You? by Terry McMillan (2013)

I listened to the audiobook of McMillan's latest novel, and much like reading Stephen King, I was so pleased to be back in Terry McMillan's world again. I forgot how much I loved Waiting to Exhale and her other books.  I was disappointed by her sequel to Waiting to Exhale (so dark!), but this renewed my love for McMillan all over again.

Betty Jean has her hands full.  She has an ill husband, two opinionated sisters, a hard job, and challenging grown children.  Things just got even more complicated as her daughter has just flaked off and left her children in Betty Jean's care.  

The audiobook is read by Phylicia Rashad, Michael Boatman, Carole DeSantis, and the author and it's one of the best audiobooks I've ever listened to.  The novel is structured so that a variety of characters are narrating the action, and the narrators so perfectly embody the characters, I can hear them in my head right now. Rashad narrates all three sisters and she creates three separate characters so wonderfully that you never wonder who's telling the story, and you can practically see the characters.

I loved this book and I've never listened to an audiobook where I actually said (out loud in my car) things like: "WHAT?" or "Oh, Luther!" The whole book surprised, touched and delighted me. I often half listen to audiobooks but this had me fully engaged and invested. LOVED.

Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez (2010)

Wench is an utterly original and fascinating novel set before the Civil War at a resort in Ohio where white slaveholders brought their favored slave women on their vacations.  The women who spend their summers there struggle not only with their own lives, but with the prospect of freedom tantalizingly close at hand.

Perkins-Valdez provides an amazing look at a very specific part of the slave experience and provides insight into the bigger world of slavery. Unbelievably vivid and evocative of what life must have been like for these women--from losing their children to struggling with the decision of whether to try to escape. Memorable, touching characters and an amazing look at a very specific part of history.

Yes, Chef by Marcus Samuelsson (2012)

Listened to this memoir on audio and loved, loved, loved it.

Marcus Samuelsson was adopted from Ethiopia (along with his sister) by a family in Sweden. He grew up with a grandmother who loved cooking and cooking for people and became a chef. This book chronicles his whole life, but especially his journey to becoming one of the top chefs in the world, working in Sweden and Europe before coming to New York City, where he was the Executive Chef at Aquavit and then opened his own restaurant Red Rooster in Harlem. 

Along the way, he also explores his own Ethiopian heritage, and getting in touch with his birth family. Just a beautifully told story, narrated by Samuelsson himself in his own charming accent. Wonderfully insightful into his journey as a black cook and the challenges and greatest moments. And he speaks so interestingly about race, how it affects his work in kitchens, and his experience coming to America as a black, but not African American, cook. Through the entire story, Samuelsson is always humble and always kind. 

Just a wonderful story, wonderfully told.

Le Freak: An Upside Down Story of Family, Disco, and Destiny by Nile Rodgers (2011)

I LOVED this book.

I picked it up because of a rash of reading memoirs by members of the band Duran Duran (it's true--dang nostalgia) and they kept referring to Nile Rodgers in such glowing terms. I thought it would be interesting to read what he had to say about them. Not much, as it turns out, and I almost returned this book, but I read his captions on the photo spread and liked his sense of humor so I read it. Example:

"Here I am with the band for my second solo album, filming a video for our single, 'State Your Mind.'  A black man fronting a big-haired white band was a novelty then, but not the popular kind."  

The book starts in the late fifties in Greenwich Village, where Rodgers lived with his mother and white stepfather, who were heroin junkies. His fascinating childhood includes stops in the South Bronx, Alphabet City, South Central L.A., time spent in a sanitarium for ill children, and includes fascinating family and friends as he travels through the Beat Generation and the rise of Black Power, then the hippie movement. 

He has a vision of a new kind of black/white funk music, and sees tremendous success with his band Chic, only to be cast out and scourged when the Disco Sucks movement takes off. He produces some of the most iconic albums of the 1980s (David Bowie's Last Dance, Madonna's Like a Virgin, Duran Duran, and way more) and manages to do it all while doing a lot of drugs. He finally cleans up his act, starts a foundation that does great work, and in the last two pages of the book, gets a diagnosis of advanced cancer.

 In the last paragraph, he talks about his family's many secrets and how he'll keep this one (his diagnosis) from them. It may not turn out to be such a big deal, he says.

 MAN! This is a freaking awesome book. He tells his amazing stories with a lot of humility and a lot of humor and no self-pity and no arrogance. The amazingly vivid characters of his family members and his relationships with fellow musicians will definitely stick with me. SUCH an awesome book. So many bits of great language and humor are in this book that I can't quote them all, or I'd be typing out the whole book.  I will tell you that I loved his description of himself skipping school and "kicking back like Dean Martin with a cocoa martini."  Love.  SO much love.

Kindred by Octavia Butler (1979)

Written in the mid-1970s and set in contemporary times, Kindred is about Dana, a black woman in her 20s who is mysteriously pulled back in time to the antebellum South to keep saving the life of a man she eventually finds out is one of her ancestors.  Dana keeps getting pulled back and forth in time--sometimes alone, sometimes with her white husband--and her life keeps intertwining with that of her ancestor and the slaves he keeps on his plantation. 

Provides a fascinating look at the lives of slaves, as well as life for any black person in the antebellum South.  In addition, it's a very interesting look at the relationship between Dana and her husband and their life in the 1970s.  Although it sounds a bit grueling, it's also compulsively readable and amazingly well told.

In the edition I read, there was a fascinating critical essay by Robert Crossley that provided more context.  Despite being so much of its time period, the novel itself does not seem dated at all.  It's still a fascinating novel with a lot to say.

What You See in the Dark by Manuel Munoz (2011)

Fascinating, spare novel that tells the story of a few inhabitants of Bakersfield, California, from a young singer, her handsome boyfriend, and his hotel owning mother to the Actress and the Director, who are scouting locations for a new film. The film is clearly Psycho, and the story of the singer, her beau and his mother has some interesting parallels to that film. Quiet, melancholy and deliberately written.  From the Director's musing:

"The Americans were always good at dying, but not death. Good at plot, but not fatalism. Good at cowboys shot down from the backs of horses, but not the finality of writhing in the dust. Good at the cars roaring lustily into each other as if no one were in them, but not the full horror of a boy hurtling into the rigidity of the steering column. Good at the beautiful Radcliffe heroine succumbing to cancer in her bed, but not the ugly business of the night nurse wiping her clean at two in the morning. What they didn't know is that you take the little glimmer of the truth of death when you see it, and then have the nerve to give it light."

Magic or Madness by Justine Larbalestier (2005)

Compelling young adult novel about a young girl in Sydney on the run with her mother. When her mother is committed and she goes to live with her grandmother, she learns some truths about her family, her life, and the reality of magic. Split between Sydney and NYC, it’s filled with Aussie slang (glossary included!) and a refreshingly diverse cast of characters. Followed by two sequels: Magic Lessons and Magic’s Child.

Cupid by Julius Lester (2007)

This tale of Cupid and Psyche is told with the voice of a Southern black storyteller, and brings in elements of Roman and Greek mythology. Has lots of interesting insights about love, and is a fascinating, fun discourse on the telling of a story.  Julius Lester is amazing. S See also his great retellings of the Uncle Remus stories.  You'll want to read them aloud to anyone nearby.

Bucking the Sarge by Christopher Paul Curtis (2004)

If there's anyone who crafts more hilarious, endearing characters and situations than Curtis, I can't imagine who it could be. Luther T. Farrell aims to be one of the great philosophers someday but in the meantime, he's pretty busy, working at the Happy Neighbor Group Home for Men, going to school, and trying to avoid the wrath of his mother, the Sarge. A fascinating novel with some pretty complex themes and a most interesting anti-hero.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (2007)

Junior, a cartoon-drawing, basketball-player Indian kid leaves the reservation to go to a nearby white school and incurs the anger of whites and Indians alike, while living his life. Cartoons by the great Ellen Forney add to the realistic charm of this sweet, poignant and funny novel.

It's the Little Things by Lena Williams (2000)

Subtitled: Everyday Interactions That Anger, Annoy, and Divide the Races. Everyone should read this highly personal non-fiction written by a black female journalist about the interactions between blacks and whites. From hair flipping by whites, to inappropriate use of first names to making way for others on the sidewalk, a lot of things that whites may take as bad manners are regarded as white privilege by blacks.  PS: This is totally her racial terminology that I'm using here.