Best Books of 2023: July – Dec 2023

January 3, 2024 elizabethcaulfieldfelt book reviews, books, children's books, fantasy, historical fiction, mysteries, Newbery contenders, reading, Scotland, Wisconsin, writing

I read so many excellent books in the first part of 2023, I made a blog post about it. The second half of the year was equally amazing. Below are my favorites of the books I read, July-December of 2023. Again, there are so many I’m going to attempt just one-sentence summaries with links to the authors’ pages for each.

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr: Using the Greek myth of Aethon, creative and amazing characters, from the past, present, and future find meaning in the midst of great peril.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro: In the not-so-distant future, Klara is an “artificial friend,” a robot with sentience and the goal of aiding her troubled teen “owner” into a happy and stable adulthood.

Artemis by Andy Weir: This fast-paced thriller, set in the future on the moon, features the fabulous Jasmine Bashara, a small-time criminal tempted to make a big-time heist that will get her into more trouble than she can imagine.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabriella Zevin: The story of three friends who create a video game company. This well written description is stolen from the author’s website: this is a “novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, games as art form, technology and the human experience, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect.”

The Butterfly Collector by Tea Cooper: Australian historical fiction. I was lucky enough to get an ARC to read for a Historical Novels Society review.

A Wish in the Dark by Christina Soontornvat: (intended for ages 9-12) Set in a Thailand-like fantasy world, a child born in prison and a child born to a prison warden seek justice and truth. In part, the story mirrors Les Miserable with added excitement and great world-building.

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell: I finally got around to reading this much-hyped book, and it deserves all the praise it got. This is the story of Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet. Exceptional writing and story-telling.

The Lies of Locke Lamorra by Scott Lynch: Another book I should have already read. Fantasy at its best. The story of Locke Lamorra, the renowned thief and rogue, from his orphaned childhood to his most dangerous exploits.

Poison for Breakfast by Lemony Snicket: If you enjoyed his Series of Unfortunate Events, you’ll love this Snicket mystery which involves diving into philosophy. I couldn’t find anything about this book on the Lemony Snicket website, but this one at his publisher’s is clever.

I was lucky to read two phenomenal books set before, during, and after the Japanese occupation of Malaysia:

The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng: This book is written so softly, so beautifully, so peacefully, you almost don’t think of it as a book about pain and loss and war and torture, which it is. Short-listed for the Booker Prize.

The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan: The story of the Alcantara’s family who are Chinese-Malaysian, told through the perspectives of Cecily (mother), Jujube (teen daughter) Abel (teen son) and Jasmin (young daughter). The decisions each makes will have devastating impacts on the rest of their lives.

Letters from Clara edited by Janet Newman: This is the only nonfiction book on my list. These are the edited letters of Clara Pagel of Wausau, Wisconsin. On her own, she traveled the world from 1936 to 1939 and wrote letters home to her friends and fellow YWCA members. Her curiosity, intrepid spirit and thoughtful insights about the world, just before it broke out in war, are fascinating.

One Came Home by Amy Timberlake: (for children ages 9-12 and adults) When the sheriff decides that the unrecognizable body in her sister’s dress is her sister, Georgie Burkhardt doesn’t believe it and sets off to find her sister. Set in 1871 Wisconsin, during the massive passenger pigeon roost, as well as the Peshtigo fire, this is fast-paced, historical thriller for kids.

The Final Revival of Opal and Nev by Dawnie Walton: Using interviews, articles, and letters this tells the story of fictional rock duo Opal and Nev’s rise and fall in music history. Walton is masterful in the changing voices of those interviewed and her descriptions. Everything feels so real. An amazing look at the music industry and its handling of gender and race.

The Eyes and the Impossible by David Eggers: (for ages 8-12 and up) I hope this wins the 2024 Newbery Award. Johannes is a wild dog that lives in a large park with other animals, including two buffalo who reside in a comfortably large pen. As the elders, the buffalo make decisions and solve disputes among the other animals. Clever and fast, Johannes is the eyes for the buffalo, running around the park and reporting on what is going on. I won’t give anything more away. This is an enchanting animal story with beautiful, full-page illustrations by Shawn Harris every 20 or so pages.

The Mermaid and the Bear by Ailish Sinclair: A magical love story set in late 1500s Scotland that encounters the devastation caused by hate, jealousy, and the abuse of power. This story made me cry.

Thanks for making it to the end of this long post! I read 96 books last year (almost 100!), and SO many of them were excellent. How lucky is that? I wish I could have recommended more, but this post has already gotten very long.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about these books, your own favorite books of the past year, or anything else you’d like to mention.

Happy 2024 and may it be a great year of reading!

A Book Series You Must Read!

May 10, 2018 elizabethcaulfieldfelt being happy, book reviews, books, fantasy, Nature, reading

broken earth books

I’m not waiting until my “best books of the year” post to tell you about a series I just finished, N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth trilogy. This is one of the best fantasy series I’ve ever read–and I read a lot of fantasy! The first book in the series, The Fifth Season, won the Hugo Award in 2016. The second book, The Obelisk Gate, won the Hugo Award in 2017, and the final book of the trilogy, The Stone Sky, is a finalist for the 2018 Hugo Award (announced in August).

I don’t want to spoil your reading experience by telling you a lot about these books; instead, I’m going to focus on why you should read them.

1. Strong female characters. The main characters in this series are female. The side characters are female. The only-meet-them-once characters are female. Yes, there are male characters, and they are interesting characters, but this is a story about women. The experience of reading this is the inverse of nearly every fantasy novel I’ve ever read.

Talk about whole new worlds!

I fear that by explaining this, you men won’t want to read the series, but you should! You should read it and allow the experience to open your eyes to what it is like to be a female reader of fantasy!

Did I mention that nearly all the characters are black too? Kaboom!

There are excellent reasons, in terms of world building, that this story is populated by people of color and that women are the movers and shakers–read it to find out why!

2. World Building. Another reason to read this series. The development of the setting is phenomenal! This is sort of our world…maybe… not really. Something really bad happened to the Earth (which you don’t discover until the end of the first book), so there are problems with volcanoes and earthquakes and tsunamis, etc. The fifth season refers to a time on the planet when eruptions and earthquakes and other natural disasters damage the air and land so severely that the human race is nearly wiped out–again and again. These “seasons” happen periodically. Here is a poem from The Fifth Season that explains the phenomenon:

Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall;

Death is the fifth and master of all.

Did that give you goosebumps? I got them the first time I read it.

3. Symbolism/Metaphor/Literary-ness. There is depth to this story. The plot is exciting and engaging, and you can read and enjoy it just for that. But there is so much more going on. I don’t want to spoil any of this for you, so I won’t explain all the incredible layers of meaning in these books. This is one of those stories that you think about for days, weeks, months after you finish. You can savor this story, over and over, and marvel at all the things N.K. Jemisin accomplished.

That’s it. I hope you are curious and eager to get these books. Let me know, below, if you’ve read them, or if my blog convinces you to read them, and if you love them as much as I do.

Author Interview: Callie Bates

June 21, 2017 elizabethcaulfieldfelt author, books, environment, fantasy, interview, Nature, reading, travel, Wisconsin, writing

Today I welcome Callie Bates to my series of author interviews. Callie is the author of the soon-to-be-released The Waking Land, a young adult-crossover fantasy novel. Her book release party will be in Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin, on June 27^th at the North Lakeland Discovery Center. I was lucky enough to read parts of The Waking Land in a critique group a few years ago and was not at all surprised when Callie sold the book to Del Rey Books. I’m so excited to read the whole story!

Elizabeth: Callie, welcome! Can you tell my readers about The Waking Land?

callie baties book Callie: Thank you so much for having me! The Waking Land is about a young woman who’s raised as a hostage for her father’s failed rebellion—but when she’s framed for murdering the king, she has to go on the run. Meanwhile, she struggles to understand her repressed, forbidden nature magic. Basically, it has intrigue, romance, revolution and, hopefully, lots of fun!

Elizabeth: How did the first idea of the story come to you?

Callie: I’ve been tinkering with Elanna’s character for years, and she has evolved enormously over that time! I wanted to write a story about a girl forcibly raised away from her home, but who still possesses a deep and undeniable connection to the land and people she comes from—and who, at the same time, is determined to forge her own identity. But, because I didn’t really know what I was doing, it wasn’t until after I wrote a rather long and rather awful multi-point-of-view manuscript that I realized she could have a solo story in her own right. And that I might even be able to figure out how to write an ending for that!

Elizabeth: In what ways is Elanna like you and in what ways is she different?

Callie: We are both stubborn and snarky! However, Elanna is infinitely more hotheaded than I am, has PTSD from childhood trauma, and is much more attached to her perceived truths. (In case anyone wonders: I do not have Stockholm Syndrome!)

Elizabeth: How has living in the Northwoods of Wisconsin influenced this story?

Callie: If I gave Elanna anything of myself, it’s my love of the natural world. I’m deeply rooted in the place where I live. Here, trees outnumber people, and it’s easy to see the land as a character in its own right. I have always been baffled by people who put human needs before the needs of the environment, especially in the era of climate change, instead of seeing us as an interdependent whole. Elanna’s magic is an attempt to unite the experience of being human with the living experience of the land itself.

Elizabeth: How did you get your agent, and how long did it take you to get published?

Callie: Quite simply, I cold queried, and I’m here to tell you that it does work! My agent asked to see a revision of The Waking Land in 2014 and, because I am nothing if not thorough, I took my time and completely rewrote the manuscript in a different voice and tense. Fortunately, she loved it and offered representation. That was in early 2015; we sold the manuscript a few months later. So, it’s been 3 or 4 years since I first wrote this book. However, since I’ve been wanting to publish since I was 11, you could say it’s taken me almost 20 years to get there!

Elizabeth: Congratulations! I am shocked that a cold query worked! Good for you! Can you tell us a little about your writing process?

Callie: I draft by hand in a notebook, then move on to working in Scrivener and Word. My drafts are often too short and skimp on some important moments, so I am often adding word count even in late edits. (Which is not what most writers recommend, but it seems to be how I roll.)

Elizabeth: What are you working on now?

Callie: I’m just finishing up the second book in the trilogy, The Memory of Fire! It jumps to a new narrator—and, for the most part, a new part of the world—though I can’t say too much without giving spoilers for The Waking Land…

Elizabeth: What book(s) have you read recently that you feel passionate about?

Callie: I’m currently reading two I love—The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill, which is a wonderful middle grade fantasy, and A Conjuring of Light by V.E. Schwab, which is the culmination of an epic trilogy. I highly recommend both!

Elizabeth: I love The Girl Who Drank the Moon! I’ll put A Conjuring of Light on my TBR list. Tell us more about yourself.

Callie: Aside from writing, I’m also an occasional harpist. I play the folk harp, and I’m also a certified harp therapist, trained to play one-on-one or in group settings at hospitals, nursing homes, and the like, to facilitate the healing process. Unsurprisingly, I’m an outdoor enthusiast. I love to travel, too; many of my better story ideas come to me while I’m ambling around somewhere new. I’ve been writing since I was a kid, studied creative writing in college, and stubbornly persisted until I had a book ready to go out into the world.

We’ve now reached the time in our interview for the let’s-get-to-know-the-author-better, nearly-pointless, sort-of-silly, rapid-fire questions:

Elizabeth: Pizza or salad?

Callie: Pizza!

Elizabeth: Coffee or tea?

Callie: TEA. Black, milk, no sugar.

Elizabeth: Ocean or mountain?

Callie: Both?

Elizabeth: Tree house or doll house?

Callie: Tree house!

Elizabeth: Violin or piano?

Callie: Violin!

Elizabeth: Darcy or Heathcliff?