The Southern Bookseller Review: Soil. River. Flight.

The Southern Bookseller Review Newsletter for May, 2023

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May 2023

Soil, River, Flight.

Nature and the Environment

This month’s special edition of The Southern Bookseller Review is is dedicated to stories of our relationship to nature and the environment, and to all the wondrous beings that surround us.

“He understood for the first time that the world is not dumb at all, but merely waiting for someone to speak to it in a language it understands.” -Susanna Clarke

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Read This Now!

Recommended by Southern indies…

Soil : The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden by Camille T. Dungy

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Soil : The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden by Camille T. Dungy
Simon & Schuster / May 2023


More Reviews from Books and Books Key West

Observed with a poet’s eye, deeply concerned with social justice, history, community, and the natural world, Camille Dungy’s Soil recounts the process of creating a pollinator garden in her Colorado yard, circling around her history and the history of the plants, animals and politics of the West. “I dig up a lot of awful history when I kneel in my garden,” she writes. “But, my god, a lot of beauty grows out of this soil as well.”

This is a smart, beautiful, wide-ranging book that will draw you in and change how you look at the world around you.

Reviewed by Robin Wood, Books & Books @ The Studios in Key West, Florida


Bookseller Buzz

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Spotlight on: George, A Magpie Memoir by Frieda Hughes

 

Frieda Hughes, photo credit Frieda Hughes

I had this huge bird-shaped hole in my life. I had my painting and my poetry, but my third marriage was crumbling and all the attention I had paid to George really had nowhere else to go. I also had this vast aviary I had built, so I set about determinedly trying to find occupants for it. You can go and buy a bird but that wasn’t what I wanted to do. The birds had to be unwanted and they had to need care – birds that could not otherwise fly free. ―Frieda Hughes, Interview, The Guardian

What booksellers are saying about George, A Magpie Memoir

George, A Magpie Memoir by Frieda Hughes
  • This captivating memoir of life with an unruly magpie had me hooked from the very first page. The eponymous corvid is rescued by Hughes – poet, painter, and daughter of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes – and quickly becomes a much-loved (albeit very naughty) member of the household. Hughes recounts his impish antics – which include daily games of hide-and-seek with multiple household objects – with affection and wry, exasperated humor.
      ― Jude Burke-Lewis from Square Books in Oxford, MS | Buy from Square Books

  • I want her to write a hundred memoirs. I’ll take twenty more about her animals. This – her first – memoir takes place after the death of her father, during the early stages of a divorce, and prior to the suicide of her brother; Ms. Hughes experienced multiple health issues during the same time frame. She’s lived a life, man, and she keeps on living it, and she’s not immune to describing the beauty of nature and animals in tremendous detail. Fabulous.
      ―Alissa Redmond from South Main Book Company in Salisbury, NC | Buy from South Main Book Company

  • While It is no surprise that deep encounters with nature, including wild animals can be life-transforming, it is always a new delight to encounter a writer with the skill make the experience come alive. Hughes captures the wonder, the mess, the wisdom gained, and the joy in her time spent with rescued birds. Her magpie story is a welcome addition to shelves with Marc Hamer, Helen MacDonald, Lyanda Lynn Haupt, and Sy Montgomery.
      ―Jan Blodgett from Main Street Books in Davidson, NC | Buy from Main Street Books


  • Reading the memoir George will make some readers desperately want a baby magpie of their own in their life and kitchen…until the reality of what damages and chaos a tiny bird can do to one’s house and heart sets in. Frieda Hughes, the daughter of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath and an established artist and author herself, decides to move to an acre of land in the Welsh countryside. While gardening and landscaping, she finds a magpie from a destroyed nest that she decides to rescue and George quickly grows and attaches deeply into her heart. Frieda Hughes writes with such vivid clarity all readers will be in her kitchen with her having tea and lovingly watching George as he plays with the dogs and messes every inch of the house. This very personal story will reveal a deep love of all of the wild nature and how it touches and changes our life. Readers will laugh and cry with the writings as we hold out breath every time George flies out our kitchen window and we tensely await his return. With drawings and poetry the author reveals all about the losses and joys of her life and we find her happily at the end with her many rescued animals and enjoying her motorbikes.
      ―Nancy Pierce from Bookmiser, Inc. in Marietta, GA | Buy from Bookmiser

About Frieda Hughes

Born in London in 1960, Frieda Hughes, the daughter of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, is an established painter and poet. She has written several children’s books, eight collections of poetry, articles for magazines and newspapers, and was The Times (London) poetry columnist. As a painter, Frieda regularly exhibits in London and has a permanent exhibition at her private gallery in Wales, where she resides with fourteen owls, two rescue huskies, an ancient Maltese terrier, five chinchillas, a ferret called Socks, a royal python, and her motorbikes.

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Brave the Wild River by Melissa L. Sevigny

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Brave the Wild River by Melissa L. Sevigny
W. W. Norton & Company / May 2023


More Reviews from Main Street Books

What kind of scientist risks the little known rapids of a raging river to document plant life? The first scientists to boat down the Grand Canyon were no daredevils but two intrepid and determined women. Still their tale is full enough of drama and a motley crew of characters to make a great read. More than just a quirky bit of environmental history, their work still resonates today. Sevigny brilliantly captures their experiences as well as the political and social history of the Colorado River. A great read for anyone interested in women in science, natural history, or the American West 

Reviewed by Jan Blodgett, Main Street Books in Davidson, North Carolina

The Nature Book by Tom Comitta

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The Nature Book by Tom Comitta
Coffee House Press / March 2023


More Reviews from Fountain Bookstore

A deftly experimental book that seeks to portray a world sans humans, Nature Book borrows from a history of rich, descriptive prose to reconstruct the cycles of days, seasons, and migrations as they continue quiet and unobserved, separate from human society. And yet, human description and literary convention make up the entirety of this story! This beautifully avant garde novel from an organic and unfettered nonbinary perspective is an awe-inducing teleportation into a beautiful cosmos and a rapidly changing climate as captured throughout the history of literature. Great for reading piecemeal or overwhelmingly all at once.

Reviewed by Amanda Depperschmidt, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

At the Edge of the Woods by Kathryn Bromwich

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At the Edge of the Woods by Kathryn Bromwich
 Two Dollar Radio / June 2023


More Reviews from Novel

Out of necessity, Laura has chosen to live a simpler, yet, courageous life in a secluded, rustic cabin in the woods on the outskirts of an Italian village. Necessity turns into a reorganization of priorities, which I wholly admire, as Laura shares her thoughts with the reader on living with nature, interacting with others, and what it means to survive. Beautiful.

Reviewed by Jill Naylor, Novel. in Memphis, Tennessee

The Eyes and the Impossible by Dave Eggers

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The Eyes and the Impossible by Dave Eggers
Knopf Books for Young Readers / May


More Reviews from Story on the Square

This is the story of Johannes, a wild dog who lives in the park. He runs his round because he is the Eyes for the keeper of the Equilibrium. He decides one day to gain a greater purpose and free his friends the bison. Though for children, I think this story would be enjoyed by anyone who has ever run and felt faster than the sun. Johannes is absolutely endearing, arrogant, feral, and free. Above all else, he’s free and wonderful. I found myself elated with every triumph and breathless with every close call. I loved it and was in tears by the beauty of the writing at the end. I absolutely cannot wait to recommend this to everyone I know. "To be alive is to go forth. So we go forth." Don’t let Johannes slip by you! He’s faster than light, so it might be hard.

Reviewed by Katlin Kerrison, Story On the Square in McDonough, Georgia


Parting Thought

“She read books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live”
—Annie Dillard

Publisher: The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance / siba@sibaweb.com
Editor: Nicki Leone / nicki@sibaweb.com
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