T.D. Whittle's Blog, page 3

Book Review: The Girl of Ink and Stars, by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

The Girl of Ink and Stars by Kiran Millwood Hargrave My rating: 4 of 5 stars   I have three young nieces who love reading and being read to, so they get quite a lot of books from my husband and me. But I like to read them first and, if they are suitable, buy fresh copies for the children. The nieces enjoy stories about spunky and capable girls with bright minds and big dreams, and this one seemed to tick all the boxes.   So I began this book a few weeks ago but then got distracted with other things I was reading. I picked it up again two days ago and found that I could not reconnect with the story. I started…

Stranger Places: A Pie Town Novel

Welcome back to Pie Town, Dear Readers! We are pleased to announce the release of our second book in the Pie Town series: Stranger Places: A Pie Town Novel, available in Kindle and paperback editions. For those of you who enjoyed The Infinite Loop: a novella of spaceships, time warps, and free pie, consider this your invitation back to Pie Town. We’ve introduced quite a few new characters, but you’ll recognize many from the first book too.   “The town is talking to you, Ava.” Ava’s watch has died, and the mobile phone she’s found in her bag reads “No Service.” Her memory is spotty and her imagination running wild. This isolated town in the West Texas desert is the strangest place she’s ever been. She…

New Year’s Goals: read all the books and write the other books

Happy New Year, Dear Readers! We are completing the final edits on our second book in the Pie Town series, Stranger Places, which will be released on or before 14 February. If you enjoyed The Infinite Loop, and you’re missing Pie Town, here is your invitation to return.       In case you’re wondering, it’s not necessary to have read the first book in order to follow the second. Stranger Places focuses on a new character named Ava. Lenie and Rachel, our protagonists in book one, will return later in the series.   Cheers, td & Sandra

Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas, Dear Readers!     Clearly, we’ve been on hiatus for a while, having not posted since July of this year. This was not a planned break, but a result of our using our time to focus on our second book in the Pie Town series, which begins with The Infinite Loop: a novella of spaceships, time warps, and free pie and continues with a full-length novel we are calling Stranger Places. We are releasing the Kindle and paperback versions on our before February 14, 2017.   In the meantime, we hope everyone is enjoying time with their friends and family. For those of you who have lost loved ones over the holidays, this year or any other, or who are experiencing your first holidays…

Book Review: What Is Past Is Dead, by Mohammed Massoud Morsi

What Is Past Is Dead by Mohammed Massoud Morsi My rating: 4 of 5 stars   The title What Is Past Is Dead (“El Faat, Maat” or “illei faat maat”) seems to mean that one should bury one’s dead, or one’s past, and get on with living. This is an apparently common Egyptian saying, which was chosen for its irony, I believe. For the main character in this first-person narrative, the past is the only thing still alive, and it is palpable. This book is about hard choices and hopeless lives — lives ground down by poverty, violence, war, and desperate measures taken which end badly. Mostly, though, it is a reflection on trauma and the eviscerating grief incurred when one remains alive in…

Book Review: Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert My rating: 5 of 5 stars   I have to admit to being very surprised at how much I enjoyed Big Magic, as it was given to me as a gift and I did not expect much. (Then again, it was given to me by my best friend, who knows me.) Until now, I have not followed Elizabeth Gilbert’s career or been a fan of her work. That’s all changed now. I love this book! (Insert hearts, rainbows, unicorns, Hello Kitty and Pusheen emojis, etc.) I received the audio version, read by the author, and was pleased to find that she is an excellent reader of her own work.   What I like best about…

Book Review: Hangsaman, by Shirley Jackson

Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson My rating: 5 of 5 stars   This is a quote from Shirley Jackson’s NYT obituary: “Because Miss Jackson wrote so frequently about ghosts and witches and magic, it was said that she used a broomstick for a pen. But the fact was that she used a typewriter–and then only after she had completed her household chores.”   Jackson had an abiding interest in magic, myth, and ritual. She collected grimoires and cats, and allegedly enjoyed gossip about her being a witch.* Whatever spells she used, the typewriter under the influence of Jackson’s magic fingers produced spooky masterpieces, of which Hangsaman is a shining example. I feel that way about The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived…

Remnants: A Fairy Tale from the Wombly Wood (part one)

  Bonk propped his feet up on the old wine cork that sat in front of the couch in the home he shared with his wife, Trellis. Having just eaten two fly kebabs, he was well stuffed and ready for a relaxing evening. Trellis smiled at him and suggested fire and music. They had recently wrangled a recording of butcherbird and currawong songs from a family of magpies, and this was their new particular favourite. During the spring just passed, Dody the fox had dragged a pink plastic radio-and-cassette player over to their caravan park from the local rubbish tip but only the magpies and ravens had been able to figure out how to make the thing work. This had surprised no one, as it…

Book Review: Three Hundred Words, VI January, by Christopher Yurkanin

Three Hundred Words, Volume I, January by Christopher Yurkanin My rating: 5 of 5 stars   This collection of historical-fiction essays by Christopher Yurkanin is a real pleasure to read. I liked that each piece is limited to three hundred words, as this constraint provided a solid frame for the writer to build his tales, with no extraneous pieces. (So, quite unlike Ikea DIY purchases, where extra bits are found under your bookshelf while you pray the thing will hold together with a few bolts missing.) I liked, too, that I learnt a lot, and that the teaching was done with a light and deft touch. The best part, though, is that there is a little surprise at the end of each story, where…

On things unreal, but true.

  “The child intuitively comprehends that although these stories are unreal, they are not untrue . . . ” Bruno Bettelheim, from The Uses of Enchantment: the Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. Published December 1986 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. (First published 1975.)   We Pay Our Fare in Apples Here by Megan Arkenberg   Everything in this station has a story, he said. The walls are curved in such a way that the echo of a penny dropped in the exact center of the tunnel sounds like an apology from your late father. If you crawl beneath the turnstiles in the wrong direction the next train you board will take you to every place you’ve ever forgotten, and the ride will last…