A Tea Garden in Tivoli: American Garden Design Inspired by the Japanese Way of Tea
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Bettina Mueller. Tea House, $34.95 (185p) ISBN 978-0-578-16202-7
Mueller (The World in a Bowl of Tea) uses her experience creating a Japanese tea garden in Tivoli, N.Y., to teach others how to do the same, in this bare-bones guide. The author goes light on practical tips, instead focusing broadly on key elements of the tea garden and how to make and serve tea. The book is divided into three sections: “Garden” highlights Mueller’s challenges with her own garden and the process of creating a garden path. “Tea” describes the practice of serving tea in the Japanese tradition, and how the ceremony is designed to arouse all five human senses, beginning with the feeling of stones underfoot on the path. “Flower Arranging” uses guidelines adapted from those published by the Urasenke Foundation, an organization dedicated to Japanese Cultural Heritage in America, to guide readers on how to gather and arrange chabana (tea flowers) in a natural way. The how-to element is light throughout, but with more than 200 photographs that highlight Mueller’s own garden and others she has toured, the book provides visual inspiration to gardeners and Zen enthusiasts. Color photos. (BookLife)
The Seasonal Kitchen: Farm-Fresh Ingredients Enhance 165 Recipes
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Kerry Dunnington. Artichoke, $19.95 trade paper (272p) ISBN 978-0-9904185-6-6
In this solid collection of comfort-food classics, Baltimore caterer Dunnington (This Book Cooks, Tasting the Seasons) offers a practical approach to cooking. Organized by event (happy hour, dinner, etc.) rather than the seasons as implied by the title, Dunnington’s selections are surefire hits for dinner parties as well as weeknight meals. She suggests simple, flavor-packed updates on classics (lemon-rosemary chicken wings, pork tenderloin with roasted coffee and allspice, pineapple upside-down pancakes), as well as more inventive dishes such as wild-rice salad with cherries and feta, fire-roasted seafood chili with shrimp and crawfish, and a clove-spiked red-plum cake. Dunnington brings to the table thoughtful vegetarian options such as quinoa cheeseburgers with curried cucumber yogurt sauce; gingered coconut and celery soup; and almond cookies, which only call for sugar, almond paste, and an egg white. Dunnington’s instructions are simple and direct, and ingredients are pared down to just the essentials without sacrificing flavor. Novice cooks can easily source ingredients, and veterans would also do well to peruse this welcoming title, as they’re sure to pick up a few new ideas. (BookLife)
John Prine Beyond Words
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John Prine. Oh Boy Records, , $34.98 ISBN 978-0-692-74016-3
Country and folk singer Prine has crafted a minimemoir culled from his song lyrics and photographs that tell the stories behind the songs. A photo of the original typewritten lyrics for “Jesus: The Missing Years,” with Prine’s later edits, appears on the page facing the lyrics, and Prine cannily offers insights into how he wrote the song and his songwriting in general: “I recorded this into a cassette at four in the morning. The next day I typed it off the cassette... I like to write with a typewriter because I type slow—it gives me time to edit.” Regarding what is perhaps his best-known song, “Angel from Montgomery,” Prine says he was led to the opening lines by a series of ideas: “Backroad rambling gambling/ so many chances, nowhere to go.” The photos scattered through the book show him with his family and at various stages of his career from the late 1960s to the present, highlighting moments with his friends such as musicians Steve Goodman, Kris Kristofferson, Bonnie Raitt, and Tom Waits. Prine’s lavish scrapbook is a keepsake for his fans, as well as an inviting introduction to his music. (BookLife)
Color Your Life Happy: Create Your Unique Path and Claim the Joy You Deserve
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Flora Morris Brown. Sonata, $19.99 (372p) ISBN 978-0-9772183-1-8
Brown, a publishing coach, devotes this encouraging self-help primer to the idea that happiness is a choice. She opens with 10 promises to readers about how they will benefit from reading the book, goes on to define what happiness is (“an emotion of inner joy”) and isn’t (“the absence of sadness”), then devotes the balance of the text to self-help strategies. The author employs charming personal stories (often from her childhood in St. Louis, where her mother operated a beauty salon) and excerpts of poetry to illustrate her points about moving from pessimism to optimism. Not all of Brown’s tips are especially fresh or even of her own phrasing—as with the Scripturally-derived injunction to “treat your body like a temple”—but the references are useful and eclectic, including both The Twilight Zone and The Secret. Brown also dispenses advice on varied topics, including how to shorten your work commute, cut down on time spent texting, and, less tangibly, “access your spiritual path.” She’s occasionally blunt (“Face it—some days are going to suck”) but more often determinedly positive, as when she advises readers to ask about problems, “Is this a major setback or a divine set-up?” Brown’s joyful exuberance, evident throughout, makes her book an inspiring and worthwhile addition to the self-help field. (BookLife)
Dragon’s Trail: The Outworlders, Book 1
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Joseph Malik. Oxblood, $3.99 e-book (390p) ISBN 978-0-9978875-0-1
Malik’s debut novel sparkles with a fresh take on some traditional epic fantasy tropes. Jarrod Torrealday is a disgraced Olympic-level fencer. Years ago, when he was at the top of his game, he accidentally killed a competitor and was consequently banned from the life he loved. He’s survived since by teaching the art of the sword and consulting on stunts for films. When offered the opportunity to travel to the fantasy land of Gateskeep and assist with their upcoming war, he happily accepts, bringing along his friend Carter Sorenson, a greatsword expert, and as many of his “artisanal killing tools and works of 21st-century metallurgical genius” as he can carry. What follows is a deceptively simple and shockingly painful crash course in the politics of a world with Dark Ages–level technology. Despite a slow start, the action, humor, and intrigue quickly build, showcasing Jarrod as James Bond in tarnished armor. Detailed descriptions of equipment and tactics don’t distract from the plot; rather, they add a layer of depth and dimension that carries the tale to the next level. This is a highly enjoyable story for fans of self-aware epic fantasy. (BookLife)
The Catalina Cabal
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Bill Thesken. Koloa, $11.50 trade paper (256p) ISBN 978-0-9903519-7-9
Thesken’s suspenseful second thriller starring private security agent Badger Thompson (after 2016’s Edge of the Pit) involves him in the horrors of human trafficking, after a grim discovery off the coast of Catalina. Following a relatively simple bodyguard job for a “top of the pop charts singer” whom he previously rescued from “her wanna-be rap star billionaire boyfriend,” Badger’s post-assignment relaxation proves short-lived. While sailing off the island’s coast, he spots a woman’s body floating in the water wearing a wetsuit and a life vest. He retrieves it and finds a driver’s license identifying the corpse as that of Mei Young Lee, a “local girl” from Long Beach. Badger’s curiosity is piqued further when the police tell him that no one reported her missing, and that two years earlier a similarly garbed “oriental man” was found under similar circumstances and never identified. The operative is later shocked to learn that Mei was probably the victim of a widespread and highly profitable smuggling operation. Thesken heightens the tension of Badger’s pursuit of the truth by adroitly interjecting chapters from the bad guys’ perspective. Readers will look forward to Badger’s next outing. (BookLife)
Horn Bückel
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Peter Imsdahl. Apple Box, $12.99 trade paper (229p) ISBN 978-1-535-11552-0
Imsdahl’s charming slice-of-life debut follows American Paul Klose, an amicable English teacher who arrives in bucolic Horn Bückel, Germany, in the mid-1990s. He rents a room near the school where he has acquired a temporary teaching position, and quickly learns that the accommodations he’s taken come with a strange requirement: he is to be the town’s sexton, with duties ranging from ringing the church bells to digging graves. Klose’s superior, Pastor Grob, is an angry man whose wife is as lustful as her husband is contentious. The couple wears on Klose’s patience as he develops friendships with Horn Bückel’s eccentric inhabitants, including the previous sexton and wise storyteller Otto Schwalbe, town gossip Mrs. Stamm, and farm girl Appel, whose “long-legged gait” is capable of “suddenly making the day warmer.” This tale of one town, its citizens, and an American visitor is delivered in a witty voice that accentuates Imsdahl’s burgeoning talent. (BookLife)
New York
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Terence Clarke. Astor & Lenox, $15.95 trade paper (256p) ISBN 978-0-9860582-7-1
This gem of a collection by Clarke celebrates the art, passions, and people of New York City. After a brief, sweet look at inadvertent eavesdropping on mass transit and the kindness of strangers in “Everyone in L.A.,” Clarke begins in earnest with “The High Line.” He uses this uniquely New York landmark as the linchpin of connections between the robustly American New York and the New York that is a microcosm of the world, in this case bringing together corporate lawyer A. Pollard O’Rourke and the Dominican-American former goatherd Eshu Basoalto. Each story that follows is suffused with love of one form or another, whether it be romance or deep-felt caring for others. Art, too, fills these pages, ranging from the delicious but simple culinary creations in “The Sandwich” to abstract sculpture in “Thank You, Pierre-Auguste.” War is also a theme throughout: it shatters the lives of characters as different as Coptic Egyptian sandwich maker Muhammad, Argentine banker Romero Heflin, and photographer Bouquet Alonso. There are no weak stories here. (BookLife)
The Village of the Trees
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Naomi Lau. Wildberry Ink, $12.95 paper (28p) ISBN 978-0-9905915-6-6
In a modern-day parable about kindness and community, Roo, a woman “who build treehouses of splendor for her village,” is unwelcoming to a stranger looking for a refuge from the cold. After Roo’s village of tree houses burns down, she and her neighbors become homeless. Getting a taste of her own medicine, Roo visits neighboring villages seeking shelter, but is turned away each time: “We do not have enough space, even for us,” says one farmer. Once Roo finds a new grove of trees and embarks on a plan to rebuild, she revisits the villages; perhaps impressed by her enterprising spirit, they share supplies—blankets, yarn, corn, stones—to help in her endeavor. Lau’s earth-toned collages resemble cut-paper artwork, gaining depth from a variety of textural elements. The familiar notion that kindness begets kindness comes through clearly, and when Roo crosses paths with the original stranger again, her attitude has softened. Yet Lau also includes a subtle undercurrent about the importance of nurturing a broad sense of community through collaboration, compassion, and the sharing of resources. Ages 3–7. (BookLife)
The Soul Mender
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R.S. Dabney. Red Pen Warriors, $14.99 trade paper (380p) ISBN 978-0-692-47201-9
A familiar science fiction theme—a parallel reality populated by alter egos of the inhabitants of our own—gets a fresh spin in this intriguing variant of a dark fantasy. Since childhood, Riley Dale, an environmental scientist living in Boulder, Colo., has been plagued by visions. Then she unexpectedly crosses over into the world of her imaginings with the help of a magic ring left to her by her grandmother. Partnering with Oz, a drug-addicted ne’er-do-well who represents the other half of her divided soul, and protector Zachary Stone, who’s a serial killer in her own world, Riley travels cross-country to Los Angeles, the terrorist-bombed capital of this alternate U.S., to learn the crucial role she must play in events rocking the parallel world. Dabney’s writing is crisp and confident, and her characters—including both of their personalities—are well-developed. She introduces more subplots than can be resolved by the novel’s end, making this a promising start for a projected trilogy. (BookLife)
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