Category Archives: Reviews

NetGalley Review: Uncredited by Allison Tyra

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“Uncredited: Women’s Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work” by Allison Tyra is an excellent book. She names and credits literally hundreds of women who were not recognized or rewarded for their achievements, from art to medicine to space exploration and beyond. As an amateur scholar of women’s history (i.e. I am not a student), I recognized some of these brilliant women; others I had unsurprisingly never heard of. Tyra’s book is an epic of female experience: the struggles we face, the biases we must fight against, the acknowledgements we are denied. This book should be read by all, though there will be plenty of naysayers that will insist that “it didn’t happen that way.” (And we all know who will say things like that, don’t we?)

Allison Tyra’s book should be recognized as the very valuable work of history it is. It deserves a place in classrooms as a reference book and a history of women’s experiences and accomplishments. Read this for the information, read it just because, or read it and allow yourself to fall into rabbit holes of related history. Whatever your reason, read this.

Net Galley Review: The Lost World by Celia Drill

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Celia Drill’s The Lost World is some of the best contemporary poetry I have ever read. Her work is enthralling; she plays with language, creating images in the mind that are a kaleidoscope of emotion and thought. I found myself highlighting entire poems instead of single lines. I read her poems two, three times over, looking for meaning withing the meaning. Drill creates surreal landscapes of sound—I read her poems out loud, wanting to feel the flow of her language.

Drill’s poem “The Raven” describes the raven thus: “When the raven appears, he is never a bird; he is always a small, dark man. He walks with a cane, with God as his witness.”

A bird dies alone in the snow: “I take her home to forest’s solace, lay her in the dark earth beneath joined pines […] The forest is mourners holding hands. My dead bird recedes into roots. And unlike me, silent stranger in dimming woods, she sings from networked branches.”

Celia Drill crafts lines of such beauty: “Rain makes widows of the ghost pines…”; “There is no time, say the dragonflies, only color.”; “Sweetness spirals from the throats of violet, coalesces, sisterhoods of stars.” Her poem “Mug for Lapsang Souchong” is as graceful as the fox that the potter dreams of.

We know writers are artists, and in The Lost World Celia Drill embodies this ideal. “I am only a sparrow,” she says, “but I am voluminous.”

Goodreads Challenge!

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Slightly delayed, but we are still in January for about eight more hours, so…Goodreads Challenge update!

Last year I managed to beat my goal of 145 books, finishing at 152. This year I have set a goal of 150 books. I have completed nine so far, seven of which were poetry eBooks with an average of 150 pages, give or take. I have some hefty books on my planned TBRs for the next few months, March especially, so we’ll see how quickly I get through them. I am a fast reader naturally, but I do not just breeze through a book for the sake of getting it finished. I do take the time to read thoughtfully and make notes or copy things into my Commonplace Book. Many of my nonfiction books look like little porcupines with sticky tab quills.

My reading time will also be slightly reduced as I am setting aside time in the evenings to write because my poetry manuscript is not going to finish itself (though it would probably require far less editing if it did). How is it that something that sounds so meaningful when you first write it sounds like a four year old telling a story when you go back and read it a week later? I mean no disrespect to four year olds: my Finch is an excellent storyteller. His Mόraί, on the other hand, is a slightly off-kilter poet.

I recently shared a post about my February TBR, so I won’t review it here. My March reading list will be in the theme of Women’s History Month. Sister and I are expecting to have TWTCNS finished by late March, and we have chosen one of the books on my TBR to be our next Sister Read.

Are you on Goodreads? Let’s connect! You can find me at https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12594094.Nicole_Kapise_Perkins . What are you reading right now? Do you have a reading goal for this year? Let me know. In the meantime, be well, and keep reading!

NetGalley Review: Song of the Huntress by Lucy Holland

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This was an epic of an adventure taking readers to the days of Britain’s legends. The Wild Hunt rides, kings and princes jockey for power, and queens play politics like a chess game. Lucy Holland’s writing is fantastic; her world-building is authentic, it is clear that she conducted a great deal of research in order to recreate Saxon Britain as historians have written it. The two primary characters, the proud warrior Herla and fierce Queen Aethelburg are brilliantly presented. They are intelligent, strong, dedicated to their people and their causes. Herla and Aethelburg face both the internal scheming of the human Wessex court and the power of the Lord of the Otherworld. Any fantasy fan, historical fiction reader, readers interested in Iron Age Britain, anyone that likes a good adventure, really, will appreciate this book.

NetGalley Review: The 369 Method Manifestation Journal

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This was an interesting book; I requested it out of curiosity as manifestation has been a pretty big topic of discussion on social media sites, so I figured I would take a look. While I enjoyed reading it, I don’t think the subject is anything I can quite relate to. This book is well-written and a good guide for beginners that are willing to take the time to approach manifestation with the attention it requires; I am not that person. I think I will come back to this though. It has definitely piqued my interest.

NetGalley Review: One Creative Writing Prompt a Day

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This book is absolutely priceless! The prompts had me giggling and reaching for my pen before I even finished reading it. Some are thought-provoking, some lighthearted, and others laugh-out-loud funny, so much so that I started reading it out loud to my family and we all began plotting mini stories. I received it as an eBook, but I will be buying a hard copy to add to my writing books. This is a wonderful resource for anyone that writes, is thinking about writing, or for any creative mind, really. The prompts invite you to think about things on the slant, and anyone will benefit from that.

Poetry Review: Mexican Bird by Luis Lopez-Maldonado

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Mexican Bird by Luis Lopez-Maldonado tells a heart-rending, painfully beautiful story. It is a reality I as a white heterosexual woman will never experience; Lopez-Maldonado’s pain, hope, desire, sorrow, and need come through every line, illustrating the life of a beautiful soul, often marginalized and misunderstood, but wholly worthy of reverence.

Net Galley Review: Divine Might by Natalie Haynes

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The masterly Natalie Haynes has gifted us with another incredible work of brilliance. I do not know if this is intended to be a companion book to her 2020 book Pandora’s Jar, but as I own both of them, I’ll continue to read them together. Her examination of female dramatis personae in Greek myth offers valuable insight to the realm of women’s studies and classical studies (and to anyone who just happens to like reading about mythology and women’s literature like yours truly). Haynes presents each chapter almost as an autobiography of the Goddess in question, discussing Her connection and relevance to women both past and present. As a Dianic Pagan, the Goddess of the Greek and Roman pantheon are not mere figures of legend to me but a part of my spiritual practice. The Goddess Hestia figures largely in my devotions, and I was delighted to find Her included in this study as She is often overlooked for more glamorous figures. Haynes gives us a different view of the Goddesses and their mythological actions; she reprises their roles in ancient society and offers them to us in relation to modern women’s issues and challenges. I have been a fan of Natalie Haynes since I first read her novel A Thousand Ships. Her fiction is spectacular, and her nonfiction works are peerless.

NetGalley Review: Nature Tales for Winter Nights

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Let me begin by saying that I love winter…when I am tucked away under a blanket with a stack of books, a pot of tea, William Ackerman playing on the stereo, and my cat purring by my feet. If I need to leave my cocoon of comfort and brave the eye-searing, nose-pinching cold, I hate winter. Nancy Campbell’s lovely collection is the perfect book to enjoy whether you enjy winter from beneath pounds of blankets (guilty) or out bounding through the exhilarating, invigorating fresh air (my husband’s words).  

In this volume Campbell has collected excerpts from the works of Sei Shonagon, Charlotte Bronte and Walt Whitman, US Poet Laurate Joy Harjo, the letters of Vincent van Gogh, diarist Dorothy Wordsworth, Darwin’s journals, the Quran, and Kenneth Grahame, to name just a handful. I am reluctant to refer to this collection as cozy; that implies it is something light, somewhat frivolous. Instead, this is a collection of literary works that expand your mind and steep your senses in the sensations of the season. However, it is imbued with the feeling of tranquility; it makes you want to pour a mug of something warm and settle in to enjoy a quiet winter’s evening. (I followed Campbell’s book with Isak Dinesen’s Winter Tales; I highly recommend reading the two together) 

Nancy Campbell’s Nature Tales for Winter Nights is a book I will keep in rotation for seasonal reading. It is a perfect winter book, or summer book if you find yourself wilting in the heat longing for the winds of winter. 

NetGalley Review: Scavengers 1.2

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Editor Shilo Niziolek has curated a collection of poetry, prose, and artwork that is a choir of voices. Each piece is as carefully selected as a soloist in an opera, showing readers a look into each contributor’s imagination. Readers walk through realms of experience and vision. Each piece made me think of wandering a house of many doors, stepping into a new world of thought with the turn of a knob. This is Scavengers 1.2; I am looking forward to 1.3.