"It can be too sad here. We often lose our way." Anne Lamott's latest musing on faith focuses on the thorny parts of life and love—grief, anger, pain—and how to keep living throughout it all. Stitching together the ripped shreds of ourselves, she says, is the answer. Community, faith, music, even something as mundane as replacing smelly, stained floorboards—all of these help us sew our lives together and move on, stronger for the scar tissue that has knitted us whole again.
Zachary Heinzerling’s debut documentary about Japanese artists Ushio and Noriko Shinohara is a film that astonishes viewers not because Ushio and Noriko are wonderful artists—and they are—so much as because they’ve managed to stay married to one another. Forty years ago, a beautiful young woman came to America to study art and met Ushio, a hell-raising iconoclast who gained a bit of fame as a performance artist. Noriko fell in love.
I'm not a writer but Anne Lamott makes me believe that I could be a great one. Bird by Bird is a writing manual that reads like a memoir, a very funny, life affirming, let's get real memoir. She reminds me a bit of Cheryl Strayed in her clarity and insight not only about writing but about relationships and priorities. Lamott says, "if you want to know your characters, you have to hang out with them for awhile." I highly recommend hanging out with Lamott.
My family read The Vanishing Coin and its sequel, The Incredible Twisting Arm, in quick succession. The main character is a fourth-grade boy who has trouble concentrating and following up on his school work, and who generally seems to always be putting the wrong foot forward. Besides failing to live up to his parents' and teachers' expectations, he's got a class bully to deal with and a new neighbor, Nora, who is embarrassingly smart, that he spends after-school hours with.
With art from the esteemed Studio Ghibli, and mechanics that hearken back to the early days of RPGs, Ni no Kuni (literally "second country") is a game that exudes charm from its every pore.
Ted Hall is a San Francisco blogger suddenly hit by strange events. After a fortune cookie explodes in his face in a Chinatown restaurant, he starts having restless sleep, apparently sleepwalking. Even worse, his sleepwalking seems to coincide with the actions of the Hang Wire Killer, a serial killer that's been hitting the city, murdering people and stringing them up with wires like puppets. Meanwhile, a circus has come to Golden Gate Park, and the Celtic dance troupe is practicing eerie rituals in the off hours. A masked acrobat with no name has joined the circus.
Let the hunt for the summer jams begin! From the first bubbly synth line, it's obvious that Classixx is all about fun. Which is a good thing as some dance music can take itself way to seriously and lose the whole point. Hanging Gardens is chock full of head-nodding, car-dancing, sun-bathing cuts that plays as the perfect summer soundtrack. Breezy, atmospheric and just the right bit of glitch are the perfect cocktail for a lazy day by the pool or just-loud enough for a dance party (usually right before or after things get out of control).
A few years after losing his wife and daughter in an automobile accident, Michael Reed finds himself working at a university for a nameless humanities department with a specialty so vague it’s impossible to imagine what he does for income, if anything. Not that Mr. Reed isn’t busy. His insights into humanity’s rougher edges are realized by a relentless labor of the mind. He’s strenuously alert to the injustices of middle age, the sublime beauty of reckless youth and the absence of the two people who once defined his life.
This memoir explores the life of Waris Dirie, recognized by many for her work as a model, and by others for her advocacy for human rights and a battle against female genital mutilation. The reader follows her from her early life as a nomad in the deserts of Somalia, to her difficult and sometimes dangerous journey to Mogadishu and eventually London. Working there as an underappreciated maid for her own family, she is "discovered", and sets off on an equally nomadic life as a model. Throughout her journey, Waris has to face the world with her own wits and tenacity.
In the very near future, Trent McCauley is a 16-year-old in northern England who makes videos by cutting, pasting, and editing movies starring a dead actor he's obsessed with. This isn't just a hobby of Trent's, it's his passion (much like writing Simon Snow fanfic is a passion for Cath in Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl). But it violates copyright and pirating laws, which is why the state cuts off his family's internet access for a year.
