The Yellow Birds, by Kevin Powers: Coming to a High School classroom near you (to devastate you)

The Yellow Birds
by Kevin Powers
Little Brown and Company: New York, 2012.
ISBN: 9780316219365

War is not an easy thing to understand, nor is it an easy thing to survive.   In Kevin Powers masterful first novel, Private Bartle has returned from Iraq.  He has not returned unscathed; in fact, he is still in Al Tafar, battling for the city and for his friend, Private Murphy.  Bartle, it turns out, made a promise to Murphy’s mother he could not keep to bring him home.  Under the leadership of the hardened and doubtful guidance of staff sergeant Sterling, the twenty-one and eighteen year-old inseparable privates struggle with the dangers and inhumanity they face in an active war zone.   They are obsessed with the death tally, hoping not to be the 1000th casualty.  Murphy begins to show signs of mental strain, eventually making himself scarce.  What follows is as haunting as the writing is lyrical.  This is a simple, tragic, hugely moving story.  Powers writes of Bartle’s experience with an urgency and truth of that can only be conveyed by someone who knows what it is to live the life of a soldier in combat and under fire.  The words sing with simplicity, sincerity, and a lyricism that makes the heart ache with the vivid detail experienced through Bartle’s eyes, skin, and thoughts.  It is easy to see why this debut novel is receiving as much critical acclaim as it is.  The short length makes it accessible, but the content (and salty solider dialogue if the war related deaths don’t do it for you, hypocritical book banners) places this novel firmly in the for adults/mature readers category.  There is no doubt it will become a staple in advanced high school  English classrooms and summer reading lists  - so high schoolers, brace yoselves!  (And fear not, it’s wayyyyy less all over the place than The Things They Carried.) 

Seriously, high school kids.  You will be reading this.  And adults of the world who like great writing but don’t want to spend fifteen weeks reading a book that you need to start bodybuilding in order to physically lift, well…this is a doozy.  I mean, words do not do the words of Kevin Powers justice.  This guy – well lets just say it was not surprising to turn to the back flap and discover that someone has an MFA in poetry.  Did you see the adjectives I used above?  Haunting? Lyical? Simple?  Sincere? Hardened? Urgent?  Truth?  Are those all adjectives?  I don’t even know.  That’s okay, because I’m not writing important, moving books ala Mr. Powers.   Consider the following excerpt:

Cinders and Sapphire, by Leila Rasheed: Fishing with (recycled) bait

Cinders and Sapphires (at Somerton series)
Leila Rasheed
Hyperion: New York, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-42317891-0
ARC through NetGalley, available 1/22/13

A landed English noble family and their servants struggle to keep the estate running, marry the daughters off, and avoid ruinous social scandal, amidst new turn of the century inventions, ideals, and international political concerns.  Gay valets, inappropriate romances with radical foreign men, the Season, calculating ladies maids, spendthrift heirs, and secret illegitimate children abound at  Somerton Court, an English country estate.  Sound familiar?  Riding off the wave of Downton Abbey furvor, Leila Rasheed’s first book in the anticipated At Somerton series liberally reuses plot-points from the TV series, but does surprise with some new ones.  Lord Averley has returned home from India with his two daughters, Ada and Georgiana in scandal after abruptly leaving his post.  Ada, the elder daughter, struggles with matching her progressive thoughts on women’s rights with the world she lives in, including the necessity to marry a man she does not love, instead of the one she does, to save her family estate.  Meanwhile, below-stairs, a surprise arrival throws the estate into arrears when it is announced there will be a wedding that will bring a new family to the house, along new servants who threaten to expose long-hidden staff secrets.   Rasheed’s writing is engaging and incorporates much of the language of the time, though the big reveal (no spoiler here) seems to be slightly unrealistic, and optimistic for the time.  Recommended for fans of Downton Abbey, aged 12-112 who’d rather read Jane  of the “You Pierce My Soul” Austen’s than Edith of the nothing ever ends well Wharton’s. 

A few quick thoughts on this one.  In things not at all shocking, judging from the slightly cheesey title and definitely cheese cover (sorry cover designer, except not, because you have eyes – you had to know), this was never going to be heavy lifting.  It wasn’t!  It was, however, surprisingly better written than I assumed it would be.  Kudos to Rasheed for not phoning it in…even if 9 out of 10 plot points are so, so clearly recycled from Downton, though they are repackaged.  (Ahem: Branson is now Ravi, Ireland is now India, Mary+Sybil=Ada, Thomas+Bates=....you get the idea) Some characters are hugely two dimensional, but this could be something fleshed out in later entries to the series.  Things seem to be a little more upstairs skewed; we don’t get as much of a look downstairs as I’d like; we primarily experience downstairs in interactions with the upstairs world.  

Despite my earlier grumblings about style, I did enjoy the font and chapter headings.   I enjoyed the historical look at Indian autonomy as a hot political topic for the Empire, through the character of Branson ahem, Ravi, exploring Oxford, and the shout out to Charles Worth’s dominance in the ladies fashion game.  Still want a dress!  In short, this is a fun, light read (appropriate for younger readers too - nobody gets Pamuked), especially if you’re in the market for a fun Downtonesque book and made it all the way through season two without throwing in the towel – and I’ll probably pick up the rest when they come out!  Methinks they’d make a great fireside OR beach book.  AKA, vacation! 

Tidbits

Books

• It took me long enough BUT.  Best news ever red alert, via your, my, everyone's favorite Melina Marchetta:
  They’ve also come back into my life at an important time for writing because 24 year old Jimmy Hailler is camping out in my head.  It’s not just his story, but a bit of a four hander and it will definitely be an adult one rather than YA.  It’s interesting that I didn’t know where Jimmy and his life was until I played with circumstances in Froi and Quintana’s life.
  
  JIMMY HAILLER.  JIMMY HAILLER.  Plus, word on the street is soon even us Yanks will be able to hang tough with our favorite knocked-up pink taffeta dress wearing exiled princess, Quintana.  2013 is looking up!
• Meta alert! These works of art (books) have been turned into works of art (sculptures)!
• Things I am maybe embarrassed to totally get: Texts from the American Girl dolls (the OG's not these new poseurs).
• Somehow, I missed this most exciting news about Patrick Ness and the new books he's going to drop on us!  
• I'm one part jealous, one part judgmental (it's a private home, also she spit-shone his grave), and one part sorry for the people who live there now this is up on the interwebs - a blogger visited E.B. White's house in Maine.  But mostly...I want to live there?
• If you enjoyed Partials and want more, check out this preview of the sequel, Fragment.  
• Thank GAWD, DGabs. Fall is just around the corner, right?  Alls I'm sayin' is you best not Robert Jordan us, mmkay?
  
• The thievin' thugs of YA (Elizabeth Wein! Shock me, shock me, shock me, with that deviant behavior!)

Movies

• Divergent casting news about Four (Let's just say I saw a lot of Alex Pettyfer in Magic Mike that I can't unsee in picturing him as Four...)
• Don't really want to jinx it, but Y: the Last Man has a director.  Still think it would be better as a mini-series!
• I had no idea that Robopocalypse had even been optioned as a movie, let alone optioned by Spielberg.  
• Whhaaat? EW has some pictures of Catching Fire up (like four), but all you need to know is this:

"People are just worried that I'm not going to be as sex god enough as Finnick should be. I've literally had four months of eating nothing but chicken and asparagus. I just want a burger and a beer."

He's hungry behind the eyes, guys.  (Incidentally, does this picture remind you of anyone else? A certain pasty, Civil War era YA vampire, perhaps?)

Recipe 16: Chocolate Chorizo Chili

Chocolate Chorizo Chili

Ladies und Gentlemen.  When you are having a bunch of lady nerds over for the Ladies World Series* (aka, the Downton Abbey season 3 USA premiere), there is no choice but to opt for decadence.   The dowager would have it no other way!  After having an unforgettable dark chocolate and chorizo tapa a few years back at some mysterious tapas restaurant in Manhattan at a friend's birthday party,  I hit up the Googles and came across a Cooking Light recipe I promptly bookmarked.

I've been circling this recipe for a longggg while now, and thought this would be a totally appropriate locale.  Because really - beer, chocolate, spicy hot British man servants?  There really is no recipe more appropriate for this event.  I combed over about three very, very different recipes, pilfered them for things I liked, and decided not to use things I didn't like (Cooking Light, Nigella Lawson via Baking with Bree, Feasting at Home).  What came of this?  Sheer deliciousness, boys and girls.  I've been shockingly positive in the new year, but this may, just may, be the best chili I have ever had, ever.  I kind of want to enter a chili cook-off with it (dudes, if you do, tell me about it!).

A few notes: 
Definitely splurge on the chorizo.  Most grocery stores will have some, but make sure it is the kind that oozes orange oil all over your hands.
Definitely use a chocolate stout.  I think a general stout will work, but if you can find it, roll with it.  It's well worth the extra burst of flavor you get.  Sidebar note, I used a local beer (Night Shift's Taza beer), which had in turn used a local chocolate company's chocolate (Taza) to brew this.  Even better?  It was bottled four days before I cracked it open - this vital information was handwritten on the label.  Yay local!  Holy guacamole.  A beautiful Slumerville marriage just happened in my Le Creuset, and in your mouth. 

*Oscars has the lock on the Ladies Superbowl title.

Chocolate Chorizo Chili

Serves 8

Nothing to Envy, by Barbara Demick: True story, title.

Nothing to Envy: ordinary lives in North Korea
Barbara Demick
Spiegel and Grau: New York, 2010
Nook Book copy, eISBN: 978-0-385-52961-7

Guys – I just read the best nonfiction book I’ve ever read, ever.  

I know I say that about all the books, but this one really is exceptional, so naturally I strongly think you should all read it too.   I’m a) not feeling formal today (last day of vacation) and b) feel a little inaprop being witty about things like…err humongous and egregious North Korean human rights violations, so bear with.  I strongly recommend this title to adults and older YA's who can follow a historial and political account - you'll all have trouble putting this down once you get started.

Did you guys know that Panem is a real place?  Also, Oceania? And basically any other fictional dystopian society you can name.  They all exist, in a country far, far away (unless you live in South Korea, China, Mongolia, Russia, or Japan, and then…well different story for you guys), a real country that we western interlopers call North Korea, which currently can pretty much only boast having the sexiest man alive as dictatorfor life.  So…something!  But in all seriousness, what I have learned about North Korean life from Barbara Demick’s extensively researched and meticulously recorded Nothing to Envy, I wish on nobody but really horrible people.  Because, holy guacamole – that place basically is an honest to goodness, real dystopian society.