By Lottie Brooke and Lily Baldanza
As students of Creative Writing, Publishing, and English Literature, we hear at Whimsical Press often find ourselves with books in our hands. We have come together to collate a list for you of our books of the moment that we just can't gate-keep any longer!
Lottie's Picks!
The Bread The Devil Knead - Lisa Allen-Agostini
This book taught me so much about Trinidadian culture. Written largely in Trinidadian Creole, this novel kept up a steady pace, never allowing me to get bored. The stoic character of Alethea portrayed perfectly the mindset of a domestic abuse victim: a carefully calculated mix of worry, ambivalence, and strength that keeps her constantly on the edge of standing up for herself.
I particularly enjoyed how the flashbacks to “January” threaded through to provide small tastes of Alethea’s past, without overwhelming or foreshadowing excessively.
I also loved, as a writer, reading the acknowledgments, a part of a book o seldom cast an eye to. Reading the process inspired me to keep going with my own writing and reminded me to keep honing my craft.
Mrs. Caliban - Rachel Ingalls
Throwing it back in time to 1982, this book bares an eerie resemblance to the recent Oscar winning film The Shape of Water. Perhaps that is what initially drew me to it. This book is truly a Whimsical read if ever there was one!
Dorothy Caliban is too unhappy for a divorce. She yearns for the companionship of having someone look at you with admiration, the way her husband Fred did before their lives began to slowly dissolve in the sewage of tragedy. Unable to connect with him, nor bask in the curiosity of her children who would never grow up, she is all too ready for excitement to arrive.
Enter Larry, an amphibian man-creature with whom she explores the beauty of life’s simplicity, sharing the same appreciations from menial housework to meaningful conversations.
Ingalls doesn’t over-complicate this novella with lengthy descriptions or convoluted plots. The ending was a perfect surprise - something hard to come by as an avid reader, and I enjoyed every moment of this easy read.
Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami
This book is perfect for anyone who was disappointed by Catcher in The Rye by J.D. Salinger. A coming of age novel set in the 1960s, Norwegian Wood centres around a young man and his first love. As their romance is suddenly halted by the tragic death of a mutual friend, they both fall into their grief in different ways, making it more difficult to come together.
This book was beautiful, ethereal, and wonderfully written. Elegiac but not inaccessible, this is possibly one of my favourite Murakami books, and changed my view of the genre. Typically, I had found coming-of-age and Bildungsroman novels cheesy and cliché, and if you share that view, this is definitely worth a read.
Lily's Picks!
A Psalm for the Wild-Built -Becky Chambers
This short novella really packs a punch. A heartfelt book about love, friendship and philosophy and of course, lots of tea. This book is exactly what I look for when reading submissions, a piece that really hits and sometimes overwhelms me with emotion, creative setting and characters that I can't seem to tear myself away from.
Brambly Hedge Collection - Jill Barklem
Brambly Hedge was, and always will be, my favourite nostalgia trip of a book. I think this collection is what truly got me into reading, along with the Paddington Bear series. I still have my hot chocolate stained pages which I got on there by reading in bed, (when I really should've been asleep.) The overarching themes of friendship, family and nature are always aspects I will adore about this series.
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