Happy New Year to You, and Welcome 2022!

May Hope's Bright Rainbow Beautify the Year!

 

Wake to Words and Brew Some Coffee (12/26/21)

Welcome to this week's edition of Wake to Words and Brew Some Coffee, wherein I read good poems by other people while we all drink coffee (or tea).  

Poems read:

• 15. by Wendell Berry (from the longer poem VIII. A Small Porch in the Woods)
• Training by Diannely Antigua
• Space, in Chains by Laura Kasischke
• Stranger by Night by Edward Hirsch
• “I Am the Size of What I See” by Paul Hoover
• Lilies by Mary Oliver
• Awake at Night by Wendell Berry

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🠊 Listen to more poetry sessions here: http://www.erinpringle.com/p/wake-to-words-and-brew-some-coffee.html

🠊 Catch the live show on Sunday mornings at some time-ish: https://www.facebook.com/erintpringle

A Still Life by Josie George: Yes, read it (a short recommendation)

Here is the first long book I’ve read in too long. Thank goodness for holiday break and the time it provides to remember how to read again—the steady focus, the pause and return, the belief that each page might bring more than the last and to wait while going.

I bought it after my first publisher, Sharon Blackie, recommended it in her newsletter. And I’m glad that she did (and that she takes time to write updates that are so varied and wise). 

I, too, recommend this book. A Still Life, a memoir by Josie George. She provides a quiet and intense examination of her world in the world, and her body inside her body—a body that has been behaving erratically (pain, blackouts, infections, weakness interrupted by months or more of consistent wellness) since childhood—a body that will not fall into a perfect diagnosis or cure—and, thus, the tired reactions of others and how this affects her way of being. She brings the reader into her interior world deftly and, because of everyone’s exhaustion with not knowing how to “fix” her, she gently welcomes us in and carefully shows her life as she’s known it and how differently others have viewed her life and how she’s known that, too.

It’s a good book. Those with similar experiences will likely find companionship in shared experiences of disability (and ableism), and able-bodied readers will find companionship in her deep commitment to understanding life, behavior, and inner/outer selves as well as her flung-open acceptance (and patient patience with family, strangers, friends, past loves, her son, and herself).

It’s a book to read in more than one sitting, which I appreciated.

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• Publisher’s website: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/still-life-9781526612014/
• And if you’d like to subscribe to Sharon Blackie’s newsletter (mentioned above), that’s all here: https://sharonblackie.net

A Visit from St. Nicholas, read aloud by Erin Pringle

In which I read Night Before Christmas for no particular reason except that I enjoy the poem, it's Christmas Eve, and I like to read aloud. 

Happy Christmas!

Book Your Stocking with Tom Noyes

Book Your Stocking 2021

Book Your Stocking: Day 23

So glad to have you back! We are nearly finished with this year's edition of Book Your Stocking, and hopefully, you're nearly finished with making, buying, and wrapping gifts to your favorite people. Each day avid readers recommend books that you or your favorite person would be delighted to find in their stocking or sock drawer. 

Please welcome Tom Noyes back to the series.

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Recommendation: Further News of Defeat: Stories by Michael X. Wang

Why: Wang doesn't write just one kind of story in this collection, and he doesn't create just one kind of character or employ just one perspective or pursue just one theme. His vision is as vast and varied as the settings, time periods, and personalities he brings to life in this buzz-worthy debut. (Winner of the 2021 Pen America Robert W. Bingham Prize)

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About today's reader: Tom Noyes is a writer and professor; his newest book is the novel The Substance of Things Hoped For (Slant Books 2021).

Tom Noyes

Book Your Stocking with Jeremy Toungate

Book Your Stocking 2021

Book Your Stocking: Day 22

Welcome to the last Tuesday of Book Your Stocking. As you may or may not know, every day through Christmas Eve, avid readers recommend books that you or your favorite person would be delighted to find in their stocking or sock drawer. 

Today's reader is the most avid reader I have ever met in my entire life. At one point, I opened our car door and removed no less than seventy-five books. He'd read them all. In a few months. 

Please welcome my best friend, Jeremy Toungate.

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Recommendation: The Collected Toppi, Volume 1: The Enchanted World

Why: Everything around me seems more distinct and visually stunning after I read Toppi's work. 

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About today's reader: Jeremy Toungate lives and writes in Spokane.

Jeremy Toungate

Book Your Stocking with Neal Hallgarth

Book Your Stocking 2021

Book Your Stocking: Day 21

Book Your Stocking continues with a new book to slip into your stocking or your favorite person's stocking. 

Please welcome today's avid reader, Neal Hallgarth.

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Recommendation: What It Is by Lynda Barry

Why: By doing the exercises, I was able to recall memories I hadn't accessed in decades. 

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About today's reader: Neal Hallgarth writes, draws, and DJs in Spokane.

Neal Hallgarth

Book Your Stocking with Owen Egerton

Book Your Stocking 2021

Book Your Stocking: Day 20

Book Your Stocking is your book-advent series in which avid readers recommend books for your stocking every day until Christmas Eve.

And no year of books can be fully full until Owen Egerton tells me the ones to read. So, I asked him.

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Owen: So many great books. I love Stacey Swann’s beautiful debut Olympus, Texas. The ancient gods in small town Texas - so rich! I also adore A.C. Wise’s story collection The Ghost Sequences - haunting, horrific, wildly weird, and exquisitely crafted. It lives up to its kickass cover!

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About today's reader: Owen Egerton writes books and makes movies.

Owen Egerton

Wake to Words and Brew Some Coffee (December 19, 2021)

Welcome to this week's edition of Wake to Words and Brew Some Coffee. Today, special guest Henry Valentine joins us to share some favorite poems by Shel Silverstein.

 

Poems read:

• Snowball by Shel Silverstein 
• Little Jack Horner
• Foot Repair by Shel Silverstein 
• Snow on the fields by Christine Rossetti
• Like Snow by Wendell Berry

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🠊 Listen to more poetry sessions here: http://www.erinpringle.com/p/wake-to-words-and-brew-some-coffee.html

🠊 Catch the live show on Sunday mornings at some time-ish: https://www.facebook.com/erintpringle

Book Your Stocking with Mandy Chapman Orozco

Book Your Stocking 2021

Book Your Stocking: Day 19

Here we are, nineteen days into this year's edition of Book Your Stocking. If you haven't stuffed all your stockings, then this is the perfect place to be. If friends give you gift-cards to bookstores, this is an even better place to be. Every day avid readers recommend the book for your stocking (or your favorite reader's stocking).

Please welcome Many Chapman Orozco who is today taking care of socks, stockings, and your booklist.

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Recommendation: Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong

Why: I'd love to get this book in my stocking because there's a lot of noise right now, and this book poetry is the opposite of all that--it is thoughtful, powerful, and lovely.

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About today's reader: Mandy Chapman Orozco reads and writes in Spokane.

Mandy Chapman Orozco