july 2020 – good to read

Alice B. Toklas (author); Maria Kalmas (illustrator)
Alice B. Toklas was Gertrude Stein’s lover, and Gertrude wrote her irreverent autobiography under her lover’s name since Alice was not going to write it herself. Instead, Alice saw “many things to tell of what was happening then”… Arguably the only woman with a moustache as famous as Frida Kahlo’s, Alice is known for baking hash cookies in the 1930’s, when the two formidable ladies were living in Paris, befriending Gurdjieff, Hemmingway, Pound, T.S. Eliot, Picasso and many other celebrities. In this edition, artist Maria Kalman paints a lively portrait of  Paris between the two wars, and celebrates Stein and Toklas in bright colors. Her illustrations of Gertrud Stein’s classic complement this witty and intelligent must read. It is also a lesbian love story in an age when these things were not easily talked about. (sgs)
Penguin, March 2020

Nigel Pennick
There are still many places left in England, or anywhere in the western world, where we are able experience the land as it used to be before it was parceled up and commercially exploited. When it is was lived off and interacted with by our ancestors. Its features were imbued with magic and meaning, and much of it was sacred because the land had a soul that spoke to ours. Nigel Pennick tells us about these days long gone and how it came to pass that our communion with the land was lost. He also shows us how we may retrieve some of the magic inherent in our landscapes, in our own backyards or when exploring the countryside around us. Traces of the sacred arts of geomancy, feng shui and magic still abound, our spiritual connection with nature is not lost but waiting for us to be rediscovered. (sgs)
Destiny Books, May 2020

Kasper ter Kuile
We are in crisis today. Our modern technological society has left too many of us  feeling isolated and bereft of purpose. Yet ter Kuile reveals a hopeful new message: we might not be religious, but that doesn’t mean we are any less spiritual. Instead, we are in the midst of a paradigm shift in which we seek belonging and meaning in secular practices. In The Power of Ritual, ter Kuile invites us to deepen these ordinary practices as intentional rituals that nurture connection and  wellbeing. With wisdom and endearing wit, ter Kuile’s call for ritual is ultimately a call to heal our loss of connection to ourselves, to others, and to our spiritual identities. Our daily habits matter and have the potential to become a powerful experience of reflection, sanctuary, and meaning.
Harper One, June 2020

Elena Ferrante
Giovanna’s father says that she is changing and looking more like her Aunt Vittoria every day. But can it be true? Is she really changing? Will she turn out like her despised aunt, a woman she hardly knows but whom her mother and father have spent their whole lives avoiding and deriding? There must be a mirror somewhere in which she can see herself as she truly is. Giovanna searches for her true self in two kindred cities that fear and detest one another: the Naples of the heights, which assumes a mask of refinement, and the Naples of the depths, a place of excess and vulgarity. She moves between these two cities, disoriented by the fact that, whether high or low, neither city seems to offer answers or escape.
Thorndike Press, July 2020

Andy Roberts
Psychedelic trickster guru, or conman and charlatan? Exactly who Hollingshead was and what his motives were remains unclear. Some believed he was working for the secret services, others that he was just a Leary wannabe, his aspirations destroyed by his deviant personality and addiction to alcohol and opiates. Divine Rascal is the first reliable biography of one of psychedelia’s key figures, without whom the trajectory of LSD in the world would have been radically different. Appearing as if from nowhere, mysterious Michael Hollingshead turned Timothy Leary on to LSD in 1962, and was influential in Leary’s years at Harvard, Millbrook, and beyond. Author Andy Robert is widely regarded as an authority on contemporary folklore and psychedelic history.
Strange Attractor Press, August 2020