Tag Archives: books

Book Reviews

“A Psalm for the Wild-Built” by Becky Chambers

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For a while, Chambers’ book seemed to be on the front table of every indie bookstore in town, but I never picked it up. I am glad that it was chosen by Nadja Bester as the October 2026 IndieWeb Book Club pick. It’s one of those books that felt like a balm amidst all the craziness that is swirling about us these days.

book cover

A Psalm for the Wild-Built is a short read (only 151 pages), but it moves at such a steady, peaceful pace that time stretches out a bit and you feel like you’re floating in something intentional. The world-building is absolutely amazing. While the characters were fun to walk with (again, no big explosions or troubles), the history of Panga was fascinating. 

I don’t know if there is officially a cozy solarpunk speculative cli-fi category, but this would certainly be the best read to have on that shelf.

The premise follows a tea monk looking for personal meaning as they leave the comfort of their life, looking for more.This tea monk lives on a world that was ravaged by some kind of economic collapse or war that was so devastating that the whole planet now lives in a peaceful harmonious way with the nature around them. Part of that historic fallout was that the servant robots became sentient and ran away to the wilderness to live peacefully there. So we have generations of humans living peacefully, in cities, while robots roam the woods far away. It had been so long since humans and robots interacted that folks treated the idea of robots almost as a myth. Until…

Yep, the tea monk meets a robot who wants to learn about humans, and away we go. Not on a journey of sci-fi battles and lasers, but one of a slow pilgrimage through the wilderness, bouncing questions around about what it means to be human and what humans really want. The whole journey unfurls in the same slow manner tea leaves do when steeping (this book made me very thirsty, and I drank a lot of tea).

The ideas and questions are big for such a slim book. I loved the question about why, after 4 billion years of human growth going just right so that they can be alive, safe, and comfortable … why are they sad? Why do they have longings? Why are they not satisfied? Other animals (as the robot sees all humans) don’t have these issues.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built won the Hugo Award for Best Novella (2022), and was a  Nebula Award Nominee for Best Novella (2021). So it’s certainly known, and I am glad I read it. I know there is a second book in the series, and I’m waiting for the right time to pick it up.

The book did leave me wanting for a map of Panga (they travel so many places on the planet), a family tree of the Gods (all the symbols and relations sounded cool), and more tea!

This is a read for folks who like heartwarming characters that move at their own pace and think big thoughts. Panga was an enjoyable world to visit.

tea cup viewed from top
I did manage to brew more tea.

Alabama, Book Talk, Reading as Resistance

Uncle Tom’s Cabin in Alabama

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Today in 1851, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, was first published in The National Era newspaper.

It continued to run in the newspaper for the next 11 months, a few chapters at a time, helping people understand the evil of slavery until the columns were collected and published in book form on March 20, 1852. (Here’s a link to get a copy from Project Gutenberg.)

Title page from first paperback copy.

Once Stowe’s story was published as a book it helped the antislavery movement ramp up. It sold very well throughout the country, with reports of it selling 50,000 copies in the first six weeks. (If you are into stories from the history of publishing here is a amazingly detailed account of what it took to bring this book to print.)

This a great historical account of the power of books. One we need to remember here in Alabama, because in 1856, the South’s largest bookstore was in Mobile, Alabama…

Strickland & Co., had been in business at the corner of Dauphin Street and Water Street for many years when the local Vigilance Committee (a legal group of locals charged with squashing antislavery efforts) nabbed the bookshop’s two owners and drilled them about their books.

text from old newspaper
The story was even reported on by the NY Times.

It turns out they were guilty of selling a single copy of Frederick Douglass’ Autographs of Freedom as well as having had 50 copies of Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin on hand. The booksellers were told they were “…“dangerous to the community” and that, unless they and their families left within five days, their safety could not be guaranteed.” There is a good write-up with even more details here in The Mobile Bay magazine. The Vigilance Committee was publicly praised by government officials and local media for running the booksellers out of town and closing down the bookstore. 

It was gross. We should all be embarrassed by this incident. But, sadly, it’s not too far from where we are these days with Alabama voting districts being redrawn and funding being pulled from Alabama libraries over book banning.

It is gross, and we should all be embarrassed. 

All that to say if you are around the Birmingham, AL area, then check out the Read Freely Alabama group and keep up with the events and news they share. It’s important.

*Also, buy books. Read physical books. Have them at home. Digital books are fine (I did link to Project Gutenberg earlier). It’s just that digital media be deleted/changed/tracked in a way that a printed book cannot. It’s happened before (most famously in 2009) and just like the attack on that Mobile bookstore and libraries today, it will happen again. These stories need to be protected and remembered so we can do better. 

Book Reviews, Book Talk

“Screen People” by Megan Garber

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I finished this Megan Garber’s Screen People last night and wanted to type up a quick review.

Screen People cover

If you know the names Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman then you can probably skip this one. If you don’t recognize those names then the first couple of chapters of Garber’s “Screen People” will feel like fresh air to you (and then skip to the last few).

The chapters of the book are named after parts of a tv show or movie and the metaphor doesn’t really carry through, the middle, very well. While I 100% agree with what the book asserts (tech issues, Trump, toxicity, media diets, etc.) it just lacked some clarity and AN INDEX, PLEASE! That was my biggest gripe – for all this effort and event citations and science paper quoting – we needed an index and bibliography. I did lots of underlining and I’m already on board with where Garber is writing from. I just want to be able to look up these bills, hearings, books, news events, and science papers to do more digging.

Screen People TOC

All the usual suspected are here with the politics, miopic tech leaders, QANON, etc. and Garber does a good job early on showing how our current networks and technology enable and help all those bad actors.

“Social media is a mini narcissism engine.”
“Americans often talk about ‘the algorithms’ in the same rough ways that ancient people used to describe their gods…”

Screen People mentions lots of bad things right alongside the word “platforms”, but never connects the dots & doesn’t offer much in the way of solutions either. I am bumping it up to a 3/5 because I absolutely agree with the subtitle How We Entertained Ourselves into a State of Emergency. That is indeed spot on. 

Book Art, library

Moving Book Art

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Check out this super-short promo video for a new book art installation over in England:

Isn’t that cool? I’m always impressed with what artists make of books. But the way this book art (which they’re calling Book Hive) interacts with the viewer is pretty impressive.  The way the books flap open and closed reminds me of all the flying and flapping books in William Joyce’s The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. Which is a good thing.

Morris Lessmore as book art

The book art installation was put in place to bring attention to the 400 years of service that the Bristol libraries have been open over in England. Amazing. Both the Book Hive wall and the centuries of librarians doing their thing.