“Parenthood is in the foreground of the blood, the dirt-borne daughters, the flesh-hungry children. The book asks questions that feel oddly universal: How do you survive and take care of your children when the world is undergoing such rapid change and chaos? How do you maintain traditional familial roles when the children you see as flawed are merely an evolving present tense, a natural part of a future that you can’t stop? What makes a “good father”?”
—The Last Book I Loved: Cataclysm Baby by Alvin Park
Did you read last Friday’s LBIL pick? You should.
CATACLYSM BABY on Flavorwire list of "25 Notable Books Unfairly Overlooked by The New York Times"
flavorwire.comThanks to Emily Temple for including Cataclysm Baby on her list of notable 2012 books, alongside titles by Amelia Gray, Adam Levin, Claire Vaye Watkins, Tom Bissell, Jami Attenberg, Salman Rushdie, Marilynne Robinson, and John Brandon.
Top 5 books of the semester!
Breaks are needed from writing papers. ….So I’m going to write something different! Hah..
What will make it on the list? Which professor will be ecstatic that they picked the number 1 book this semester?
Over the course of this semester I have read over 13 books. I say over 13, because I read a lot of pieces of works, but not the entire thing, i.e. The Aeneid, Paradise Lost, Dante’s Inferno, etc… So this list will only include full pieces I read. Sorry, Dr. R., only one piece from your class has the chance of making it, with these constraints :P
But here it is! *drumroll*
5. Concluding by Henry Green.
This book was really different than most things I had ever read before this semester. Considering I read it right after Virginia Wolf’s Between the Acts, needless to say, I was excited to get some plot back in a book. As far as why I liked it on its own, it dealt with a mystery that turned out to be less important than just what everyone did that day. The book takes place over the course of one day, and centers on an old man who seems to be the only one who cares about the fact that two young girls at the school across from his house are missing!
4. The Odyssey by Homer
Let’s be real here. This is a classic. I thoroughly enjoyed everything the work had to offer, all of this professor’s insights into the work and how he taught it. The best scene ever is the giant fight scene at the end where Odysseus and Telemahkos kill just about anything that moves. Also, I love mythology, so the gods were super interesting to me. Odysseus has been separated from his wife and son for about 20-some years, and is trying to make it home after the Trojan War. Of course, for all epic heroes, there are always several—if not a RIDICULOUS amount—of obstacles.
3. Cataclysm Baby by Matt Bell
As much as while I read this novella, I thought, “I’m never having kids. Ever.”, this was a really interesting read. I’m pretty sure that everyone else in class wholeheartedly disagreed, but it was a science fiction novella! Score! People felt like there was no real central plot, and while I might agree to a level, I couldn’t get over the fact that the author came up with 26 unique, different, mostly terrifying, post-apocalyptic worlds. The children in most of them are demons, and if the children aren’t, the parents are. Each world is completely different from the previous one, and the imagery and descriptions are both gruesome and imaginative. I tip my hat to Matt Bell.
2. The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor
I got hooked on this book right away. The writing was absolutely beautiful and descriptive, and I couldn’t put it down at many points. I must say though, there was one point when I had to put it down, simply because of a scene that was so much to handle, that I did not believe it was actually happening. The Women of Brewster Place go into the lives of several different women and how they got to Brewster Place, and what exactly links them all together, especially when the going gets tough.
Andddd number 1….. What’s it going to be? Which professor? Which book? Ahhhhh!!
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1. Atonement by Ian McEwan
There is absolutely so much I could say about this book. I loved it. I cherished it. It was one of the only ones where I forced myself not to look up the ending because of a paper about endings that I had to write. Immediately, I was drawn into the book on the simple fact that the main character, a young 13-year-old named Briony, was a WRITER! I got so excited, that every time she would say something about writing I would go, “YES! I agree!” She reminded me of myself, when I was young and writing plays and short stories. Of course, I didn’t commit a crime that changed the lives of everyone, which the book centers around. Also, if writing and a crime committed isn’t enough to get you interested in reading this book: there’s sex scenes, gruesome details of wounded warriors, OH. And if you haven’t seen the movie yet, THERE’S A BIG THING AT THE END THAT KEEPS YOU READING. I hope I didn’t give much away.
Oh well.
And there you have it. My top 5 books of the semester. Kudos to Dr. U., for getting the number 1 spot and picking that awesome book. And thank you to all the professors who played, and good luck next semester! Who will make it then???! Okay, I clearly need to get back to finishing my papers.
Happy portfolio week, everyone!
CATACLYSM BABY on Shelf Unbound's TOP 10 Books of 2012
shelfmediagroup.comThanks to Margaret Brown and the other editors at Shelf Unbound Magazine for naming Cataclysm Baby one of their Top 10 Books of 2012. It means a lot to see my novella there, especially alongside my Dzanc colleague Steven Gillis and Dzanc author Jac Jemc, plus other friends like Adam Levin, Kirby Gann, and Alexis Smith. It’s a great list, and I’m thankful for being included.
CATACLYSM BABY Reviewed at The Short Review
thenewshortreview.wordpress.comThanks so much to Tessa Mellas for her review of Cataclysm Baby in The Short Review, which couldn’t be more timely for potential readers: What better day to find out about a book of parenting stories for the post-apocalypse than the last pre-apocalypse day the Mayans left us? She says, in part:
Bell’s book could not be more finely crafted. Like the strange children contained therein, this book is a marvel, a species unto itself. Bell juxtaposes a delicious darkness with prose that is startlingly poetic. The full reality of each premise gradually takes shape out of the hypnotic cadences of biblical language. That doom should crystalize from such beauty seems both a betrayal and a truth. You cannot read these verses too many times. You cannot resist speaking them aloud to hear the way they vibrate in your ears.
Thanks again to Tessa Mellas, and to editor Tania Hershman at The Short Review, for her continued coverage and support of my work.
