Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

SING, UNBURIED, SING is a new novel by Jesmyn Ward, winner of the 2011 National Book Award for Fiction for Salvage the Bones. Once again, Ward employs her many skills as a writer, sharing the story of devoted, mixed race siblings JoJo and Kayla, of their parents Leonie and Michael, and of two sets of grandparents, Mam/Pop and Maggie/Big Joseph.  In addition to incorporating a song motif, alternating narrators relate a powerful story with themes of racism, cycle of poverty, and coming of age. Set in rural Mississippi, much of the action involves a harrowing car trip to Parchman, an infamous prison where Michael has spent three years and where Pop was previously unjustly incarcerated.  On the verge of becoming a man at thirteen, JoJo senses that all is not as it should be.  At some level, he is aware of the drug use and is not sure how to confront a mother who he believes hates him despite his grandmother’s assurances that, “No, she loves you.  She doesn’t know how to show it. And her love for herself and her love for Michael – well, it gets in the way. It confuse her.” JoJo is attuned to spirits, hyper-aware of the thoughts and feelings of others, ever protective of his younger sister and often encourages his much-respected black grandfather to share his stories and unburden himself. SING, UNBURIED, SING received starred reviews from Kirkus, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly and will be added to our Junior Theme book list.

LOCAL NOTE: Jesmyn Ward will be speaking (along with Natalie Moore, author of The South Side) on Wednesday, September 13, 2017, 7:00 PM at the Evanston Township High School Auditorium, 1600 Dodge Avenue in Evanston, Illinois​.  For more information, visit the Family Action Network website.

Sourdough by Robin Sloan

SOURDOUGH by Robin Sloan is surprisingly one of my favorite reads of the summer. It’s about an overworked young programmer, Lois, who finds her passion – baking bread - and transforms her life and the life of others. SOURDOUGH is slow at times, but it has stayed with me due primarily to its endearing protagonist and its many humorous elements.  Initially, Lois has little life outside of working at General Dexterity in the Bay Area.  Her poor sleeping and eating habits gradually improve due to a mysterious local take-out’s soup and bread.  Sadly, the chef and his deliveryman brother run into visa issues and leave their “number one eater” (Lois) a yeasty sourdough starter and special ethnic music. Lois soon learns to bake bread, construct an oven, and even experiments with programming a robot to break eggs. This is a fun read about the possibility of following your dreams (even if you do not realize that is happening) from Robin Sloan, the author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, an Alex Award winner.

A very interesting juxtaposition would be to have a group read the fictional SOURDOUGH (featuring its robot character and almost magical biological substance) and also LIFE 3.0 by Max Tegmark which is non-fiction, dealing with the dangers of super intelligence and AI. 

Tegmark, a professor of physics at MIT, argues that the most important conversation of our time is about the future of AI and he quotes numerous experts in his text.  Tegmark also makes good use of charts and visuals to explain his thinking, saying “the goal of the book is to help you join this conversation.”  There is quite a bit of background material to sift through, however, and his explanations were sometimes quite dry or even a bit condescending given the topic. A review in August 29th’s Wall Street Journal notes that LIFE 3.0 is likely to be controversial, with the bulk devoted to “how things could go wrong.” I agree that this is an extremely important issue, but it is a little unclear who Tegmark’s target audience is for this disturbing forecast.

Honestly, I felt that SOURDOUGH opened my mind more to the possibility of using robots and made me feel genuinely excited about the near-term future. I also want to learn more about Vivek Wadhwa and his book, The Driver in the Driverless Car, just featured on the PBS NewsHour.