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Heartbreak Is the National Anthem

Rob Sheffield’s kaleidoscopic, wildly enthusiastic biography, Heartbreak Is the National Anthem, will satisfy both superfans and those less familiar with the prolific phenom Taylor Swift.
NonfictionHistoryCultural History

Golden Years

Review by Henry L. Carrigan Jr.

There will soon be more Americans over 65 than under 18. In the compelling, informative study, Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Age, sociologist James Chappel explores the development of the old age movement in America and attempts to imagine how both individuals and policymakers can address our “gray future.”

Drawing on a wealth of historical, social and economic data, Chappel traces the various ways that Americans have described and addressed aging. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, individuals on farms and in factories worked until disability or death. By the mid-1930s, though, the passage of the Social Security Act sent a message to older Americans that they deserved dignity and security, even if they had stopped working. As the number of older Americans grew in the latter part of the 20th century, both government agencies and organizations in the private sector, such as AARP, attempted to enact policies and to create opportunities that would allow older Americans to live a dignified old age. (First called the American Association of Retired Persons, AARP now goes by its acronym alone, because people do not need to be retired to join.)

Chappel shows, though, that these policies “had always been premised first and foremost on the needs of one class of people: middle-class, married, white couples.” For example, older people with disabilities were left to fend for themselves by Medicare in the 1960s, and many of them were shunted into nursing homes. In addition, older Black Americans often faced (and still face) discriminatory treatment in nursing homes. Chappel highlights the work of activists like Black sociologist Jacquelyne Jackson, who lobbied Congress seeking new policies that would “recognize the specific realities and challenges confronting older Black people.” Another challenge to older Americans, Chappel observes, is that, by the end of the 20th century, the government began to increasingly push the burden of growing older back on families and individuals, often creating financial insecurity across generations.

Since we’re all growing older, how can we work together to shape decisions that will affect the ways we live out our old age? Golden Years is sometimes dense, but it’s worth the effort. Chappel offers a thought-provoking glimpse of how America has tried to imagine the needs and value of an aging population in the past, and how it might best understand and deal with a graying populace.

James Chappel’s thought-provoking Golden Years offers strategies to understand and address the needs of America’s aging population.

Good Nature

Paleoecologist Kathy Willis explores the surprising physiological and psychological benefits of plants on human health in her entertaining, absorbing Good Nature.
NonfictionSocial ScienceHistory

Custodians of Wonder

Review by Sarah McCraw Crow

“So often, we hear stories about the first person to do something: the innovators, the pioneers,” Eliot Stein writes in his introduction to Custodians of Wonder: Ancient Customs, Profound Traditions, and the Last People Keeping Them Alive. “But rarely is there a whisper for the last person to carry on a tradition, or a pause to look back and consider how these rites have shaped us and the places we come from.” Stein offers more than a whisper as he highlights 10 such customs around the world, profiling the women and men who preserve them.

Some of these customs are food- or craft-based, like the rare Sardinian pasta so fine that it’s called su filindeu (threads of God); and an ancient West African percussion instrument called a balafon that has been protected by a tiny village for 800 years. Others are rituals or jobs, like that of the night watchman in Ystad, Sweden, who every night climbs 14 stories of a 13th-century church to a bell tower to keep watch over the village, blowing a horn every 15 minutes to declare that all is well.

Stein sets his scenes in vividly painted settings. Introducing the temple village of Aranmula, on India’s southwestern coast, he writes, “Coconut trees swooped low like Nike swooshes over the water’s edge. . . . The night before, hot, heavy raindrops the size of nickels had fallen sideways in sheets.” Each chapter offers an in-depth profile of a practitioner, like Sudhammal J., Aranmula’s 48-year-old “Secret Lady Keeper,” who carries on her family’s ancient craft of melting tin, copper and other metals to make a highly reflective mirror believed to reveal one’s true self. Throughout these profiles, Stein threads cultural, geographic and political history, drawing out a few key details, and compressing centuries of history into a few paragraphs.

Despite the subtitle, not all the book’s customs are ancient. Asia’s last film poster painter practices a 20th-century craft. Nor are all the customs disappearing: The Japanese maker of traditional fermented soy sauce has seen demand grow, and he’s committed to helping others learn traditional techniques. Ultimately, Custodians of Wonder is a hopeful book, making the case that seemingly idiosyncratic and antiquated practices in distant corners of the world still matter; they reveal a particular place’s identity, and offer comfort, community and beauty even through centuries of change.

Eliot Stein’s vivid Custodians of Wonder documents the last people maintaining some of the world’s ancient cultural traditions, and proves that comfort, community and beauty never get old.

CABIN

Quippy humor and refreshing honesty abound in CABIN, Patrick Hutchison’s memoir about his journey to restore a filthy, dilapidated cabin in the Cascade Mountains.
NonfictionArtPhotographyLGBTQ+Art

Casa Susanna

Review by Laura Hutson Hunter

“Two antique dealers discover a stash of 340 photographs at a flea market.” Thus begins Casa Susanna: The Story of the First Trans Network in the United States, 1959-1968, one of the most captivating photography books in recent memory. Casa Susanna was a secluded bit of property with a few bungalows and a barn in the Catskills. In the 1950s and ’60s, the property belonged to Marie Tornell and her wife, a trans woman who was known to friends as Susanna Valenti. Susanna was a cover girl and contributing editor to Transvestia magazine, and she and Marie opened up their home to other like-minded people—including those who were assigned male at birth but wanted to live authentically as women, if only on holiday. A textured dust jacket gives the volume a sensual quality, so that opening its pages is like admiring a silk taffeta blouse. The photograph chosen for the book’s cover—one among hundreds of candid, unaffected shots—shows four different smartly dressed women pointing their cameras at a friend mid-pose. It speaks to the number of women involved in the project, and also the importance they saw of documenting each other. Elsewhere, the well-coiffed women playing Scrabble or sitting around a dining table at Casa Susanna are charmingly ordinary. Facsimiles of letters, magazine articles and even a handful of Susanna’s own advice column clips, “Susanna Says,” open up a whole world in a few hundred pages. The sheer volume of pictures included will open eyes to the existence of trans people before the contemporary age.

Casa Susanna is a sumptuous volume of photography that chronicles a midcentury trans enclave.

About Face

Jonathan D. Katz’s About Face celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising with deep scholarship and thrilling artworks.
Science Fiction & FantasyNonfictionMystery & SuspenseTravelPop CultureMysteryLiteratureLifestylesFantasyCrafts, Hobbies & Home

5 gifts that will shoot to the top of any reader’s TBR

Feature by Julie Hale

Book Nooks

The question of how best to set up a personal library has confounded many a book collector. When it comes time to arrange them, all those wonderful volumes can seem like the pieces of an unsolvable puzzle. The literature lover who’s searching for solutions will welcome Book Nooks: Inspired Ideas for Cozy Reading Corners and Stylish Book Displays by Vanessa Dina and Claire Gilhuly.

Packed with easy-to-execute design schemes and Antonis Achilleos’ fabulous photographs, Book Nooks offers tips on how to group books according to color and size, as well as strategies for using personal effects in an arrangement. For establishing a comfy reading area, there are options to suit every style, space and taste. The book also addresses the art of stacking (Yes, it can be a creative act!), suggests methods for bringing plants into the picture, organizing those prize cookbooks and integrating analog reading material into a teen’s room. With reading recs from noted authors and a look at Little Free Libraries, Book Nooks is a bibliophile’s best friend.

Hidden Libraries

DC Helmuth’s Hidden Libraries: The World’s Most Unusual Book Depositories is a perfectly on-point present for any reader, but especially one who loves to travel. This wide-ranging title profiles 50 remarkable libraries in locations across the globe. Staff stories, fascinating facts, spectacular imagery and a foreword from critic and librarian Nancy Pearl make it a winning tribute to the mission of libraries everywhere.

Hidden Libraries surveys a range of amazing physical spaces. The Kurkku Fields’ Underground Library in Kisarazu, Japan, is a book-lined grotto covered in grass, while the cocoon-shaped Heydar Aliyev International Airport Library near Baku, Azerbaijan, projects sheer architectural awesomeness. Examples of inspired resourcefulness regarding book circulation abound: In China, the Shenzhen library system distributes titles via vending machine. And Helmuth doesn’t dismiss even the most miniature of libraries. A handsome wooden cabinet filled with colorful books, the Little Free Library at the South Pole—startling against Antarctica’s unrelieved whiteness—seems to defy its frozen surroundings. Big or small, grand or humble, each library serves as a singular point of enrichment and connection, and Helmuth’s stirring volume honors these efforts.

The Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge

With its quick-witted heroine Rory Gilmore, a voracious reader with dreams of attending Harvard, Gilmore Girls could very well be classified as a TV show for bookworms. The series, which aired from 2000 to 2007, made numerous allusions (339, to be exact) to books of all genres—titles favored by Rory and her friends. In The Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge: The Official Guide to All the Books, Erika Berlin explores the novels, plays and poetry cited on the show, providing episode information and details on who read what. 

Inspired by Buzzfeed’s 2014 list of all the books mentioned in Gilmore Girls, Berlin’s breezy volume takes a nostalgic look back at Rory’s world while sharing reading recommendations (Frankenstein, The Poems of Emily Dickinson, One Hundred Years of Solitude, the list goes on) and invaluable book-related advice, including approaches for becoming a more focused reader and easy ways to impose order on a chaotic book collection. Filled with photos from the show, this book is a sunny retrospective and a buoyant tribute to the reading life.

Buried Deep and Other Stories

For the fantasy fan, there’s no better gift than Buried Deep and Other Stories by Naomi Novik, bestselling author of the Scholomance trilogy, Uprooted and Spinning Silver. As this collection proves, Novik is a natural conjurer whose stories—rich with allusion and detail—feel effortlessly authentic. Each provides an escape into an alternative world that’s wholly realized. 

“Dragons & Decorum”—a fantastical recasting of Pride and Prejudice, set in the Regency England of Novik’s Temeraire series—finds Elizabeth Bennet riding a winged dragon named Wollstonecraft. In “The Long Way Round,” Novik offers a taste of her next work (tentatively titled Folly) and introduces spirited protagonist Intessa Roh. “Vici,” another Temeraire tale, but this time set in ancient Rome, chronicles the unexpected camaraderie that arises between Marc Antony and a valiant dragon. Introductions from Novik accompany the anthology’s 13 stories, and readers will relish the context they give to her work. This is a transportive collection from an author who maps her narrative milieus with extraordinary precision.

The Man in Black and Other Stories

Crime fiction maven Elly Griffiths is known as a prolific writer, having penned the Ruth Galloway, Harbinder Kaur and Brighton mysteries series. But did anyone suspect she was writing short stories on the side? That’s right—Griffiths has long played around with short-form work, and her intriguing new volume, The Man in Black and Other Stories, spotlights this aspect of her artistry. 

The atmospheric anthology brings together 19 pieces, in which, fans will be delighted to learn, Griffiths expands the backstories of some of her most popular characters. The volume’s eponymous story is a spooky sketch set just before Halloween that features Ruth Galloway. “Harbinger” tracks Harbinder Kaur’s all-too-eventful first day at Shoreham Criminal Investigation Department. And in “Ruth Galloway and the Ghost of Max Mephisto,” all three of Griffiths’ sleuths converge, as it were. Ingeniously plotted and leavened with humor, the pieces are brief but satisfying. From sinister tales to twisty whodunits, Griffith’s short stories deliver as much spellbinding suspense as a full-blown novel.

Got a serious bibliophile on your list? Tick that box with one of these titles.
NonfictionCrafts, Hobbies & Home

4 gardening books for plant enthusiasts in your life

List by Deborah Hopkinson
STARRED REVIEW
December 3, 2024

4 gardening books for plant enthusiasts in your life

These titles make perfect gifts to help anyone get ready for the planting season.

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NonfictionCrafts, Hobbies & Home

The Water-Smart Garden

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

Arizona horticulturalist Noelle Johnson, sometimes known as the “AZ plant lady,” shares her expertise and longtime passion for gardening in a hot, dry climate in this informative guide to gardening in our changing climate. The Water-Smart Garden: Techniques and Strategies for Conserving, Capturing, and Efficiently Using Water in Today’s Climate . . . and Tomorrow’s, of course, is not simply for those living in or near the desert, but also has practical use for gardeners elsewhere. As Johnson notes at the outset, “shrinking water supplies also are occurring in more temperate regions.” 

Johnson’s clear, accessible text begins with some basic information about how plants use water. Throughout, she aims to assuage concerns that a waterwise garden only consists of rocks and cacti. She includes chapters on plant choices, building drought-resistant soil and watering efficiently—in other words, giving gardeners essential tools and techniques to plan, make changes and maintain a sustainable garden. Johnson’s chapter on capturing rainfall and passive water harvesting is especially useful, as precipitation patterns shift. Tips, graphics and photographs demonstrate how to maximize available water throughout the year. 

Not much of a gardener? The Water-Smart Garden will also be a great choice for those who don’t wish to spend much time or money on their yard and want to keep water bills low. Johnson’s book includes charts to help gardeners and homeowners choose the best trees, shrubs, vines and plants for their region. Simply put, if you’re a gardener concerned about the climate, this book is for you.

Noelle Johnson’s book includes charts to help gardeners and homeowners choose the best trees, shrubs, vines and plants for their region.
NonfictionCrafts, Hobbies & Home

Garden Wonderland

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

In the innovative Garden Wonderland: Creating Life-Changing Outdoor Spaces for Beauty, Harvest, Meaning, and Joy, garden designer Leslie Bennett teams up with writer and editor Julie Chai to explore how to create outdoor spaces that nurture family, friends and community. 

At the outset, the authors suggest that readers grab a blank notepad to jot down ideas and goals as they go along. And that’s wise advice, as this book is replete with helpful tips as well as the fundamentals. Part 1 focuses on the practical, which will be appreciated by those new to gardening or garden design. The authors share four principles that ground their approach to gardening: making plants part of your daily life; surrounding yourself with beauty; making space for connection; and fortifying your sense of belonging. Most importantly, they stress that rather than conforming to someone else’s idea of what a garden should be, individuals and families should create spaces that work for them. Bennett and Chai also discuss considerations such as space allotment, seating arrangements and sun exposure. There’s also helpful information on design concepts, with tips about selecting plants for foliage and color.

The second part of the book focuses on inspiration. This section features garden “wonderlands” that celebrate edible and floral landscapes, along with gardens designed to serve as gathering places or to spotlight cultural heritages. Full color photographs throughout show gardens, plants, and the individuals and families who treasure them. With its seamless integration of gardening principles with advanced design ideas, Garden Wonderland is the perfect gift for new gardeners—or anyone in need of a little inspiration.  

With its seamless integration of gardening principles with advanced design ideas, Garden Wonderland is the perfect gift for new gardeners—or anyone in need of a little inspiration.
NonfictionCrafts, Hobbies & Home

A Year in Bloom

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

For anyone who’s ever perused a bulb catalog and been overwhelmed trying to choose among the many varieties of daffodils, tulips or amaryllises, this book by British garden designer and author Lucy Bellamy is for you. With bright, full-color photographs by Jason Ingram, A Year in Bloom: Flowering Bulbs for Every Season takes the guesswork out of selecting bulbs that will brighten your yard year-round. 

A Year in Bloom is clear and well-organized. Bellamy provides a helpful introduction, then introduces her featured 150 bulbs by season, beginning with late winter/early spring. Bellamy’s text and selections are especially helpful for gardeners seeking to adapt to climate change and focus on sustainability. For instance, she notes a new emphasis on bulbs that are perennial over single-use hybrids. The selections here also recognize the desire of many gardeners to support pollinators and encourage biodiversity. 

As a former editor of Gardens Illustrated magazine, Bellamy made her selections by calling on her network of international garden designers, landscape architects and head gardeners. These recommendations add depth and interest to the text. For instance, in recommending the snowdrop called “E.A. Bowles,” Bellamy consulted British nurseryman Joe Sharmon, known as “Mr. Snowdrop.” Bellamy includes a complete list of those who nominated their favorites in the back matter, along with an indexed list of bulbs by function, conveying which are best for shade, for planting in pots, naturalizing, for cut flowers, etc.

Planting bulbs usually means planning ahead. A Year in Bloom is a practical, beautiful handbook that will find a place in any gardener’s library.

Planting bulbs usually means planning ahead. A Year in Bloom is a practical, beautiful handbook that will find a place in any gardener’s library.
NonfictionCrafts, Hobbies & Home

Your Asian Veggie Patch

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

Based in Melbourne, Australia, permaculture expert Connie Cao brings a joyful exuberance to her book about growing and enjoying Asian vegetables, herbs and fruits. Whether you’re an expert or new to Asian culinary traditions, Cao’s enthusiasm is contagious. Cao is the daughter of immigrants from Shanghai, who moved to Australia in 1988, and she grew up watching her dad tend his garden. Cao notes, “The thing that got me into gardening is the magic that happens from seed to food.” Your Asian Veggie Patch: A Guide to Growing and Cooking Delicious Asian Vegetables, Herbs and Fruits provides an excellent introduction for anyone wishing to experience that magic for themselves.

Cao’s well-organized, easy-to-follow book provides guidance on growing, harvesting and cooking Asian veggies. Many of the recipes that appear were inspired by her own family’s traditions. Cao is trained in permaculture, and also includes principles and practices of this sustainable, regenerative approach to gardening and agriculture.

Cao has an easy, conversational style. In Part 1, she covers many gardening basics, including a page on plant families that is especially helpful for gaining a better understanding of vegetables and herbs. Part 2 features plant profiles organized by season. For instance, Asian mustards come first in cool-season veggies, while vegetables like eggplant and long beans appear in the warm-season section. Each plant’s profile includes photographs that show how to plant, grow, harvest and cook it. 

Interested but not sure where to start? Browse through all the gorgeous, mouthwatering pictures of finished dishes in this delightful book: You won’t go wrong picking any of these options to grow and cook yourself.

Connie Cao’s well-organized, easy-to-follow book provides guidance on growing, harvesting and cooking Asian veggies.

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These titles make perfect gifts to help anyone get ready for the planting season.
NonfictionSelf-HelpBody, Mind & Spirit

4 modern takes on the eternal quest for self-improvement

Feature by Arlene McKanic

Tiny Pep Talks

Reading Paula Skaggs and Josh Linden’s humorous and often snarky Tiny Pep Talks: Bite-Size Encouragement for Life’s Annoying, Stressful, and Flat-Out Lousy Moments is much like an afternoon spent with your favorite vodka aunty who’s always had your best interest at heart. After a lighthearted introduction, their advice covers sticky situations that range from the utterly trivial to the somewhat deep. It starts out, for example, with “For When It’s Time to Get Off the Couch and Go to Bed.” Other offers of comfort include “For When Your Clothes Don’t Fit,” and, inevitably, “For When You Just Got Ghosted: A Spooky Tale.” There’s also advice for if you’ve been walking around with spinach between your teeth, when your battery’s down to 5% and when you can’t stand your friend’s significant other (Skaggs and Linden specify that this means a significant other who’s simply annoying, as opposed to one who’s abusive and dangerous. That’s for a “more serious book.”)

Even weighty  stuff like grief is handled with a touch of sass. Grief, they write, “is like a toddler. At any given moment, it might be messy, it might kick and punch you in the gut, and it might refuse to go to bed when all you want is to go to sleep.” But as Scarlett O’Hara said, tomorrow is another day. You’ll be okay.

Good People

Gabriel Reilich and Lucia Knell’s lovely, open-hearted Good People comforts through example. It tells the stories of all kinds of ordinary folk who’ve gone through stuff and come out the other side, sometimes battered, like the narrator of “Invictus,” but unbowed.

In the very first story, we follow Amy B. as she happily moves from Washington, D.C., to attend law school in New York City, only to be poleaxed by a family tragedy. New Yorkers are notorious for ignoring people who break down and cry on subways or airport terminals, but in Amy’s case, someone notices and helps her. She never learned his name and doesn’t even know if she’d recognize him if she saw him again, but his brief presence permanently changed her life for the better. Good People is full of stories where an “angel” shows up at a moment of crisis. Wherever you land in this book, you’ll be comforted by the fact that despite the insanity of the times we live in, most people are indeed, good.

Life Audit

Ximena Vengoechea’s Life Audit: A Step-by-Step Guide to Discovering Your Goals and Building the Life You Want is one inspirational book where you’ll need to do some work. As the title says, it asks you to do an audit of your life, but the process is led by pages of delightful bar graphs, mind maps, drawings and Venn diagrams in cool pastel colors. In other words, it’s much more fun than an IRS audit of your taxes.

Auditing your life is a worthwhile pursuit when you don’t quite know what you want to do, or if you’re in a rut. Vengoechea breaks down the process into small but revealing steps. At the beginning you’re encouraged to write down every single one of your wishes, no matter how trivial, on 100 sticky notes in the space of an hour. Though labor-intensive, this helps you prioritize your wishes, identify your core values, use your time wisely and pick the people (five of them, the author suggests) who are eager to offer you support. Vengoechea also shows you how to avoid folks who would drag you down and shares motivational tricks, such as getting an ice cream cone or putting on a party dress after you’ve turned in your manuscript. Life Audit is a lovely book to keep on your bedside table.

Not Sure Who Needs to Hear This, But . . .

Though this book is over 200 pages long, you can easily read Willie Greene’s Not Sure Who Needs to Hear This, But . . . in a few hours. Indeed, its layout allows you to just jump in anywhere, for every page holds something pithy. Greene, the founder of WE THE URBAN, which launched as a Tumblr account that dispenses similar advice, divides his book into six chapters: Peace; Love; Learning, Unlearning, Relearning; Creativity; Well-being and Affirmations. The first few pages of each chapter posit the virtue, followed by sections, none more than a couple of paragraphs long, that tell you how to achieve it. After that comes pithy adages, often framed by colorful boxes that recall sticky notes. Included are: “Forgive yourself every night before going to sleep”; “Act. Even if fear is present” and “Delete the Ex-files.” (This one, I believe, means to move right along after you’ve been dumped or subjected to that even worse 21st-century atrocity of “ghosting.”) There are dozens of these little pep pills for the soul. Who needs to hear them? We do!

 

 

Humans have been trying to improve themselves since they discovered they had selves that needed improving. As the search for spiritual, mental and physical health continues ever on, four new books are here to help.

The Indian Card

Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz’s powerful The Indian Card considers the history of Native American tribal membership and its impacts on people today.
NonfictionMemoirHumor

Lifeform

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

The work of award-winning actor and comedian Jenny Slate—whether her stand-up comedy, voice performances (Bob’s Burgers, The Great North), acting (Parks and Recreation, It Ends With Us), or beloved Marcel the Shell With Shoes On multimedia universe—leaves an indelible impression. Unsurprisingly, the prolific creator’s first memoir-in-essays, 2019’s Little Weirds, had the same effect thanks to its inventive language and poignant, poetic takes on her life thus far.

In Lifeform, Slate again beckons readers into her wonderfully idiosyncratic, colorfully kaleidoscopic mind as she recounts her latest adventures in five pivotal phases: Single, True Love, Pregnancy, Baby and Ongoing. Of course, fans know that despite Lifeform’s organizing principle, the author isn’t inclined to stick to prescribed formats or expectations. Instead, she dances through multifaceted, playful musings that tip over into surrealism, and dwells in quiet spaces alongside her insecurities and fears.

Fabulist inner monologues abound, as in “Stork Dream: Scroll,” wherein the mythical baby-deliverer embodies “how bizarre this experience is of making a lifeform while being a lifeform. I woke myself up laughing, and the laughter was like a string of bells being pulled from inside of me.” Slate tackles waking-hour concerns in her series of whimsical yet pointed “Letters to a Doctor.” In one, she expresses her frustration with traditional dinner-party seating: “Why would you split a couple up against their wills? It is already so incredibly hard to come together and become a couple.”

Intimate and vulnerable revelations simmer throughout, too, such as the bittersweet experience of watching her ailing grandmother and baby Ida “sip soup together, two beings with caretakers who make sure that they stay clean and can get the food into their mouths.” Birth and death, beginnings and ends, are on Slate’s mind (and in her dreams) as she assumes the new role of mother and ponders how she has changed as the phases of her life have unfurled. Fans old and new will revel in Lifeform’s self-effacing humor and imaginative writing style. It’s a delightful, memorable immersion in the lifeform that is Jenny Slate: “Mother/New Wife/Jenny/Wart-Gobbler Goblin/Bad Visual Artist/Fine Clown.”

Read our starred review of the audiobook of Lifeform.

In her new memoir, Lifeform, Jenny Slate beckons readers into her wonderfully idiosyncratic, colorfully kaleidoscopic mind as she recounts her latest adventures with signature whimsy.

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