Then and Now #7 (9/6 - 9/12)

The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted @ Caffeinated Reviewer. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme. Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week.  It is hosted weekly over at Mailbox Monday and every Friday they do a round-up of some of their favourite, shared reads! 

Last Week

 It's my birthday today!! My mother came to visit and I dragged her to a bookstore to buy me plenty of new reads, so do scroll down for those. I was also treated to cheese fondue and we had a love hours-long chat in one of my favourite cafes here in Utrecht. It was really nice to spend time with her again and discuss some of the things that have been on my mind. I did twist my ankle last week but it's slowly recovering, the bruising has moved to my toes which I have been told by both parents is normal. 

I've also started prepping for all of my modules. I love getting to work on Tolkien and Old English, but my module on Divination and the Mantic Arts is also absolutely fascinating. It's so much fun to sit in a room and discuss traditions like dream divination seriously, to look at the way they were used and discussed in the Middle Ages. We also had a great study association event and got quite a few new members in from the first years, so yay for that! This week I also have an appointment with a student psychologist to discuss my anxiety. I hope she'll be able to give me some techniques and tips to work through the anxiety in the moment. 

What I posted:

• Review: Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim
• Review: The Husbands by Chandler Baker
• Review: The Unwelcome Guest by Amanda Robson
• Review: Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian
• Friday Friyay: Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder

Recommendations

I've been so busy this week that I haven't really had a lot of time to watch or listen to new things. So instead I have been replaying one of my favourite albums from the last few years: Strange Trails by Lord Huron. All the songs are amazing, but the two below are my absolute favourites!

Love Like Ghosts

Way Out There

In My Mailbox

Basilisks and Beowulf: Monsters  in the Anglo-Saxon World by Tim Flight (Raktion Books; 11/8/2021)

An eye-opening, engrossing look at the central role of monsters in the Anglo-Saxon worldview.
 
This book addresses a simple question: why were the Anglo-Saxons obsessed with monsters, many of which did not exist? Drawing on literature and art, theology, and a wealth of firsthand evidence, Basilisks and Beowulf reveals a people huddled at the edge of the known map, using the fantastic and the grotesque as a way of understanding the world around them and their place within it. For the Anglo-Saxons, monsters helped to distinguish the sacred and the profane; they carried God’s message to mankind, exposing His divine hand in creation itself. At the same time, monsters were agents of disorder, seeking to kill people, conquer their lands, and even challenge what it meant to be human. Learning about where monsters lived and how they behaved allowed the Anglo-Saxons to situate themselves in the world, as well as to apprehend something of the divine plan. It is for these reasons that monsters were at the very center of their worldview. From map monsters to demons, dragons to Leviathan, we neglect these beasts at our peril.

As many of you may know by now, I'm obsessed with the Anglo-Saxons. So of course when I saw this book I just had to add it to the pile. I'm telling myself it's fine cause it kind of counts as work?

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James (Riverhead Books; 2/4/2020)

In the first novel in Marlon James's Dark Star trilogy, myth, fantasy, and history come together to explore what happens when a mercenary is hired to find a missing child.

Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: "He has a nose," people say. Engaged to track down a mysterious boy who disappeared three years earlier, Tracker breaks his own rule of always working alone when he finds himself part of a group that comes together to search for the boy. The band is a hodgepodge, full of unusual characters with secrets of their own, including a shape-shifting man-animal known as Leopard.

Drawing from African history and mythology and his own rich imagination, Marlon James has written an adventure that's also an ambitious, involving read. Defying categorization and full of unforgettable characters, Black Leopard, Red Wolf explores the fundamentals of truths, the limits of power, the excesses of ambition, and our need to understand them all. 

I heard so many amazing things about this book and even the bookseller recommended it again when we were already paying for it. It's a big one, so I'm saving it for the fall holiday!

Hollow by Brian Catling (Vintage; 6/1/2021)

Sheltering beneath Das Kagel, the cloud-scraping structure rumored to be the Tower of Babel, the sacred Monastery of the Eastern Gate descends into bedlam. Their ancient oracle, Quite Testiyont--whose prophesies helped protect the church--has died, leaving the monks vulnerable to the war raging between the living and the dead. Tasked by the High Church to deliver a new oracle, Barry Follett and his group of hired mercenaries are forced to confront wicked giants and dangerous sirens on their mission, keeping the divine creature alive by feeding it marrow and confessing their darkest sins.

But as Follett and his men carve their way through the treacherous landscape, the world around them spirals deeper into chaos. Dominic, a young monk who has mysteriously lost his voice, makes a pilgrimage to see surreal paintings, believing they reveal the empire's fate; a local woman called Mad Meg hopes to free and vindicate her jailed son and becomes the leader of the most unexpected revolution; and the abbott of the monastery, influential as he is, seeks to gain even more power in this world and the next.

Rich with action and fantastic creatures, Hollow ushers the reader through a world of ruin where holy secrets are unearthed, art mirrors life through a glass darkly, and death looms over everything. It is B. Catling's most accomplished and gripping tale yet.

I just couldn't walk past this cover without checking the blurb, which then utterly captivated me as well. Can't wait to dig into this world! And if I like it, I guess the Vorrh Trilogy is next!

Matrix by Lauren Groff (Hutchingson Heineman; 9/23/2021)

Cast out of the royal court by Eleanor of Aquitaine, deemed too coarse and rough-hewn for marriage or courtly life, seventeen-year-old Marie de France is sent to England to be the new prioress of an impoverished abbey, its nuns on the brink of starvation and beset by disease. At first taken aback by the severity of her new life, Marie finds focus and love in collective life with her singular and mercurial sisters. In this crucible, Marie steadily supplants her desire for family, for her homeland, for the passions of her youth with something new to her: devotion to her sisters, and a conviction in her own divine visions. Marie, born the last in a long line of women warriors and crusaders, is determined to chart a bold new course for the women she now leads and protects. But in a world that is shifting and corroding in frightening ways, one that can never reconcile itself with her existence, will the sheer force of Marie’s vision be bulwark enough?

Equally alive to the sacred and the profane, Matrix gathers currents of violence, sensuality, and religious ecstasy in a mesmerizing portrait of consuming passion, aberrant faith, and a woman that history moves both through and around.

Considering I absolutely adored Cecily by Annie Garthwaite I figured this would also very much be up my alley. The cover is also beautiful.

So that's me! How was your week and what new books came in for you?