In The NoCo’s Holiday Book Club returns this week. Each December, the team behind the In The NoCo podcast compiles the most fascinating books and interviews with Colorado authors they've featured over the past year.
History, horror and sci-fi are some of the genres represented in the six titles on this year’s Holiday Book Club list. It's a great way to find a gift idea for the book lover on your holiday shopping list, or to scope out your next book to enjoy during the cozy winter weeks that lie ahead.
The Afterlife is Letting Go by Brandon Shimoda
What it's about: During World War II, the U.S. military forced about 120,000 Japanese Americans into internment camps. Shimoda, a descendant of several family members placed in camps, uses the essays in The Afterlife is Letting Go to wrestle with lingering trauma that’s still felt generations later.
What makes it powerful: The Colorado Springs resident told In The NoCo that his family didn't talk much about their experience in the camps when he was growing up. “For me, writing was a way to redress that lack of understanding, that lack of knowledge,” he says.
Also noteworthy: The Afterlife is Letting Go recently won a Colorado Book Award in the creative nonfiction category.
Awesome of the Day by Ellen Javernick
The details: The children's book encourages kids to focus on positive thinking. When life feels like a bummer, the story encourages readers to instead focus on one positive or “awesome” thing that happened today. Javernick explained her philosophy to Erin O'Toole earlier this year:
O'Toole: We are living through a time when anxiety and depression reported among kids is on the rise. How often do you think about that trend when you write your books?
Javernick: I think about that always, because I want kids to feel good about themselves. I want them to recognize that they do live happy lives. I want them to think life is fun and I want them to not focus on the worry.
That’s quite a resume: Javernick, a Loveland resident, is a veteran kindergarten teacher as well as a prolific writer. She's penned more than 20 children's books so far.
Ghost Girls and Rabbits by Cassondra Windwalker
The overview: Windwalker's supernatural tale revolves around two Alaskan women: one whose daughter has gone missing, and another who has been kidnapped.
Why it resonates: Windwalker, who lives in Berthoud, uses the story to explore the real-life horrors of missing and murdered Indigenous women.
“I think it allows us to look our fear in the face — the things that frighten us and overwhelm us,” Windwalker says of the literary horror genre. “We can't overcome those things if we don't acknowledge what they are.”
A Complete Fiction by R.L. Maizes
What it's about: A struggling writer who discovers her story idea was stolen by an editor retaliates with a blistering social media post. The scandal that unfolds overwhelms both characters and raises thorny questions about who gets to tell a story.
What makes it a gripping read: The novel teems with complex characters and plot twists. At one point, the main character wrestles with the ethics of whether her novel should include details about a traumatic incident her sister survived.
Why it's relevant: Maizes, a Boulder author, felt inspired to write the novel as a way to explore the pitfalls of cancel culture.
Mrs. Wilson's Affair by Allyson Reedy
The synopsis: The debut novel by Broomfield resident Reedy — who's also the restaurant critic for 5280 magazine — offers a fresh take on a character from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Reedy focuses on the tragic figure of Myrtle Wilson, and invents a richer backstory for a minor character presented as an unsympathetic gold-digger in the original Gatsby.
An excerpt from Mrs. Wilson’s Affair:
Myrtle hurried on and stopped at the edge of the two-lane road. The morning rush had already gone, but a trickle of cars sped by, sending dirt clouds into the already cloudy air. Those must be the important people, she thought. Those who were so accomplished, so successful that they could get to work when they pleased. She wanted to know those people.
When there was a big enough gap in traffic, she dashed across the road, her overnight bag bouncing against her side. This was the exact spot at which she would die, but of course she did not know that. Nobody knows the exact spot, or moment, at which they will cease to exist. No one wants to know, and even if they did want to know, they shouldn’t.
Check it out if you liked Percival Everett's acclaimed hit novel James, which retells The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Huck's companion Jim. Like James, Mrs. Wilson's Affair offers an intriguing new perspective on a classic American novel.
Space Autistic Author's Puzzling Innerverse by X. Ho Yen
Who it's for: Fans of science fiction, but also fans of puzzle books. The plot of Puzzling Innerverse — which the author partly based on his own life — reveals itself piece by piece as the reader solves a series of puzzles.
Why the author had 10- to 12-year-olds in mind when he wrote it: X. says he was roughly the same age when he encountered science fiction that felt “tremendously expansive” to him. He cites Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke and Ursula K. Le Guin as some of his favorite writers.
Check out conversations with several of the featured authors Tuesday through Friday this week on the In The NoCo podcast. Stream the show or hear it during Morning Edition or All Things Considered on 91.5 FM.
