Howling Frog Books

 Disobedient Women: How a Small Group of Faithful Women Exposed Abuse, Brought Down Powerful Pastors and Ignited an Evangelical Reckoning, by Sarah Stankorb I've been paying quite a lot of attention to the evangelical world for the last year or so, so this title naturally caught my attention.  Stankorb, a journalist, grew up on the edges of this world, and chronicles the efforts of many people over a long time to bring attention to problems of ecclesiastical abuse.  Evangelicals, in their efforts to build parallel institutions that would allow Christian families to live largely in bubbles insulated from the dangerous outside world, didn't really build in any safeguards -- after all, this was supposed to be their safe space.  Since every institution (schools, businesses, churches, Little League teams, whatever) is vulnerable to predators who seek to use it for access to victims, safeguards are always important.  And in these parallel institutions, children were t...

 Letters From My Mill, by Alphonse Daudet I came across this some months ago while weeding the French literature at work. We had a lot of ancient copies of modernist plays that needed replacing.   I took it home to get around to, but Fanda got there a lot faster than I did.  I'm completely unfamiliar with Daudet; as we know, French literature is my weakest point.  This was his first published work, in 1866, and it became a popular success, and it remained a favorite of his. The conceit is that Daudet has rented a disused windmill, where he often goes for holidays or perhaps to live for periods of time.  The first few pieces are written as letters to friends in Paris, telling charming stories of the Avignon countryside -- some are cast as local incident, and some as legend.  After a while, we get reminiscences of former days in Paris or Algeria, or stories told by sailors. On the whole it's charming, though the Algerian stories I could do without. ...

Xenophon's Anabasis (Landmark ed.) I love looking at the Landmark editions, but I'm not so great at actually reading them, unless they are Herodotus.  But my sister was here over winter break and she inspired me to pick up something more serious than I've been reading lately, and so I have now read the Anabasis .  I enjoyed it a lot, too!  I'm not that great at reading about warfare, because I find it tedious, but reading about soldiers stuck in enemy territory and trying to get home is much more interesting. So here's the background: It's 401 BC, and Xenophon, a young and elite Athenian, decides to go along with a company of 10,000 Greek mercenaries to the Persian Empire.  He's not actually in the military, but his friend says 'if you get in good with Cyrus, you'll be in great shape for a career!' and so he goes along.  Cyrus is challenging his older brother Artaxerxes for the Persian throne, and he's promised good pay to these mercenari...

  All in Her Head: The Truth and Lies Early Medicine Taught Us About Women's Bodies and Why It Matters Today, by Elizabeth Comen Elizabeth Comen is an oncologist specializing in breast cancer, and as she worked with her patients, she came to realize just how badly our medical system is set up -- for everyone, but particularly for women.  Looking back into history, she collected evidence and traced stories illustrating how attitudes and beliefs have come down to us and are still hanging around. Dr. Comen works through chapters dedicated to systems of the human body, starting with skin, bones, and muscles, right through to nerves, hormones, and reproduction.    (While the entire book is enraging, this guarantees that the intensity will ramp up and the  most enraging material will probably be at the end.)  Readers will probably be familiar with quite a few of the stories already -- Ignaz Semmelweis' failed attempts to get doctors to wash their hands, the horri...

 I have quite a pile of random children's books on my TBR shelf, and I've been going through them, so here are three at once! The Children of Noisy Village, by Astrid Lindgren : This qualifies as a minor classic, not as popular as the Pippi Longstocking stories, but a lovely book describing a Swedish country childhood in about the 1950s.  Lisa lives in the middle farmhouse of three, and since there are six lively children in those three farmhouses, it's known as Noisy Village.  Lisa and her two brothers, the two sisters on one side, and a boy (plus infant sister) on the other -- they all get up to mischief and fun every day.  Lindgren takes her children through most of a year, describing summer, Christmas, birthdays, and spring.  This would be a great read-aloud for a child 5 and up. Nicobobinus, by Terry Jones : It was the Terry Jones on the spine that caught my eye.  What kind of children's book would he write? It would be guaranteed to be silly and all o...

 Wild: Tales From Early Medieval Britain, by Amy Jeffs    After I read Storyland , I wanted to read Wild ; I really wondered what kind of stories Jeffs would collect into this book.  This one is shorter, and also I think takes more liberties with the material, and the result is intriguing.   Jeffs takes some of the more obscure poems from things like the Book of Exeter, or panels of the Franks Casket, often melds a couple of them together, and turns them into short tales.  So we read of the Sorrow of Hos -- Hos is named in a real manuscript, and Jeffs gives her a story fitting the existing clues.  "The Wanderer" is adapted a bit and told from the perspective of Grendel. I enjoyed these short tales and the explanations Jeffs provided of how she came to write them.  The illustrations, again linocuts, and this time not so plentiful, were also very good.

 The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, by John Hendrix I recently read Hendrix' Faithful Spy , and now I've got his latest -- a chronicle of one of the most world-influencing friendships of the 20th century.  And I'm here to tell you, it's great stuff, a lovely biography/tribute to both men.  This is a graphic novel suitable for age 10 and up, but is equally absorbing for adults.  Give it to the Middle-Earth and Narnia fan in your life! Hendrix gives short biographies of each before they meet, and then he gets detailed, providing lovely illustrations in teal, lavender, and gold.  But there's just one problem; what they mostly did was talk, and that doesn't make for exciting reading.  So Hendrix introduces two metanarrating avatars: a wizard and a lion, who explain myth and epic, provide commentary upon the relationship, and generally facilitate the reader's experience, like a Greek chorus in a play.  The two s...

Hello to 2025!  Guess what, I've been reading up a storm!  It's been lovely!  Impossible Creatures, by Katherine Runnell I heard this middle-grade story, from the UK, described as comparable to Diana Wynne Jones, so I tracked down a copy to see.  While, naturally, it cannot compare in my mind, I do have to say that this is an excellent, primo-grade fantasy story, with as imaginative and intense an ending as anyone could hope for.  Highly recommended! Christopher, whom all critters love, is reluctantly headed to Scotland to stay with his grandfather for a while, as his dad has to travel for work.  But he finds that his grandfather is another animal-attractor, and it's because they're hereditary guardians of a portal... Mal loves to fly in her flying coat, which was given to her (along with her name) at birth by a seer.  Flying makes her easy to spot, and a murderer is after her.... The two meet as Mal escapes through the portal, begs for Christopher's h...