The original version of this newsletter was sent out on Tuesday, April 22.
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Hello, fellow bookworms!
Get ready for a weekend of bookish fun with Independent Bookstore Day on Saturday, April 26! My favorite place in town, Chaucer’s Books, is having a day of celebration, which I most definitely plan on attending! Particularly in the age of Amazon, I encourage everyone to take the time to show your favorite indie bookstores some appreciation this Saturday.
But the fun doesn’t stop there — on Sunday, April 27, the Lynda Fairly Carpinteria Arts Center is hosting the Carpinteria Festival of Books! Browse books and meet area authors at this free public festival!
If you’re in the mood for fantasy, today Nathan Vived is bringing us reviews of two books in the Witcher series. Strongly considering picking these up the next time I feel like committing to a series and delving into another world!
What is the line from that series? “Toss a coin to your Witcher” … but let’s toss a few to indie bookstores and area authors this weekend as well!
Happy reading!
—Tessa, allbooked@independent.com
Salutations, bookworms! Ever since December, I’ve been on a Witcher kick, what with the reveal trailer for Witcher 4. I have fully immersed myself into the Northern Realms and the dynastic struggles between the loose coalition of the Northern Kingdoms and the ever-encroaching Nilfgaardian Empire. As such, I’m going to use my time in this newsletter to continue the recommendations that I first made way back in September, and take the time to do a bit more of a review of them.
Time of Contempt by Andrzej Sapkowski
Sequel to Blood of Elves and second novel in the Witcher series, Time of Contempt builds off of the events of the last book, with Yennefer of Vengerberg working to continue young Ciri’s education in magic while simultaneously keeping her hidden from the warring factions that all seek the girl for their own nefarious ends. And that’s what this second book does incredibly well: the politics of the world. Every character, from a lowly messenger to a senior mage to a spymaster to a witcher has an opinion on the current political climate and they are not shy in the slightest about sharing it. Long conversations are had that piece out the thoughts and actions of opponents, make plans and contingencies, and malign the impossibility of escaping the reach of courts and kings.
If you liked Game of Thrones for the politics, you’ll be well served here, as Sapkowski does an even better job than Martin in my opinion. Time of Contempt also possesses one of the more striking locales in the books, which is a big plus in my opinion.
One of my great critiques of the Witcher series is that visited locations tend to blend together. The prose and descriptions are rich, but the details they impart do little to stick in the mind beyond conjuring a medieval setting. Villages are villages, dark forests are dark forests, and the novels do not go into the more fantastical places that some of the short stories do. I still recommend the read, since the characters are nigh-peerless, and any excuse to spend more time with them is something well worth the time.
Baptism of Fire by Andrzej Sapkowski
This is the third book in the Witcher series, and, I would say, falls into the trap that a lot of “middle books” do. You know, where the majority of the piece feels like either fallout from the beginning of the series or setup for what comes next. Baptism reads like that for me. It is a road-trip story for the majority of it, with characters, while having defined goals and destinations, making very little progress toward those ends, since the roads are ever perilous. The tension is great, as every stop can be deadly, but the forward momentum lags. Baptism makes up for this by focusing more on the character level with brilliant interactions and introducing a few new favorites of mine, namely Milva and Emil Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy, a k a Regis.
This is also the book where the darkness of humanity really takes a turn into the viscerally real, so I’m making a trigger warning. While death and mistreatment have been staples since the short stories, some of the abuse in Baptism takes a decidedly more sexual turn, and while not glorified, it is treated as commonplace.
That darkness really feeds into one of, in my view, the central themes of this book. The reader gets to see a lot of violence, either carried out or planned, and most of the options to stop said violence are violent in nature.
There’s a conversation about “unbridled altruism” pretty early on that I think sets the stage well. Altruism is called a vice by the very dwarf who carries it, and yet for all his apparent and obvious kindness and geniality, it is revealed he and his fellows beat and robbed and possibly killed a wealthy merchant not long before the main party met them. War shapes and affects every person it touches, and usually for the worse. Most people only have the power to aid those immediately around them, and often not even that. Life is never guaranteed, and happiness is an ephemeral dream. War makes men into monsters, even if they are far from the front line or don’t carry a sword. Outsiders are to be feared and ostracized and the greatest succor comes from embracing unbridled zealotry and ignorance.
Highly recommend.
—Nathan Vived
FROM OUR PAGES
We’ve had some great author visits and interviews recently, so don’t miss out. Here is some of our book-related coverage from the last two weeks! Read all this and more at Independent.com.
After 40 Years of Writing Books, She’s Learned to Listen to Her Gut by Tiana Molony
UPCOMING BOOK EVENTS
Below, you will find a few bookish events coming up in Santa Barbara. If you are hosting a bookish event in Santa Barbara, be sure to submit the event to our online events calendar.
Bob’s Well Bread Welcomes Author Todd B. Lieman
Thursday, April 24, 4 p.m. | Bob’s Well Bread, Ballard
Chaucer’s Book Fair for Harding Elementary School
Thursday, April 24, 6 p.m. | Chaucer’s Books
Reading and Q&A with Westmont Professor Meredith Whitnah
Friday, April 25, 3:30-5 p.m. | Global Leadership Center, Westmont
Independent Bookstore Day
Saturday, April 26, all day. | Chaucer’s Books
Carpinteria Festival of Books
Sunday, April 27, noon | Lynda Fairly Carpinteria Arts Center
Book Signing to Benefit Local Swim Programs: My Olympic Story by Jeff Farrell
Sunday, April 27, noon-4 p.m. | Lynda Fairly Carpinteria Arts Center
Chaucer’s Book Fair for Island View Preschool
Sunday, April 27, 3 p.m. | Chaucer’s Books
Poetry Month Celebration: Featuring Sharon Frances
Tuesday, April 29, 5:30 p.m. | Chaucer’s Books
Community Poetry Readings with UCSB Reads & Goleta Valley Library
Tuesday, April 29, 4 p.m. | UCSB Library
Chaucer’s Book Fair for Santa Barbara Middle School
Wednesday, April 30, 6 p.m. | Chaucer’s Books
Book Signing with Barbara Edelston Peterson
Thursday, May 1, 5 p.m. | The Well, Montecito
Reading in the Garden: The Book of Delights by Ross Gay
Friday, May 2, 2:30 p.m. | St. Michael’s Community Garden, Isla Vista
Poetry Reading with Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer & James Crews
Friday, May 2, 6 p.m. | S.B. Central Library
Reading by Taran Collis: Dinosaurs Have Big Feelings Too
Friday, May 3, 4 p.m. | Tecolote Book Shop
S.B. SPOTLIGHT
We at the Independent get many books sent to us by area authors, sometimes too many! It’s practically impossible for us to read and review them all, but just because we are busy bees does not mean that they aren’t worth the attention. In an attempt to not completely drop the ball, we have compiled a list of books here that are either written by a Santa Barbara author, feature someone in our community, or have another tie to Santa Barbara. I urge you to look through this list. Perhaps you will find your new favorite read!
The following are the most recent titles that have been sent to us.
If you are a local author and would like us to feature your book in this section, please email allbooked@independent.com with the subject line “S.B. Spotlight.”
Book Reviews Courtesy of CALIFORNIA REVIEW OF BOOKS*
Thanks to the generous contributions of David Starkey, Brian Tanguay and their team of reviewers at California Review of Books, we are able to provide a steady stream of book reviews via our content partnership. Recent reviews at Independent.com include:
Nobody’s Empire by Stuart Murdoch; review by George Yatchisin
*At the present time, all of the Independent’s book reviews are provided in collaboration with California Review of Books (calirb.com).
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