I spent much of last week in the company of YoungArts writers whose stories and words were so full of the fearless, so unbroken by other people's ideas of what story and language might be, that there was no way in hell I was going to read an ordinary book on the way home. Not that I seek out the ordinary, ever. But sometimes I get stuck with it, and I get rankled through.
So I went to Books & Books while the YoungArtists were listening to people like Joshua Bell and Bill T. Jones and Adrian Grenier and Debbie Allen talk (oh, my), because I knew I could rely on a famous independent to cut the deck of new releases right. And there, on the front table, I found
The Colour of Milk, by Nell Leyshon. I had never heard of it or her, but because I am forever milking my own metaphors, I was intrigued. Read the first two lines. Bought it. Finished it on the flight home. Held it to my chest—this riveting, fierce, enveloping, and I-know-you-want-to know-what-it-is-actually-about book, so let me explain that in a line or two.
The Colour of Milk is the story of a girl in the year 1831 who has learned literacy, but at a terrible price.
Milk is her story, her confession.
Milk will break your heart.
Let me show you how it starts:
this is my book and i am writing it by my own hand.
in this year of lord eighteen hundred and thirty one I am reached the age of fifteen and i am sitting by my window and i can see many things. i can see birds and they fill the sky with their cries. i can see the trees and i can see the leaves.
and each leaf has veins which run down it.
and the bark of each tree has cracks.
i am not very tall and my hair is the colour of milk.
my name is mary and i have learned to spell it. m.a.r.y. that is how you letter it.
OK, here's your big, last-night-of-Hanukkah present: an embeddable flash player so you can enjoy The Book of Life on your own web page, blog, or social network!
And to go with it, I've uploaded a bonus episode, "Meet Markus!" This is a live, unedited talk recorded at the independent bookstore Books & Books in Coral Gables, Florida with Markus Zusak, author of The Book Thief.
Let me tell you a little more about the new podcast player widget, provided by Big Contact (btw, I must tell you that they have excellent customer service! They were a huge help to me when I ran into trouble setting up this player!). The player you see here is just an image ... for the real player, please look on the sidebar to your right. ---->
(If you're not viewing this post at www.bookoflifepodcast.com, you can see the player here.)
You can scroll down the list of episodes and click on any title to play that show. The little tab with the musical notes will give you the Show Notes for that episode. The tab with the lines takes you back to the full list of all episodes. The + tab tells you how to subscribe to The Book of Life podcast. And the tab with the people on it helps you embed the player on your own site, as does the big button below the player that says "Play my show on your site."
Please do try out the new player, and consider putting it on your site to bring the show to an even wider audience! Let's get even more people excited about Jewish books, music, movies and web treasures!
As always, you can also click the play button on this old familiar flash player to listen to the podcast now:
Or you can click MP3 File to start your computer's media player.
Background music is provided by The Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band.
That's me kissing Spidey :)
Ooh, I am very intrigued, Kephart. And I love what you say about being unbroken by other people's ideas. I often wonder when that break occurs and how to mend it.