I’m trying to get back into the habit of writing. I’ve got a zillion things to do – packing up an apartment and dealing with moving stuff, but I also need to pause and find my creative well.

At work in the past couple months, I was very focused on getting everything done and trying to make things better for the next person. I recognize it’s important to slow down a bit now and a reconnect with myself. And so. I offer a couple of takes on books I’ve enjoyed.

And the Ocean Was Our Sky by Patrick Ness; Illustrated by Rovina Cai

While I may have skipped reading Moby Dick by Herman Melville, I know the gist of the story from growing up in the United States. Melville is supposed to be a “classic” American author, but I never wanted to attempt Moby Dick because I loathed the other things I had to read by him in high school. I couldn’t stand his writing or Nathaniel Hawthorne’s. To each their own.

Ness’s story centers around a whale, Bathsheba, who encounters the devil in a man named Toby Wick. It is basically the story of Moby Dick told from a whale’s perspective – everything in this story seems upside down. The (mostly) black and white illustrations by Rovina Cai strongly support this outlook. The whales and ocean are usually pictured on top, with the sky and ships underneath them. It’s an engrossing tale (and very dark) that didn’t take me long to get through. I’ve read a few books by Patrick Ness and I’ve loved all of them, including this one.

The Fresco by Sheri S Tepper

I first encountered Tepper’s work when I chose to read The Family Tree for fantasy and science fiction genres in a Readers’ Advisory class I took in library school. I loved that book and have come back to her work over the years when I need a fun, yet deeply thoughtful plunge into another world. Her stories seem to always have a twist in them as well.

The Fresco is set in the late 1990’s or early 2000’s. It takes place on Earth and has aliens and one main human character – Benita, a middle aged woman, whose life changes very quickly after a chance encounter in the woods. She becomes the spokesperson for the aliens as they convey their messages to the people of Earth. The fresco refers to a painting on the aliens’ home planet and there are a lot of politics involved – both on Earth and in space. Some of the various aliens are quite fun.

Sheri S Tepper created worlds that I love to find myself in. Her stories are deeply thoughtful and often quirky and fun at the same time. This one definitely was.