Kate Padilla has long enjoyed reading, and for the last decade, combined her writing skills and book pleasure to review books for Authorlink.
Kate’s journalism career began in high school with a weekly column in her hometown newspaper, and later, after graduating from the University of Wyoming, she moved into newspapers as a reporter and editor and also as a radio news director. She subsequently worked as a U.S. Senate staffer helping write legislation and then as a public lands manager for the Department of Interior until her retirement. Now, she is an award-winning poet, artist and writer living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her passion is exploring, traveling to places not often frequented by tourists, ranging from Albania in the Balkans to isolated Honduran islands in the Caribbean.
Not surprisingly Kate favors foreign authors because they immerse her in other worlds and cultures, books such as those written by Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz, who writes about the Arab world, or Milan Kundera, from Czechoslovakia. Any book written by women with Latin or Mexican roots is a must, she says, listing authors Isabel Allende and Sandra Cisneros as idols. She never passes up a poetry book sent her way, though they are a challenge to review because the poetry is subjective. She also enjoys a good detective novel, and at times, magical fanaticism. Her review favorites include offerings from the Library of America, a nonprofit that collects and preserves writings from America’s key authors. If she had a genre she doesn’t prefer, it would likely be most Western novels. Her pet peeves are preachy religious or moralizing books, those that demean women or have disregard for the environment.
Booth Tarkington, Novels & Stories, edited by Thomas Mallon, Library of America - Few have won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction twice, but Booth Tarkington did, first with his 1919 novel, “The Magnificent Ambersons,” and then, three years later, for “Alice Adams.”
The Braid, Laetitia Colombani, Atria - Laetitia Colombani’s most inspiring novel, “The Braid,” takes us on a breathtaking journey, laced with valuable historical perspectives of three women facing different obstacles, mostly obscure, and almost beyond our comprehension
Ghost Stories, Edited by Morton & Klinger, Pegasus Books - It was in the 18th century, after the Civll War and World War I, when a growing interest in communicating with the war dead spawned a new religion: “Spiritualism.” That in turn prompted emergence of ghost stories.
From Scratch, Tembi Locke, Simon & Schuster - Actor and TEDx speaker Tembi Locke’s memoir, “From Scratch,” is a documentation of a complicated journey of a Black American whose Sicilian husband is disowned by his family who objected to their biracial marriage.
Walt Whitman Speaks, Brenda Wineapple Editor, Library of America, - The Library of America marked Walt Whitman’s bicentennial by releasing a condensed version of his final thoughts on “life, writing, spirituality and the promise of America” in a pocketbook entitled, “Walt Whitman Speaks.”
A Fist or A Heart, Kristin EirÍkssdòttir, Amazon Crossing - Award-winning Icelandic author KristÍn EirÍkssdòttir debuts her English-language novel, “A Fist or A Heart,” about a complex relationship between two women, linked in a bizarre way to a famous writer.
The Murmur of Bees, Sofia Segovia, Amazon Crossing - Sofìa Segovia's magical realism novel, “The Murmur of Bees,” is masterfully absorbing, and laced with delicious prose. Her characters are likewise captivating, so their journey becomes very personal.
The End of Loneliness, Benedict Wells, Penguin Books - A mournful, tragic family saga written by German novelist Benedict Wells and translated by Charlotte Collins, “The End of Loneliness” follows lives of three children during a 30-year period beginning in 1980 after their parents die in an automobile accident.
Chelsea Girls, Fiona Davis, Random House - The historical novel, “Chelsea Girls,” verifies the old adage that history repeats itself. Fiona Davis’ drama unfolds during McCarthyism when entertainers living in the New York Chelsea Hotel were without evidence targeted for subversive practice and blacklisted as “communists” and “socialists.”
Ann Petry The Street, The Narrows, Farah Jasmine Griffin Editor - The Library of America has published two mind-boggling novels written by African-American Ann Petry, mostly obscure in the white-dominated 1940s-50s. Her acute observation and insight into human consciousness and foundations of racism in white-mainstream USA is profoundly provocative.