The Skylark Subscription - an unsolicited review

We love our Skylark subscription service - it’s one of the most fun things we do. Carefully choosing books for each of our customers, gift wrapping them and then popping them in the mail as a surprise - what’s not to like? We love to get feedback about the choices we make - but never before have we received a full-blown review, and so we wanted to share it with you. We absolutely love this - it kind of captures all of the excitement and discovery that we aim for every time we select a title for our subscriptions. Our deep thanks to Woody Berry for taking the time to write and to share these insights. (And we totally agree about Jericho Brown’s laugh.)

If you’d like a book subscription of your own, drop us a line!

You received a 12-month Skylark Subscription Gift and are now half way through the experience. How did this gift happen?

It began as a Christmas surprise. I had originally planned to give my wife a Skylark Reading Spa experience. She’s a retired librarian. An English major. A reader. This was going to be my perfect Christmas gift! After being excited about it, I then realized there was no way she was going into an enclosed space to be pampered in the midst of the pandemic. So, I told her about it instead, hoping at least to delight her with the idea. She loved it, and hoped I might remember it for another time. But then at Christmas, I received from her a 12-month Skylark Subscription Gift. Basically, the spa gift without the spa, but with a book every month. After profuse thanks to her, I filled out the form, with the promise that I would receive each month a “new or unusual book” that my “Skylark bibliotherapist” would select for me. 

How has the process been for you?

I’ve loved it! I’ve received a book in the mail each month, always a surprise. I’ve ripped through the wrapping immediately, pondered – why this book? Then placed it on my desk, waiting for the best time to get started on it. I wanted to have enough time to get into it without being distracted, but did no research on the author or checked out other reviews. I’ve received the book as something that will be “new or unusual” and have embarked on it as an adventure. 

Which of the six books you’ve read has impacted you the most? 

There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love:  Letters from a Crisis by Tracy K. Smith and John Freeman(2021).

I had heard about the book, a collection of writings from people during the pandemic, but I didn’t think I was ready to read it when it arrived. I was not ready to reflect on the past year, as much as to escape it. And yet there the book sat on my desk and one day I picked it up and thumbed through the authors who had written and saw that Nikky Finney had written a letter. I had known her when we both lived in Kentucky and was so deeply moved by her poems, her insights, her use of language to describe her life, so I had to read her letter immediately:  to John Robert Lewis. In the midst of a pandemic, in the explosion (again) of the Black Lives Matter Movement, she wrote to John Lewis upon his death with praise for his revolutionary life of justice, while naming what his legacy inspired her to do today. It was beautiful and made me ready to mark those significant moments of last year. Immediately I went on to read what another of my favorite poets, Layli Long Soldier, chose to write. It was not poetry, but was powerfully personal in response to the “murder of George Floyd.” While she and George Floyd were “from different communities, different backgrounds, different genders” yet on this land their histories overlapped.  She wrote, “George Floyd’s murder hit me to my core, as if he were my brother, my own, my blood. His death – along with the recent chain of violations and murders of Black people – makes me feel desperate for the respect owed to them. Absolute respect. Not one more violation.” She goes on to explain what particular actions she now feels compelled to do. The 40 writings in this book each bring out one moment from the past year not to be forgotten, but to be acted upon instead – to live in a better way, to get out and do what needs to be done. Edwidge Danticat talks about mourning. Amaud Jamaul Johnson reminds me of the fault lines of midwestern racism. Cynthia Tucker writes about a mother who survived and thrived. Francisco Goldman talks about the result of the 2020 election and what it will take to live on “after a regime.” These 40 letters, plus the powerful preface by Tracy K. Smith, are diverse, deep, compelling. They are the soul of the past year that give direction for a new beginning post-pandemic. 

Were all the gift books successful?

            Yes! Each one took me to a place I would not have gone otherwise. 

Hook by Randall Horton. His memoir, helped me see the bravery of a man who will tell the truth and bear the consequences. Because of this, previous stereotypes came apart for me in my understanding of the power of addiction, the rancidness of the racial and social constructions of America, and the horrors and sins of the Prison Industrial Complex. 

The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates. This novel took me to great places of pain and heartbreak and guilt as I journeyed with the main character through his years as a child born from a master and enslaved woman on a Virginia plantation. From his painful, yet powerful escape from slavery to his experience living in freedom for a year in Philadelphia, to his journey back to the plantation as part of The Underground, with his special gift of Conduction, I learned as I traveled his path. 

Everywhere You Don’t Belong by Gabriel Bump. This is a terrifically told contemporary story of a young man born on the South Side of Chicago, raised by his grandmother and her friend Paul. He is a great kid, good listener, quiet, and yet constantly barraged by a family who want him to be more and do more, especially in terms of acting for social justice. And yet he sees the faults on all sides, not wanting to choose sides, afraid to do anything. He leaves home for college, but finds there’s no getting away from the South Side, from the family, from their expectations of him, nor from their love. It is a story told with an authentic voice from a perspective totally new to me. 

Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now by Andrew Perry. This book of essays come from a transforming, honest voice in the form of screenplays, imagined talk-show conversations, multiple choice questions, and conversations from childhood schoolyards to Midwestern bars. The last essay, “Americana/Dying of Thirst” describes the moment Perry stands at a concert in Iowa City, surrounded by over 1800 white people, and knew he was alone, the smallest black man in the world, listening to a live concert by rapper Kendrick Lamar. He describes this experience in a love letter to Emma, and as he slowly backs out of the concert, and considers where his hunger can be fed, his thirst assuaged. What eye-opening essays can be found here! 

One Hundred Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses by Lucy Corin Is a book full of “apocs,” which are short stories, some only a sentence long, some going for pages, that describe one moment, one event, almost like a frozen moment with only the author’s perspective circling the moment and describing in details unlike any you have heard before. Each apoc is a challenging read, but each one gave me a different way of seeing reality. 

Did any of the books inspire you to read other works by the authors?

Tracy K. Smith!  I found her appearances from this year’s recorded Unbound Book Festival and was enlivened by her readings and by her conversations with others. I read her collections Wade in the Water and Life on Mars. Which led me on to read the amazing Jericho Brown’s The Tradition and The New Testament. Which led me to Frank X Walker’s Pandemic & Protest Poems. I never expected poetry to be the power that would bring meaning to this year. Those three authors present a powerful witness to what could have been so easily forgotten, or not heeded, during this past year. They feel like friends who will accompany me forever. 

 What insight has been deepest from your reading so far?

The necessity of listening to how those different from me speak their own experiences, understand their own lives, and organize their understanding of our culture, society, and history.

What line from the six books still remains with you?

It’s a thought I heard through all the books, but written very simply by Andre Perry:  “That when we said ‘slavery’ we didn’t just means ours, we meant yours too.” …  A good line that carries that thought forward is this:  “And fractured lives are not just black lives but Native lives, immigrant lives, and white lives too – the whole continent.” 

Which of the writers would you most like to have coffee with? 

Jericho Brown. He can laugh like no one else I know! 

What are you hoping for in the readings for the next 6 months? 

A continuation of the “new and unusual.” That’s how I learn best.  

Again, if you’d like to experience a Skylark subscription for yourself, call us at (573) 777 6990 or drop us a line.