99¢ BOOK OF THE WEEK

The BIRD WITCH - The Mattie Saunders Series Book 4

August 31 to Sept. 7th

at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B003DS6LEU

Can you love someone whose worldview is different from yours? Who is committed to a cause that excludes you because of your race? Simon is an Indigenous person dedicated to the struggle for justice for First Nations people. Mattie loves him but is love enough?

Birds are dying. At the Saunders Bird Rescue and Sanctuary where rescued parrots abandoned by their owners are rehabilitated and re-homed, a deadly virus has them dying in Mattie's hands. In the midst of this outbreak, she's called to investigate a mortality event where dozens of starlings fly into the pavement as if committing suicide.

Mattie looks to Simon, her rock and refuge, for support, but after spending weeks at a remote protest site, as soon as he returns home he begins working with Wendy Walters, the attractive, ambitious Indigenous politician on her re-election campaign. Mattie's just about had enough.

When Simon proposes a vacation on the Mexican Riviera, Mattie sees it as an opportunity to recover from the death of her beloved birds. She's also hopeful it's an indication Simon's reconsidering his priorities. She didn't realize while on vacation he'd want to attend the Conference of Indigenous Peoples in Chiapas. Mattie's annoyed but decides to indulge her passion and do some tropical bird watching rather than attend a boring conference.

But Simon's conference turns out to be anything but boring when a deadly firefight erupts between the Mexican Army trying to arrest suspected terrorists and revolutionary Zapatista's.

Now Simon is missing, and Mattie is determined to find him, but to do so she must first escape being kidnapped by corrupt Mexican police and avoid abduction by vicious cartel members.

The fourth book in The Mattie Saunders Series, The Bird Witch combines romance and action with environmental themes for an exciting exploration of contemporary culture and issues.

"Fantastic voice! Great writing...great discovery!"
- Bryan Fagan, author of Dempsey’s Grill

"A great book. The characters are believable and relatable... makes me want to go back and read the other three!"
- Laurie Ingebritsen, author of Unexpected Healers

"Great book. Highly recommend."
" ...it is a joy to read a character that can make you feel so many different things but still enjoy her overall."
- Goodreads review by Industry

“If you’re tired of the same old romance “formula” books that all read identically then this book could be for you. “
- Clark Wilkins, author of Survive - Love and Murder in Alaska

"A very professionally written ecological thriller book."
- Tony Parsons

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FREE E-BOOK. JUNE 23 -27

The Bird Witch

Book 4 in The Mattie Saunders Series 

DOWNLOAD YOUR COPY AT

https://amazon.com/-/e/B003DS6LEU

Can you love someone whose worldview is different from yours? Who is committed to a cause that excludes you because of your race? Simon is an Indigenous person dedicated to the struggle for justice for First Nations people. Mattie loves him but is love enough?

Birds are dying. At the Saunders Bird Rescue and Sanctuary where rescued parrots abandoned by their owners are rehabilitated and re-homed, a deadly virus has them dying in Mattie's hands. In the midst of this outbreak, she's called to investigate a mortality event where dozens of starlings fly into the pavement as if committing suicide.

Mattie looks to Simon, her rock and refuge, for support, but after spending weeks at a remote protest site, as soon as he returns home he begins working with Wendy Walters, the attractive, ambitious Indigenous politician on her re-election campaign. Mattie's just about had enough.

When Simon proposes a vacation on the Mexican Riviera, Mattie sees it as an opportunity to recover from the death of her beloved birds. She's also hopeful it's an indication Simon's reconsidering his priorities. She didn't realize while on vacation he'd want to attend the Conference of Indigenous Peoples in Chiapas. Mattie's annoyed, but decides to indulge her passion and do some tropical bird watching rather than attend a boring conference.

But Simon's conference turns out to be anything but boring when a deadly firefight erupts between the Mexican Army trying to arrest suspected terrorists and revolutionary Zapatista's. Now Simon is missing, and Mattie is determined to find him, but to do so she must first escape being kidnapped by corrupt Mexican police and avoid abduction by vicious cartel members.

The fourth book in The Mattie Saunders Series, The Bird Witch combines romance and action with environmental themes for an exciting exploration of contemporary culture and issues.

"Fantastic voice! I'm not typically a "series" reader but loved this author's voice. Simon is an Indigenous native who struggles for justice for First Nations people. His character study is VERY interesting writing. Great writing...great discovery!" FIVE STARS

"A very professionally written ecological thriller book." FIVE STARS "

"... a great book. The characters are believable and relatable and continue to evolve as the story progresses. ...I didn't have to read the other three books in order to step into the main character's journey. Although, having read it, it makes me want to go back and read the other three! "...a great job of weaving the complexities of relationship into the story, and I could really feel the push-pull Mattie and Simon experienced between their desire for relationship and a need to pursue their passions."

"Great book. Highly recommend."

"Mattie, despite being severely flawed (on purpose)... her faults do not make it harder to root for her although, at times, it's easy to find yourself annoyed with her. ...it is a joy to read a character that can make you feel so many different things but still enjoy her overall." "Simon, was my absolute favourite character ... sweet and kind and endearing and patient and so well written" "One of the subplots in this book was romance and it was honestly so well done...interesting and refreshing and sweet."

"The writing ...was so nice, witty, and refreshing. I thought it was lovely."- Goodreads review by Industry

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I am not the intended audience for this book; I read it looking for something set in Papau New Guinea from which I would learn a bit about the country and its people, while the book seems intended for assignment in undergraduate anthropology classes as a supplementary textbook. It did fulfill my goal of learning about the lives of the Gebusi, a small tribe living in the rainforest of Papau New Guinea’s huge Western Province. On the other hand, it’s a shame that academic texts aren’t written or edited with the goal of satisfying the reader; the author’s goal seems to be more about teaching students about anthropology and the realities of ethnographic work than answering the reader’s curiosity. In other words, the gulf between this and popular ethnographies like $2.00 a Day or City of Thorns is huge.

Knauft is an anthropologist who initially lived with the Gebusi for two years, from 1980 to 1982, accompanied by his wife Eileen (whether she is also an anthropologist is unclear; though he discusses his feelings about developments among the Gebusi and relationships with individuals among them, this is definitely not a memoir). Despite sporadic contact with Australian officers, during the time that they colonized the country, the Gebusi at the time retained a very traditional culture, including a tradition of spirit mediumship, all-night dances and séances, and elaborate initiation rituals for young men. They were easily able to provide for their material needs with crops that require little effort in cultivation, and enjoyed leisure time and “good company,” along with a cultural flourishing that resulted from the Australians' subduing a nearby tribe with a habit of raiding their longhouses and massacring their people. But it wasn't an ideal life: while they had enough to eat, nutrition was poor, illness rife and few people made it to the age of 40; the society was patriarchal and women excluded from many aspects of it; and execution for sorcery was rampant. The Gebusi believed that all deaths were caused by humans, so deaths by sickness or accident led to sorcery inquests and often more death. Nevertheless, they weren’t the stereotype of a cannibalistic rainforest people (though there is cannibalism in their past): due process was important, including a waiting period after the death and finding a neutral spirit medium to preside over the inquest.

After his initial stay, Knauft returned to the Gebusi in 1998, at which point their culture was transformed: many had moved to a nearby town with an airstrip and government services. They converted to various forms of Christianity, sent their children to school, and gave up sorcery inquests and executions entirely. Men’s leisure time now revolved around local soccer leagues, while women sold produce (usually with little success) in the local market. The several tribes inhabiting the town mocked their own traditional cultures in Independence Day celebrations, and Gebusi practices such as dancing and initiation rites seemed to be dying out as young people attempted to embrace the modern world.

But then in 2008, everything had changed again: loss of funding meant government services had largely vanished, and the Gebusi were reviving their traditional culture, including building longhouses and conducting initiation rites; as they retained their land and ability to sustain themselves, they didn’t seem to miss the government or markets much. But spirit mediumship had died out, so that despite lingering suspicions of sorcery they were no longer able to conduct inquests, and many of the Gebusi continued to attend Christian services.

It is fascinating material, and the author seems to have made personal friends with many of the Gebusi and to respect them and their culture. He is aware of his own fallibility and works to distinguish unique incidents from those typical of the culture. And he spends enough time with Gebusi to get to know them and to be able to tell stories in context about incidents that occur in the community.

However, for all the author’s talk about how this is intended to be less formal and more personal than typical academic writing, and for all that the writing is clearer and more engaging than in most textbooks, the content is still basically that of a textbook. Sometimes its information is incomplete, as if the author has made his point and is ready to move on, regardless of whether readers have more questions. For instance, for all that Knauft mentions sorcery executions frequently, I still don’t know how most of these deaths occurred. Both in the book and on his website (which for some reason includes entire stories in pictures that aren’t in the book but deserved to be), he describes instances in which the accused is killed in the forest by a relative of the deceased, which the community accepts because of the “spiritual evidence” against the accused. How common is this, as opposed to public or formal executions? Is everyone given the opportunity to exonerate themselves via trial by cooking, or only some people? In one case described, the sorcerer purportedly comes from another village and the searchers lose the trail; is this unusual, or common?

In other cases, it can be vague in a way typical of academic writing, obscuring specifics behind general language. For instance, a boy and later young man with whom the author is close leaves his community due to “a dispute” and travels to the nearest city, where he works for two years. This is after he and his younger brother are orphaned when he’s about 12. Who raised the boys after that, and what was the dispute? These are human interest questions, but their answers also speak to Gebusi culture. And despite telling us about their terrible life expectancy in the early 80s, the author has nothing to say about how having and then losing a local medical clinic affected the Gebusi. Their lifespans are still much shorter than Americans’, but were there improvements?

And bizarrely, he mentions only on his aforementioned website, in a caption to a longhouse diagram, that rigidly separate sleeping areas for men and women mean that sexual relations happened in the rainforest rather than in bed. Doesn't this deserve to be in the book, rather than only the "alternative sexual practices" (i.e. adolescent boys giving blowjobs because swallowing semen was supposed to help them become men)? But in the book he does mention a couple caught having an illicit affair in a house, so maybe the rainforest sex only applies to those few families who actually live in the longhouse? Knauft isn't too shy to include a scene of a young man propositioning him, so why isn't this in the book?

Overall, I learned from this book, but I think it would be a little off-base for most non-academic readers (the “Broader Connections” bullet point summaries of key ideas in anthropology at the end of each chapter, with much bolded text, are definitely eyeroll-worthy). While it’s not as short as the page count would have it – there’s a lot of text on each page – it was worth my time.

Originally published at midureads.wordpress.com on December 22, 2017.

If you thought crafting a huge garden in the middle of a desert was a feat, you haven't seen nothing yet! The Green Planet brings the delights of a rainforest to Dubai. We visited it on our recent trip to the UAE and found it amazeballs! 

Below, I give you nine reasons you should hit the place next time you're in Dubai:

Children will LOVE the Alphabet Wildlife A to Z. Each letter is taught with Nata Romeo's unique and amazing style of artwork. The illustrations have detailed effects in pen and ink, Nata Romeo illustrates some in colored ink and others in black and white using shapes and intricate forms of line. Very unique and creative!
It will appeal to young readers as they meet animals from around the world.
Alphabet Wildlife A to Z is an easy reader and a perfect addition to school libraries and day cares.