Books Completed in April 2025

  Re-read: The Call of the Wild, Jack London
I read this first as a Whitman classic, back at a single-digit age. It's not a children's book, but I loved it: it was about a dog, a dog who survives the worst humans and nature can throw at him, and emerges triumphant.

I hadn't read it in a while, but found a lovely, illustrated copy at Barnes & Noble the other day. It's terrible and savage, but beautiful and wonderful, and I had forgotten so many brilliant passages. The story of Buck is timeless.

 The Science of Sherlock Holmes, E.J. Wagner
Sherlock Holmes was one of the first popular detectives to use what we now know as forensics, the science behind the evidence in crimes, from the Great Detective's study of bruising on bodies to his knowledge of tobacco ash. This book discusses real-life Victorian crimes that parallel crimes in the Holmes canon, from poisons to blood evidence, disguises on both sides of the law (the Crippen case is featured, of course) and the examination of crime scenes, ballistics and footprints, and more. For fans of the canon or of the history of forensics.

  Re-read: The Rock That is Higher: Story as Truth, Madeleine L'Engle
This was my Good Friday reading for this year; I usually just read until three o'clock comes, but this year, with the loss of my husband, I had to finish. L'Engle has been my soul-ease in bad times for years.

  Damn Glad to Meet You, Tim Matheson
Matheson, who started his acting career under his real name, Tim Matthieson, is probably best known for being (1) the voice of Jonny Quest and (2) "Otter" in Animal House. This is a jaunty (but occasionally serious) recollection of his career, including his sojourn in the Marines while in the middle of finishing the film Yours, Mine, and Ours.

Matheson, a familiar television face from when he first appeared as one of Beaver's friends on Leave It to Beaver, gives us a bird's-eye-view of the television and movie industry, including behind-the-scenes peeks at how acting, directing, and producing works. It's a lively narrative with lots of name-dropping, and never a bore.

  Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus
I was waiting for this book to come out in paperback.

I needn't have wasted my money. Elizabeth Zott is a brilliant scientist, but it's the early 1950s, and the misogynist scientists at the institute where she works want her to go back to the kitchen, get married, and have babies. Luckily, there's one scientist who appreciates her mind, brilliant but absent-minded Calvin Evans. They begin living together without benefit of clergy and Elizabeth is pregnant. A co-worker steals her work plus she's an unwed mother, so for many years she and her child struggle. However, a later, chance encounter at her daughter's school leads a harassed television producer to create a local cooking show for her, Supper at Six, where she not only teaches cooking, but the science behind cooking (kind of a female Alton Brown in the 1960s). It becomes a hit.

So basically it's Elizabeth Zott against the patriarchy of the 1950s at its worst. The absurd plot includes a dog named Six-Thirty who thinks and comments on events in the story, like Cleo the basset hound in The People's Choice, an old 50s television series. This is supposed to be an indictment against the prejudice against women in the workplace in the 1950s. Instead, it's just silly. The only interesting part is about Calvin and his past.

  Last Chance Books, Kelsey Rodkey
I enjoyed this new adult romance about Madeline Moore, who's off to university in the fall, but who looks forward to coming home after her education to run the family bookstore, Books & Moore, owned by her aunt Astrid, who brought up both Maddy and her half-brother Benny. Throwing a wrench in her summer plans: her peripatetic mother, Dahlia, who never stays around very long, is planning to return to town.

And then Prologue, a chain bookstore owned by the Hamada family, opens across the street, and Jasper, the youngest son, starts trying to steal Books & Moore's business. Next thing you know, it's a spite war between Maddy and Jasper, while secretly the two are attracted to each other.

The story not only touches on the romantic rivalry, but touches on the more serious themes of how parental neglect affects children and unlikely expectations.

Books Completed Since June 1

To anyone still reading this blog, I've realized in the last year or so I just don't have time to do the things I want to do and do big book reviews anymore. I still want to keep a monthly list of what I read and whether or not I liked it and if there was anything special about it, but I don't have time to do three/four/five paragraphs or more. So it's shorter stuff from now on.

 The Education of a Coroner, John Bateson
The story of Ken Holmes, who started out in the Marin County (CA) coroner's office as an investigator and later was elected head coroner. Marin County was very popular back in the 70s after a series of films; it's an expensive place to live and gorgeous, but is also home to San Quentin State Prison and has above-average drug overdoses and lots of suicides, mainly jumpers off the Golden Gate Bridge. Yeah, more of my reading spurred on by Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Lots of interesting facts here, like that government coroner's offices like to hire former mortuary workers (Holmes was one; they are used to death and know how to talk to families) and that the state coroner doesn't even have to be a medical doctor; a lot of time sheriffs are appointed coroner. Also liked this because there were lots of times the crimes didn't get solves and Holmes is straightforward about it.

  CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: Killing Game, Max Allan Collins
The seventh in a series of novels based on the series, and we're back to the intertwining plots. This takes place after asshole Conrad Ecklie broke the nightshift CSI team into two teams, one working nights, one working mids—and makes me wonder if Catherine ever sees her daughter Lindsay because she's always on overtime; I can't blame "Lindz" for becoming a handful as she got older. Grissom, Sara, and newbie Sofia get a case in an exclusive neighborhood, while Catherine, Warrick, and Nick investigate one in a shabby apartment, and once again Collins works his magic and the two crimes are connected. I think you'll twig to one of the baddies right away when an antagonist for Grissom is introduced, so I'll give you that spoiler straight up. Why? Well, that's what you get when you read the book.

  How to Speak Science, Bruce Benamran
Fun history of science, except after a while the author's constant jokes started to get on my nerves. We start with basic "matter" and work all the way through relativity. Your mileage may vary based on your tolerance for bantering narration.

  Love, Theoretically, Ali Hazelwood
Seriously, I am so glad after reading Hazelwood's books that I am not in academia. It sounds even more hateful than Congress. Elsie Hannaway is a physicist who's stuck in a teaching job, but hopes to go into research. To earn extra money, she acts as a fake girlfriend, but she discovers her favorite client's brother is the man who discredited her beloved mentor. It's only as she gets to know him that she finds out why he did so, and by then she's starting to like him. Likeable story, and a good sex scene, but, again, the politics of academia give me a rash. If this is what university instructor life is like, I'll work in a factory any day.

  Lost Providence, David Brussat
History Press' publication about the lost architecture of Providence, RI, my beloved "downtown." The buildings covered are even older than my memory; the building on the cover, the Butler Exchange, was razed to build the Industrial National Bank building, a.k.a. the Superman Building (it's not; that's Los Angeles City Hall) in the late 1920s. Covers some gorgeous buildings that were bulldozed for those ugly concrete and glass monstrosities (although luckily Providence didn't get anything as ugly as Government Center in Boston!). A delight if you like old buildings and architectural edifices and enjoy authors who aren't afraid to label ugly as ugly.

 Together We Will Go, J. Michael Straczynski
A surprisingly upbeat story about a group of people who plan to board a bus driving to California—and then drive off a cliff when they get there. The passengers are varied, but all are done with life, including Lisa, the bipolar woman on whom drugs have never worked and she's weary of having no friends due to going from calm to manic in seconds; Vaughn, the elderly man who was happily married but still holds a dark secret; and Karen, who has been in chronic, unforgiving pain all her life and can't bear it any longer. Like it or not, they bond to each other in a series of picaresque events as they cross country—and then the police chase begins. I wasn't sure I'd enjoy this, but I really did and was in tears by the end.