tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64398472024-03-20T23:39:56.796-04:00A Cozy Nook to Read InUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger431125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6439847.post-40893525090979654582024-02-29T23:17:00.368-05:002024-03-20T23:39:03.046-04:00Books Completed Since February 1<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The FBI</i>, Ronald Kessler<br />This isn't a history of the agency, but a book about the different departments of the Bureau and what each is responsible for (and sometimes not responsible for), with alternating chapters about each of the field offices and how they differ depending on the region of the country they're in. It's also pretty much the story of how the Bureau operates now, rather than during the reign of its first famous Director, J. Edgar Hoover.<br /><br />You'll find some great stories about FBI busts, but a lot more about eccentricities, including a director so thick he was known as "Cement Head" and a New York agent who expected discounts for everything. You'll discover that the Miami office is known as "the Super Bowl of crime," that the famous BAU is hideously understaffed despite the popularity of television shows like <i>Criminal Minds</i>, and that there's a London field office everyone would like to be assigned to.<br /><br />A large part of the end of the book recounts Kessler's investigation into irregularities in the business dealings of FBI director William Sessions and how it brought about his eventual resignation.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Personal Librarian</i>, Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray<br />This is a novel based on the fascinating life of Belle da Costa Greene, who for most of her life was the personal librarian for the banker/collector J. P. Morgan, who was obsessed with creating a personal library that contained the rare manuscripts of the world, including a jewel-encrusted Gutenberg Bible and an extremely rare Caxton Bible. But Belle had an amazing secret kept all her life: her real name was Belle Marion Greener. Her father Richard Greener was the first Black graduate of Harvard and tireless fighter for civil rights. However, both he and his wife were light-skinned and she decided that she did not want her children being discriminated against. So Belle and her sisters and brother were brought up in a white world (Belle and her brother's slightly darker skin was explained by "a Portuguese grandmother"), "passing," and wondering every day would be the day they would be outed to a world of hatred and distrust.<br /><br />Benedict and Murray have written an incredible tale about a talented and forward-looking woman who was a self-made expert in rare books and who bought some incredible treasures for the Morgan library—indeed, Morgan and several members of his family considered Belle a treasure and an asset—one of the finest private libraries ever assembled.<br /><br />For Belle's true story: <i>An Illuminated Life</i>.<br /><br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Book Lovers</i>, Emily Henry<br />Nora Stephens loves books, but she loves her sister (who she's cared for since their mother died, despite the fact that Libby is married and already the mother of two) more. So she's kept her job as literary agent and taken no chances with a personal life. When she sends a favorite client's new manuscript to one of the best editors in the business, the icy Charlie Lastra, he tells her the book is unrealistic. It's set in Sunshine Falls, NC, a sweet little small town that just happens to be the place her sister wants to spend a little "sisters only" time. The protagonist of the new book is also based on Nora.<br /><br />Indeed, the sisters find out Sunshine Falls is a lot different, but the same, as it was portrayed in the manuscript. For one, guess who's working there: Charlie Lastra: it's his hometown and he's trying to keep his ill father's bookstore afloat. And she finds out Libby is trying to make a perfect Hallmark romance for her.<br /><br />And that maybe Libby and her husband are keeping secrets from her.<br /><br />This book reminds me of <i>Check & Mate</i>, which I read later in the month: a woman protagonist who makes the decision to take all the family responsibilities on herself, putting her life on hold for the sake of everyone else. Charlie does the same thing. It's irritating. So is Libby's habit of calling Nora "Sissy." However, Sunshine Falls is kinda charming. But...no wifi? Not going.<br /><br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> The Improbable "Meet Cute" Collection:<br /><i>The Exception to the Rule</i> by Christina Lauren<br /><i>Worst Wingman Ever</i> by Abby Jimenez<br /><i>Rosie and the Dreamboat</i> by Sally Thorne<br /><i>Drop, Cover, and Hold On</i> by Jasmine Guillory<br /><i>With Any Luck</i> by Ashley Poston<br /><i>Royal Valentine</i> by Sariah Wilson<br />Six novelettes for Valentine's Day. My favorite was the Jimenez piece involving a woman nursing her terminally ill grandmother, and the man who starts leaving her notes after leaving her the wrong note. <i>Rosie</i> was my next favorite, even if it did involve someone being trapped in a sensory deprivation tank! I wish there had been a warning involved. My least favorite was probably the princess one because it was a cliche.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Agent Josephine: American Beauty, French Hero, British Spy</i>, Damien Lewis<br />I knew Josephine Baker only as a talented African-American singer and dancer who fled the racism of the United States and adopted France as her home, where she was lauded and lionized in the 1920s-1930s.<br /><br />I had no idea of her role in the war effort during World War II! Teamed chiefly with Maurice Abtey, a daring and fearless veteran of the previous war, Baker not only used her own funds to keep fellow French citizens alive with food and clothing, but ran spy missions as she gave performances around Europe for morale purposes. Secret messages were hidden in her musical scores, and sometimes she was just hours ahead of enemy forces. At one point she almost dies while on a mission.<br /><br />This book is fascinating when it concentrates on Josephine's life and spy work. However, the author admits there is limited material about this, and many facts are repeated multiple times. So only half the book is about Josephine, the rest is about France's spy network, how it worked, all the agents involved, etc. If a person involved in the spy network is introduced as part of Josephine's story, you learn their entire history, what they did for the resistance, and what happened to them. All these facts formed an interesting framework to Baker's story, but if you're reading the book just for Baker herself, the story could have been told in half the pages.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Be Still My Heart</i>, Emily McIntire and Sav R. Miller<br />This is a mystery thriller co-written by the author of <i>Hooked</i>, and while the romance isn't as dark, it's a pretty intense ride both plotwise and sexually.<br /><br />Lincoln Porter is a lobsterman trying to keep the family business on Skelm Island, Maine, afloat, still embittered by the death of his best friend when he was eleven years old. He's also busy trying to referee between his sister and her police officer husband, who helps Lincoln on his boat. But when Lincoln finds a dead body in one of his lobster traps, two mainland police officers are dispatched to the island to assist the understaffed Skelm police force: Andy Lopez and his partner Sloane, a profiler who's still under psychiatric care after being kidnapped by a serial killer. Lincoln and Sloane immediately start striking sparks off each other, and not just because she's investigating him as a murderer.<br /><br />Sex and suspense whet off each other as Sloane tries to piece out the string of murders that occur, as well as bringing some very nasty Skelm secrets to the fore. Enjoyable as both a dark mystery and steamy romance.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Zero Through Lazy Eight: The Romance of Numbers</i>, Alexander Humez, Nicholas Humez, Joseph McGuire<br />Yeah, I do occasionally read math books. This one is about numbers, from zero through thirteen and then the "lazy eight"=infinity, and how each of them have effected literature and history. What did they do before zero was a placeholder? Why is seven a "lucky number"? What's special about prime numbers, Fibonacci series, pi, and more?<br /><br />Yes, some of the text wanders into algebra and other mathematics concepts that make my eyes cross. Still a lot of fun to read.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Check & Mate</i>, Ali Hazelwood<br />Mallory Greenleaf's father taught her chess at an early age, and she was outstanding at it. But at age 14 she gave up chess and her winning streak after her father left home, instead concentrating on her family. Since her mother is ill, she gives up college to work to support them. But when she has a chance to win some badly-needed money to keep the family afloat, she returns to play one more chess match—ends up beating the current young rising star chess champion Nolan Sawyer. The money is too good, her family needy, so Mal is back in competition, trying to keep her participation secret from her mother and younger sisters.<br /><br />I guess I don't understand the obsession with chess. I was also a bit infuriated with Mallory's mother. Yes, I understood she was chronically ill with arthritis, but couldn't she notice how Mallory was stressed? It's only at the end she admits she noticed! And her sisters are totally obnoxious. Why doesn't her mom discipline them? Just because she has RA doesn't mean she can't keep them in line. They harass Mallory and the older of the two is a complete brat. Nolan, who's supposed to be "the enemy," is the nicest person of the bunch, as well as Mallory's offbeat mentor Oz.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Devil and Sherlock Holmes</i>, David Grann<br />This is a collection of factual stories about people whose interests often bordered on obsession. The opening story gives the collection its title: about the mysterious death of a Sherlock Holmes aficionado whose massive collection lacked one particular item. One of the oddest stories is about Steve O'Shea, a marine biologist who continues (at least at the time of Grann's article) to look for a young giant squid to observe in captivity. He spends most of his time searching for baby squid or diving for them. Another is a very scary story about the sandhogs digging a third water supply for New York City since the first two cannot be turned off any longer due to the age of the equipment!<br /><br />The creepiest story in the collection may be the one about the Aryan Brotherhood, which began in maximum security prisons as a racist organization, but which is now a well-organized association for protecting—and punishing—prisoners and their families. All of them are worth reading, about twelve very different people/groups in a dozen different situations.<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6439847.post-90418750480421154072024-01-31T23:07:00.274-05:002024-02-20T23:07:07.374-05:00Books Completed Since January 1<p><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2024/01/decades-of-christmas.html"><i>A Hertfordshire Christmas</i>, compiled by Margaret Ashby</a><br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2024/01/is-there-santa-claus.html"><i>'Twas the Night Before</i>, Jerry B. Jenkins</a><br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2024/01/christmas-as-it-was.html"><i>A Shropshire Christmas</i>, compiled by Lyn Briggs</a><br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2024/01/on-eve-of-three-kings-day.html"><i>Christmas in Puerto Rico</i>, World Book Encyclopedia</a><br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2024/01/ending-with-ideals.html"><i>Ideals Christmas 2023</i>, Ideals Publications</a><br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Obsession</i>, John Douglas and Mark Olshaker<br />FBI profiler Douglas, author of the popular <i>Mindhunter</i> (made into a Netflix series) once again delves into the criminal mind in this thick paperback filled with true stories of rapists, stalkers, and murderers. The depravity of some of these criminals will nauseate you, especially "big strong men" who murder children. In this volume, Douglas addresses some infamous serial killers like Ted Bundy and celebrity killers like Mark David Chapman, and also stories of celebrities who have been stalked and killed, like Rebecca Shaeffer, a rising young actress who was the front-runner for a role in <i>The Godfather</i> when she was killed by a "fan" obsessed with her. Some of the criminals seem to have been mentally disturbed since childhood (Ted Bundy sounded particularly creepy), others became twisted due to child abuse or mental illness. Some of them work silently, some taunt the police and wish to match wits with them. All are incredibly mind-bending.<br /><br />There are also touching and painful chapters from the point of view of the victims' families: their grief, certainly, which broke up many of the families, but more importantly their fight for justice. One murderer beat off punishment for several decades because his attorney kept filing appeals. Douglas also speaks to counselors who have tried to help victims' families, who find it a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week avocation.<br /><br />Not a book to be read at bedtime!<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Vanderbeekers on the Road</i>, Karina Yan Glaser<br />
Sixth in the series and follows directly after the previous book: the Vanderbeeker kids (twins Isa and Jessie, only boy Oliver, Hyacinth the compulsive knitter, and little Laney), Mama, Mr. Beiderman (their landlord) and his ward Orlando, and the Vanderbeeker pets, including their big Basset hound and the two cats they're taking to Aunt Penny in California, are bundled into a van and making their way cross-country to pick up Papa Vanderbeeker in Indiana where he's helping a friend and then continue to California to take the road trip Papa's father never got to take with him. Along with way they get adopted by a chicken, stay at a spooky campground, make farm friends, see the sites, suffer from summer heat, and have engine trouble.<br /><br />But something is bothering little Laney: she understands that both Jessie and Orlando are going to try out for a scholarship at a college in <i>California</i>. To fearful Laney, this means breaking up the Vanderbeeker family. So for the rest of the trip, Laney, and soon her helper siblings, are going to try to prevent that from happening!<br /><br />There's also a subplot with Mr. Beiderman that's nifty for a children's book.<br /><br />My only puzzle about this book is how you fit six kids (three of them teens!), three adults, a bunch of animals, and <i>all that luggage</i> into "Ludwig Van." It must be a TARDIS!<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Boys</i>, Ron Howard and Clint Howard<br />Ron and Clint share their memories of growing up in Hollywood and acting in this fast-moving memoir that always holds your attention. Ron—back then "little Ronny Howard"—experienced mostly positive vibes behind the scenes in the movies and television he did. He became fascinated by "behind the scenes," which eventually led him into directing. He also met his wife (they're still married) as a teenager and his mind never changed about her, despite his practical parents' efforts to dissuade him. Clint also had generally positive experiences, if his parts were a little different: his first role was as an alien on <i>Star Trek</i> and people still recognize him for that. However, where Ron went on to direct, Clint lost direction after parts disappeared and had problems with alcohol and substance abuse, which he finally conquered. We also gain insights into parents Rance (born Harold Beckenholdt) Howard, longtime character actor, and Jean Speegle Howard (she played Jim Lovell's mom in <i>Apollo 13</i>).<br /><br />Throughout the narrative, the brothers support and tease each other until the end, and the result is a warm, wonderful book.<br /> <br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Adventures of Ellery Queen</i>, Ellery Queen<br />I loved the 1975 retro series and bought a couple of the books, especially those around the character of Inspector Queen, but I'd never read any of the short stories until I received this book as a gift (thanks, Rodney!).<br /><br />In the beginning, Ellery Queen was the erudite, well-dressed young man-about-town who was usually called in by his practical police inspector father on perplexing cases. Of course young Ellery spots the elusive clue that no one else saw and solves the crime. The stories themselves are snapshots of the 1920s and 1930s in which they were written, and the mysteries suitably confounding. I'm very glad to have met early Ellery! (Note: the last story in this book was adapted as an episode of the 1975 series.)<br /><br />("Ellery Queen" the author was a pseudonym adopted by Frederic Dannay and his cousin Manfred Lee. Apparently the cousins had an adversarial relationship, but they sure could write a mystery story!)<br /><br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Forensics: What Bugs, Burns, Prints, DNA, and More Tell Us About Crime,</i> Val McDermid<br />Newspaper maven and crime author McDermid offers this very readable book about the different aspects of forensics, from the basic crime scene to specifics like entomology (for you <i>CSI</i> fans, Dr. Gil Grissom's specialty), pathology, fingerprints, DNA, and others, even profiling (which she doesn't seem to be fond of). Well illustrated with British case studies and photographs, and enjoyable if you're a fan of crime series or just curious about how forensic evidence helps law enforcement.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Business or Pleasure</i>, Rachel Lynn Solomon<br />Oh, dear God, thank you! A rom-com populated by <b>adults</b>. And three of the four parents are <b>supportive</b>. I may have to get Solomon's other books.<br /><br />Chandler Cohen is upset after the celebrity "author" of a best seller that she actually ghost wrote for the woman doesn't even recognize her at the book signing (and can't even spell her name correctly). She's just lost her long-term boyfriend, so she takes a chance and has a one-night stand with a handsome guy she meets at a bar. The sexual experience that follows is underwhelming because while her partner is nice, he knows nothing about foreplay or pleasing his partner. So she's at a particular low when her agent offers her a new ghostwriting project: helping former television star Finnegan Walsh write a book. Guess what: Finn is the inexperienced guy who she shared her bed with!<br /><br />So they strike up a deal: Chandler will write the book and she will also give him seduction lessons with the proviso that said lessons are just business.<br /><br />Well, this is a rom-com; of course it doesn't stay that way. The two characters are very charming, and it's set against a background of books and science-fiction conventions (Finn's television character was the human friend of some werewolves who attempted to navigate college life). There are thankfully <b>no</b> goofy gay character (there are non-cis characters, but they're <b>real,</b> ordinary people, not funny goofballs) and all the parent characters who appear are not mustache-twirling villains. Both lead characters have weaknesses and problems, but they never drag you down. A plus: Jewish characters!<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Rivers of London: Here Be Dragons</i>, Ben Aaronovitch, James Swallow, Andrew Cartmell, José María Beroy<br />Always good to have a new "Rivers" story, whether it be written or in graphic form. This one <b>begins</b> with a helicopter crash, and the story only gets wilder from there: elves slumming it in the real world, a police helicopter crew with different outlooks on the supernatural events they're seeing, a rock-music busker and his old friend the roadie—not to mention the "dragon" and Jimi Hendrix! Even Peter Grant's cousin Abigail and one of her fox friends get in the action. Beverley and the twins have a cameo, and Peter even asks his dad for help.<br /><br />Only thing wrong with this story: No "Tales from the Folly"!<br /><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6439847.post-61608066618442769852024-01-01T12:42:00.006-05:002024-01-01T12:44:21.539-05:00Book Challenges<p>Last year I did this book challenge:<br /><br /><img alt="" class="wp-image-4437" data-attachment-id="4437" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-caption="" data-image-description="" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="2023-book-challenge-2" data-large-file="https://spineandleafbooks.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/2023-book-challenge-2.png?w=683" data-medium-file="https://spineandleafbooks.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/2023-book-challenge-2.png?w=200" data-orig-file="https://spineandleafbooks.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/2023-book-challenge-2.png" data-orig-size="1000,1500" data-permalink="https://spineandleafbooks.com/free-downloads/2023-book-challenge-2/" height="640" src="https://spineandleafbooks.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/2023-book-challenge-2.png?w=683" width="427" /><br /><br />I had done Spine & Leaf's 2022 challenge as well. In 2022 I did 30 of the 50 prompts. This year I did 38 prompts, and added two of my own: a book out of my comfort zone (Emily McIntire's <i>Hooked</i>) and a book on a topic I have no interest in (Victoria Finley's <i>Fabric</i>).<br /><br />I found one I think I can manage for this year; I already have books lined up for "set on a different continent" (<i>Revenge in Rubies</i>), "book about a road trip" (<i>The Vanderbeekers on the Road</i>) and more:<br /><img alt="https://i0.wp.com/www.readwithallison.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/2024-Reading-Challenge.jpg?resize=1187%2C1536&ssl=1" class="shrinkToFit" height="640" src="https://i0.wp.com/www.readwithallison.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/2024-Reading-Challenge.jpg?resize=1187%2C1536&ssl=1" width="495" /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6439847.post-73762011849433643162023-12-31T23:44:00.002-05:002023-12-31T23:44:00.130-05:00A "Baker's Dozen" of Favorite Books for 2023<p>and three honorable mentions:</p><p><i>The McMasters Guide to Homicide: Murder Your Employer</i>, Rupert Holmes (fiendish convoluted plot follows three people at a "school for murder" with good reason to "off" their boss)<br /><br /><i>True North: Travels in Arctic Europe</i>, Gavin Francis (from Shetland all the way to Svalbard, a fascinating tour of the northlands; hey, it's me—you didn't expect me to read about gross tropical places, did you?)<br /><br /><i>Eleanor and Hick: The Love Affair That Shaped a First Lady</i>, Susan Quinn (Mrs. Roosevelt and the hard-hitting reporter who let the country know about the realities of the Depression)<br /><br /><i>Did I Ever Tell You This?</i>, Sam Neill (Neill's folksy and informal memoir; like chatting with the chap at a pub)<br /><br /><i>The Bluebird Effect</i>, Julie Zickefoose (memoirs of a bird rehabilitator, with Zickefoose's stunning watercolors of birds and landscapes)<br /><br /><i>Revolutionary Roads</i>, Bob Thompson (touring American Revolutionary War historic sites, with the stuff you never learned in history class)<br /><br /><i>Marmee</i>, Sarah Miller (the diary of Mrs. March from <i>Little Women,</i> the flip side of the classic book)<br /><br /><i>Life on the Mississippi</i>, Rinker Buck (travels on a flatboat down the mother of rivers; before interstate trucks and the railroad, the rivers and their flatboats were the lifeline of the U.S.)<br /><br /><i>Together We Will Go</i>, J. Michael Straczynski (a busload of like-minded people, headed for suicide doesn't sound very appealing, but this book is ultimately life-affirming and will make you cry)<br /><br /><i>The Electricity of Every Living Thing</i>, Katherine May (May's journey to understanding her autism)<br /><br /><i>In the Company of Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon</i>, edited by Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger (if just simply for three stories, including the one where a protagonist reminds me of Robert Goren)<br /><br /><i>Travels With George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy</i>, Nathaniel Philbrick (Philbrick and his wife, and sometimes their dog, follow George Washington's tour of the United States during his Presidency)<br /><br /><i>Fabric</i>, Victoria Finley (I hate sewing, but I love V. Finley; typically, this was magic!)<br /><br /><b>Runners-Up</b><br /><br /><i>Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of </i>Little Women<i> and Why It Still Matters</i>, Anne Boyd Rioux (is Alcott still relevant? damn straight she is!)<br /><br /><i>Creatures of the Kingdom</i>, James Michener (a compilation of the nature chapters from Michener's epic novels)<br /><br /><i>The Secret History of Christmas Baking: Recipes & Stories from Tomb Offerings to Gingerbread Boys</i>, Linda Raedisch (who knew gingersnaps and fruitcake could have such historical ancestry?)<br /><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6439847.post-73308449743479349972023-12-31T23:09:00.033-05:002024-01-01T12:50:33.578-05:00Books Completed Since December 1I read only Christmas books during December, so they are all listed in my fall and winter blog "Holiday Harbour."<br />
<br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2023/12/behind-scenes-at-christimas-favorite.html"><i>Charlie Brown's Christmas Miracle: The Inspiring, Untold Story of the Making of a Holiday Classic</i>, Michael Keane</a><br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2023/12/christmas-in-forest-of-dean.html"><i>A Forest Christmas</i> compiled by Humphrey Phelps</a><br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2023/12/scrooge-pickwick-and-other-fellows.html"><i>Dickens' Christmas</i>, compiled by John Hudson</a><br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-belgian-detective-sees-it-through.html"><i>Hercule Poirot's Christmas</i>, Agatha Christie</a><br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2023/12/romance-for-christmas.html"><i>Lovelight Farms</i>, B.K. Borison</a><br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>'<a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-famous-history-of-famous-poem.html">Twas The Night: The Art and History of the Classic Christmas Poem</a></i><a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-famous-history-of-famous-poem.html">, written and compiled by Pamela McColl</a><br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2023/12/heartwarming-essays-and-short-stories.html"><i>Fifty Years of Christmas</i>. edited by Ruth M. Elmquist</a><br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6439847.post-89936147067830188452023-11-30T23:48:00.206-05:002023-12-26T21:33:09.446-05:00Books Completed Since November 1<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Battle of Ink and Ice</i>, Darrell Hartman<br />On September 1, 1909, Dr. Frederick Cook announced he had reached the North Pole on April 21, 1908. He immediately cabled the <i>New York Herald,</i> which had already underwritten other explorations--it was James Gordon Bennett who had sent Henry Stanley on his search for Dr. David Livingstone. In April of 1909 Robert Peary claimed he had reached the North Pole first; <i>The New York Times</i> took up his cause.<br /><br />This is the story of "the race for the pole"--and also the rise of New York newspapers from reporting the news to actively <i>making</i> news: sponsoring or even initiating events like Stanley's search for Livingstone, the Spanish-American War, and polar exploration. It's a study of James Gordon Bennett, the editor of the <i>Herald</i>. bon-vivant and not usually in the United States, and Adolph Ochs, the southern native who bought the <i>Times</i> on credit and developed the reputation it has today.<br /><br />If you think "fake news" is a new thing, this book will disabuse you of that opinion immediately. More truth: neither Cook nor Peary ever reached the North Pole (although it appears Peary got closer than his opponent), and neither of them come off as sterling people in this recounting of the history; heck, even the National Geographic Society comes off as rather shabby. A sobering look at how publicity and money can corrupt.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Band of Sisters,</i> Lauren Willig<br />During World War I, a group of Smith College graduates, organized by a tireless alumnus, volunteered to go into the war zone that was Europe, to help in some way: go to villages and bring books, education, helping hands, food, and any other succor they can manage. Surely as college graduates they can manage these simple things!<br /><br />But when they hit the battlefields, meet the people displaced by combat, and their supplies are delayed or don't come at all, they are forced to rely on teamwork, grit, and invention to help the children and women they have bonded with and have made promises to. It's also the story of the conflict between scholarship student Kate and wealthy, open-hearted Emmie, who had been best friends at Smith until some of Emmie's patronizing friends made Kate feel like a charity case.<br /><br />This is based on a true story, told in a book written by one of the Smith graduates after the end of the Great War. I really enjoyed it more than I thought it would.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Hooked,</i> Emily McIntire<br />This was my first foray into "dark romance" and I'm not sure I'll be back. The sex scenes certainly are...spicy and graphic, though.<br /><br />This is a riff off Barrie's <i>Peter Pan</i> in McIntire's "Never After" series (all based on fairy tales), in which James "Hook" Barrie runs a criminal drug empire along with his mentor, Ru, and has already killed the uncle who raised him, who he hated. Soon he meets a desirable young woman in his club, Wendy Michaels, who he discovers is the daughter of wealthy businessman Peter Michaels, someone Hook hates as much as he loathed his uncle, so he plans to seduce and discard her as a thumb of the nose to his enemy. But instead he finds himself falling for Wendy and starts to believe she loves him, until she appears to have betrayed him.<br /><br />No soft-soaping here: there are murders, torture, drug use, child abuse, rough sex, the works. If you feel like dipping a toe in, feel free, but know what you're getting into.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Lyra's Oxford</i>, Philip Pullman<br />Pullman has written about a half dozen short stories as companions to his "His Dark Materials" trilogy. This is a 2021 special edition of the first story with illustrations by Chris Wormell, in which Lyra tries to help a raven that is to lead her to a certain alchemist. The illustrations carry this story; it's worth having just for the art.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Fabric, </i>Victoria Finlay<br />I hate sewing. I don't even like hemming pants. Occasionally I do hem things, or darn holes. So why did I buy this book? Well, because it's Victoria Finlay and I loved her books about <i>Color</i> and <i>Jewels</i> so much that I knew I'd love her writing if nothing else.<br /><br />I loved this book, which tells of Finley's travels around the world to trace the history of the fabrics human beings have been using to cover themselves for hundreds of thousands of years, starting with the simplest, barkcloth, where Finley meets some of the last women in the world who still make the traditional item and utilize the original designs. Cotton, wool (and tweed), linen, silk, and others also get their due as we follow Finley around the world: Micronesia, New Guinea, the birthplaces of the cotton empire, England's wool empire, India, the fairy-tale realm (where you find out Sleeping Beauty's spindle isn't what you think it is), and so much more, centuries of different cultures, customs, and designs.<br /><br />As she travels the world Finley also copes with the aging, illness, and death of both her parents. The combination of stories is unforgettable.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Killers of the Flower Moon</i>, David Grann<br />The Osage tribe of Indians were driven onto land that white men did not want late in the 1800s, where they kept to themselves and raised families. Then the discovery of oil and the need for petroleum products on their tribal lands made the Osage the wealthiest persons in the world (although the government felt they still had to be "looked after" like children). Until they began dying one by one. Until the deaths became so blatant that the newly-organized FBI and their dynamic new director J. Edgar Hoover took notice and sent a former Texas ranger, Tom White, to investigate.<br /><br />Told is a chilling tale of greed and white privilege in an era that treated Native Americans as incapable of conducting their own affairs.<br /><br />Grann has won book awards and the story he tells is compelling, but his narrative seemed a bit flat to me.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Dead Dead Girls</i>, Nekesa Afia<br />Louise Lloyd at sixteen was kidnapped, but was able to escape and bring other kidnapped girls home. Alas, she could never make her exacting father, a minister, happy by being the perfectly behaved daughter, so she lives in a rooming house with, among other people, her love Rosa Maria, and finds solace in dancing at Harlem's hottest dance venue in the 1920s, the Zodiac.<br /><br />Until she gets herself arrested and ordered by a white police officer that she will help them solve the murder of a Black girl that she knew—or else.<br /><br />Louise is a great, spunky heroine who's in over her head as an amateur investigator (and the police detective knows it). You sometimes want to tell her to wise up. You also feel for her and her love for her sisters, and her awkwardness with her rigid father. And although the author tries hard to give it a 1920s vibe, I never quite believed it took place during the Harlem Renaissance, and I guessed the murderer way too early.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2023/11/guising-and-other-traditions.html"><i>A Cornish Christmas, </i>Tony Deane and Tony Shaw</a><br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2023/11/guising-and-other-traditions.html"><i>Christmas Past</i>, Brian Earl</a><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6439847.post-10909244136453965442023-10-31T23:40:00.249-04:002023-11-19T22:44:12.641-05:00Books Completed Since October 1<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Creatures of the Kingdom</i>, James Michener<br />This is a compilation of all the nature and animal chapters from Michener's sprawling novels like <i>Centennial</i>,<i> Alaska, Chesapeke</i>, and more. I've been wanting it for ages and finally found it in a used book store. These sequences are always preludes to the human dramas of his books and I look forward to them. Some of his most memorable characters are Rufous the bison and the two competing water dogs in <i>Chesapeake.</i><br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Bride Test</i>, Helen Hoang<br />Damn, this book made me cry.<br /><br />Khai Diep is autistic, but all he sees is that he has no feelings. When his favorite cousin Andy dies, he doesn't cry, so he feels he is unfit for a "regular" life that includes falling in love and getting married. His troubled mother travels to Vietnam to find a woman she feels might change his mind. She returns with Mỹ—now known as Esme Tran—a young woman who cleans bathrooms to support herself, her mother, and her secret child. Esme will try to woo Khai, and his mother will pay for her summer in the United States. If it doesn't work, she will go home, at least, with some savings. Khai can't believe what his mother's done, and Esme will do just about anything to get this handsome young man to love her. Except surrender her principles.<br /><br />Everything about this book feels right: the young man who feels like an outcast because he can't seem to <i>feel</i>, the young woman who wants a better life, even the older brother who's desperate to help. A fulfilling romance read.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Murder Room</i>, Michael Capuzzo<br />This is the story of the Vidocq Society, founded by an FBI agent turned private eye (William Fleisher), a self-taught forensic artist (Frank Bender), and an eccentric profiler (Richard Walter): a group of professional crime fighters who get together once a month to take on cold cases of murder (others include people like Robert Ressler, the basis for the Jack Crawford character in <i>Silence of the Lambs</i> and a forensic pathologist, Hal Fillinger). It's an interesting book, first chronicling the three founders' initial interest in crimefighting and then going on to cover some of the more interesting cases the Vidocq Society had investigated.<br /><br />However, Capuzzo goes on and on about such things as Bender's "open marriage" (his wife allows him girlfriends, but he has to bring them home and she has to approve them). Bender weaves through this book like a forensic sculptor Hugh Hefner, constantly on the make. Richard Walter is described as precise and eccentric, a living embodiment of Sherlock Holmes, chain smoker, living in a Victorian home. He and Bender partner like oil and water, and if I'd heard him described one more time as "the thin man" I thought I was going to scream. The crimes are fascinating, but there should have been less focus on some private lives.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>A Curious History of Sex</i>, Kate Lister<br />I bought this for Valentine's Day, but only read it now. With tongue firmly in cheek, Lister takes us through the wonderful world of human sexuality, from a discussion of that four-letter word (not the "f word," but the "c word") to a history of the "boy in the boat" (the clitoris), whores, sexual racism, the "evils" of masturbation, sexual gland transplants, sex and food, vibrators and other sex toys, condoms...well, name it, it's here, and illustrated with many examples of Asian sex manuals, "French postcards," and erotic Victorian photography.<br /><br />Lots of fun to read.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Star Trek Strange New Worlds: The High Country,</i> John Jackson Miller<br />This was recommended to me by a friend who usually doesn't like tie-in novels. Thanks, Bill!<br /><br />Captain Christopher Pike, First Officer Una Chin-Riley, Science Officer Spock, and Cadet Nyota Uhura are testing out a new shuttlecraft to be used on Prime Directive landings. This will keep advanced technology away from planets that are being explored. But as "Eratosthenes" approaches planet FCG-7781 b, on which the Starfleet vessel "Braidwood" disappeared some years go, all her sensors go out and the ship loses power. The crew is evacuated safely, but each person lands in a different place: Pike near what looks like an old West town, Chin-Riley in a forest, Spock underwater, and Uhura near a volcano. What Pike discovers on the planet is incredible: humans from Earth transported from the 1800s and not allowed to progress technologically. But one of them isn't from that era; it's someone Pike knew back on Earth.<br /><br />This book is a sequel of sorts to a <i>Star Trek: Enterprise</i> episode called "North Star" in which Drayko and his people were introduced, but you need not have watched it. It's a corker of a good <i>SNW</i> story, with inventive plotlines for each of the missing characters (although Spock gets slightly short shrift), great worldbuilding, interesting original supporting characters, chase scenes along with thoughtful processes. Should not disappoint any <i>Star Trek</i> fan. <br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Witcha Gonna Do?</i>, Avery Flynn<br />Matilda "Tilda" Sherwood is a powerless witch—an outré—in a family of witchy overachievers. All of the other witches turn up their noses at her. (Think of her as Rudolph.) Even her presence on a dating service doesn't help, because the darn thing keeps matching her up with Gil Connolly, who she considers a jerk. Actually, it keeps happening because the Witch's council thinks Tilda is faking and keeps sending Gil to check her out. If he makes good on his investigation, they just might let his parents back from banishment. And then, somehow, even without power, Tilda manages to mess up one of her sisters' spells and quick freezes the whole family. The only hope: stealing a heavily guarded spell book. Who's gonna help? Gil, of course, because he's discovered Tilda's real secret (the one so secret she doesn't know about it).<br /><br />As opposed to the Asher book below, this is a much more whimsical book. I liked Tilda and Gil, but the whimsy got tiresome quickly.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Not Your Ex's Hexes</i>, April Asher<br />Another rom-com from Books-a-Million's clearance section, this is the second in a series about the magical Maxwell sisters, Violet, Rose, and Olive, who live in a world where vampires, werewolves, angels, demons, and witches live side-by-side with humans. The first book was about Violet; this volume is about Rose. When the story opens, Rose, her sisters, and her bestie Harper are trying to rescue two emaciated horses, not knowing they've already been rescued by veterinarian Damian Adams, half-demon. Rose, as the organizer of the rather illegal rescue, is given community service rather than arrest, service at Damian's animal rescue. Predictably, sparks fly, but Damian's keeping a secret: he can't fall in love because his ex-girlfriend hexed him. If he does, he'll lose his soul.<br /><br />I liked this much better than <i>Witcha</i>; the sister dynamic is fun, the animal work is cool, and the troubles Rose and her sisters have seem more realistic, but, as I notice other people complained about this book, these folks are supposed to be in their thirties, with responsible jobs. Most of them act more like lovesick teens or college students.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Better Hate Than Never,</i> Chloe Liese<br />This is book two in Liese's Wilmot sisters trilogy. I didn't like it as well as the first because Kate is just so <b>angry</b>. She says her parents loved her and Christopher back in their childhood was like a brother, but she never felt loved, but always like a third wheel because her parents had each other and Beatrice and Juliet were twins. The parents sound very supportive, so I don't understand the self-hate.<br /><br />The story: Kate, the youngest sister, grew up knowing Christopher Petruchio as a good friend, but they have always argued. Christopher, knowing her hostility, tried to keep away from her, but has always been attracted to her. When Kate comes home for Thanksgiving, not wanting to admit she's down and out, as well as out of a job, she immediately gets hostile to Christopher again and he responds in kind until Kate makes a drunken admission that she always thought he hated her.<br /><br />The absolutely best thing about this book is that near the end there is one of those romance story situations that almost always happens: "the misunderstanding." Almost, but it doesn't, because the characters <b>act like adults</b> and trust that they've heard the wrong thing. Thank you so much.<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6439847.post-53723118018497629462023-09-30T23:33:00.477-04:002023-10-05T23:38:16.618-04:00Books Completed Since September 1<p><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Dear Little Corpses,</i> Nicola Upson<br />This is the tenth book in Upson's "Josephine Tey" mysteries in which the writer (the real Tey's actual name was Elizabeth McIntosh; Upson writes of Tey as an original character who wrote McIntosh's novels) is enjoying a quiet stay in at the country cottage she inherited from an aunt in the village of Polstead with her lover, Marta. It is the day before World War II is declared and the village is preparing for the arrival of evacuee children from London. Unfortunately the buses arrive with more children than expected and in the chaos a little girl named Annie from the village vanishes. The longer the search goes on, the more dire the consequences appear to be. In the meantime, an eccentric family take on one little girl but refuse to take her 10-year-old brother, who is temporarily billeted with Josephine and Marta, who are in conflict when Marta's demanding director, Alfred Hitchcock, requires she come to Hollywood early.<br /><br />I love Upson's writing; she has the talent to make these mysteries sound as if they were written in the 1930s without the unfortunate racism and classism that was rampant at the time. This also captures the spirit of the day leading up to and then the days after Great Britain declared war on Nazi Germany, and the attitude of a small town preparing to take in frightened and bewildered children. The menace of secrets held within the village limits is also well portrayed. I really enjoyed this one.<br /><br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Border Crossings: A Journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway</i>, Emma Fick<br />This is the niftiest travel book I've seen in a long time. Fick and her "then-boyfriend, now-husband" Helvio, inspired by a used book about traveling the Trans-Siberian Railway, decide to do just that. They start in Beijing and end in Moscow. The unique thing about the book is that it's narrated in Fick's watercolor sketches and hand-lettered narrative. The whole thing is priceless...sketches of Mongolian nomads, Chinese train officials, countrysides, local houses, decorations, foods, passports, tickets, customs, animals, even the Moscow subway stations. It's fascinating, a real treat for the eyes.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Make-Up Test</i>, Jenny L. Howe<br />Picked this up off the remainder table in Books-a-Million and discovered with amusement that it was set in a fictional college in Rhode Island (and the protagonist is from Maine)—it even features the Jack O'Lantern Spectacular at Roger Williams Park in one chapter. Allison Avery and her ex-boyfriend Colin Benjamin find they're going to have to work together in graduate school. Allison's looking forward to talking about literature and especially with working with Professor Wendy Frances, but the thought of teaching a class has her flummoxed. A whole book about people who obsess about books! And although Allison is plus-sized, it's not mentioned on every page of the book but exists as an undercurrent of the difficult relationship she has with her father. No crazy gay friends; they're all sane here. And Professor Frances is a wonderful, supportive character.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Rediscovery of America</i>, Ned Blackhawk<br />An exhaustive scholarly history of how European exploration and settlement of North American, primarily the United States, ruined the thriving Native American settlements all over the continent. I was quite pleased to find an expansion of a history of the southwestern settlements like Acoma that Alistair Cooke touched on briefly in the second episode of his 1972 series <i>America</i>. Also enjoyed a further exploration of my home region of New England, if "enjoyed" can be properly used to refer to a narrative of steady betrayals and brutalities. I was also interested to learn of the contributions of Native American women like Laura Cornelius Kellogg and Elizabeth Bender Cloud in the fight for Native rights, since I had never heard any historical references to Native women, just modern ones like Wilma Mankiller. One must be strong-stomached to read the endless litany of broken agreements, unfulfilled treaties, and flat-out removals of indigenous people from the lands where their ancestors had fished, farmed, and hunted for ages, not to mention the terrible boarding schools and removal of children from their parents into foster care, where the kids were forbidden to speak about their heritage and they were often abused physically and sexually. Note that early settlement is covered more thoroughly than modern events.<br /><br />I did find a minor error in the chapter which talks about the popularity of Westerns on television/in movies in the late 1950s featuring stereotypical and more than often offensive Native characters. Blackhawk states that Disney's "<i>Peter Pan</i>...Americanized the English tale <i>Peter and Wendy</i> and incorporated Indian characters and music in its depiction of Never Never Land." The "Red Indians" (as the British called them) in <i>Peter Pan</i> were ported directly from J. M. Barrie's book, which I read for the first time only a few years ago. Tiger Lily and the other members of her tribe were already there in glaring racist display, with Tiger Lily talking in a horrific "Pidgin Chinese" manner, substituting "Ls" for "Rs" ("Velly velly good" and similar dialog). It was repulsive. The British were apparently fascinated by American and Canadian "savages" and loved to see them in adventure tales.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Truly, Madly, Sheeply,</i> Heather Vogel Frederick<br />This is the last of the Pumpkin Falls mysteries, according to the advertisement, and I will miss Truly Lovejoy, her ex-military family, and her new home in New Hampshire. It's a busy autumn for the Lovejoys: Aunt Truly is marrying her old sweetheart, and they're buying a dilapidated farm on which they plan to raise sheep to make specialty yarn, plus at school they're building catapults in science class for the annual pumpkin toss. But someone seems to be trying to drive True and Rusty off their farm, not to mention decorative pumpkins are disappearing all over town. It will take Truly and her friends to solve both mysteries. And what about the new boy in school? Will he take Truly's mind off her friend Calhoun?<br /><br />A couple of quibbles: What kind of fourteen-year-old still believes in haunted houses and ghosts, especially in a military family? And then there's the matter of the names of the sheep: One of the ewes (all but the ram named after famous women) is named "Frances" Scott Key? Couldn't another female historical figure have been found rather than turning a man's name into a woman's? Dolley after Dolley Madison, who saved the Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington? Sybil for Sybil Ludington who rode through the night to call the militia to help at the Battle of Ridgefield? Anne for Anne Hutchinson, who was a woman minister in Rhode Island who was persecuted because women weren't supposed to preach the gospel? Celia for Celia Thaxter, famous New England artist? Sheesh.<br /><br />This has the most beautiful cover of <b>any</b> of the Pumpkin Falls mysteries. I'd love to have a print of it to frame!<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Travels With George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy</i>, Nathaniel Philbrick<br />A delightful voyage with Philbrick and his wife (and their Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever Dora) as they retrace a tour of the entire United States as taken by George Washington by mostly carriage (but some by ship) between 1789-1791 to rally the states to accept the new Constitution. Like our first president, the Philbricks do the tour in stages following Washington's route via his journals and diaries, so it's a travelogue, a history of Washington's life, and a slice of life in post Revolutionary America all at once. I loved this book to death.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Ghost and the Stolen Tears,</i> Cleo Coyle<br />The eighth book in the "Haunted Bookshop Mystery" series taking place in the fictional Quindicott, Rhode Island. Jack Shepard, the New York private eye shot dead in the entrance to the old bookstore now owned by Penelope Thornton-McClure and her aunt Sadie. Penelope, a widow with a school-age son, returned to her hometown and revived the fading shop, is the only one who can see Jack's ghost, now haunting the store. Alas, in this outing, as in the seventh book, Jack has turned into a martinet again, talking too much slang and bullying Penelope. As always, Penny's travel "back in time" sequences via Jack's lucky nickel are the most interesting parts of the book, and her two buddies Seymour the postman and Brainert the professor get more annoying by the day. Oh, the plot has to do with a missing necklace and a nomadic woman who travels around in her trailer.<br /><i><br /></i><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Director: My Years Assisting J. Edgar Hoover</i>, Paul Letersky with Gordon Dillow<br />This is Letersky's story of being an assistant to the famous and sometimes infamous J. Edgar Hoover. Letersky is evidently a Hoover fan, although he's not silent about Hoover's likes and dislikes. One hears so much about Hoover's buddy Clyde Tolson, but in this narrative he's a tottery cranky old guy. The best part of his book are Paul's stories about Helen Gandy, Hoover's private secretary for over fifty years, and about his own career as an FBI agent.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>It Happened One Fight</i>, Maureen Lee Lenker<br />This book would be a lot shorter without the male and female protagonists constantly shoring up each other's egos once they finally begin talking to each other. It has its good parts—a lively 1930s based romance between Dash Howard (based on Clark Gable) and Joan Davis (based on Joan Crawford and Bette Davis), who find themselves married after a prank. So they go to Reno to make a film, after which they will be publicly divorced. But they've always had feelings for each other. and things don't go as planned.<br /><br />Lenker has a nice sense of the 1930s, and so many of the things the actors endured back then (including the casting couch and pleasing gossip columnists, even if the latter costs your soul). In the end, though, I felt a bit empty.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Pony</i>, R. J. Palacio<br />Silas Bird is an unusual 12-year-old. Some years earlier he was struck by lightning and survived. Brought up in a solitary cabin by his photographer father in the 1860s, one night rough riders abduct his father to help with some sort of project that will make him a fortune. His father tells him to wait at the cabin until he returns, but after two days he packs up and mounts the bald-faced pony the kidnappers had brought with them and then apparently escaped. The pony leads him—and his "imaginary companion" Mittenwool—to a wood where he teams up with a grizzled marshal looking for counterfeiters, and this is only the beginning of Silas' adventure. Silas is a very peculiar boy and I was irritated by the narrative at first, but the story soon becomes very compelling.<br /><br />Warning: some people have had problems with this story because there's a very subtle gay character in it. Big deal.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Best American Travel Writing 2021</i>, edited by Padma Lakshmi<br />I don't know what possessed me to buy this book after what happened in 2020...but I was pleasantly surprised! Many of the essays had to do with staying home during the pandemic and missing travel or discovering new things about staying at home, or what happened to travelers during the pandemic, like the first story about quarantine on a cruise ship "Mississippi: A Poem, in Days" and "Out There, Nobody Can Hear You Scream" are the two best, and most sobering, essays about Black travelers and the challenges they still face in America's tourist places. Deep sea diving, the residents of Las Vegas, bathhouses, traveling and suicide—I don't think I caught a bad essay here.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Heat Rises,</i> Richard Castle<br />This is the third in the series of "Nikki Heat" novels supposedly written by the author hero of the television series <i>Castle. </i>The stories are basically extended <i>Castle</i> stories with the characters' names changed and a couple of tweaks. Kate Beckett = sexy Nikki Heat, Richard Castle = magazine journalist Jameson Rook (Castle/Rook, get it?),
Captain Montgomery = Captain Montrose, Ryan and Esposito = Raley
and Ochoa, Laney Parish = Lauren Parry. (Rook's mom is also an actress, and has a part in this novel as well.) In this outing, Heat is called to a crime scene at a bondage dungeon where the victim turns out to be a priest. As she works on the case, she's supported by someone from "higher up"—until she gets too close to information no one wants revealed. Surprisingly complicated and nonstop plot includes a nail-biting chase through one of the tunnels under Central Park. Really enjoyed this one.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Yesterday's Britain: The Illustrated Story of How We Lived, Worked and Played</i>, by Reader's Digest<br />This is a delicious coffee-table sized book (a little over 300 pages) summing up the years 1900-1979 (with a brief coda to the end of the 20th century) in Great Britain starting with chat about the new century, through agonizing Edwardian fashions to the terror and carnage of "the Great War" to the sparkling Twenties that landed, like the United States in a 1930s crash, to explode into World War II.<br /><br />As usual with these books, I get bored once I get to the 50s with all the rock and roll and later hippie stuff, but it's all good with photos, pamphlets, maps, advertisements, and personal recollections. Found this at the library book sale. Would love if there was one for France...I wonder!<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Her Name, Titanic</i>, Charles Pellegrino<br />This is a nifty combination of a narrative of the voyage of the <i>Titanic</i> alternating with Pellegrino's interviews of Bob Ballard and the story of how Ballard and his crew found the wreckage of the doomed liner. Even if you've already read other <i>Titanic</i> books, Pellegrino's narrative of the night of April 14, 1912, is compelling and interesting, and even contains trivia I didn't know. The latter includes Pellegrino talking about his dad, who worked on the Minuteman missile program. There's an interesting parallel introduced by Pellegrino between the <i>Titanic</i> and the space shuttle <i>Challenger</i>, since both were done in by ice.<br /><br />Not your typical <i>Titanic</i> book!<br />
<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6439847.post-50702171003088551122023-08-31T23:09:00.177-04:002023-09-02T18:01:07.863-04:00Books Completed Since August 1<p><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Majic Bus: An American Odyssey,</i> Douglas Brinkley<br />I bought this at the book sale because I was writing a story about a cross-country book tour and it looked fascinating. It is fascinating, but sort of disappointing at the same time. The book chronicles a course Brinkley taught out of Hofstra University on a six-weeks' odyssey on a tour bus: "An American Odyssey: Art and Culture Across America." They visited not only historical sites, but cultural sites, visiting people like Bob Dylan, Ken Kesey, and William Burroughs. They rented a bus from a strange but manic man named Frank Perugi, who didn't even have the bunks for the students to sleep in when they first started out. The students didn't seem to mind, though, and they have some nifty adventures. It just bothered me that they seemed to concentrate so much on cultural figures who were drug users or frequently bombed on alcohol. <br /><br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>People We Meet on Vacation</i>, Emily Henry<br />Poppy Wright works at a travel magazine and comes from a happy, messy family; Alex Nilsen is a teacher and comes from a fractured one; they meet at college discovering they both come from the same home town. One year they drive home together and then for ten years they go, as friends, on a summer vacation together—until they give in to romantic feelings.<br /><br />Now Poppy feels dissatisfied: with her job, with her life, and realizes the last time she was happy was on her last vacation with Alex. So she invites him to take one more vacation to her, on what turns out to be a disastrous trip to Palm Springs, in hopes she can get him back. But even the course of friendship doesn't run smooth this time.<br /><br />Not quite as good as <i>Beach Read</i>, but enjoyable.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Book of Books,</i> text by Jessica Allen<br />This is the book PBS put out when they did "The Great American Read" (which I'm still pissed at because they didn't include <i>The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</i>). It includes summaries of all one hundred books covered in the specials, plus pullouts about banned books, literary terms, famous book characters, movie adaptations, book covers, and more. I got it on a remainder table. It's worth that.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Seven Year Slip</i>, Ashley Poston<br />I liked <i>The Dead Romantics</i> so much I tried this one, and while I didn't like it as much, it's a sweet story about book publicist Clementine West, who is devastated when her beloved Aunt Analea dies. She's inherited her aunt's New York City apartment, which her aunt once told her had a magical component, a pinch in time. Grief-stricken Clem finds consolation in her job at a publishing house which specializes in cookbooks and who's trying to obtain a new author, the brilliant chef James Ashton.<br /><br />And then one morning she wakes up to find a strange guy named Iwan in her apartment with a note from her aunt saying he's subletting the apartment for the summer while they're abroad, her aunt's old furniture back where it used to be, and a calendar saying it's seven years earlier. Iwan's time slip continues to pop in and out of Aunt Lea's apartment, and Clem becomes very fond of the young chef...and then more than fond.<br /><br />It didn't give me the "feels" as much as <i>Romantics</i>, but enjoyable all the same.<br /> <br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Unmasked: My Life Solving America's Cold Cases</i>, Paul Holes<br />As a kid, Holes loved the series <i>Quincy</i>, and that's what he finally decided to do for a living, work as a crime analyst in California. His single-minded devotion to his job cost him his first marriage; when he married a second time it was to a woman who also did crime work, so she could better understand him, but there were times even she was dismayed. Holes was there when Laci Petersen's body was found and knew there was foul play; he and a fellow officer were there when Jaycee Dugard was discovered, kicking themselves for having obvious clues. And he was the one who finally tracked down the infamous Golden State Killer, who turned out to be a police officer.<br /><br />This is the story of Holes' career, from his early days working in a makeshift lab to the final days until his retirement when he picks up the loose ends about Joseph DeAngelo, of sleepless nights spent away from his family because he was so obsessed over catching criminals. It's a fascinating insight of how one man worked, yet sad, too, because so many times he couldn't make the connection, and there were more victims.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Sign of Fear: A Doctor Watson Thriller</i>, Robert Ryan<br />Alas, this is the last of Ryan's wartime mysteries featuring Dr. John Watson, and, as the book opens, he is worried about his old friend Sherlock Holmes, who is in the hospital after suffering a heart attack. Soon, however, he is involved in two mysteries: who has kidnapped members of a wartime board of governors who will decide how much pensions for wounded soldiers will be, protesting that no amount of money is comparable to what they have suffered, and also in the disappearance of an evacuee ship called the <i>Dover Arrow</i>, which was carrying Watson's friend Staff Nurse Jennings. Plus the Germans are plotting a new incendary bomb that threatens to wipe out London.<br /><br />These are excellent, complex tales with grim wartime themes and this one is no exception; great reads, but the levels of violence are sometimes high—beware that as you go into them.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Usborne Science Encyclopedia<br /></i>This is ostensibly for older children, but I found it a great science refresher, starting with atomic structure and ending with the human body. It covers the elements, plant and animal life, electricity, geology, chemical reactions, and more. Plus the book contains QR codes which can be scanned to show additional videos about the subjects addressed.<br /><br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2023/09/sugar-and-spice-and-ancient-ways.html"><i>The Secret History of Christmas Baking,</i> Linda Raedisch</a></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6439847.post-72384567455157696882023-07-31T23:25:00.235-04:002023-08-05T18:51:23.072-04:00Books Completed Since July 1<p><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Boundaries,</i> edited by Mercedes Lackey<br /><i>Finally</i> found, having not seen it in any bookstore<i>, used!</i> A much better collection than the next book, <i>Shenanigans</i>. There are several excellent stories that take place in Karse, where anyone with "magical" powers are burned at the stake. There are installments in the running sagas of Lady Cera of Sandbriar, Sparrow and Cloudbrother, the Haven City Watch (this one "The Beating of the Bounds" is particularly good), and Nwah the kyree. Several of the stories involve healers or bards along with the famed Heralds, and a baker is the protagonist of one dangerous tale. All in all a satisfactory read for Valdemar fans.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Oh, Florida!,</i> Craig Pittman<br />It happens every day on the news: "Florida man" (or "Florida woman") does something bad, weird, way out, or hateful. Pittman, a Florida resident himself, pulls no punches talking about the crazy state of Florida politics, tourism, everyday living, land-rush past, Disneyfication, and anything else odd that happens in the "Sunshine State." (Me, I think they're all crazy with the heat and from the insect population.) Very funny book, but I'd find a used copy. Really, Florida isn't worth that much.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Something in the Heir,</i> Suzanne Enoch<br />Emmeline Hervey doesn't want to leave the home she was brought up in, Winnover, but her grandfather, the stuffy Duke of Welshire, requires the home to go to someone who's married and will have a family. She's known William Pershing since childhood, and knows he's tired of being "matchmade" with suitable women. So, to keep the family home, she offers Will a proposition: they will be married, and she will live her life and he will live his, and she will support his future endeavors in politics. And for eight years they live a satisfactory life, until her grandfather bids them come to his birthday celebration and bring their two children, two children Emmeline made up to make him happy. So they decided to "borrow" two children from the orphanage for a while, and teach them to act like own—except the eldest, George, is determined he and his five-year-sister won't go back. And then their older brother James shows up, determined to make money from the sham whatever way he can. A fun little book, although I wasn't fond of the initial lie that started the plot.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Electricity of Every Living Thing,</i> Katherine May<br />I really enjoyed <i>Wintering,</i> so I was eager to read this one, too. What a surprise to find it was a journey not only of her walk of the South West Coast Path, but one of personal discovery. She had always felt she didn't fit properly into the world, and then she heard a broadcast on the radio, in which a woman being interviewed talks about being on the autistic spectrum. May realizes that the woman's revelations mirror her own, and she spends some of the book trying to understand herself as well as getting a diagnosis. I was very surprised to recognize I had some of the same traits, in a more muted form. I also love the fact that May's husband, "H" as she calls him, has such patience with the challenges she has. I love the way he respects her feelings and tries to see things as she does, and understands that she loves him and their son, but has a hard time with dealing with elements of the modern world. The hiking bits are also lovely.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Hot and Sour Suspects,</i> Vivien Chien<br />Her best friend Megan convinces Lana Lee, now the manager of the family business Ho-Lee Noodle House, to host a speed-dating event at the restaurant. It works out well, too, except that their friend, Rina Su, who runs the Asia Plaza cosmetics shop, hooks up with a guy called Gavin Oliver. And very soon Oliver is murdered, and Rina is the chief suspect. It's the usual: Lana's police officer boyfriend tells Lana to keep her nose out of it, while Lana, Megan, and Kimmy Tran investigate behind the scenes. I think the killer eventually gives themself away in this outing, because it literally can't be anyone else.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Apollo 1: The Tragedy That Put Us on the Moon</i>, Ryan S. Walters<br />Early warning: only about half of this book is actually devoted to the fire and the aftermath. About half is a history of the early space program up to the fire. However, the half of the book about the fire is very interesting and ties in with the <i>From the Earth to the Moon</i> episode "Apollo 1." We have a lot of books about the Apollo missions and many of the astronaut biographies, but there were still things in this book that I didn't know about the fire, including the controversy about the Block I capsule, the animosity between Joe Shea and Harrison Storms, and the results of the fire investigation and the hearings, especially the Phillips report.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Golden Specific</i>, S.E. Grove<br />The sequel to the fanciful <i>The Glass Sentence</i>, in which "The Great Disruption" divided Earth into different time eras: the U.S. is "New Occident" which never went beyond 15 states; the British Isles are trapped in the medieval era, Canada is trapped in prehistory, and the Papal States rule under an Inquisition-like government. Sophia Tims, who in the previous book rescued the orphaned Theodore Thackeray, asks him to accompany her on the search to Ausentinia, where she believes her parents are located. But she ends up sailing to Europe alone on a strange odyssey while Theo becomes involved in the murder of a government official; the accused killer? Sophia's uncle Shadrack the mapmaker. Just as wonderful and fanciful as the first book. The conclusion is <i>The Crimson Skew.</i><br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Bones: A Forensic Detective's Casebook,</i> Dr. Douglas Ubelaker & Henry Scammell<br />Just what it claims to be: a true-crime book by a forensic pathologist illustrating how different crime evidence points out what happened to the victim. For instance, criminals many times burn bodies thinking they can destroy the evidence, but even the smallest clue left on a bone can tell the tale. Each chapter is about evidence found on a certain part of the body, or based upon a certain kind of wound. It's lengthy and kind of dry, but at the same time interesting.<br /><br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>In the Company of Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon</i>, edited by Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger<br />This is a collection of Sherlock Holmes-related stories that almost never puts a foot wrong. I was delighted, even if I felt as if the Ellison and Wilson entries were a bit disappointing considering what came before them. My absolute favorites in this volume: "The Adventure of the Laughing Fisherman" in which an at-sea young man takes his therapist's suggestion and gets into detection (maybe others figured out the twist in this one, but I didn't and was delighted), the stirring "Dunkirk" in which an elderly gentleman named Sigerson "does his bit," and "The Thinking Machine," in which the protagonist reminded me so much of Robert Goren on <i>Law & Order: Criminal Intent</i>. Also of note: a coda to the story of Silver Blaze, told by the horse himself, and an amusing tale recounting <i>The Hound of the Baskervilles</i> in the style of Facebook. The other stories are good, too. But those three!<br />
<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6439847.post-15610536252075270712023-06-30T22:17:00.134-04:002023-07-31T19:50:23.306-04:00Books Completed Since June 1<p></p><p></p><p></p><p>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.<br /><br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Education of a Coroner,</i> John Bateson<br />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 <i>Law & Order: Criminal Intent</i>. 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.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: Killing Game</i>, Max Allan Collins<br />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 <b>ever</b> sees her daughter Lindsay because she's <b>always</b> 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.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>How to Speak Science</i>, Bruce Benamran<br />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.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Love, Theoretically,</i> Ali Hazelwood<br />Seriously, I am <b>so</b> 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.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Lost Providence,</i> David Brussat<br />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.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Together We Will Go</i>, J. Michael Straczynski<br />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.<br />
<br /><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6439847.post-42439758285486032252023-05-31T23:30:00.376-04:002023-06-13T20:02:17.443-04:00Books Completed Since May 1<p><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>A Light So Lovely: The Spiritual Legacy of Madeleine L'Engle</i>, Sarah Arthur<br />Where else but here in the U.S. could a woman who wrote a book with deeply Christian themes be accused of being non-Christian because she talked about "witches" and "unicorns" since they are obvious symbols of the devil!<br /><br />But that's Madeleine L'Engle.<br /><br />Title is as it says: Arthur's examination of the ways L'Engle's faith shone in her storytelling, even if certain "Christians" said it wasn't "real" Christianity because she didn't adhere to their particular brand of Christianity. In fact, L'Engle and <b>C.S. Lewis</b> were both listed as authors who wrote <b>pornographic children's literature<i>.</i> </b>Seriously?<br /><br />Arthur isn't blind to L'Engle's faults, especially her disconnection between her family's memories of the past and her family as portrayed in her nonfiction, and that she couldn't really come to terms with her son's death from alcoholism. Enjoyable summary of L'Engle's portrayal of Christianity in her books and in her life.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Naked Heat,</i> Richard Castle<br />While the <i>Castle</i> series, which I loved except for the loathsome final season, was on, a series of tie-in novels were published supposedly written by "Richard Castle" (the actual author was mystery writer Tom Straw), both his superspy "Derek Storm" books and his later series "Nikki Heat."<br /><br />Basically the Nikki Heat books are <i>Castle</i> stories under a different name and a couple of tweaks. Kate Beckett becomes sexy Nikki Heat, Castle morphs into a magazine journalist Jameson Rook (Castle/Rook, get it?), Captain Montgomery becomes Captain Montrose, Ryan and Esposito are Raley and Ochoa, Laney Parish turns into Lauren Parry. Rook even has an actress mom; the only character missing is Alexis. The story begins when Heat, smarting over the article Rook wrote in the first book <i>Heat Wave</i>, is called to the murder of Cassidy Towne, a well-hated gossip columnist from the <i>New York Ledger</i> (the <i>Ledger</i> is also the newspaper that turns up in <i>Law & Order: Criminal Intent</i>). At Towne's apartment? Jameson Rook, who was doing a story on her.<br /><br />Of course a gossip columnist has a lot of enemies, so Heat has her job cut out for her: the suspects include a singer and a baseball player. She doesn't remain unscathed, either; she's assaulted and almost killed. Rook is driving her crazy for half the story, but their attraction remains unmatched. And what's going on with another murder victim who was found with a coyote standing nearby?<br /><br />Fun fluff, and good for <i>Castle</i> fans who were sorry the series ended on such a rotten note.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> Re-read: <i>Born Free,</i> Joy Adamson<br />I was ten and a half years old when the film <i>Born Free</i> came out. I was a passionate animal lover (heck, at that time I liked animals more than people) and saw every film that came out involving a dog, cat, horse, etc. The story, about a lion cub raised by a game warden and his artist wife in the African bush in the 1950s and then their efforts to teach her to hunt so that they could release her to the wild instead of confining her to a zoo, enthralled me. Of course, I wanted the book. It wasn't a children's book, and I didn't care. Mom bought me the Bantam paperback with the Virginia McKenna cover and I read that book so many times it literally fell apart, and I ended up buying another copy as an adult.<br /><br />The copy I recently re-read is the 40th anniversary edition and I jumped into it gleefully. There are a couple of cringey lines now (Adamson observing the lion cubs didn't like Africans but liked white people, except for the Adamsons' assistant Nuru and other employees), but otherwise it was still fascinating. I never realized as a child how much of the text was devoted not to Elsa, but to George's job of helping the local people rid themselves of predatory lions, about the natural features of Africa, and about the political situations that sometimes made the bush an unfriendly place for both whites and Africans.<br /><br />Liberally illustrated by photos of the real Elsa and the Adamsons. There was a sequel, <i>Living Free</i>, about Elsa's cubs, and a third book about releasing the lions from the <i>Born Free</i> film to the wild as Elsa had been.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Two Wrongs Make a Right,</i> Chloe Liese<br />Back in rom-com territory: Jamie Westenberg and Bea Wilmot don't exactly hit it off the first time they meet, but their friends conspire to match them up with each other. So they decide to get revenge by pretending to fall in love long enough to then dash everyone's hopes with a spectacular breakup. But in pretending to be lovers, guess what, Bea and Jamie start to learn about each other and, whaddya think: maybe they could be friends? Maybe they even could be...more.<br /><br />This is the first of a trio of stories about the Wilmot sisters: Bea and her twin sister Juliet, and their older sister Kate, all based on Shakespeare plays (this one is "Much Ado About Nothing," Kate's story is next, based on "Taming of the Shrew," and I think you can guess who Bea's twin's story is based on). I liked Bea; she states she's neurodivergent and autistic, but she reminds me a lot of myself, so maybe I'm those things? I just thought I was shy.<br /><br />The series is amiable enough. I'll probably check out Kate's book when it comes out.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Life in Five Senses,</i> Gretchen Rubin<br />This is another enjoyable read in Gretchen Rubin's pop psychology universe. When, after an eye exam, she discovers that no one has ever told her she has a higher-than-usual danger of losing her sight due to a retinal problem, she realizes she's been going through her life not noticing the world around her. Indeed, it's a common problem today with the rise of social media; people pay attention to their gadgets and not what's unfolding around them.<br /><br />These are basically experiences based around the five basic senses (there are others, Rubin explains, but these are what people think of as the primary ones): finding the newness in what one sees everyday (like what kind of clothes your husband prefers), finding what grabs you at a museum or on the street, discovering music as not just something to dance to but which revives memories or sets a mood, doing a scent tour and realizing there are scent memories, trying new tastes but rediscovering special tastes of the past, eating a meal in without seeing the food, the power of our sense of touch: not just comforting but sometimes rousing bad memories.<br /><br />The end of the book has suggestions for different exercises to help you rediscover your five senses. As someone with her nose always stuck in a book or writing, I liked this in telling me to pull back and observe the world around me.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> Re-read: <i>A Courage Undimmed</i>, Stephanie Graves<br />Once again, I got much more reading the non-ebook version. Olive Bright, daughter of the local vet and, like her father, a
pigeoneer (one who breeds and trains racing pigeons), continues to help
the British war effort by volunteering the Bright birds for messenger
service. As a FANY <span>(First Aid Nursing Yeomanry) volunteer, she
also works at Bricktonbury Manor, headquarters of Baker Street, a
top-secret World War II spy organization, under the aegis of Jameson
Aldridge (her feigned love interest), but hopes to become an SOE agent
who would be dropped into Nazi-occupied France.<br /><br />Alas, Baker
Street has a new commander, who thinks women have no place on the front
lines; he not only tells Olive her pigeons may not be needed any longer,
but assigns her to escort an annoying Royal Navy officer who's eager to
interrogate a new resident of the village of Pipley, a Mrs. Dunbar who
claims to be a spirit medium. In her first appearance in the village,
Mrs. Dunbar said she was in contact with the dead souls of a British
battleship on which several residents of the village served. Now
everyone's uneasy, including the Naval representative, one Ian Fleming,
who tells Olive that the ship is fine, but Mrs. Dunbar knows too many
unique details for a civilian. But when Olive takes Fleming to a seance
where Mrs. Dunbar dies, the question is whodunnit and why.<br /><br />I love
these books and the characters, but this latest one fell slightly short
of the mark for me at the beginning. I think it's because I've read one
too many mystery books centered around spirit mediums who are murdered.
Plus Jamie is missing for the first half of the book, so a lot of the
sparring between Olive and Jamie that brightened the previous two books
is missing here. The solution to the mystery is rather pedestrian, too.
Positives: we get a look behind the scenes at a wartime Christmas, and
when Jamie does return he has a great surprise for Olive (including a hint of what his real name is!), and the
training that Olive is observing is based on a real-life spy mission
during the war.</span><br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Fourth Enemy,</i> Anne Perry<br />I have just finished what turned out to be Perry's final book, which I hoped I could give a rousing review to, but, sadly, until the last third or quarter of the book, it frankly had me struggling through.<br /><br />Gideon Hunter is newly arrived as a barrister at Daniel Pitt's law firm fford Croft and Gibson, just in time to prosecute a smug, ruthless man named Malcolm Vayne who is accused of fraud. (Basically, he has arranged an investment company that we would today call a "Ponzi scheme.") Worst of all, some of his investors are members of Parliament or other government officials, which gives Vayne much power over them. Since Vayne <i>is</i> now so powerful, it is dangerous to cross him, and he is so protected by certain investors that if the firm's prosecution case is not strong enough, it could destroy the firm.<br /><br />The first 2/3 of the book is very slow, and the conversation is much about financial matters along with Perry's characters' usual soul-searching, except for a section where an elderly woman is threatened. The pace finally picks up near the end of the book, when the evidence against Vayne suddenly turns around and the case—and lives—are threatened. The last few chapters are very suspenseful and would make a good period thriller, but I'm afraid that the lead up is very plodding and you have to like the characters to keep going. Perry tried to give the new man, Hunter, and his wife Rose, some interesting personality, but they were very flat to me.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Lady With the Gun Asks the Questions,</i> Kerry Greenwood<br />Apparently I finished this ages ago and forgot to review it.<br /><br />I first met Phryne Fisher through the novels, later watching the television series. The latter is fun, but, of course for money reasons several characters have been cut from the stories, and Inspector Jack Robinson has become a love interest (in the books he's married with children). This is a collection of Phryne Fisher short stories, based on the novels. Some are long and convoluted, some are short—one's even solved by the time Robinson and Phryne are done talking about the evidence—but as far as I'm concerned they're all enjoyable to read, just from the POV of Phryne's 1920s setting and the attitudes of the characters. Wish there were more stories that involved Dot, as she is my favorite character in the series.<br /><br />Well worth it for Fisher fans.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>A History of America in Thirty-Six Postage Stamps,</i> Christ West<br />This is another interesting book I picked up for almost a song at Books-a-Million. West, a stamp collector, does exactly what he says, tells a history of the United States using 36 stamps curated mostly from the Smithsonian Postal museum, starting with the little revenue stamp that started the problems: a stamp from the Stamp Act. The stamps range from portraits of Presidents (Washington, Jackson, etc.), other important figures in U.S. history (Benjamin Franklin, Jefferson Davis, etc.), and finally, from the 1860s onward, other items significant in the country's history, the first being "the iron horse." It addresses some interesting bits of history you don't usually read about in other history volumes, like the Pan-American Exposition in 1901, the Golden Gate Bridge and Charles Lindbergh's flight, the Cold War, "Earthrise," and others.<br /><br />Nifty little history volume from a different POV.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Diary of an Early American Boy: Noah Blake, 1805</i>, Eric Sloane<br />Always lovely to find Eric Sloane books at the library sale as they are now out of print and fiendishly expensive. In 1805 (yes, 1805) a 15-year-old named Noah Blake was given a journal for his birthday. He kept very brief entries for a year, using homemade ink, and Sloane uses Blake's entries to chronicle the work on an expanding farm of the early nineteenth century. Together Noah and his father, along with help from a neighbor, build a working mill, build a bridge over the nearby creek, and expand the cultivated fields of the farm, all without benefit of power tools, cranes, etc. Sloane's beautiful pen-and-ink illustrations of Early American tools and structures clearly illustrate the ingenious and clever ways 1805 citizens improved their life. But Noah's life isn't all work: he talks about neighborhood frolics, and meeting a special girl named Sarah who is working for their neighbors the Adamses for a year.<br /><br />If you're interested in historic lifestyles, this book and other of Sloane's volumes are for you!<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>War Animals,</i> Robin Hutton<br />I grabbed this from the bargain book stack of Books-a-Million because I've loved Stephanie Graves' Olive Bright books and this has <b>two</b> chapters on pigeons used in war (the U.S. and the U.K.), plus some familiar characters from my childhood. There was this book by Patrick Lawson called <i>More Than Courage</i>, a Whitman book about horses and dogs, alternating chapters, one chapter about dogs and horses in war. It was there I met the acquaintance of Chips (who later had a vastly inferior movie made about him) the German Shepherd/collie/husky who won a Silver Star (only to have it taken away by commanders who said "that's only for humans) and also a Doberman named Andy.<br /><br />They appear in this book along with other war dogs/rescue dogs/messenger dogs from World War II (including Smoky the Yorkshire terrier who has had two books written about her), Korea, and Vietnam, a short chapter on a ship's cat named Simon, another short chapter on horses, and the pigeon chapters. All the animals in this book received Britain's prestigious "Dickin" medal for heroic animals.<br /><br />This is an easy read and you learn some great history about animals along the way.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Ship Wrecked,</i> Olivia Dade<br />This is the third in a series of rom-coms taking place among the cast members of a television series called <i>Gods of the Gates</i> (think a cheap version of <i>Game of Thrones</i>). Peter Reedton is a character actor ready for his first big role, but it turns out his co-star will be Maria Ivarsson, the woman he wholeheartedly made love to right before the audition—who then walked out on him without a word. Still, he won't wreck his chance at the role. For the next six years, Peter and Maria work side-by-side, getting to know each other as friends. But both still have hangups...and both live in different places. Is their smothered attraction enough to carry them to the next level?<br /><br />Of course. This is a <i>rom-com</i>, people. In general, I enjoyed this, although it featured yet another clueless dad (only this one wasn't evil like the dad in <i>Hating Game</i>; he actually turns out to be a bit pathetic). Peter and Maria both have secrets in their past that interfere with their getting closer. Enjoyable stuff: their teasing, Peter in Stockholm with Maria's family, Maria's body pride in which she refuses to lose weight or shave/wax for her role (both our protagonists are plus-sized, as the newest description goes).<br /><br />I liked <i>Spoiler Alert</i> because it was neat to see protagonists who wrote fanfic, skipped the second because I didn't like Alex in the first book, but this one may be my favorite of the three.<br /><br />
</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6439847.post-88469504509210885872023-04-30T23:52:00.311-04:002023-05-07T16:21:18.531-04:00Books Completed Since April 1<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Did I Ever Tell You This?,</i> Sam Neill<br />Imagine you're in a pub, and suddenly actor Sam Neill strolls in and decides you're a genial companion for the evening. He sits down and begins telling you stories. Some are about his past, some are about his films, others are about people he encountered or his vineyards or things he likes and doesn't like, and others are about the dreadful news he received just after filming <i>Jurassic World Dominion</i>, where he found out he had a malignant cancer.<br /><br />Reading this memoir is like sitting at the pub with Neill, having him tell you stories. You can hear his voice in the words, cheeky or sorrowful, opinionated or reflective. Granted, I'm not up on a lot of New Zealand or Australian slang and celebrities, so I had to do a bit of research on a few people, but those were minor problems. I've loved Neill since <i>Hunt for Red October</i> and this memoir is just Sam wrapped up all in a nice package and delivered with a pretty bow.<br /><br />Comes with two photo inserts as well as photographs within the text. Sam Neill fans, this is a gift for you.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Hating Game</i>, Sally Thorne<br />Lucy Hutton is the daughter of strawberry farmers; she came to the Big City to fulfill her dream of working at a publishing house, and found her dream job working at Gamin Publishing. And it was perfect until Gamin, a failing concern, merged with Baxley Books, and she had to work every day with Joshua Templeman, Mr. Perfect humorless Josh, who wears his shirts in strict rotation and makes other employees afraid. Together, he and Lucy play what she calls "the Hating Game," trying to outdo one another in being spiteful to one another. And when their respective bosses tell them there will be a competition between them for the role of chief operating officer, the Hating Game only escalates.<br /><br />If only Lucy wasn't becoming interested in Josh, and vice versa.<br /><br />Yes, it's a rom-com and yeah, I did enjoy this one. (It was made into a film, which I'll probably avoid; apparently it doesn't live up to the book.) Nothing really memorably special about it, except for the interesting revelation about Josh's room; some nice steamy scenes, including one in an elevator. Oh, and that wonderful dinner in the end when Lucy makes a speech to remember to Josh's clueless father, who should be slapped (and hard). But worth reading for a kick-back-and-relax reading day.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Bluebird Effect</i>, Julie Zickefoose<br />I had been drawn to this book for years, even before I read Zickefoose's <i>Saving Jemima</i>, about her experience raising a blue jay. Zickefoose is a wonderful watercolor artist of nature and birds, and just her illustrations were worth the price of the book.<br /><br />My husband bought this off my Amazon list and after I finished it, I went up to him, hugged him and thanked him. What a lovely experience! It's basically Zickefoose's stories from being a bird rehabilitator, and not just bluebirds: swallows, starlings, chickadees, wrens, hummingbirds, ospreys, titmice, swifts, grosbeaks, tanagers, phoebes, plovers, and more fill this wonderful volume along with pencil sketches, pen and paint, and watercolor pieces (a couple of fall and winter pics are breathtaking). She even talks about her beloved macaw, Charlie, who turned out at the end to be female.<br /><br />If you love birds, this is a must have.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>It's That Time Again 3: Even More New Stories of Old-Time Radio</i>, edited by Jim Harmon<br />This is my third of this set of four books with short stories based on old-time radio series, and I think it's my favorite so far. The stories are all crossovers, too, as illustrated by the cover illustration which shows Jack Armstrong teamed up with Tom Mix. (I really enjoyed this story, too; my complaint was that it was billed as a "novelette" and it was too damn short!)<br /><br />Other goodies: the spooky Whistler/Traveler tale, Sherlock Holmes coming up against A.J. Raffles, a swell story where Sky King gets mixed up with Captain Midnight and his team, an interesting team-up (if it's the word) between Paladin and Marshal Dillon, the mystery "Death in the Corner Office" wherein Casey, Crime Photographer meets the Man in Black from <i>Suspense</i>, and a funny story where Gildersleeve just wants a quiet place to read his newspaper. Most of the other stories are good, too, even though I still don't "get" <i>Lum & Abner</i> (although they mesh pretty well with Mary Noble!).<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Revolutionary Roads</i>, Bob Thompson<br />Thompson is not a historian. But when I looked through this book I decided it was just what I was looking for.<br /><br />Schoolday history rarely goes into any depth about any historic event simply because there are only 180 hours a school year to address 400+ years (at least, only if you don't address the Native people here before the "discovery" by Columbus) of American history. What you learn are top names, dates, and quick descriptions, and you don't learn anything about the "average" American in history.<br /><br />Thompson thus visits Revolutionary War sites, from the well-known—the inevitable "midnight ride of Paul Revere" and Bunker Hill—to the decisive battle no one remembers—Cowpens in South Carolina. He follows the career of Benedict Arnold to try to explain why this expert colonial leader turned traitor, we learn the truth (as my husband and I did) about Valley Forge (it wasn't the cold; it was mud and disease—and, oh, yeah, there were <b>families</b> there), you discover the <b>real</b> type of boat Washington crossed the Delaware River in (note it wasn't the kind in the famous painting), what was the Marquis de Lafayette's real contributions (also a nice write-up on Baron von Steuben), and actual narrative about Black and other minority fighters (including women). We meet the well-known like Arnold, Henry Knox, the British biggies like Burgoyne and Howe, Lafayette, and Francis Marion (cue "The Swamp Fox" theme on Walt Disney's TV show!) and the lesser known, like John Stark, Daniel Morgan, Henry Laurens, and Nathanael Green (well, unless you're a Rhode Islander). All in all, an entertaining, enlightening book that encourages you to go out and research history on your own.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Marmee,</i> Sarah Miller<br />As <i>Caroline</i> was <i>Little House on the Prairie</i> (the book, not the television series) told from Caroline Ingalls' point of view, <i>Marmee</i> is the diary of Margaret March taking place during the narrative of <i>Little Women</i>. I was skeptical about this book initially because I'd read Geraldine Brooks' <i>March</i>, which was supposed to be a history of a young Bronson Alcott, and I never felt it jibed with <i>Little Women</i>. But this reads like it really <b>is</b> Marmee's diary, and, of course, all the things Alcott might not have wanted to mention in a children's book (for instance that Hannah stayed with the Marches because she was an unmarried pregnant woman when she came to them, or Marmee helping the Hummels and bonding with Mrs. Hummel) which seem plausible. As in most of these books based on <i>Little Women</i>, Miller works real-life Alcott events (the Alcotts taking in a runaway slave* which goes on to explain an event Alcott glosses over in <i>Little Women</i>, Mr. March being named "Amos" instead of "Robert" as he is in the book, etc.) into the story, but they're not intrusive and work seamlessly into the story. I can really imagine "Marmee" writing this journal and feel her personality as shown in this book matches the woman we saw in <i>Little Women.<br /><br /></i>Recommended for fans of Alcott/<i>Little Women</i>!<br /><i><br />* </i>Interestingly enough, the Japanese anime version <i>Tales of Little Women</i> from 1987 also uses this plotline.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Life on the Mississippi</i>, Rinker Buck<br />If you're like me, your biggest connection with traffic on the Mississippi comes from <i>Huckleberry Finn</i>, the riverboats that pop up in literature and media, and <i>Davy Crockett and the River Pirates</i>, in which we learn about Mike Fink and the flatboat trade. (For me, also a book called <i>A' Going to the Westward</i> by Lois Lenski.) But before 18-wheelers, before the railroad, the main commerce lines in the United States were canals that led to the rivers, and the rivers which led the young U.S. to the big one: the Mississippi. Indeed, commercial boats still make up the majority of Mississippi river traffic. So Rinker Buck, who in 2011 rode <i>The Oregon Trail</i> in a covered wagon, now chronicles his months on a custom-built flatboat which he launches on the Monongahela, travels to the Ohio, and eventually merges with the Mississippi for the ride down to New Orleans. On the way, we learn the fascinating history of America's first westward movement and the role of the flatboat/keelboat (there were different kinds) in establishing commerce. (The flatboat/keelboat also goes further back than this first westward movement; the boats were used on New England rivers.)<br /><br />This book is part travelogue, part history—and Buck doesn't stint on the cruel history of the Indian Removal Act or the spread of slavery to the horrible plantations of the western south—part adventure and part self-discovery, like traveling with incompatible co-pilots (the worst being a re-inactor more concerned with "how things look" than the journey) and broken ribs.<br /><br />Plus, for me, there was joy in finding out what happened to his mother Pat, who I read about long ago in his dad's humorous memoir <i>But Daddy!</i> about raising ten kids.<br /><br />I enjoyed this book <b>so much</b>—in fact, this was a grand month for reading. Everything was wonderful.<br /><br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>CSI: Binding Ties</i>, Max Allan Collins<br />
This is the first of the <i>CSI</i> books I haven't really, really enjoyed. I liked it, but the plot was simpler than usual, so it wasn't quite as an "aha" moment when everything came together. Usually the plot involves part of the team working on one mystery and the other group work on a different case, and they end up being related; this is just a straight mystery involving the whole team: ten years earlier, Jim Brass' first case in Las Vegas came a cropper and a serial killer called CASt got away. Now crimes matching the CASt killings begin to surface. Brass and the CSI team headed by Gil Grissom enlist the reporters who covered the case and Brass' old partner on the case to finally catch the perp--but they soon realize the new CASt is a copycat.<br /><br />That's it. Oh, it's convoluted enough, but I twigged on one of the bad guys as soon as he was introduced. The perp was a bit of a surprise, or, rather the reason the perp became the perp, and how the last murder was committed. So, good, but not as complicated as previous books.<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6439847.post-80065060328330201082023-03-31T23:16:00.350-04:002023-04-09T22:21:30.854-04:00Books Completed Since March 1<p><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>To Write Like a Woman: Essays in Feminism and Science Fiction</i>, Joanna Russ<br />You cannot read books about <i>Star Trek</i> fanfiction without seeing Joanna Russ mentioned: she was a feminist and science-fiction writer who was also a member of the LGBTQIA community. She not only wrote essays about whether science fiction and fantasy are legitimate literature, but ones where feminism and misogyny are addressed. This is a collection of those essays. The few that justify SF&F as lit are interesting, but the meat of the book comes where she begins talking about feminist issues. One essay addresses "feminist" books written by men, in which the ruling class of women turn out to be just as corrupt as men, and end up being "tamed" by the healing power of male sex! Another points a finger at Harlan Ellison's "A Boy and His Dog," although she admits the movie is more at fault than the story.<br /><br />My favorite essay in this book is her essay about the very popular "modern Gothic" novels of the 1970s. I remember these things all over the bookstores, with the pretty heroine always marrying some type of brooding male who was hiding some secret (shades of Mr. Rochester!). It's pointed and humorous at the same time.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Belle of Belgrave Square</i>, Mimi Matthews<br />Julia Wychwood is a heiress with a problem: her sickly parents expect her either to nurse them through their (usually psychosomatic) illnesses or make a good match. Julia, an introvert who prefers her books and horse riding to socializing, hates going to parties, and just wants to be left alone to read. But her parents believe reading novels is "inflaming" her and keep having the doctor bleed her, sometimes until she is totally debilitated.<br /><br />The "notorious Captain Jasper Blunt," the harsh hero of Waterloo, is in search of a bride, or more appropriately, a bridal dowry that can replenish his Yorkshire estate and provide for his two bastard children. Why would Julia Wychwood not do as a bride? They both love books—in fact, the same author's books—and he agrees that he will let her live her own life (and rescue her from her parents) if she will take care of his children. But her parents have found a more appropriate—older, with better social connections—match for her and they will manipulate her as much as they can. In the meantime Julia and Jasper grow closer, but one of them is harboring a secret.<br /><br />This is an enjoyable takeoff on <i>Beauty and the Beast</i> with two book lovers from different worlds, but who bond over their love of books. I kind of guessed the secret one of the protagonists was keeping about halfway through the book, but it didn't ruin my enjoyment of the story—except I wanted to beat the crap out of Julia's parents, who considered her some hired slavey, just given birth to provide them comfort.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of <b>Little Women</b> and Why It Still Matters</i>, Anne Boyd Rioux<br />This book illustrates my problems with e-books. I read this first as an e-book, and dismissed it. Then I picked it up as a remainder book, and enjoyed it a lot more. Rioux first talks about Alcott's history and the reason she wrote the book—her publisher requested "a book for girls." This perplexed Alcott, as she claimed she didn't "know any girls," except for her sisters, so she wrote her story around her family life—and her simple narrative became a hit.<br /><br />Over the decades, <i>Little Women</i> has remained popular, although its audience has changed: boys, for instance, were also readers of the book in its early days; now it's considered "too girlie." Others believe that with today's mores <i>Little Women</i>, with its themes of traditional femininity, having nothing to say to modern girls, while Rioux refutes this, since both contemporary men and women need to learn lessons of controlling their temper, keeping house, etc. Media versions are also considered, and modern girls' stories as compared to Alcott's classic.<br /><br />If you're an Alcott fan, and I am, this book will exactly suit.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Murder at Crossways</i>, Alyssa Maxwell–<br />In this seventh book in Maxwell's Gilded Newport series, it's the summer of 1898, and Emma Cross, distant relative to the Vanderbilts (the poor side of the family) is working as acting editor-in-chief at her fiance's paper, the <i>Newport Messenger</i>. When she must fill in for the society editor at the wealthy Fishes' Harvest Festival, she, like the rest of the crowd, is awaiting the arrival of the guest of honor, Price Otto of Austria. But he never shows up, and then turns up in the garden, dead, his method of death very close to a man who was found on Bailey's Beach a few days earlier. When Emma investigates the beach death, she is stunned to discover the victim looks familiar—in fact, like her half-brother, but older. Could this be his father?<br /><br />In the meantime, a series of mishaps at the <i>Messenger</i> convince Emma that someone is trying to sabotage the paper, or at least her editorship of it.<br /><br />Mamie Fish, the eccentric—and she and her husband are based on the true-life Mamie and Stuyvesant Fish, who really were loving and eccentric as portrayed in the novel—owner of Crossways joins Emma as she investigates both crimes, and she's a definite plus in this story. Oh, and Emma finally has a new horse and poor Barney is finally retired.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Eleanor and Hick: The Love Affair That Shaped a First Lady</i>, Susan Quinn<br />You can't read anything about Eleanor Roosevelt without a mention of Lorena Hickok, the brash woman journalist Eleanor met when her husband Franklin Delano Roosevelt was on his original presidential campaign trail. She and "Hick" became best friends—in fact, in reading their letters you might say they were more than just best friends.<br /><br />Whether you believe or not that the two women also had a physical relationship or that they were platonic lovers, but lovers indeed, they did share intimacies over the course of their friendship that helped the First Lady break away from negative influences. Hick had her own bad habits: she was a chronic workaholic, smoked heavily, and didn't take care of her diabetes, and eventually her possessiveness—since Eleanor eventually had many friends, including those Hick was jealous of—strained their friendship to the breaking point. This is a vivid story of two women, one (Hick) who had to be strong after being thrown out of the house at age fourteen and the other (Eleanor) who was raised "with a silver spoon" that nevertheless came with a bleak childhood and an adult experience that included her husband cheating on her, having a child die, and having to nurse her husband through polio.<br /><br />Very enjoyable especially if you are an Eleanor Roosevelt aficionado as I am.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Into the West</i>, Mercedes Lackey<br />Kordas Valdemar and the people who have followed him to escape the cruelties and the smothering rule of the Empire now take steps to move beyond the lake they emerged from through a magical gate.<br /><br />This is the next part of the "Founding of Valdemar" saga, and it was a good read, just not as compelling as the first book. A lot of the story is about Kordas' good faith efforts to be a just leader, and his learning to become a good leader as the Valdemarian expedition searches for a permanent place to live without displacing any of the people already there. The mage storms have left their mark, and they are attacked by deadly, unusual creatures who were melded together by weird magic, and come upon a sinister forest that projects malevolence.<br /><br />While the statecraft bits can make the book drag a little, Delia, Kordas' sister-in-law, undergoes a transformation in this book, from little sister with a serious crush on Kordas to an explorer and much-needed member of the scouting team, her own person.<br /><br />With a little help from the Hawkbrothers and the hertasi, Kordas and his people find a place to spend the winter. Could this be the place to settle?<br /><br />Looking forward to the next volume! Have come to love Kordas and his people.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>All That Remains</i>, Sue Black<br />I bought this because in looking through it discovered Black, a forensic scientist, using her skills to identify dead bodies found at crime scenes. However, this is so much more: the author discusses death itself, the nature of our fears about death, and about working with corpses and how she is thankful for the people who donate their bodies to science so that she can learn about the human body from real remains rather than computer simulations, which she states are poor imitations of learning anatomy from bodies. She even tells a story about a elderly man who is preparing to donate his body to her institution who insists on coming into the anatomy laboratory and watching the students dissect a body so he will know everything that will happen to his corpse—definitely a braver person than I'll ever be.<br /><br />I'm pretty squeamish about death (having been afraid of dying since I was quite young), but I found this fascinating reading, if even a little comforting, but I would definitely not read if things like this trigger you. There are some very explicit scenes of dissection and discussion of preserving bodies for dissection.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Crocodile's Last Embrace</i>, Suzanne Arruda<br />I hadn't read the rest of my Jade del Cameron books in ages. This one, number six, is an action-fan's dream. Jade's great love, the movie maker Sam Featherstone, has not yet returned from the United States, and the once fearless Jade had, in the interim, gone back to France and seen an eerie vision of her dead fiancé David Worthy, killed in the carnage of The Great War. Now back in Kenya, she is receiving notes from David and seeing visions of him. Her friends tell her she needs to relax and hope Sam will return soon; then Jade almost witnesses a car accident at a bridge in which a car was deliberately pushed off the side. This is only the beginning of a murder investigation and more—in which Jade begins to suspect her one true foe: David's evil mother Lilith.<br /><br />This book gets off with a bang and never quite stops moving. I figured out part of what was causing Jade's distress almost immediately, but it didn't spoil the rising tension and the heart-stopping climax. I'm sorry there's only one of these unread left. Probably the best of the books since the first, <i>Mark of the Lion</i>.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts' Advice to Women, </i>Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English<br />I had to pick this up for Women's History month. In general I enjoyed it, although it was more scholarly than I expected. The basic premise is that although most society was patriarchal in the past, men had their roles and women had equally as important, but different, roles. However, with the coming of industrialization came masculinism, which infantilized women, drove away "wise women" and midwives who knew the workings of women's bodies, and turned them over to male doctors, who had all sorts of fantastically weird ideas, like that menstruation messed with a woman's sense of reason, that all women automatically wanted to be nurturing wives and mothers, and that women's brains were not fit for more complicated reasoning—studying things like medicine, physics, chemistry, etc. would make them "less womanly" and might even burn out a woman's brain! (And with that came the "rest cure" as Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote about in "The Yellow Wallpaper," which would drive anyone stark raving mad.) Just the change in nurturing children between 1900 and 1960 (going from treating kids like miniature adults to considering children as small angels to keeping children to rigorous time schedules even as babies and then Dr. Spock says "For heaven's sake, cuddle and love them!") switched back and forth so quickly that you were liable to get whiplash.<br /><br />Illuminating and infuriating, but be prepared for much quotation from medical texts.<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6439847.post-42929436702283287192023-02-28T23:22:00.434-05:002023-03-06T18:09:02.248-05:00Books Completed Since February 1<p><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>(not quite) Mastering the Art of French Living</i>, Mark Greenside<br />I confess, I read this doing research for a piece of fanfiction. I don't know if I got much information out of it, but it was fun to read, if I thought the anecdotes were overlong, but Greenside inadvertently gave me the title I needed for the story.<br /><br />Basically it's a fish-out-of-water story of what happens when Greenside decides to spend part of each year in Brittany. He loves the French lifestyle eventually, but has to navigate around different traffic regulations—his story about getting into his first accident in France is rather jaw-dropping—getting permits, renting a car for the part of the year he's in France, getting repairmen to work at his house, etc. Luckily he has some very patient French friends who help him, since the French legal system is legendary for its strictness and complicated procedures (how true that is I don't know, but I have read this in more than one book).<br /><br />If you've always wanted to live in France but wanted to check out the pitfalls, you might want to read this book if just for some chuckles.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Crayola: A Visual Biography of the World's Most Famous Crayon</i>, Lisa Solomon and Crayola LLC<br />This is a book best found half price or on remainder, but if you've been, like me, a Crayola junkie since childhood, it's a delight. It contains the history of the Binney & Smith (now Crayola, LLC) company, who made a product now known around the world (they also created the first dustless chalk). The majority of the book is a history of the current and some of the past colors, and trivia about the older colors ("flesh," of course, became "peach" in the 1970s when some kind souls pointed out that not everyone had pale skin, and "cadet blue" was first called "Prussian blue" but was finally changed because kids didn't know where Prussia (part of Germany) was any longer, etc.).<br /><br />Of interest are old full-page Crayola advertisements and projects done with Crayola crayons by professional artists. Color junkies, rejoice!<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Essex Serpent,</i> Sarah Perry<br />This looked like a mystery story so I picked it up. And I have to say Perry writes a compelling tale with complex characters. But it's not really a mystery story, it's a psychological one set in 1893 England. There is an old legend on the Essex coast that a monster exists in the shadows, and suddenly dead bodies begin to turn up on the shore. Cora Seaborne, a widow with an intense interest in the growing science of paleontology, believes the "monster" may be a prehistoric life form that still survives, so she arrives at the seaside in the company of her overprotective maid Martha and autistic son Francis to check out the rumors. There she's introduced to William Ransome, the local vicar, and his vivacious wife and their lively children. Ransome insists there's no "serpent" or "monster," and hates that his parishioners believe in the old tales, but a few dead bodies on the shore and a mysterious sound put the whole small town on edge. This turns villager against villager until the mystery of the sound is finally revealed. Ransome and Seaborne have a romantic moment, and at the close of the book it looks like she's about to insinuate her way into his life the way she insinuated herself into the life of a talented surgeon—and then basically forgets him—during the story.<br /><br />That's all that I took away from the story. There's also a do-gooder rich couple who help the poor, and a medical friend of the talented surgeon who sticks with him through his most difficult hours, and Martha hooks up with a radical protestor. I kept reading because the prose was excellent, but the fact that basically "they discover that ________ is the source of the sound and everything else was just people's imaginations and so we see what rumor and paranoia do to a formerly close-knit community" was rather a letdown.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The McMasters Guide to Homicide: Murder Your Employer,</i> Rupert Holmes<br />This is the first in a planned series of mysteries written by the multi-talented Holmes, who has done two previous books, a television series called <i>Remember WENN</i>, Tony- and Edgar-award winning plays like <i>The Mystery of Edwin Drood</i> and <i>Accomplice</i>, and much, much more—but of course he's best known for his bestselling late 70s-early 80s rock song "Escape" (known to most people as "the Pina Colada song").<br /><br />Think of the McMasters school as Hogwarts for homicide. That's the hook in this delightfully diabolical, tongue-in-cheek novel in which people attend a university to learn how to commit the perfect homicide; the twist is that the person must really <i>need</i> killing and there is no other way to keep them from continuing to ruin other people's lives. You follow our main protagonist Cliff Iverson, the young Englishwoman Gemma Lindley, and Hollywood actress Doria May as they seek to rid the world of an overbearing employer who caused the deaths of two of Cliff's friends, a woman who's building her career by blackmailing Gemma, and the Howard Weinstein-like monster movie producer who holds Doria in servitude for turning him down. Half the story follows their training on the "god only knows where" McMasters campus (which reminds you more than a little of "the Village" in <i>The Prisoner</i> television series, which is no accident), and then they're let free to pursue their final exam: killing their <i>bete noires</i>. Filled with more twists than a Six Flags roller coaster, more clever quips than Bob Hope's stable of writers could manage, and more double crosses than a game of tic-tac-toe, it's a wild ride full of unexpected turns, incredible training sequences, and a big dollop of sly humor, with all sorts of references hidden in the text.<br /><br />Rupert's almost finished with the second volume, <i>Murder Your Mate</i>, and I can hardly wait to see what he comes up with. But first, a re-read...!<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>A Book, Too, Can Be a Star,</i> Charlotte Jones Voiklis and Jennifer Adams<br />I'm a Madeleine L'Engle completist, which means I had to get a copy of this charming children's picture book that simply tells the story of how L'Engle as a child began to write and dream and eventually published both adult and young adult books, but finally came to fame for writing the now immortal <i>A Wrinkle in Time</i>. The artwork is lovely as well. I have Voiklis' children's biography of her grandmother and wish someone would do an adult version!<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Rivers of London: Deadly Ever After</i>, Ben Aaronovitch, Celeste Bronfman, Andrew Cartmel<br />In the newest of the graphic novels taking place in Aaronovitch's "Rivers of London" universe, Beverley Brook's sisters Olympia and Chelsea, goddesses in their own right, are attending a gathering in the woods when they remove an invisibility charm from a mulberry tree growing there. Unfortunately it frees the angry spirit of a Victorian fairy-tale illustrator named Jeter Day. The next thing they know, Day's spirit is invading people and forcing them to re-enact fairy tales. With the aid of Abigail Kamara and her friends the talking foxes, the pair must rectify this error without letting Thomas Nightingale or his apprentice Peter Grant know what happened.<br /><br />This is a fanciful, if lesser effort in the "Rivers" series. The story is a little slight and frankly Olympia and Chelsea are not that compelling as main characters. Abigail also seems drawn a bit older than she is and it throws the story off a little. Still, another peek into Aaronovitch's magical world until the next real book comes out.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>True North: Travels in Arctic Europe</i>, Gavin Francis<br />I knew this was the book for me from the blurb: "In this striking blend of travel writing, history and mythology, Gavin Francis offers a unique portrait of the northern outposts of Europe." And boy, what a book—I thoroughly enjoyed Francis' journey.<br /><br />He begins in the Shetland Islands, following the stories of the earliest explorers who went north looking for "Ultima Thule," including St. Brendan. He then continues to the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, Svalbard, and finally Lapland, telling each region's myths and history, along with a portrait of the people who live there (most of whom long for warmth, but grow homesick and return) and the natural features and native birds and animals. He explores the areas mostly by hiking, but also takes the rare aircraft and travels by ship as well. His writing is beautiful, not flowery but very evocative and descriptive; it's a pleasure to read and certain descriptions, especially of the tough inhabitants who remain living there, stick in your mind long after you're done reading that portion. If you dream of cold weather and Arctic exploration, this is definitely the book for you!<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>CSI: Grave Matters</i>, Max Allan Collins<br />The fifth in Collins' series based on the original <i>CSI</i> series. Once again, the team is working two cases: Rebecca Bennett insists her mother's death was probably foul play on the part of her stepfather, and she convinces the sheriff's department to dig the body up for an autopsy. But when Grissom, Sidle, and Stokes open the casket, a different body is contained in it instead. In the meantime, Catherine and Warrick are summoned to an eldercare facility, where their own assistant coroner, David, feels there's something suspicious about the death of Vivian Elliot, a woman who was recovering quite rapidly from surgery until she was found dead; they also discover from the head of the facility that more deaths of elderly women seem to be occurring than usual.<br /><br />Collins has the characters down pat—you can hear Petersen in Grissom's dialog, Fox in Sara's, etc.; you could practically convert each of his <i>CSI</i> books into a television movie. And as always, the two cases have a connection to each other, but Collins works it so skillfully that you don't expect it until it happens, and the getting there is suitably complicated. <i>CSI</i> fans should enjoy, and they work well as a forensics mystery as well.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Beach Read</i>, Emily Henry<br />January Andrews writes bestselling romance novels, but after her father dies and she learns a terrible family secret, she doesn't believe she can write another "happily ever after" tale again. She retreats to the family lake cottage in order to clean and sell it, only to discover that renting the cottage next door is Augustus Everett, her old college rival, who writes deep, meaningful novels, the kind that make the bestseller lists. Turns out Gus is also suffering from writer's block, and once they begin talking to each other, thanks to the local bookclub, they come to an agreement: Gus will spend the summer writing something with a happy ending and January will write a serious novel, and each will teach the other about the successful ingredients of their craft (so January will take him to fluffy rom-com settings and Gus'll take her on his interviews with a cult member).<br /><br />This book did make me cry. There are themes of betrayal and secrecy woven through the tale, so it's more than your usual fluffy rom-com stuff. The relationship builds naturally and the supporting characters (even a couple of less savory ones) are realistic. I enjoyed this one.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Testament of Trust</i>, Faith Baldwin<br />This is the third of Baldwin's nonfiction books which cover a year in her life, but, rather than only discussing the seasons and her home, she talks about issues of faith, belief, and love. While I don't find these as compelling as Taber's "Stillmeadow" books, they contain much food for thought about relationships, positivity, and the folly of negative thinking.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Bonk,</i> Mary Roach<br />After reading <i>Gulp</i>, I wanted to investigate more of Roach's science books. Once again she writes with a light touch while imparting loads of information.<br /><br />This book is, if you hadn't guessed from the title, is about sexuality, and each chapter focuses on a different study of human sexuality, from impotence ("ED") remedies to analysis of orgasm to the role of the clitoris in sex, all the way to an absurd chapter about how pleasurable sex among pigs produces more piglets. There's an examination of the early research of Alfred Kinsey as well as the later work of Masters and Johnson, how early treatments for "hysteria" were just doctors diddling their patients, and a doctor who reconstructs penises.<br /><br />Roach has a nice, easygoing way of approaching science topics, People who like their science texts completely serious should avoid, however.<br />
<br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>My Name is America: The Journal of Brian Doyle, A Greenhorn on an Alaskan Whaling Ship</i>, Jim Murphy<br />This is actually one of the better of the "Dear America" books devoted to male historical characters. Brian Doyle has run away to sea to make life easier for his older but sickly brother Sean Michael; their hard-working father often comes home drunk and Brian argues with him instead of keeping silent, so he leaves to give his brother peace. He signs on the whale ship "Florence" and is thrown bodily into shipboard life. Onboard he meets all sorts of people, from York the profane one and Nathaniel, who is devoted to his Bible. The captain has very bad luck in locating whales in warm Hawai'ian waters (this takes place in 1874, when whales were starting to be overfished), so they head north into the Arctic, only to be caught in the winter ice.<br /><br />The story is grim and uncompromising, but never reaches the level of despair that proliferates when Barry Denenberg writes one of these books. Instead it is realistic in that even in despair it retains some small bit of hope. Recommended with the usual warnings about mature (death, etc.) subjects.<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6439847.post-47405132967972983552023-01-31T23:33:00.286-05:002023-02-02T18:22:39.233-05:00Books Completed Since January 1<p><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i><a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2023/01/memorably-heartwarming.html">A Memorable Christmas</a>, </i>compiled by Leon R. Hartshorn<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i><a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2023/01/shepherds-and-carolers-tipteers-etc.html">A Sussex Christmas</a>,</i> compiled by Shaun Payne<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2023/01/75-years-of-miracle-on-34th-street.html"><i>Miracle on 34th Street: The Perfect Christmas Classic</i></a>, from "Life"<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>How to Make a French Family A Memoir of Love, Food, and Faux Pas,</i> Samantha Vérant<br />This is Vérant's sequel to <i>Seven Letters from Paris</i>, about how she eased into life with her new French family: her husband Jean-Luc and his two children, teenage Elvire and ten-year-old Max. They're no sooner back at Jean-Luc's home in France than they discover the house full of fleas from the Bengal cat Samantha bought as a gift for the kids. Soon Samantha has to make friends with her new stepchildren, learn to get along with her French neighbors and in her French neighborhood, learn to cook something everyone will love, and make some friends (she eventually forms a group of women who married French men). Her ingredients for making this work? Communication, friendship, adventure, passion, and love.<br /><br />I enjoyed this more than the original book, which was full of annoying references to designer clothing, as Sam learns to integrate into her new life in France. Sometimes it's quite funny, and a few times very touching.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Sword-Bearer</i>, Jennifer Roberson<br />I was so happy to see another Tiger and Del book after ten years that I pre-ordered it the moment I saw it. I bought <i>Sword-Dancer</i> simply due to the arresting cover and immediately got sucked into the world of the Sandtiger, former slave and now expert sword-dancer, and his counterpart, Del (Delilah) from the north, who became a sword-singer (the northern discipline). Tiger starts out feeling very superior because he's a man, but Del soon puts him in his place; later they become traveling partners, then lovers, then have a child together.<br /><br />The current story takes place six weeks after the previous book ended, in which Tiger has absorbed the content of a magical book in order that no one else can use it for evil. The pair is raising a lively two-year-old, Sula, plus training Neesha, the adult son Tiger just learned he had, to be a sword-dancer at their training school for the discipline. But Tiger's hidden magic has come to the attention of someone, and now freak weather conditions are striking their home, destroying the nearby town and eventually killing people; to stop the magically-summoned storms they'll have to follow where Tiger's instincts tell them to go. Their odyssey will take them through storms and strange land, including back to Del's old home where the fate of her daughter may hang in the balance.<br /><br />There's a neat twist at the end of this that makes up for being a bit ambling in the middle. And Roberson says she's thinking of more adventures for them. Yes!<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Le Road Trip: A Traveler's Journal of Love and France</i>, Vivian Swift<br />After finding Swift's <i>When Wanderers Cease to Roam</i> with her lovely watercolor illos at the book sale last spring, I felt I had to hunt up a decent but inexpensive copy of her book about her honeymoon in France—and it seemed doubly needful since I was in the middle of writing a story that took place in Paris.<br /><br />This is the story of Vivian and James' honeymoon trip, illustrated with Swift's wonderful watercolor drawings alà Susan Branch, starting with Swift's first trip to France in 1975 and her packing advice, then chronicling life on the road from Paris to Normandy to Brittany to Bordeaux to the Loire Valley to Chartres and finally back to Paris, illos of food, fashions, windows, doors, and most of all the houses and the countryside. If you love watercolors, at like Susan Branch's, and/or France, you will adore this book.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Loathe to Love You,</i> Ali Hazelwood<br />Ah, more romantic fluff from Hazelwood<i>, </i>author of <i>The Love Hypothesis</i> and <i>Love on the Brain</i>. Mara, Sadie, and Hannah have been friends since graduate school, even after they go on to their respective scientific professions. In these three novellas collected into one volume, Mara goes to Washington DC to start a job with the EPA and claim the home left to her by her graduate school mentor, except her mentor didn't tell her that half the house was also the property of her nephew Liam, a lawyer for Big Oil; Sadie, an engineer with a green building firm, meets and likes Erik Nowak, a handsome dude who gave up a special croissant for her—until she thinks he's betrayed her, when she decides she will stay far away from him, but they end up trapped in an elevator together; and Hannah, a reluctant student who nevertheless became fascinated with space science and now wants to design exploration vessels for Mars missions. But Ian Floyd (Mara's cousin) seems to be throwing obstacles in her way, and when she goes behind her back to take a research mission to Svalbard, it seems she's come into dangerous waters.<br /><br />Romantic fluff with science overtones. Some nice smut scenes, but do all of Hazelwood's heroes say nothing but "f*ck" while having sex? And biting your hand to stifle screams during orgasms? Sounds painful.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Fox and I</i>, Catherine Raven<br />I usually love nature books, and I love most of this one, but I had some problems with the chapters she wrote from Fox's point of view. For that reason, it took me ages to finish (2 years), spending most of its time waiting for me to pick it up again.<br /><br />Raven grew up with a neglectful parent who told her right out at age 12 that he couldn't wait for her to leave home. She did so at age 15. Despite this horrible start in life, Raven found work with the National Park Service and eventually gained a PhD in biology, and made a home for herself in the wilderness where she was happiest. One day a fox began appearing on her property at the same time every day. While observing her visitor, Raven and the fox became friends—not that she fed or tried to make a pet of it; instead she tried to imitate his behaviors. And she read to him.<br /><br />Raven's narrative is best when she's describing her work, nature around her, etc. The parts where she sees herself, the magpies that hang around her cabin, and the territory around her cabin through the fox's eyes come off, to me, as a little "cute," although not "cutesy." I just didn't think it worked well. YMMV. The book is still well worth reading from the nature angle.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Vanderbeekers Make a Wish</i>, Katrina Yan Glaser<br />I've read all the Vanderbeekers books, but this one by far is the best, although I was wondering at the beginning what was going to happen.<br /><br />It's Papa Vanderbeeker's 40th birthday and the kids (twins Isa and Jessie, Oliver, Hyacinth, and Laney) are ready to party. Before the party Papa and Oliver will be going camping together. Then Papa's best friend in the Midwest loses his mother and Papa must miss the camping trip to help his friend. Oliver's understandably bitter, until Mama's parents arrive and the kids band together against Grandma's constant criticism. Besides, they are planning a great birthday gift: they discovered Papa never went on the college graduation trip planned by his father, known as Pop-Pop, so they're going to find the place he was supposed to go and take him there.<br /><br />What follows is a chaotic, sometimes sobering, and ultimately heartwarming story as the kids find out more about their paternal grandfather, but also about mysteriously silent Grandpa and grumpy Grandma. There's joy in a subway ride, a bicycle excursion across the Brooklyn Bridge, Oliver and Laney trying to dye their cat to prove they should dye their hair, the discovery of clues in the search for Pop-Pop's past, but mainly in the revelations eventually revealed by their maternal grandparents, which may make you cry. It did me!<br /><br />Oh, and we finally find out Papa's name, Derek! Have they ever mentioned Mama's name?<br /> </p><p><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Grace</i>, Mary Casanova<br />Grace Thomas, who loves to bake like her grandparents who own a bakery, is hoping to earn money during the summer with her two best friends. Then her mom is summoned to Paris to help her pregnant sister who married a French baker and takes Grace with her. Can Grace get along with her cousin Sylvie, who misses her late mother, learn French, help out in her uncle's bakery, and maybe, just maybe, adopt the cute stray French bulldog who's hanging around the bakery?<br /><br />I grabbed this book basically because I'm writing a story that takes place in France and it looked like it would be a reference to everyday life in France. The phrase book at the end was quite helpful and reminded me that my characters would not get bread and pastries in the same store like they would in Italian bakeries in the U.S. The American Girl "Girl of the Year" stories are okay. I like the historicals better. Looking forward to Claudie Wells!<br /><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6439847.post-29904521856212249782023-01-10T21:17:00.002-05:002023-01-10T21:17:32.206-05:00A Baker's Dozen of Favorite Books of 2023<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Gulp</i>, Mary Roach (informative and funny study of taste, digestion, and elimination)<br /><p><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Becoming a Writer, Staying a Writer</i>, J. Michael Straczynski (not only writing, but publishing and afterward)<i><br /><br /></i><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Dead Romantics</i>, Ashley Poston (sweet romantic as well as a family love story)<br /><i><br /></i><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Bryant & May: London Bridge is Falling Down</i>, Christopher Fowler (the last of the series, although not the last of the Bryant and May books)<i><br /><br /></i><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Twelve Moons of the Year</i>, Hal Borland, edited by Barbara Dodge Borland (daybook containing the best of Borland's nature columns)<i><br /><br /></i><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Ghost: My Thirty Years as an FBI Undercover Agent</i>, Michael M. McGowan and Ralph Pezzullo (title's self-explanatory)<br /><i><br /></i><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Confederates in the Attic</i>, Tony Horwitz<i> </i>(history of "the lost cause" and how it still clings in the southeastern US)<br /><i><br /></i><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies</i>, Robert Sklar (how society affected the movies and vice versa)<br /><i><br /></i><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Notes from the Underwire</i>, Quinn Cummings (the former child star talks Hollywood and adulthood and raising a child)<br /><i><br /></i><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English Language</i>, Mark Forsyth (linguistics fun)<i><br /><br /></i><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Love Hypothesis</i>, Ali Hazelwood (fun romcom taking place in a STEM environment)<i><br /><br /></i><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America</i>, Ibram X. Kendi (bravura study of racism through classism from Greek civilization to the present)<i><br /><br /></i><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Wintering</i>, Katherine May (beautifully written memoir of May's season of quiet after a series of disasters)<br /><i><br /></i>Honorable Mentions:<br /><br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Distilled Genius: Quotations</i>, Susan Branch (regular quotations, but illustrated with Branch's beautiful watercolor art)<br /><i><br /></i><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>How Y'All Doing?</i>, Leslie Jordan (the late actor/comedian's humorous memoir; just his chapter on Ronnie Claire Edwards is worth the price of the book)<i><br /></i></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6439847.post-56831355139088548132022-12-31T23:59:00.054-05:002023-01-01T17:33:15.148-05:00Books Completed Since December 1As always, all the December book reviews are on pertinent pages in <i>Holiday Harbour</i>:<br /><br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i><a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2022/12/crime-for-christmas.html">The Usual Santas: A Collection of Soho Crime Christmas Capers</a>,</i> from Soho Press<br /><br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i><a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2022/12/robin-hood-sherwood-foresters-and.html">A Nottinghamshire Christmas</a>,</i> compiled by John Hudson<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2022/12/christmas-and-lot-more.html"><i>Llewellyn's Little Book of Yule</i></a>, Jason Mankey<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2022/12/what-happens-when-you-love-christmasbut.html"><i>The Matzah Ball</i></a>, Jen Meltzer<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i><a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2022/12/georgiana-and-darcy-do-christmasmurder.html">God Rest Ye, Royal Gentlemen</a>,</i> Rhys Bowen<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2022/12/welcome-to-zommerzet.html"><i>A Somerset Christmas</i></a>, compiled by John Chandler<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i><a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2022/12/welcome-to-zommerzet.html">The Magic of Christmas</a>,</i> edited by Amy Neumark<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> Re-read: <i><a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2020/11/40-days-until-christmas-christmas-carol.html">A Christmas Carol</a>,</i> Charles Dickens<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2022/12/winter-christmas-suffolk.html"><i>A Suffolk Christmas</i></a>, compiled by Humphrey Phelps<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2022/12/an-ideal-treat.html"><i>Ideals Christmas 2022</i></a>, editors of "Ideals"<br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6439847.post-91005656106565626352022-11-30T23:53:00.129-05:002022-12-01T21:59:14.509-05:00Books Completed Since November 1<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Lab Girl</i>, Hope Jahren<br />This is the memoir of Jahren, who grew up the daughter of a scientist and always found emotional comfort in the laboratory, since her emotionally-distant family didn't show her much attention. She became a paleobotanist (like Elly Sattler in <i>Jurassic Park</i>) and this is the story of her career, from education to junior and then senior scientist. Suffering from bipolar disease, she's supported by an offbeat partner named Bill, who's a top-notch scientist but massively eccentric (during part of his childhood he lived in a hole in the backyard; Jahren doesn't reveal what made him do this until about halfway through the book). It's the story of road trips, building laboratories, taking students on digs (and on unauthorized excursions afterwards, like their trip to the Monkey Jungle in Florida), with Jahren's musings on plant life on Earth.<br /><br />This is an oddly compelling book, although the narrative is very...odd. Jahren starts out by saying Scandinavian families are generally unemotional, which I think is very odd; I know Scandinavian families and they are usually very affectionate. Perhaps the fact that she was bipolar colored her opinion. Bill is also a very odd person, although you find out about halfway through the book that he's had acceptance problems through his life. The final part of the book addresses Jahren's marriage sketchily—it's hard to discern what she and Clint saw in each other.<br /><br />The botanical parts are pretty interesting; she addresses things about plants I'd never heard of and it's interesting to read about her research.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> Re-read: <i>Thanksgiving: The Biography of an American Holiday</i>, James W. Baker<br />This is a very readable history of the "all-American holiday" that works very well as a companion piece to Diana Appelbaum's <span style="font-style: italic;">Thanksgiving</span>,
but is an easier read without being simplistic. It also touches more on
things like images, writings, and films portraying Thanksgiving, changes in "traditional foods" in the intervening years, how the holiday has been <span><span><span class="kqEaA z8gr9e">infantilized</span></span></span> by the iconic use of Pilgrim and "Indian" icons, and the inclusion of parades and football games as part of the "tradition," turning Thanksgiving into the opening salvo for the Christmas season. The one
thing that this book makes very clear is that the "iconic" Thanksgiving
imagery of Pilgrims and Native Americans only became emphasized at the very end
of the 19th century and during the early decades of the 20th, back when
the United States became flooded with non-English speaking immigrants
whom the schools wished to impress upon some idea of the country's
heritage. Previous to that it was just a New England holiday which
spread as New England residents moved westward, and involved reunions
with family and friends. Even stories about Thanksgiving mostly
emphasized reunions between estranged or long-parted relatives; "the first Thanksgiving" was not mentioned.<br /><br />I highly recommend this book for
anyone who wants to know more about the history of the Thanksgiving
holiday and its changing face over four centuries.
<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Bookish and the Beast</i>, Ashley Poston<br />This is actually a young adult romance book, third in a series, but I bought it because the female protagonist was a book lover and went to SF conventions, and I loved Poston's <i>The Dead Romantics</i>.<br /><br />I have to say the teen protagonists acted a lot more adult than the last few adult rom-coms I've read!<br /><br />The story: Vance Reigns, teen star of the <i>Starfire</i> series, has been banished to his godfather's house in a small town in North Carolina after yet another bad-boy action. There he meets Rosie Thorne, still smarting from the death of her mother a year earlier. After almost hitting Vance's dog Sansa with her car, she follows the dog, enters the house, and accidentally damages a valuable <i>Starfire</i> book, so Vance's godfather lets her work it off by arranging the books in the house's huge library. Vance treats her rudely and she avoids him in return, neither of them knowing that earlier in the year, in costume, they met at a convention and enjoyed each other's company.<br /><br />The usual misunderstandings abound, especially since Vance, due to his growing up as a Hollywood brat, is cynical and has ceased believing that people befriend him for any other reason than to get something out of him, and there's an interesting subplot about Rosie trying to escape the clutches of an egotistical classmate who won't take "no" for an answer. But for a teen romance, the story is pretty good and not at all cringey as I got during the rom-coms I got from Kindle Unlimited!<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>America Eats!,</i> Pat Willard<br />During the Depression, the WPA sponsored several literary and arts programs to put people back to work. One of the later projects was to be a collection of essays about the different regional foods of the United States. Unfortunately, the WPA was dismantled by the Supreme Court before the project could be completed and published.<br /><br />Pat Willard found the decrepit old boxes with the material collected for the project and here in this book publishes some of the essays written back in the 1930s, then follows up by going to the individual region and seeing if the customs still exist (it's interesting to know that in some cases they have persisted, if in a minor way). The original essays are fascinating, although they do contain some ethnic and racial terms that might be problematic today. The book's contents are arranged by events rather than regions, so you'll get an account of making authentic Brunswick stew (squirrel meat is <i>essential</i>) next to a "booya" picnic from Minnesota, men running a barbecue at a political gathering who shoo women away because they "stop the meat from breathing" in Mississippi to chicken pilau ("perlow") and conch feasts in Florida, tales of church suppers in Georgia and in Indiana, lodge dinners, food in migrant camps, and more. If you are fond of food history, this is the book for you! <br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Trouble With Hating You,</i> Sajni Patel<br />Liya Thakkar's conservative Indian parents think their "wild" Americanized daughter will never get married; without telling her, they invite her to dinner to meet handsome Jay Shah and his mother, the object being marriage. When Liya, a successful biochemical engineer, discovers what dinner's all about, she flees, knocking down Jay and, by leaving, insulting his mother. Later she discovers Jay is the attorney who's been hired to help salvage her faltering employer, and she's supposed to work closely with him. Angry, she accepts a date with a guy named Mike, who doesn't want to take no for an answer and leaves her stranded. Who rescues her but Jay Shah?<br /><br />This was a very enjoyable rom-com compared to some of the ones I read. Liya and Jay are sensible adults, although Liya is hiding a terrible secret, and as they get to know each other, they slowly become friends while both Liya and Jay are juggling social engagements: Liya's best friend is about to be married and Jay's sister is expecting her first child. It was enjoyable to read about traditional Indian marriage customs melding with American ones, and I was thirsting so much for the sanctimonious and evil characters in the story to get theirs (I sure hope Jay did what he said he would, because one person so deserves whatever they get!).<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Gulp</i>, Mary Roach<br />Since the library got rid of all the Native American books I was planning to read this year, I decided to read a couple of food books for November instead. This one is the decidedly offbeat one: Roach does science books like <i>Packing for Mars</i> and <i>Stiff</i> (about cadavers); this one is about the ingestion of nutrients, from what smell has to do with taste (a lot, as people who contracted COVID-19 discovered) to the new medical practice of injecting fecal matter into sick people's colons (after they have contracted <i>C. diff</i> or other diseases) to cure them. In between we investigate how pets' tastes differ from ours, the fad for Fletcherization and how it wasn't true, the importance of saliva, if you can be swallowed alive, prisoners in jail hiding things...well, you know where, farts and how they grow, dying by constipation, and more, in seventeen delightful chapters.<br /><br />Roach's writing is instructive without being boring, entertaining without being offensive, and just plain interesting. If you ever wanted the skinny on eating, digesting, and eliminated, this is the book for you.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2022/11/over-border-from-wales.html"><i>A Monmouthshire Christmas,</i> Maria & Andrew Hubert</a><br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2022/11/a-christmas-gathering-turns-deadly.html"><i>The Dead of Winter</i>, Nicola Upson</a><br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2022/11/on-first-day-of-christmas-moss-gave-to.html"><i>The 12 Birds of Christmas,</i> Stephen Moss</a><br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6439847.post-44407767731933394552022-10-31T23:25:00.331-04:002022-11-15T18:52:18.280-05:00Books Completed Since October 1<p><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Distilled Genius: Quotations,</i> Susan Branch<br />When Susan Branch fled California after her first marriage collapsed, she rented a little cottage on Martha's Vineyard in which she found her first book of <i>Bartlett's Quotations</i>. She pored over the book and marked out the quotations which inspired her.<br /><br />This book is a "distilled" version of her favorites, done in her beautiful watercolors, on subjects ranging from "The Secrets of Life" to "Friendship" to "Creativity" to "Writing and Writers"—and so much more! For Susan Branch fans or just fans of quotations done in beautiful style!<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Diabolical Bones,</i> Bella Ellis<br />I loved the first mystery in this series that I couldn't wait to pick up the next.<br /><br />This one is not <b>quite</b> as good from my estimation, but I may not have gotten the full impact out of it because I've never read anything by the Brontё sisters, since it was obvious in the first book that the people they meet later form the basis for their book characters. In this outing, it's before Christmas, 1845. Clifton Bradshaw, the master of Top Withens, has gone mad since the death of his wife. During a storm it's discovered that there are a child's bones in the chimney breast. The neighborhood people aren't surprised, because they're convinced Bradshaw sold his soul to the devil.<br /><br />The Brontё sisters, of course, don't believe this for a minute, and they're determined to find out who the child was and why he was entombed in the chimney.<br /><br />I notice the sisters argue a lot more often in this outing, like actual sisters would do, and after knowing what happened to Branwell it's sad the way they keep trying to distract him from his destructive habits, but he keeps backsliding. The best part of this series is the way the author emulates the style in which the books were written and makes it sound like the story was written in 1845 without getting into the proselytizing and gargantuan prose of the time. Very evocative of the mid-19th century and the bleak winter Yorkshire setting is quite compelling.<br /><br /><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i></i><i>A Place for Everything,</i> Judith Flanders<br />Since the beginnings of the Roman alphabet, alphabetical order has always been the natural and logical way to organize manuscripts!<br /><br />Nope.<br /><br />You would have thought this book would be a natural for me, but I was really distracted while reading it and perhaps I should go back some day and re-read it, as I didn't get out of it what I hoped I would, especially since I usually love Judith Flanders. Hierarchy was the original "order" of keeping books (originally scrolls): books about God would be first, then about religion in general, working down to more base items, and this system actually persisted well into the Renaissance. The book is also a history of records' keeping itself, from antiquity and through the long period where monks at churches kept the history and the learning from dying out.<br /><br />Again, I guess I just wasn't in the mood for it; if you are anyone interested in the history of libraries, reading, and records-keeping, this is a well-researched text from Flanders with much history revealed. I'll get back to it someday, because I'm a Flanders fan.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>CSI: Body of Evidence,</i> Max Allan Collins<br />This is the fourth in Collins' original novelizations from the television series; as in the other stories, two mysteries run concurrently: Catherine and Nick are called to an office where child pornography photos were found on one of the work printers, while Grissom, Warrick, and Sara are following clues after a witness sees a car stop, and a man pull out something from the trunk and leave it on the side of the road: a body wrapped in carpeting which turns out to be the mayor's missing secretary—and this is a touchy topic during an election year. The sheriff and his assistant will be drawn into the mystery before it ends.<br /><br />The cybercrime is particularly twisty and Catherine having a child colors her feelings about the crime, so that it throws off the investigation. Again, these books are just like watching an episode of the series. The only thing that's a little off is that on the series they will visually show you a "re-enactment" of what the CSU people think might have happened. In the books it's shown as sort of a flashback type thing that Grissom or Sara envisions and it reads a little odd. Otherwise the characters' voices and the laboratory and police scenes are well captured. I wish someone had asked Collins to do <i>Law & Order: Criminal Intent</i> novels!<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Just My Type</i>, Fallon Ballard<br />This was the better of the two rom-coms I read from NetGalley, but they're aggravating me so much I probably need to stop reading them (I've always had a problem with chick lit; then every once in a while I find a winner—I enjoyed <i>Love Hypothesis</i> so much that I thought these might please me). The protagonists are so young and incredibly...angsty. (But, yeah, I gotta admit I got angsty when I finally fell in love (and stupid, too).<br /><br />Lana Parker never got the love she expected from her academic mom (another neglectful academic mom? really?), so she was not only head over heels over her high school sweetheart, Seth Carson, she was in love with his supportive family. But Seth went off to college and left her, so now she's gone from one long-term relationship to the next with something always ending it abruptly. When her current long-term boyfriend breaks up with her instead of proposing, she's crushed (even though she really didn't love him). So Natalie, Lana's new editor out in Los Angeles, has this great idea: she'll pit Lana against the new employee to see who gets a coveted column—you guessed it, the new employee is Seth, who's never had a steady relationship. To win, Lana will write columns about being on the dating scene, and Seth will learn how to be a guy who a woman will want to set up a long-term relationship with.<br /><br />Don't get me started. I was really upset that Lana makes one of the first things on her "challenge list" to "have a one-night stand." <i>Really? Really?</i> Do you know how dangerous that is in this day of roofies? I can't believe the author would do such a thing. At least there wasn't another flaky gay character in this one. Can't we <b>please</b> get a sensible gay character instead?<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Plus One</i>, Mazey Eddings<br />This is apparently part of a four part series about a group of friends who fall in love (Lizzie and Harper are the previous two). Indira Papadakis is a young psychologist who loves her job, and who loves her brother Collin and his intended, Jeremy. The person she doesn't love is Jude Bailey, Collin's best friend, who's been her "enemy" since childhood, in town for Collin and Jeremy's wedding. But Jude has a secret: in order to get through medical school without debt, he signed up to be a doctor in emergency zones once he graduated, most of them in war-torn areas. He is suffering terribly from PTSD, and Collin and Jeremy's bonkers pre-wedding festivities (please, can we have some sensible gay characters?) are torture to him. Indira doesn't want to fix him, but she does want to help him, and so they pretend to be lovers (and you know how that turns out in romance books).<br /><br />I really admire Eddings for tackling the problem of PTSD—Jude's frayed nerves notch up the plot on this one, and Indira's efforts to help, not fix—but Collin and Jeremy really wrecked the story for me. Their pre-wedding antics are so childish and <i>stupid.</i> As an introvert, I felt <b>so</b> sorry for Jude, continually dragged into "make the wedding favors" and other jerky activities. Apparently this was supposed to be funny, but I was just appalled instead. And this is Jude's <b>best friend</b>. Yeah, in the end he apologizes, but really.<br /><br />The subplot about Indira and Collin's deadbeat dad was dead depressing. So tired of rom-com parent bashing.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Men Who Hate Women</i>, Laura Bates<br />This is a genuinely scary book.<br /><br />Bates, who has done research on "dark internet" sites has found chat groups and forums where men talk about raping and killing woman as if it's not only natural, but that it should be expected because women "deserve" to be raped and their only use is as sexual objects. I had been reading John Douglas' books about profiling and his observations about male rage piqued my interest, so I picked up this book. The chapters are "Men Who Hate Women," "...Prey on Women," "...Avoid Women," "...Blame Women," "...Hound Women," "...Hurt Women," "...Exploit Other Men," "...Are Afraid of Women," "...Don't Know They Hate Women," and "...Hate Men Who Hate Women," so there are many aspects of hate, all of them not only detrimental to women, but to other men.<br /><br />Sadly, this is good reference if you're writing a crime against women book.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Seasons of America Past,</i> Eric Sloane<br />This is one of Sloane's numerous nostalgic books about America's colonial past, complete with his gorgeous pen-and-ink illustrations of old-time tools, toys, buildings, and farming methods. This one covers a year on a colonial-era farm, from spring sowing to winter repairs, summer planting and autumn harvest, and there's even period recipes in the final few pages. If you like to read about historical eras, Sloane's books are some of the best about the "old times."<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Yours Cheerfully,</i> A.J. Pearce<br />This is the sequel to Pearce's delightful <i>Dear Mrs. Bird,</i> finding Emmy Lake now firmly established at the magazine "Woman's Friend" under the supervision of Mr. Collins, the brother of her beloved boyfriend Charles. Emmy is now the editor of the new column "Yours Cheerfully," and the women's magazines have been pushed by the British government to step up and try to encourage more women to do war work because the war plants are understaffed. Emmy's glad to do so, until she meets some women war workers, including Anne Oliver and her precocious daughter Ruby and Baby Tony. Anne tells her how difficult it is for her to work with needing child care, and when another woman working in Anne's war plant is fired because she had to bring her daughters to work, Emmy is determined to Do Something.<br /><br />This is a sweet followup to <i>Bird</i>, if with a less compelling storyline, although the problem of women war workers finding childcare was a very real one and many women did lose their jobs because they had to bring their kids to work. Emmy and Charles' romance is also very sweet, and the efforts Emmy and Bunty go through to help the war workers is both heartwarming and funny.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>'Til Death</i>, Carol J. Perry<br />Alas, this seems to be the last of Perry's "Witch City" mysteries, which means I won't be reading Perry any longer since her new series takes place in—yuck!—Florida. Anyway, Lee Barrett is finally marrying her long-time boyfriend Pete Mondello of the Salem Police, and they're looking for a place to live near her Aunt Ibby's house so they can share Lee's beautiful—and slightly psychic—orange cat, O'Ryan. In the meantime, Aunt Ibby is fixing the upstairs apartment where Lee used to live to make two smaller units for use as Airbnbs, and one of the renters just may be a murderer who did his prison time and changed his name! (Shades of Anne Perry here...)<br /><br />In the meantime, Lee and Pete decide to travel New England on their honeymoon, and one of the first places they will visit will be Pirate's Island, owned by Lee's late father's sister and her husband. Lee discovered this is the location of the plane crash which killed her parents, so she wants to visit, perhaps place a memorial where they died. But there's something odd going on at Pirate's Island; her aunt appears to have some type of medical problem and sometimes she appears to be afraid of her husband.<br /><br />So in one fell swoop we get Lee's engagement party and then wedding, her suspicions of Aunt Ibby's new lodger, househunting, her boss' insistence that she "do a little work" on her honeymoon, and her hope to find closure on Pirate's Island. Lots of things going on in this final book, but things are all wrapped up as the story ends.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Eloise and the Grump Next Door</i>, Jenny Proctor and Emma St. Clair<br />Ho-hum. Part one of a three-book series about three sisters who inherit their grandmother's house on a small island off the coast of Georgia (I think; I've already forgotten). They are to turn it into a bed and breakfast and then either sell it, or one of them runs it and buys the other two out. Eloise is just out of college and didn't get into graduate school (this again), so she's the "free" one of the three sisters and gets the job of renovating. She's perky and cute and has her own Instagram following, so she's going to follow the process of the renovation on her Instagram page. Bad news: she has to deal with Jake, her grandmother's lawyer, a stuffed shirt in his early thirties who has to deal with his divorced sister and her bright son.<br /><br />Well, of course they fall in love, but Eloise (call her "Lo" or she gets mad) keeps resisting it, and Jake thinks he's too old for her. He complains about this for the entirety of the book, and finally gets her the graduate position she wanted by talking to his mother (another neglectful academic—enough already). Everyone else in the book, including Jake's dad who runs the local bar, his supportive sister, etc. is cheering them on.<br /><br />Complications arise when Merritt and Sadie, her pushy older sisters who treat her like a baby, arrive. People keep describing this as "swoony." I got through it only because my husband was in the hospital and it was something to pass the time.<br /><br />I either have to quit reading rom-coms or find more intelligent ones<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>My Name is America: The Journal of Jedediah Barstow, An Emigrant on the Oregon Trail,</i> Ellen Levine<br />This is a good entry in the Scholastic "Dear America" series, written for boys instead of girls. Jedediah is a 13-year-old boy whose parents, along with his younger sister, are heading for the Oregon Country in 1845, but as the book opens, the rest of his family are drowned while crossing the Kaw River just as the journey begins. Jed originally stays with Mr. Fenster, a Jewish man, but feeling uncomfortable, switching to traveling with irascible Mr. Henshaw and his wife and young daughter. Jed continues chronicling the trip in the journal his mother originally began.<br /><br />The descriptions are a bit thin, but good portrayal of the hardships the pioneers faced, especially river crossings, dust storms, rattlesnakes (a character gets his leg amputated due to a rattler bite), etc. Jed also learns lessons about tolerance and forbearance on his journey, and becomes more open-minded. The epilog is a bit odd, though, as it's written in Jed's voice, when the epilogs are usually a third-person summary of what happened to the characters (which are usually positive, unless it's a Barry Denenberg book).</p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6439847.post-82033784394095446412022-09-30T23:24:00.369-04:002022-10-11T19:13:36.200-04:00Books Completed Since September 1<p><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Love on the Brain</i>, Ali Hazelwood<br />This is another one of Hazelwood's science-based rom-coms and it's a lot of fun, if not quite as good as <i>The Love Hypothosis.</i> Bee Konigswasser is a neuroengineer; her spiritual guide is Marie Curie (she even has a popular Twitter account called "What Would Marie Do?"), and she's just been offered her dream job, working on a project developing a helmet operation system for NASA. Except she'll have to work with Levi Ward, the hot guy she met in graduate school and who's never given her the time of day. They're archenemies, and that's it. Still, Bee wants to work on the BLINK project so badly she's willing to put up with "the Wardass." But when she turns out for her first day at work she finds she and her partner Rocio have no equipment.<br /><br />It's a rom-com so you know what happens eventually, but in the meantime there are complications. Our heroes have their quirks—Bee is secretly searching for home (and a cat of her own), she has a peripatetic twin sister currently in Europe, her lab partner for the BLINK project is an offbeat conspiracy theorist, oh, and she faints when she gets stressed due to low blood pressure, and Levi has an overbearing gung-ho family tied to hunting and the military who think he's a loser even though he's a PhD because he's not in the Army (where do people dig up these crazy parents?—why do they even have kids if they're not going to love them as they are?). The climax to this story contains an element of suspense that was not part of <i>Love Hypothesis</i>.<br /><br />BTW, I had no idea that it was so gruesome to get into graduate school! (See also <i>Blame it on the Bront</i><i>ё</i><i>s</i> below.)<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>How Y'All Doing?</i>, Leslie Jordan<br />I fell in love with Leslie Jordan after watching the sitcom <i>The Cool Kids</i>—even if it wasn't as good as I hoped—with Jordan as one of a bunch of retirees in a Western senior center (sorry, not liking him as well in <i>Call Me Kat</i>; he'd be the only reason I watched). After reading this book, I'm even more besotted: this is funny—his chapter on Ronnie Claire Edwards (whom everyone knows as prudish Corabeth Godsey from <i>The Waltons</i>) alone is worth the price of the book—and also touching (his tales about his dad). There's the story of how Debbie Reynolds called his mother, how he ended up being famous for hymn singing, his love of horses and how he worked with them for a while, and more. This book will make you laugh and cry. Enjoy!<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Way I Heard It,</i> Mike Rowe<br />This is an adaptation of Rowe's entertaining podcasts akin to Paul Harvey's classic radio feature <i>The Rest of the Story</i>, where Rowe relates unknown tales about celebrities and other names in the news: the Jewish man who played music by Jewish composers directly into the Nazi lines; the story of a <i>Titanic</i> survivor, or a man who invented a unique new tool, or a devoted husband and wife who wrote spicy letters to each other every day they were apart—in all, 35 tales about people you never knew, or thought you knew.<br /><br />After each tale, Rowe tells <i>his</i> story, about his childhood, young adulthood, and how he got initially involved with <i>The Deadliest Catch</i> and then was given his own series, <i>Dirty Jobs.</i> If you love little unknown bits of history, or are a Mike Rowe fan, or both, this is the book for you.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Go Hex Yourself,</i> Jessica Clare<br />Regina Johnson needs a job, and when she sees one that looks like she will be working on her favorite geeky card game, Spellcraft, she jumps at the chance. Instead she finds she's to be employed as a witch's familiar to Drusilla Magnus, an elderly woman who's clearly infatuated with all things Roman and who is clearly dotty—who believes in witchcraft anyway? "Reggie" is sure she can cope with Ms. Magnus and her fantasies, especially for $25K a month, since she has her parents' debts to pay off; it's the woman's handsome nephew Ben that's going to be the problem.<br /><br />Basically, this is rom-com with magic, with a broody male protagonist who cultivates his bad rep and a female protagonist who has trust issues because of her dreadful parents, who basically have gotten her into debt by hacking into her accounts and running up bills on her credit cards. Drusilla is basically wacky old lady who's lived for centuries and is bored. Plus Reggie has a flaky gay roommate named Nick—who rates people's characters based on who they resemble on the series <i>The Golden Girls</i>—who's obsessing over a new flame, and there's a cat named Maurice who has his own secrets. It's cute. Some spicy sex. And a different witch's discipline than the usual Celtic goddesses. Probably best if you're a <i>Golden Girls</i> fan (I'm not; have never even watched it), but also for fans of stories with a magical twist.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Shelf</i>, Phyllis Rose<br />I picked this up for a dollar at Dollar Tree and it was actually an entertaining read. Rose, already an avid reader, decided to explore books as she hadn't before: she picked a row of fiction books at a local library and decided to read all of them, "off road reading." In this way she reads a Russian epic by Mikhail Lermontov along with <i>The Phantom of the Opera</i>, Rhoda Lerman, an author who wrote surprising books and now writes nonfiction about Newfoundland dogs, and from the nearly 800-page tome <i>Gil Blas</i> to the detective thrillers of John Lescroart. There's also an excellent chapter about how when women write domestic fiction it's considered "their place" but when men do it, it's considered notable and extraordinary, and another chapter about how books are culled from libraries (considering my recent complaints about our local public library having been horribly culled of books, this one hit the spot).<br /><br />I wouldn't go out of my way to buy this book, but I did find it an entertaining read.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Blame It on the Brontёs</i>, Annie Sereno<br />So here I am deep into another rom-com; this time about English professor Athena Murphy who's run into a roadblock with her university position: she either has to publish a book related to her discipline or she'll lose her tenure. She decides to dig out the truth about C.L. Garland, a popular writer who's done a series of spicy novellas about classic literature couples, someone she discovered lives her her old home town of Laurel, Illinois. But guess who's back living in Laurel: the man who broke her heart, Thorne Kent, who's given up his law practice to run a bakery/coffee shop. She can get through this, she's sure, even with working for some extra cash as a waitress at Thorne's business. But there's no way what they felt for each other in the past isn't going to come bubbling up in the present.<br /><br />This is a nice enough rom-com; it revolves around literature and the protagonists are amiable enough. There's also an undercurrent in what's going on with Athena's separated parents about being true to yourself, and the fact that Athena and Thorne's story leads some other folks into happy relationships. But it's also one of those books where you want to shake at least once of them. Thorne has a good reason for what he's done, and Athena is supposed to be his best friend; why not let her in on it? His excuse is that he doesn't want some personal info to come out. So you love her, have sex with her, and still can't trust her? Also, this is the second book in a row where the female protagonist has a flaky gay friend (actually, in this case it's her brother) who gets hysterical at the least thing. And yet another small town with small businesses with cutesy poo names. I'm finding this in my cozy mysteries, too. Plus I've never understood the fascination with <i>Wuthering Heights</i>; from all that I can figure out, Heathcliff and Catherine had a very toxic relationship, so why is it considered so romantic?<br /><br />Between this and <i>Love on the Brain</i> I am damn glad I am not an academic.<br /><br />I had to admit I laughed during the bits with Athena's fake boyfriend Sergei. I was less enchanted with the Murphy pet pug, and I usually like a dog in a story.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <a href="https://holidayharbour.blogspot.com/2022/09/whats-deal-with.html"><i>Christmas Past,</i> Brian Earl</a><br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Shenanigans,</i> edited by Mercedes Lackey<br />This is the newest collection of Valdemar short stories. I missed the previous one, <i>Boundaries</i>, and noticed two things about this one: the books are now trade paper, which I hate, and this one, at least, seemed to be based around a single theme (pranks), which the previous collections were not.<br /><br />I had mixed feelings about this collection. Most of the stories were okay or good. I quite enjoyed the opening story was about a pair of <i>hertasi</i> (sentient lizards who act as servants) who outsmart three highwaymen; "All Around the Bell Tower," told from the point of view of a youngster who seems to be autistic and who sees visions, which features Herald Wil; and the annual story featuring Lena at the Temple of Thenoth, which always focuses on animals (this time it's a dog) and also the annual story about the Iron Street Watch guards, this one featuring a very perceptive chicken.<br /><br />I also enjoyed the two stories that had love stories between older people in them, "Love, Nothing More, Nothing Less" and "One Trick Pony," and a Herald-based detective story, "Of Ghosts and Stones and Snow."<br /><br />Several stories are about deliberate or accidental pranks at the Collegium, most are sort of fluffy. My least favorite was "Trap Spell," which I found pretty blah.<br /><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6439847.post-80670870399100988092022-08-31T22:32:00.643-04:002022-09-04T23:24:32.598-04:00Books Completed Since August 1<p><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Murder on Pleasant Avenue</i>, Victoria Thompson<br />This is the 23rd in Thompson's "Gaslight Mystery" series starring midwife Sarah Brandt Malloy and her husband Frank Malloy, former New York City police officer and now a private detective. I've been reading these since the first book, and still remember getting them with points coupons at Waldenbooks! In this entry, when a woman is missing in a section on Manhattan called "Italian Harlem," Frank's partner, young Italian-American Gino Donatelli, decides to confront the prime suspect, a saloonkeeper named Nunzio Esposito, but when he arrives at Esposito's flat, the man is dead, and a police officer discovers Gino there: naturally "this eye-talian" must be the murderer! So now it's a race against time to prove Gino innocent as well as find the young woman, a settlement worker who is believed to be kidnapped by the Black Hand, a notorious Italian criminal group, to the dismay of the strait-laced man who worked with her and hoped to marry her.<br /><br />This is a great paced entry in the series, which takes place chiefly in New York City's Little Italy. You meet Gino's family—there's a very funny scene where Maeve Smith, nanny and sometimes investigator for the Malloys, has to visit the Donatellis and a misunderstanding takes place—and learn more about the Black Hand itself (no, it was <b>not</b> a precursor to the Mafia, as many people believe).<br /><br />From the decorations on the front cover, you might think this was set at Christmas; nope, it's just a great Italian church feast like I remember from my childhood, which is the setting for a rousing finale!<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Mindhunter,</i> John Douglas and Mark Olshaker<br />This is Douglas' original book about becoming an FBI profiler; he was the basis for Scott Glenn's character in <i>The Silence of the Lambs</i> and the inspiration for the name-changed main character in Netflix's <i>Mindhunter</i> series. Per Douglas' memoir, he was interested in the psychology of people from his teens, and was studying industrial psychology when he was recruited by the FBI; one of a group of men (no women FBI agents back then, per J. Edgar Hoover) who pioneered the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (the BAU portrayed in the series <i>Criminal Minds</i>), the people who examine the evidence, try to figure out the motives, and finally draw conclusions about the perpetrator of a crime.<br /><br />The first part of the book discusses Douglas's life and the early portion of his career, where he discusses some of the criminals he interviewed to develop a systematic approach to profiling, like Ed Kemper, an otherwise affable man who murdered young women as well as his own mother; Charles Manson, who needed to be in control of his followers; and rapist and murderer Richard Speck. The second half of the book talks about the cases he worked on with the BAU and how they reached the conclusions they did about the suspects and how they went about assisting the local police in finding the perpetrators. Several times, as he reluctantly relates, no justice could be found.<br /><br />This is my third Douglas book prompted by watching <i>Law & Order: Criminal Intent</i>. Not pleasant reading, by any means, but interesting to know how real profilers work.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Poppy Redfern and the Fatal Flyers</i>, Tessa Arlen<br />This is the second book in Arlen's Women of World War II series, featuring Poppy Redfern, who is now working for a British film unit who make documentary films (read "propaganda") about the war effort. As the story opens, Poppy has herself a plum assignment: interview the members of an elite ATA group (Air Transport Auxiliary) of women pilots at Didcote airfield. Poppy quickly forms a bond with the group: self-assured Edwina, blonde Betty (nicknamed "Grable"), Annie, June, Letty, and the Polish freedom fighter Zofia, although initially she needs to prove himself with the group. Also in the mix is Poppy's now-boyfriend, the American flyer Griff O'Neal, who shows up with Poppy's Welsh corgi, Bess. But soon after filming starts, Edwina, the best of the pilots, crashes her Spitfire under suspicious circumstances. No one thinks it's an accident, but they're told to treat it as one.<br /><br />The history about "the Atta girls" presented here is fascinating. As in the United States, no one in the military thought women could be competent pilots of such large and complicated aircraft. Instead the women proved to be fearless flyers and sometimes superior to the men that were being trained for the RAF. And the mystery is fairly good. But once again it's the protagonists who are disappointing: Poppy is too gorgeous to be true and what on <b>earth</b> is Griff doing there? Doesn't he have any duties on his American air base? He seems to be in the story just to follow Poppy around. Don't get me started on the "little dog." Welsh corgis are <b>short</b>, but they're not "little dogs" and people seem to heft her up with no effort. What's the dog even <b>doing</b> there? It made sense in the previous book when Poppy was solving a mystery in her home village, but now Griff brings her down to visit? That whole part of the story is too absurd to be true.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Spoiler Alert,</i> Olivia Dade<br />This book called me because both the protagonists write fan fiction. Marcus Caster-Rapp is the good-natured, supposedly not-very-smart but good looking star of a series called <i>Gods of the Gates</i> (think <i>Game of Thrones</i>, but with Greek gods) based on a book series. The series has wandered far afield of the books and it turns out Marcus writes fanfic based on his Aeneas character from the books. April Whittier is an accomplished geologist who's also a fan of <i>Gods of the Gates</i>, and (unknown to her coworkers) she writes romantic fanfic based on the arranged marriage between Aeneas and Lavinia. She's also been bullied for years by her father and her compliant mother about her weight, but she's decided not to let it bother her any more. When she wears a Lavinia costume to a convention, there are catty remarks about how fat she is, and Marcus, a good guy at heart, invites her to dinner. Everyone thinks it's a publicity stunt, but Marcus really didn't like seeing her bullied online—and then when he meets her in person, he realizes she is really someone he'd like to get to know a lot better.<br /><br />There's only one problem: Marcus and April are already friends, under pen names on Archive of Our Own. They beta-read each other's stories. And Marcus doesn't want to ruin what he has with "Ulsie" (his nickname for April's <i>nom de guerre</i>), so when they get further involved he decides not to tell her.<br /><br />There is a lot to like about this book. We have fanfiction authors, we have an actor who, under his bland personality, is really quite deep, we have a geologist and fan who has finally decided to become comfortable in her own body, we have supportive friends, and a realistic fan community, from eager fanwriters to jerk Twitter posters. Our male protagonist has a secret about his past which is rather affecting. And we finally have a female protagonist who isn't your perfect gorgeous girl with a perfect figure who makes all the males in the story swoon.<br /><br />Indeed, almost <b>too</b> much is made of April's weight. The author seems to go overboard pushing descriptions about her ample figure, as if daring the reader to belittle her. Plus we have two sets of absolutely crap parents, which is a trend I'm seeing in romance books. Does anyone have good parents anymore? Can there be no drama without these absolutely wretched parental units? Plus, while he's a supportive friend, I really didn't like Marcus' bestie Alex. I thought the character was grating—and there will be a sequel to <i>Spoiler Alert</i> starring Alex. Sorry, I won't be buying.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Phasers on Stun!,</i> Ryan Britt<br />This is a fun book of essays (mostly original, a couple from online columns) about the <i>Star Trek</i> phenomenon from the creation of the original series all the way to the newest series like <i>Picard</i> and <i>Discovery</i> (<i>Strange New Worlds</i> is mentioned, but has not aired as of the publication). It, however, is not a history of the <i>Trek</i> universe as much as a study of aspects of the universe: for instance, the internet often promotes how progressive the original series was, but <i>was</i> it? Sure, it had an interracial crew, but how much did they get to do? Other topics: how <i>Star Trek</i> and NASA became intertwined; how <i>Enterprise's</i> much maligned theme song reveals what's wrong with the series; <i>Star Trek</i> and time travel (and how much the series almost defined time travel more than <i>Doctor Who</i>); how <i>Star Trek</i> fans first reject and then accept newer series; LGBTQ+ finally appears on <i>Star Trek</i>--and how the "death" of Hugh Culber ignited controversy; and a lot more <i>Trek</i> goodness.<br /><br />Think of this as interesting footnotes to each stage of <i>Star Trek</i> history. Worth the read for fans.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Becoming a Writer, Staying a Writer</i>, J. Michael Straczynski<br /><i>Babylon 5, Crusade</i>, comic book author, book author—Straczynski has written for all mediums. This isn't your usual book about writing: he's not going to talk to you about grammar, structure, formats, etc., but assumes you've already read a good, basic book about the writing craft. Instead he offers other advice, freely acknowledging his debt to fellow writers like Harlan Ellison: what situations build drama, how you should always accept constructive criticism and not act as if your story couldn't use improvement, how you must take chances and let your stories go and not endlessly edit them, how the past you choose for your characters develop who they are, finishing a project, summarizing your story, and other things hard learned from experience. He also talks about what to do once you finish: finding an agent, pitching your story, how to deal with "impostor syndrome" (that feeling you get that you're not good enough), and more. Enjoyable and written in lively style.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Forever Young</i>, Hayley Mills<br />I grew up with the wonderful Hayley Mills, from her first performance in Walt Disney's delightful <i>Pollyanna</i> to her final film for Disney, <i>That Darn Cat</i>. She caught Disney's eye when she did a film with her actor father, the great John Mills, <i>Tiger Bay</i>, about a little girl and an escaped convict. This is her story from when she was chosen to do <i>Tiger Bay</i> through her divorce from Roy Boulting, the older man she married to the shock of her parents and her fans.<br /><br />Hayley lived a magical childhood at two homes, a London house called The Wick, and at a farm, with her older sister, actress Juliet Mills (or "Bunch" as the family called her) and younger brother Jonathan. Her mother was Mary Hayley Bell, famous playwright and author. Along with her film appearances for Disney, she chronicles her childhood as well as meeting the famous actors, actresses, and other celebrities who knew her parents, people like Vivien Leigh, Sir Laurence Olivier, Richard Attenborough, Bryan Forbes, Roddy McDowall, and more, plus the non-Disney movies she appeared in. But as she grew older, separated from other children of her age, Hayley experienced dislocation and doubt. She also had a problem when she came of age and wished to withdraw the money put away for her from her films; due to her father's accountant, she pretty much was taxed on the total amount and actually received very little for all the work she did.<br /><br />It's a quick-moving narrative, although her descriptions of her later work for Disney is lacking, and she dismisses one of her great characters, Mary Clancy of <i>The Trouble With Angels</i>, with almost no commentary at all. The latter part of her life, after she became the mother of two sons, is pretty much ignored; it's all the history of young Hayley. However, because it was young Hayley's experiences I was interested in, I wasn't really bothered by the latter much.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Case of the Spellbound Child</i>, Mercedes Lackey<br />In what looks like the last of Lackey's Elemental Masters series starring Sherlock Holmes (a mortal) and John and Mary Watson, who are both Elemental Masters, plus the magic-talented young ladies Sarah Lyon-White and Nan Killian and their bond birds Grey the African parrot and Neville the raven (respectively), plus their young ward Suki, the group help a ghost to his final resting place, plus solve the riddle of a girl who's been confined to an insane asylum before concentrating on the real meat of the volume: Lord Alderscroft has received a plea for help from a woman in Dartmoor, who punished her children Ellie and Simon by making them gather food on the moor, but they never returned from their errand. It turns out the pair, and many more children, are being held captive by a sinister presence they call "the Dark One" who keeps them shackled in a shed and puts them into a dark sleep often. Ellie is spared from this ordeal, but she is forced to do chores and baking instead; she tries to escape and finds herself physically shackled to the ruined cottage the Dark One lives in by magic.<br /><br />As in all the Elemental Masters books, the story is based on a fairy tale which I have heard of, but can't remember the title. While the Watsons, the young ladies, and Holmes himself work to find the children, resourceful Ellie finds a way to improve her lot at the cottage and then finally to escape, only to run into more danger on the way. Ellie, in fact, is the best reason to read this offering; Nan and Sarah are always good, as is mischievous Suki; the Watsons are almost too perfect, and Sherlock isn't really in the story enough to matter.<br /><br />Warning to anyone who dislikes dialect in a book: since this takes place in Dartmoor, many of the characters speak in the local dialect, and Suki has her own dialectical speech habits.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI</i>, Kate Winkler Dawson<br />This is the story of Edward Oscar Heinrich, a driven man who trained as a pharmacist and then a chemist. Heinrich was no stranger to hardship: his father's hard luck culminated in the man committing suicide when Oscar was sixteen. He eventually began doing chemical work for both the city coroner and the police, then began studying crime and criminals, and was eventually dubbed "the American Sherlock Holmes" for his work in forensics. He also was an early pioneer of profiling, as he sought to understand what made criminals "tick." The book follows Heinrich's career by discussing his involvement in several notable deaths, including his investigation into the Fatty Arbuckle case, in which the famed silent comedian was accused of killing a young starlet, Virginia Rappe.<br /><br />The cases themselves are pretty interesting, especially chronicling how crimefighting went from beating up "the usual suspects" and making them confess, to scientific means like fingerprints, ballistics, crime scene evidence, blood spatter patterns, etc. to track down miscreants. The big problem with this book is that Oscar Heinrich, for all his novel scientific deductions, was really a pretty dull person otherwise: he was married, had two kids, because of his father's financial difficulties was <b>always</b> worried about money, and pretty much had his nose to the grindstone 18 hours a day. He had no interesting hobbies or life outside his work, unless you count the fact that he blamed, like many people of his era, the movies for causing young people to go bad and seek sensation and perform criminal acts. So Heinrich's role in American forensics is quite remarkable, but don't expect a sparkling narrative about an unique man.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Uneasy Lies the Crown</i>, Tasha Alexander<br />I've made no secret that, although I love Lady Emily, I still think she and Colin were brought together too quickly, and that occasionally I'm really bored by the alternate storyline Alexander has come to include in each book.<br /><br />This time the alternate storyline is a rather ambling tale of a knight who fights with Henry V (think of the St. Crispin's Day rallying speech!) and his wife who lives with dubious relatives while he is abroad with the king, but the pair are Colin's ancestors, so this time the correlation between past and present is more firm.<br /><br />On her deathbed, Queen Victoria summons Colin Hargreaves to her side and gives him a cryptic note. Several weeks after her death, a body dressed as the murdered king Henry VI is found in the Tower of London. followed soon by another body which shows up in Berkeley Square dressed as the hideously killed Edward II, and the clues lead the police to believe that this is a direct threat to the new king, Bertie—oooops, we mean Edward VII. (This is rather a running gag throughout the book.)<br /><br />Dismissed by the Scotland Yard's investigator, who thinks investigating murders is no place for a lady, Emily and her cousin Jeremy Bainbridge begin following a convoluted trail of clues in a poor neighborhood that includes gangs, street kids, and a brothel. Jeremy, who's sometimes been an ass in past books, comports himself nicely in this one, and he and Emily make a good sleuthing pair. In the meantime, Colin continues to receive more cryptic clues that lead them on a scavenger hunt. There's a nice twist at the end, too.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>A Courage Undimmed</i>, Stephanie Graves<br />Yay to Netgalley for allowing me to read the ARC of the newest Olive Bright mystery! Olive Bright, daughter of the local vet and, like her father, a pigeoneer (one who breeds and trains racing pigeons), continues to help the British war effort by volunteering the Bright birds for messenger service. As a FANY <span>(First Aid Nursing Yeomanry) volunteer, she also works at Bricktonbury Manor, headquarters of Baker Street, a top-secret World War II spy organization, under the aegis of Jameson Aldridge (her feigned love interest), but hopes to become an SOE agent who would be dropped into Nazi-occupied France.<br /><br />Alas, Baker Street has a new commander, who thinks women have no place on the front lines; he not only tells Olive her pigeons may not be needed any longer, but assigns her to escort an annoying Royal Navy officer who's eager to interrogate a new resident of the village of Pipley, a Mrs. Dunbar who claims to be a spirit medium. In her first appearance in the village, Mrs. Dunbar said she was in contact with the dead souls of a British battleship on which several residents of the village served. Now everyone's uneasy, including the Naval representative, one Ian Fleming, who tells Olive that the ship is fine, but Mrs. Dunbar knows too many unique details for a civilian. But when Olive takes Fleming to a seance where Mrs. Dunbar dies, the question is whodunnit and why.<br /><br />I love these books and the characters, but this latest one fell slightly short of the mark for me at the beginning. I think it's because I've read one too many mystery books centered around spirit mediums who are murdered. Plus Jamie is missing for the first half of the book, so a lot of the sparring between Olive and Jamie that brightened the previous two books is missing here. The solution to the mystery is rather pedestrian, too. Positives: we get a look behind the scenes at a wartime Christmas, and when Jamie does return he has a great surprise for Olive, and the training that Olive is observing is based on a real-life spy mission during the war.</span><br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>I'll Be Right Back</i>, Mike Douglas with Thomas Kelly and Michael Heaton<br />This is an easy read of Mike Douglas' memories of his long-running talk show. It's not strictly a biography, although he does tell you how he got into singing in nightclubs and how he met his wife Genevieve, and a little of his life after the show was handed over to a younger host (even though it was still getting good ratings).<br /><br />Basically it's anecdotes about the people he met and enjoyed; if you read this book, there are very few people he didn't. Some readers of this book seemed to take umbrage at this fact, but he does criticize several people who didn't show up for their guest appearance (like Chevy Chase) or who were just plain rude, but he does it nicely. Apparently the readers were looking for more blood. Sorry, guys, these are just fun stories about movie and television stars, singers, dancers, even newsmakers and fellow talk-show hosts. There's also a daunting chapter explaining how "you," as this week's celebrity co-host, would be prepped for the show and what would be going on around you, as well as Mike's ten most outrageous or favorite happenings on his set (yes, one of them involves monkeys).<br /><br />If you loved <i>The Mike Douglas Show</i> as I did, you may also love this book. But don't expect Mike to insult anyone. It's just the way he was.<br />
</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6439847.post-73834741106701442692022-07-31T22:38:00.402-04:002022-08-07T20:53:31.262-04:00Books Completed Since July 1<p><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Bastard Brigade: The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies Who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb</i>, Sam Kean<br />I really, really loved this book! It combines a varied cast of characters including Moe Berg, a talented baseball player who loved playing spy and whose sorties into Japan provided the only intelligence the US had at the beginning of World War II; Irene Curie (daughter of Marie) and her husband Frederic Joliot, attempting to keep radioactive elements out of the hands of the Nazis; Samuel Goudsmit who was trying to get his Jewish parents out of Europe and his good friend Werner Heisenberg (he of the Uncertainty Principle); Boris Pash, who escaped Europe early and worked for US Army intelligence; and a pilot named Joe Kennedy Jr, whose younger brother eventually ended up capturing all the glory. Jumping from France to Germany to the U.S. and Norway and more, this is the complex tale of the escapades and dangerous lives of the Alsos team, who were determined to keep the secrets of fission from the Nazis. One of the most mind-boggling narratives is about the continued efforts to destroy the Vemork power plant in Norway; it had been captured by the Nazis and was the only place in Europe that made heavy water. The team ran into numerous obstacles in trying to breach the place and the eventual raid was awe-inspiring.</p><p></p><p>This is a very bad review of a very good book; the chapters are so intertwined that the story is hard to describe, a combination of World War II history and the history of the development of the nuclear bomb. Moe Berg is an especially interesting character; I'd like to read a whole book about Berg, even though I hate baseball!<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Dead Romantics</i>, Ashley Poston<br />Florence Day grew up in the family funeral home in the small town of Mairmont, South Carolina, with her parents, her sister Alice, and her brother Carver, and like her loving father, she's always had a special talent: she can talk to ghosts and is not afraid of them. She now lives in New York City, ghostwriting (naturally) for the famous romance author Ann Nichols, and her books are well received. But now, a year after her breakup with fellow author Lee Marlow, who abused her trust, Florence seems incapable of writing the final ghostwritten Ann Nichols book she was hired to pen. But her new editor, the tall and gorgeous Ben Andor, says she needs to finish it.<br /><br />The final straw is a phone call from her mother, telling her that her father has died, and Florence returns to Mairmont in mourning for both her dad and her career. She's not home a day before she gets the shock of her life when opening the front door: Ben Andor is standing in ghostly form before her.<br /><br />This was a delightful paranormal romance; I thoroughly enjoyed Florence's home town, the family funeral parlor that to her was a warm loving home, her neighbors, and her efforts to help Ben, whom she believes she is supposed to help to get to "the other side" just as she starts to fall in love with him. The only thing I <b>didn't</b> like was that Lee Marlow didn't get called on the <b>despicable</b> thing he did to Florence. I won't give it away, but it was thoroughly loathsome and he deserves to be horsewhipped.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Law & Disorder</i>, John Douglas and Mark Olshaker<br />This was my first "Robert Goren made me do it" (from <i>Law & Order: Criminal Intent</i>) book about John Douglas, an early FBI profiler, the basis for the character Scott Glenn played in the film <i>The Silence of the Lambs</i>, courtesy the remainder shelves at Books-a-Million.<br /><br />It's kind of a goofy title for the book, I think, and makes it sound not serious, but the contents are dead-on, especially when Douglas talks about the horrifying case of Suzanne Collins, a Marine trainee ready to go out on her first assignment who was brutally beaten and then raped with a tree branch by a sadistic jerk who felt diminished by his Marine wife, who then led the courts a lengthy trail of appeals before he was finally put to death. Douglas also talks about other cases he has personally worked on, plus weighs in on famous cases like the Jon-Benet Ramsey murder and the O.J. Simpson case, the Amanda Knox case in Italy and also a set of murders that were branded as "Satanic" because simply because one of the suspects doodled pentagrams on his notebooks.<br /><br />If you watch crime series like <i>Criminal Minds, Law & Order: Criminal Intent</i>, and even <i>NCIS,</i> you'll probably like this look behind how real profilers work.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> Re-read: <i>A Valiant Deceit</i>, Stephanie Graves<br />Read this as an e-book and immediately wanted a "real" copy, the second in Graves' delightful "Olive Bright" series, which I
enjoyed much more than the Barnes & Noble-pushed "Poppy Redfern"
series, which has a similar theme (young British woman during the second
World War who wants to do her bit).</p><div style="text-align: left;">In
this entry, Olive must pick out three pigeons to accompany three
Belgian informants being smuggled into occupied Europe; the birds will
be vital in sending back information about the Belgians' efforts to
mislead and sabotage the Nazi war effort. The Belgians are all pigeon
fanciers, reassuring Olive that even though the birds will be in danger
from enemy fire, they will be well cared for. She also has to cope with
the pretend romance she's set up with her superior, Captain Jameson
Aldridge, which she feels doesn't look realistic enough. Then one of the
officers at the top-secret Station XVII facility is found murdered in a
nearby wood. Olive can't help wondering who killed the young man,
although Aldridge warns her off sleuthing.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>If
anything, this is better than the first book because the storyline is
now established and the missions involving the pigeons can be begun.
There's also an affecting subplot involving RAF officers who have been
disfigured in plane crashes undergoing rehabilitation at a nearby estate, one of them who is now living in Miss Husslebee's former home (she was the victim in the first book). Olive
befriends one of the pilots and is determined that these men be
reintroduced into society without people making unkind comments about
their appearance. Even though Olive makes one serious mistake, her
instincts are sound, especially about the pigeons and their handlers, and I just love the people around Olive, like her mercurial Seigfried Farnon-like dad (who's even a vet), her stepmother Harriet who has MS, their young evacuee Jonathon, and the active young Girl Guide Henrietta.<br /><p>
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Hunt of History</i>, Nathan Raab<br />Nathan Raab's father was an attorney, but his real love was collecting historical memorabilia, especially autographs, letters, and other papers written/signed by figures from American history. Eventually he quit his law practice and instead founded the Raab Collection, a premier collection of historical documents for acquisition or sale. Raab at first had no intention to go into his father's business, but eventually he joined him.<br /><br />This is a well-narrated tale of Raab's introduction into the collecting world and the fascinating documents that he collects, and just why he collects them, as instructed by his father. That's the most interesting aspect of this book, how Raab's father taught him to distinguish what are the best historical documents to buy at auction. For instance, all autographed items are not the same, some, even from the most famous historical figures, are a dime a dozen, while others are not only autographed, but have special historical significance. One example I remember was of a Charles Darwin letter in which Darwin, unlike other white men of his time, significantly comments on the intelligence of black men and speaks against slavery, unique from his usual letters addressing scientific subjects, so the letter is more significant.<br /><br />I found this on a remainder shelf, and sometimes they are the best books!<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Bryant & May: London Bridge is Falling Down</i>, Christopher Fowler<br />Well, dammit, now I'm crying...<br /><br />I knew what happened in this book and didn't want to read it for months, but finally took the dive. The Peculiar Crimes Unit is officially closed, but the members aren't ready to pull themselves apart yet. Arthur Bryant goes searching for a case that can keep them going sometime longer, and finds the odd death of an elderly woman who suddenly "dropped off the radar" and was found starved and dehydrated in her flat. Ironically, this woman and her friends hold ties to the original formation of the PCU, and this brings them into the orbit of Larry Cranston, who has ties to the United States government, and who was just brought down for running over a young woman while driving under the influence of alcohol.<br /><br />There are always twists in a Bryant and May mystery, but this one seems to have a triple complement of them as the dead woman's friends, all codebreakers during World War I, struggle to survive against an assassin determined to shake a secret from one of them and kill them all. And what about the ugly model of London Bridge each one of them seems to have; it appears to be tied to the important secret. Not to mention that many of Arthur Bryant's eccentric informants seem to be in danger as well.<br /><br />The twists and turns turn into a satisfying conclusion...but, oh, that ending!<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Journey Into Darkness</i>, John Douglas and Mark Olshaker<br />This is the third book by Douglas and Olshaker; Douglas being the former FBI profiler who was the basis for Scott Glenn's character in <i>Silence of the Lambs</i> and who is being portrayed in fictional form in the Netflix series <i>Mindhunter</i>, based on Douglas' first book.<br /><br />As in <i>Law & Disorder</i>, Douglas tells many different stories about the kinds of serial killers and other criminals he has dealt with. Several of the chapters in this volume talk about pedophiles and how they stalk children (and they don't look sinister or have a "creepy" manner; they generally take the form of friendly neighbors and sometimes even relatives), and several more chapters are devoted to a case which haunted Douglas for years, the murder of a young Marine about to go on her first assignment, Suzanne Collins, who was brutally beaten and then raped with a tree branch by the indolent husband of another Marine. When the man was finally found, he cheated execution for several years by filing appeal after appeal. Douglas also tries to explain how he assembles a profile dossier from the clues left behind at the scene of the crime.<br /><br />I call this one of my "Robert Goren made me do it" books because I got interested in profiling after watching <i>Law & Order: Criminal Intent</i>. It's certainly not for the fainthearted.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>A Serpent's Tooth,</i> Craig Johnson<br />In the ninth Walt Longmire mystery, it's Homecoming time at the local high school when Walt learns his number and his best friend Henry Standing Bear's numbers are about to be retired. Just about this time a Mormon boy who's been kicked out of his compound turns up in Durant, accompanied by an elderly man who says he's the youngster's protector and also over 100 years old. This leads Longmire and his deputy Vic Moretti to investigate in the tiny town of Short Drop and a general store that also operates as a library, run by a woman with a lost daughter who may have ties to a rogue Mormon compound in South Dakota. There's a possibility the Mormon boy, Cord, may be her grandson. Longmire at first thinks the daughter's disappearance is the doing of the religious extremists, but soon it becomes obvious something much more sinister is going on.<br /><br />Another great one from Johnson, with quirky characters, the growing relationship between Walt and Vic, and a corker of an ending that involves the invasion of a compound by Walt, Henry, and Vic. (Did I mention that Henry was in this book? A lot? Yes, indeed!)<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Hard Road West</i>, Keith Heyer Meldahl<br />When I saw this book's description, I was intrigued. Then when I finally received it, I rejoiced. Someone basically took my favorite episode of <i>Alistair Cooke's America</i>, "Gone West," in which he traced the path of westward travelers to the California gold fields, expanded it using pioneer journals, and then added geological information to explain how the landscape that the wagon trains crossed was formed. Maps and photos are included to explain some of the more scholarly geologic terms, especially having to do with how landmasses and mountains were formed.<br /><br />If you love history and love earth sciences, this has got to be the book for you, especially if, way back when, you watched <i>America</i> and were fascinated by the "Gone West" episode. The author even opens with the Humboldt Sink, which Cooke talked about in length in the episode. The road was far more difficult than Cooke could describe in one television episode, and it's still amazing to think that due to the makeup of the rock and soil underneath the westward path you can still stop to see grooves in the rock. (I also don't remember passing so close to the Humboldt Sink on our two cross-country trips! It is due south of I-80 in Nevada.)<br /><br />Please be warned it is very detailed about the geologic features and processes which built the landscape west of the Mississippi. If you're "not a science person," the narrative may prove daunting.<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6439847.post-34758801421770558512022-06-30T23:00:00.225-04:002022-11-15T19:42:42.765-05:00Books Completed Since June 1<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Clark and Division</i>, Naomi Hirahara<br />I've really liked Hirahara's Elly Rush "bicycle police" books—been looking for mystery books that feature less "whitebread" heroines, as they are becoming boringly similar—and the news that she had done a post-World War II mystery involving a formerly interred Japanese family filled me with anticipation. I wasn't disappointed.<br /><br />Aki Ito has always lived in the shadow of her beautiful, vivacious sister Rose. Brought up in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Tropico, Aki and her family are shattered when they are considered "alien enemies" and sent to an internment camp. Rose later goes to Chicago to pave the way for the Itos being resettled there. But when Aki and her parents arrive, they receive the news that Rose is dead, having committed suicide in front of a subway train. Aki and Rose were close, and the former cannot believe her sister would do such a thing. Settled in a dingy, horrible apartment, with Aki desperately seeking a job, she also resolves to find out what really happened to Rose.<br /><br />This is several stories: Aki's tentative investigation, her making of new friends through a Japanese agency, her finally obtaining a job and learning to live in the grubby, crime-ridden Clark Street and Division Street neighborhood the Japanese had been resettled in, and, most importantly, Aki discovering herself and gradually growing into her own person, and perhaps even a romantic future. The end was kind of a twist, too.<br /><br />A sobering look into the Japanese experience during and after the war with a mystery attached.<br /><i><br /></i><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i></i>Entertainment Weekly's "The Ultimate Guide to <i>Jurassic Park</i>" and Hollywood Spotlight's "The Ultimate Guide to <i>Jurassic World"<br /></i>Well, they're big enough to be reviewed; two nice big magazines associated with the <i>Jurassic</i> franchise. They're alike (reviewing all three films) and different (the first one is basically chronological and the second starts with the newest film and then works backwards; it also refers you to dinosaur places (digs and museums) and alternative dinosaurs (like <i>Land Before Time</i> and Dino on <i>The Flintstones</i>). Both good reading. The second one has the best photo of Sam Neill. 😀<br /><i></i><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>A Walk Around the Block</i>, Spike Carlsen<br />Subtitled "stoplight secrets, mischievous squirrels, manhole mysteries & other stuff you see every day (and know nothing about)," this is a fun nonfiction book about the systems you take for granted every day that make your life simpler: plumbing, electricity, telephone wires, sewers, trash collection, streets and their traffic, parks, squirrels, even a chapter on pigeons, much more than "skyrats."<br /><br />Prompted by a plumbing problem that left him without water for days, Carlsen realized he didn't know how the city kept its occupants in water, or how, indeed, the water was collected and purified. It set him looking into all the elements of our modern infrastructure that make life possible in the 21st century. Recycling? Bicycle lanes? Road markings? Mail delivery? Lawn worship? All here, told in enjoyable style.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>See Something</i>, Carol J. Perry<br />This is "Witch City Mystery" #11, and possibly the penultimate book in the series as Perry seems to be starting up a new one set in Florida with a cute dog instead of a cat. I'm sorry if the series is ending, but in a way I'll be happy as there are some newer elements in the series that I'm not so happy about.<br /><br />Our protagonist Lee Barrett has been promoted from field reporter to program director, and she's juggling her various responsibilities, including developing a new local children's show. She decides to go with two performers she enjoyed in her childhood, Ranger Rob and Katie the Clown (who, under their characters, are good friends), just as a mystery turns up on her doorstep: she discovers a woman in the park across the street from her Aunt Ibby's house, a woman suffering from amnesia. In addition, a man's dead body has shown up at a nearby beach. Could these two events be connected? (If you say no, you haven't read enough of these books!) And can Lee keep her mind on her new job rather than exercising her instincts as a reporter?<br /><br />Besides the fact you can figure out the two things have to be connected, this is a good mystery mixed with Lee's ripening romance with Pete the police officer and her job developing the show for WICH-TV. My problems are still the "Charlie's Angels" thing they recently concocted with Aunt Ibby and her two classmates; I really liked Lee investigating crimes on her own with just some librarian help from her aunt, and also the show she's developing. A rodeo set with a cowboy and his horse, and a clown and a performing dog? This sounds like a 1950s kids' show—would modern kids even watch something like this? It seems a bit unreal.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>A Little Girl's Gift</i>, Lawrence Elliott<br />When I was younger I collected "Reader's Digest." I would even pick up old volumes, from the 1950s and early 60s, at book sales and flea markets. One of the best features of the old "Digest" was the book section, condensed versions of popular novels. But in 1963, a different story was published.<br /><br />In 1959, eight-year-old Janis Babson of Ontario was diagnosed with leukemia. In those days, the disease was a death sentence, and Janis fought bravely for two years before dying. But she is remembered mainly for something that happened right before she got sick: she saw a documentary about eye transplants and vowed to her mother and father she would donate her eyes to the Eye Bank when she died, and her parents followed her wishes.<br /><br />This is not written as a weepy "sick child" bathotic piece. Janis was an upbeat, happy child and most of the time she fought cancer with a quiet, stubborn courage, chronicled here. Her story first appeared as "The Triumph of Janis Babson" in a 1963 "Reader's Digest" concurrently with this book. I've been searching for it for years since my mom threw out my RD collection long ago, and it was recently republished. I am an organ donor today because of Janis Babson. Peace be to her soul.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>CSI: Cold Burn</i>, Max Allan Collins<br />The third in a series of novels based on the television series, it's Christmastime in Las Vegas when Ranger Ally Scott finds a nude body near Lake Mead, sopping wet. It turns out it's the corpse of a woman called Missy Sherman, who disappeared over a year ago, and it turns out her body's been stored in a freezer. Catherine Willows and Warrick Brown reinvestigate, immediately suspicious of Missy's husband. In the meantime, Gil Grissom and Sara Sidle have arrived in upstate New York to hold a seminar at a criminologists' conference, only to have a severe snowstorm blow in. Wouldn't you know that on the way to the hotel they discover a dead body? With the help of the hotel manager and the only other conference attendee who managed to make it to the hotel, a Mountie named Mortenson, they mount guard on the body until the snow stops and they can gather evidence.<br /><br />Collins keeps the two parallel stories going well here, although maybe there's a little bit <b>too</b> much information how forensic information is gathered in the snow, and much of the latter story is told from Sara's point of view, which is enjoyable, especially at the end. Once again, he has a good handle on the characters and they sound as if they were speaking on the series.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>The Science of Murder</i>, Carla Valentine<br />Love mystery stories, especially those of Agatha Christie? Watch all those crime shows like <i>CSI</i> and <i>Law & Order</i>, and wonder how they gather evidence and interpret it? This is the book for you: the story of forensics as seen through the lens of Agatha Christie's novels, from Poirot and Miss Marple to Bobby and Frankie and Tommy and Tuppence: fingerprints (latent, patent, and plastic), firearms, trace evidence like receipts, vegetative and other fragments found at crime scenes, documents and other paper evidence, evidence found by the coroner during autopsy, etc. Valentine is engaging in her prose, sometimes, in my opinion, a little too referential to her sources, and clearly makes you understand how each aspect of forensics work—so you can now go back and understand Gil Grissom and his crew, or what Abby Scioto is driving at.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> Re-read: <i>Death of a Showman</i>, Mariah Fredericks</div><div style="text-align: left;">Fourth and ::sob:: maybe final book in the Jane Prescott series. Louise
and William Tyler have returned from Europe (to Louise's relief) after
her sister's wedding, and lady's maid Jane Prescott is equally relieved to get
back to normal life. But the first thing she learns upon returning is
that songwriter Leo Hirschfeld, who she'd come to love during the
previous summer, but who told her he'd never be married, has wed a
chorus girl. But she'll have to see Leo a lot more than she planned,
since he convinces Louise to be a "Broadway angel" for his new musical,
produced by the great impresario Sidney Warburton. Warburton is
certainly <b>no</b> angel, and both Jane and Louise get an education as
they negotiate rehearsals where there's cast in-fighting, personality
conflicts, multiple script changes, and arguments galore.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And
then Warburton is shot, and there's no end of suspects, including Leo,
the older actress whose lover Warburton barred from the set, the aging
dance couple, and even drunken Roland Harney, the dipsomaniac performer
with the little dog (you may see in Harney echoes of W.C. Fields). In
the meantime, history goes on behind the scenes: Archduke Francis
Ferdinand has been assassinated, and the bloody Ludlow massacre in
Colorado has Jane's best friend, anarchist and activist Anna, enraged.</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><p>The main plot of the book reminds me of a similar <i>Perry Mason</i>
episode about a discontented acting troupe, except it takes place in
Jane Prescott's universe at the time when ragtime was capturing the
America's imagination. It's a glimpse into early 20th century life
backstage, in which people who didn't quite fit into regular society
found a home in theater society—but also the story of how some of these
people were exploited. While I didn't find some aspects of the plot as
compelling as in the previous three books, the theatre setting was
intriguing and seeing Leo again was a treat, even, alas, if he wasn't
fated to end up with Jane.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Twelve Moons of the Year,</i> Hal Borland, edited by Barbara Dodge Borland<br />Now <b>this</b> was what I was expecting from <i>Hal Borland's Book of Days</i>, a daybook of seasonal entries. These are 365 of Borland's favorite passages from over 2,000 "nature editorials written from 1945-1978, and the page-long entries make wonderful reading at bedtime, or as a day-by-day entry for the year. Borland's beautiful prose about birds, walks in the snow or through flowery fields or woods brilliant with autumn color, traditional ways of life, country chores, native plants, simple pleasures, and other aspects of country life for three decades.<br /><br />The print equivalent of a walk through the woods; if you can't find a place to "forest bathe," Borland is a good alternative.<br /><i></i><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Ella of All-of-a-Kind Family,</i> Sydney Taylor<br />This is the final of the five-book series about Taylor's "all-of-a-kind" family, five sisters in a Jewish family growing up in New York City, two years apart, Ella, Henrietta (Henny), Sarah (Taylor herself, since this is based on her life), Charlotte, and Gertie (in a later book the sisters get a baby brother, Charlie). The five books were the first series written about a Jewish-American family, the first place many readers learned about Jewish customs.<br /><br />The final book, as the title implies, is about Ella, the eldest, who aspires to become a singer and takes weekly lessons. As the book opens, her boyfriend Jules returns from serving in World War I; they make plans to marry. Then Ella is offered the chance to perform in a vaudeville for a year, and she won't be able to see Jules as often. Will she choose the stage or a tamer life?<br /><br />The story uses Sydney Taylor's real-life experiences in the theater in the early 1900s to make this a very vivid portrait of a vaudeville performer's rugged life: endless rehearsals, browbeating directors, dirty dressing rooms, loneliness even in the midst of a crowd. There are also chapters about Charlotte and Gertie getting into mischief while babysitting, the tale of when Henny runs against four boys in a class election, and a grim chapter when Charlie is badly hurt as well as an amusing one where he livens up the family Seder.<br />
<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6439847.post-39680509379276765272022-05-31T22:46:00.234-04:002022-06-07T18:30:35.368-04:00Books Completed Since May 1<p><img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Pacific: Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators, Fading Empires, and the Coming Collision of the World's Superpowers</i>, Simon Winchester<br />Simon Winchester writes tomes. And I love 'em.<br /><br />Another nearly pristine book sale discovery is Winchester's follow-on to his wonderful <i>Atlantic.</i> For his examination of the largest and not always "pacific" of the waters, he talks about ten significant historic events in the life of the Pacific since 1950: nuclear bomb testing, the rise of the transistor, the popularization of surfing as a sport, the rise of North Korea, the sinking of the original Queen Elizabeth ocean liner in the port of Hong Kong, the first hints of global warming with the hit of a super typhoon on Darwin, Australia, the Australian break from Great Britain, the discovery of an abyssal heat source by the submersible <i>Alvin</i>, the dying off of coral and bird species, and the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in conjunction with the rise of the Chinese as a sea power, and Winchester sends you skipping through the serious—the societies destroyed by the transfer of the Bikini Islanders and other Micronesian groups to other islands so their remote locations could be used for atom bomb tests, the death of coral on the Great Barrier Reef, the extinction of plants and animals—and the light, like Gidget and surfboards and unusual looking fish.<br /><br />Post-<i>Atlantic, The Perfectionists, </i>and <i>The Men Who United the States</i>, I haven't been disappointed in a Winchester book yet, and I still have <i>Land, The Professor and the Madman, A Crack at the Edge of the World,</i> and <i>The Map That Changed the World</i> to go.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Revenge in Rubies,</i> A. M. Stuart<br />Harriet Gordon has settled into her new home in Singapore with her brother Julian, a minister, and Will, the boy, that she helped in the first of the series (<i>Singapore Sapphire</i>), is doing well in school and in living with them. To make extra money she is still typing police reports for Inspector Robert Curran of the Singapore constabulary, and, after a brutal murder, she's asked if she might help comfort members of the victim's family. Unfortunately it only draws her into the drama surrounding the death of Sylvie Nolan, the much-younger wife of a colonel at the Singapore army compound. Not only doesn't the military seem to want Curran to investigate the crime, but one of the men, a Major Goff, openly resents Curran because of something to do with his father's army service—Goff has, indeed, accused Curran's father of cowardice. Given only a short time to investigate the murder, Curran is suddenly hit with a severe attack of malaria, and Harriet is determined to help the family of the victim as well as her friend.<br /><br />Stuart does another terrific job illustrating the life of English people living in Singapore just as the Edwardian era is ending: the rules of society they must follow, the stifling heat of the tropics, and women's roles in a male-dominated world. Harriet is neither a milqetoast Victorian lady or an out-of-her-century feminist, which is very refreshing for those of us who know history and want an accurate, but self-sufficient protagonist. Looking forward, once again, to the next installment.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Ghost: My Thirty Years as an FBI Undercover Agent</i>, Michael M. McGowan and Ralph Pezzullo<br />I had to grab this when I saw it at Books-a-Million, especially since I was still writing <i>L&O: CI</i> fanfic where Robert Goren is operating as an FBI agent. I found it quite the page-turner, especially after watching the old <i>FBI</i> series with Efrem Zimbalist Jr as a kid, where all the agents were square-jawed and deadly solemn. McGowan talks about how differently undercover operations are from what you see on television, especially how long they take to set up and work—he talks about ones he worked that took between two and five years to complete, while he had to stay in the persona of some low-life drug dealer or dishonest businessman. He also talks about some of the criminal bosses he met over the years; some of them being downright weird, all of them being really creepy.<br /><br />I noticed some of the reviewers of this book on Amazon complained that McGowan was uber-egotistical; I would think to be able to carry off some of these undercover cons that a person would <b>have</b> to be, to be able to bluff his or her way through situations that could possibly get them killed. You'd have to think on your feet and be very self-assured.<br /><br />Anyway, I really don't read true crime stuff, but I found this enjoyable, and might have to hunt up other behind-the-scenes at law enforcement books.<br /><br /> <img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Jo and Laurie</i>, Margaret Stohl and Melissa de La Cruz<br />Did you ever read a book quickly just to get it over with? I found that I did that with this book.<br /><br />I think most <i>Little Women</i> fans have had periods where they wondered just what would have happened if Jo did accept Laurie. I have another book which I haven't read, <i>The Courtship of Jo March</i>, that addresses the same subject. <i>Jo and Laurie</i> also looked quite tempting, until I really got into it.<br /><br />The conceit here is that a real Jo March wrote <i>Little Women</i> (the first part) and now is desperately trying to write the second, her goal, as always, to earn money for her impoverished family, being interminably nagged by her publisher for a "nice sweet sequel." Also, several of the things she wrote about in her book were not real: Beth <b>did</b> die, Meg and Mr. Brooke never were a couple, and Aunt March was a fictional creation. However, Laurie is real, and he does want Jo to marry him; she'd rather never think about it and instead the two go off to New York together (with Meg and Mr. Brooke as chaperones, where the inevitable happens) where Laurie re-meets an old friend, Lady Harriet, a British girl. Yes, you guessed it, "Lady Hat" is the sabot thrown into the gears that gets the Jo and Laurie friendship off the rails.<br /><br />This book has so many bad places it's pathetic. Amy here is fifteen, and still spouting the same malapropisms as she did at twelve, which is stupid. Later, she, not Beth, is the one who almost dies. Apparently, however, the authors, who seem to have no idea about the disease they assigned to her, gave her "consumption," which means she never will be well; otherwise known as tuberculosis, it was, in those days before penicillin, a wasting disease--but our Amy makes a full recovery! Mr. Laurence ends up being a jerk who makes Laurie attend societal functions simply to make the family look good, including forcing him to blow off a chance to see Charles Dickens with Jo for a society party. "Lady Hat" is supposed to be vivacious and "unconventional," but she's just a bore.<br /><br />Yeah, they do get engaged at the end, but by then, who cares? Glad I got this as a remainder book!<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Confederates in the Attic,</i> Tony Horwitz<br />So happy to have found a nearly pristine copy of this at the Friends of the Library book sale, especially since I had read his <i>Spying on the South</i>, which is sort of a sequel, published right before his death, back when it was published. I find this better balanced than <i>Spying</i>, while still touching on the same things: how the myth of the "noble Confederacy" still permeates certain groups in the American South (and not all of them being "bigoted rednecks"). Horwitz visits tiny museums, investigates Confederate re-enactors, speaks with Southern historian Shelby Foote (who used to answer his own phone and suffered after Ken Burns' miniseries <i>The Civil War</i> brought his name to the fore), talks to both sides in the case of a young white man assaulted by a black man (while the white man's family said he was innocent and a "good boy," co-workers labeled him lazy and racist, and the family and friends of the black man said he taunted them with racist slurs), visits Southern strongholds like Charleston and Vicksburg, and nearly gets assaulted in a bar (among other things).<br /><br />As in <i>Blue Latitudes</i>, he seems to hang around a lot with drunks, and the most entertaining bits of the narrative have him in the company of Rob Hodge, a dead serious (and crazy ass) Civil War re-enactor who can mess with his body so that he looks like a "bloated dead body," who has appeared in re-enactments in films due to the talent. Rob has no patience with "farbs" (those who go to historical re-enactments in inaccurate clothing carrying inaccurate gear) and Horwitz visits battlefields with him, trying to imagine what it was like during the actual battles. Some of it is very sobering, a lot of it is funny, and Horwitz gets his point across about "myth" conceptions and avoidance of the slavery issue without the heavy-handed preaching that got into <i>Spying on the South</i>.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>My Name is America: The Journal of Douglas Allen Deeds (The Donner Party Expedition, 1846)</i>, Rodman Philbrick<br />After several years of "Dear America" books written for pre-teen and younger teen girls, Scholastic began an equivalent series for boys. The title is self-explanatory: Douglas Deeds is an orphan of 15. who, with just his old horse Barny, joins the Donner/Reed party as they go west to California. He is lucky to be taken in by the Breen family (a real-life family who was with the Donner party) as they cross the continent and face hardship, including young Edward Breen breaking his leg and having to cross the Salt Desert.<br /><br />Roderick does a pretty good job of portraying the tough life of the expeditionary pioneers who crossed the North American continent. Douglas is rather a dull protagonist, to be honest, but we relive the whole trip, including its horrifying conclusion (spoiler of sorts: Douglas does <b>not</b> resort to cannibalism to survive), and see the mistakes made by the leaders of the expedition in following the directions of Lansford Hastings, who wrote a book about emigrating to California without ever having done all of the route.<br /><br />
<img alt="book icon" height="14" src="http://blogphotos.flyingdreams.org/bookicon.gif" width="22" /> <i>Friends for the Journey</i>, Madeleine L'Engle and Luci Shaw<br />L'Engle and Shaw became friends at a religious conference and remained close until L'Engle's death. This was the one book of L'Engle's I didn't have: a collection of essays, conversations, and verse that they wrote together in which they talk about friendship, faith, marriage, relationships, and the nature of prayer. It's another dose of L'Engle nonfiction goodness, as well as Shaw's enjoyable prose and poetry. One poem which she wrote for her son's wedding is just gorgeous.<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0