The third in the "Mighty Muskrats" mystery series. The Windy Lake Crees are hosting the National Assembly of Cree Peoples. Each of the groups will use their "treaty bundle," a collection of memorabilia sacred to each group, to tell the story of their past. But when one of the treaty bundles disappears, the Muskrats pour their hearts into the investigation, knowing that a theft will not only deprive the Crees of an important part of their heritage, but will bring dishonor on the Windy Lake group.
But who would take it? Was it tough Pearl and her gang of undisciplined teens? Or someone else who wished to sow discontent among the different groups?
It was fascinating learning about the treaty bundles and the memories and customs that went along with them. The information is still passed down orally to apprentices who inherit the role of keeper of the treaty.
"Are there any genuinely wild places left in England, Scotland, and Wales?"
Yes, and MacFarlane walks each of them, from Ynys Enlli, an island in Wales, to Ben Hope in Scotland, to the Essex coast, and everything in between, forest, mountain, moor, seashore, describing in beautiful language the breathtaking landscapes still left. This is nature's poetry in prose, dreamy, realistic, tough, gentle.
It is also a tribute to his friend Roger Deakin, who helped him plan his wild journeys.
This was everything I wanted If I Stopped Haunting You to be.
Avery Fox loved music. She just wanted to write and perform good songs. But her relentless stage mother has driven her into a career where she's the darling of everyone's social media, until an ill-designed music video in which she dresses in a way to insult her Native heritage puts her on everyone's cancel list. Her mother sends her to Oklahoma to lay low with her grandmother, who Avery's never met because her mother is estranged from her. Designer shoes and all, she comes face-to-face with Lucas Iron Eyes, who's never heard of her, and immediately thinks of her as a privileged princess.
As Avery learns more about her heritage, as well as ranch work, she learns to value Lucas and what he wants for his future, and that includes saving her grandmother Lottie's ranch. You'll cheer when she finally decides to make her own future instead of being indebted to her mother.
This is a history of Native America from the "discovery" of America by Christopher Columbus and other European explorers from the point of view of the tribes who were displaced, marginalized, massacred, starved into submission, and killed by European illnesses, plagued by distrust, hatred, broken treaties and broken promises. The Europeans' understanding of the world conflicted with the beliefs of the native population, well-illustrated by retellings of their individual creation stories and later by published writings.
Painful to read, but enlightening. My only wish is that there was an updated version bringing in the resurgence of Native culture via the internet.
And the fourth in the "Mighty Muskrats" series, taking on some big adult topics.
The Windy Lake First Nation reservation is hosting the annual Trappers Festival which includes junior and senior dogsled races. Atim is racing a team for his cousin Jody, who was in an accident and can't participate, but when one of the dogs gets ill, he's out of the race, but more worried about Muskwa, the dog. It looks like someone has tried to drug her.
The immediate suspects are an animal rights group who think the dogs are being mistreated, but they discover people heavily bet on the dog races and wonder if someone was trying to meddle with the winners. The kids must figure out the why, and then the who, if the Festival is to continue successfully.
The story discusses subjects like animal rights and vegetarianism/meat eating, gambling, and alcohol addiction.
I bought this for Thanksgiving reading. There are 46 essays/poems about gratitude, which I read two a day in order to consider thankfulness at this special season.
30 November 2025
Books Completed in November 2025
30 November 2024
Books Completed Since November 1
Yeah, don't faint. I only read two books in November, and I didn't finish the second one. (I do intend to finish; it is a great book!) Along with desperately searching for any relief for James' tremendous back pain and seeing doctor after doctor and his getting a full MRI and CT scan of his spine on a Saturday night and a bone density test, I was nursing a sick dog for the second half of the month (the vet doesn't know what happened, but Tucker was very ill and could have died and I had to syringe feed him; when this dog won't eat he is sick). I did manage to finish writing a fanfic and start another one for Christmas.
This is the third book in a series about a community called Glimmer Falls, where all sort of magical folk live: werewolves, witches, vampires, centaurs, etc. Ben Rosewood who runs the town plant store, is a shy werewolf who hates the full moon, knits, and has panic attacks. To get up the courage to give a speech at his friends' wedding, he gets drunk, and inadvertently buys a 99 cent crystal on e-Bay that supposedly holds an imprisoned succubus. To his surprise, it actually does: Eleonore Bettencourt-Devereux, half succubus, half vampire, who was trapped in the crystal by a witch who put a spell on her over 600 years ago. While Ben wonders what he's to do with this stunning young woman, who is now bound to him, Eleonore just thirsts for revenge on her former captor, until she starts to thirst for Ben and soon he does for her as well.
I didn't read the other books in the series, but this is a cute little rom-com about two very different personalities who bond with each other, with a colorful cast of supporting characters, including an uplifting pixie, Ben's sister who's running for mayor, and Ben's very supportive friends.
This is the book I haven't finished, but want to because it's damned good. It doesn't make Europeans out to be total monsters, just people who don't understand that just because Native American civilizations didn't progress to cities and commerce like Europeans had, that they weren't some sort of ignorant savages, but practiced a sufficient lifestyle that suited them. The Native Americans, in turn, are not all drawn as saints or "Magic Indians" with special spiritual powers; they are people content with their lifestyle who practiced diplomacy and trade within their society; when Europeans came along with trade goods, many of them wished to give up the lifestyle and live as Europeans did, only to be treated with contempt and distrust and finally, and always, driven west as more Europeans swarmed over the "free" land. Even though I'm only three-quarters done with the book, I find it engagingly written, forthright on its subjects, and an illuminating look at the destruction of a working human ecosystem ruined by forcing an unsuitable lifestyle upon the Americans already occupying this continent.
31 March 2024
Books Completed Since March 1
Getting Smarter: A Memoir, Barbara FeldonAgent 99 was my first heroine (well, after Lassie...). At age 9, I fell head-over-heels in love with Maxwell Smart, and "shipped" Max and 99 with all my heart.
Barbara Hall grew up in Pittsburgh, From childhood she wanted to go on the stage, and as soon as she was old enough, she moved to Manhattan to try to make her living at acting. She became a model and in an accident of fate, was about to be interviewed for the big television program of the 1950s, the game show $64,000 Question. It was as she was deciding whether to do this or not, she meets suave, French-accented Lucien Feldon. He tells her he's about to be divorced and that he's a commercial airline pilot. Later she finds out he survived the Occupation of France.
Alas, that wasn't the only untrue thing he ended up telling her during their relationship. In fact, at one point he even convinces her he's a spy.
While this memoir talks about her career, the years on Get Smart (she and Don Adams didn't become close friends until after the series ended, but she enjoyed working with him) and afterwards, most of the narrative has to do with her relationship with the enigmatic and ultimately duplicitous Lucien. He made things sound so real she automatically believed him; only as years passed did she become suspicious and then finally realize he was playing her.
At my age, I read it and wonder how she could have been so naïve, but then I remember: once upon a time, so was I.
This is a book I'll hold close to my heart.
(Don Adams loved history books! And read and wrote poetry! Damn, I wish he'd also written something.)
The Love Con, Seressia GlassI picked this up at Books-a-Million because (1) cosplay, (2) mentions of DragonCon, and (3) it takes place in Atlanta. Kenya Davenport is a talented cosplayer and gamer; while she has a degree in engineering, what she really wants to do with her life, to her parents' dismay, is become a professional costume designer. Her close friend Cameron Lassiter, who she's known since he was a neglected boy in grade school, owns a maker shop in which she works.
Now she has the chance of a lifetime, winning a prize in a televised cosplay contest—except her last project has to be done with her romantic partner! Kenya doesn't have one, but she hopes that Cameron will cooperate and pretend to be her boyfriend. He knows her dreams and she's sure he'll be supportive, but can they make a pretend relationship work? She doesn't know that Cam is already in love with her...or that the producers of the series Cosplay or No Way will stoop to everything sordid to create a little conflict!
Boy, did I want to whack the producers of the television series, not to mention the one judge who seems to hate Kenya. She's so blatant about not liking a plus-sized Black girl that I wondered how the producers would permit it to continue. This was a fun read having to do with conventions, cosplaying, and friends to lovers.
Flâneuse, Lauren ElkinCool! I said when I saw this at Barnes & Noble, a woman walks through Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London and explores their history and observes society in each urban area. Instead I'm treated to depressing essays about writers like Jean Rhys, how terrible Tokyo is for women walkers--although her main complaint seems to be she wants to go back to Paris while her boyfriend X is having a grand time (well, either leave the idiot, stupid, or quit complaining), a chapter where she describes an entire film about a woman named Cléo, a history of protests in Paris, and other snooze-worthy topics. Some interesting observations about how Paris neighborhoods are homey, and a too short chapter on Martha Gellhorn (after she goes on and on about George Sand). About halfway through I just sped up my reading because I was bored, except in the Gellhorn chapter.
I have lots of wonderful travel books, many written by women. This one is not a keeper.
Half Sick of Shadows, Laura SebastianYou've heard the saying "Behind every great man is a good woman"? This is the story of Elaine of Astolot, a very different woman from the one who inhabits Lord Tennyson's brooding poem, and who dies from viewing the real world. In this Arthurian retelling, Elaine, along with Guinevere of Lyonesse, Lancelot, and Arthur's half-sister Morgana, are basically the support from which Arthur, destined to be the king of England, derives his strength. When the time finally comes, Arthur and his friends journey to Camelot, only to find that Merlin the magician is ready to declare the evil Mordred king. If Arthur wants to be king, he will be required to carry out three tasks, including marching into Lyonesse to ask permission to marry Gwen. And Lyonesse is a treacherous place indeed.
This is a reworking of the Arthurian legend with women on an equal footing with men. Elaine particularly carries a heavy load, as she can see the future, and, in no future she foresees does Arthur not end up betrayed by his sister, despite how hard she tries.
I'm picky about my Arthurian tales ever since I read Mary Stewart's Merlin books. This one kept my attention.
The Defense is Ready, Leslie AbramsonI don't follow true crime stuff, so I had no idea the author was the attorney for the Menendez brothers. I just watch so much Law & Order I wanted to see some criminal law from the POV of the defense attorney rather than from the district attorney.
So she's defended a lot of people, some absolutely clueless, others badass, some who were just mixed up in the wrong thing. Some she liked, some she was happy to get away from. She also talks about the different personalities of judges and how they often make convictions based on their own prejudices, and also about her opponents: the district attorneys and other prosecutors, some who are doing their best and others who are just lazy.
It was an interesting read. I don't have any opinion if she was right or wrong about the Menendez brothers.
Bride, Ali HazelwoodHazelwood, known for her rom-coms involving STEM couples, branches out in a new direction in this paranormal romance.
Vampyres, werewolves, and humans have an uneasy alliance in Misery Lark's world. Many of the alliances hinge on the keeping of hostages. For years Misery, who's never been her father's favorite person, has been keeping a low profile in human society. Now her father calls upon her to marry the alpha male of of the werewolves, Lowe Moreland, to cement another agreement. She does so reluctantly, but in order to achieve another goal. What she didn't count on was becoming fond of a member of Moreland's family, or...fond of Lowe himself.
Enjoyable dynamics and a twist at the end, and Ana is cute.
Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall KimmererI enjoyed this so much. Kimmerer is a botanist and also a member of the Potawatomi Nation, so her narrative about her interactions with plants, nature, her students, and the earth is infused with both botanical knowledge and indigenous wisdom. Some of the chapters are sobering, such as the one about how chemical plants not only polluted a lake but poisoned the land around it, and how they are trying to revive both, and in various parts of the texts where she described how Native American children were sent to schools which tried to "rip the Indian out of them." Other chapters relate how she tries to bring her technologically-addicted students back to thinking about and relating to the earth.
Scattered within the text are Native wisdom, founding myths of the Potawatomi and other Native nations, and some of the loveliest descriptions of nature that I've ever read. Well worth your time as a nature read or for Native lore.
30 November 2023
Books Completed Since November 1
Battle of Ink and Ice, Darrell HartmanOn September 1, 1909, Dr. Frederick Cook announced he had reached the North Pole on April 21, 1908. He immediately cabled the New York Herald, 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; The New York Times took up his cause.
This is the story of "the race for the pole"--and also the rise of New York newspapers from reporting the news to actively making 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 Herald. bon-vivant and not usually in the United States, and Adolph Ochs, the southern native who bought the Times on credit and developed the reputation it has today.
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.
Band of Sisters, Lauren WilligDuring 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!
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.
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.
Hooked, Emily McIntireThis 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.
This is a riff off Barrie's Peter Pan 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.
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.
Lyra's Oxford, Philip PullmanPullman 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.
Fabric, Victoria FinlayI 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 Color and Jewels so much that I knew I'd love her writing if nothing else.
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.
As she travels the world Finley also copes with the aging, illness, and death of both her parents. The combination of stories is unforgettable.
Killers of the Flower Moon, David GrannThe 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.
Told is a chilling tale of greed and white privilege in an era that treated Native Americans as incapable of conducting their own affairs.
Grann has won book awards and the story he tells is compelling, but his narrative seemed a bit flat to me.
Dead Dead Girls, Nekesa AfiaLouise 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.
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.
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.
A Cornish Christmas, Tony Deane and Tony Shaw Christmas Past, Brian Earl30 September 2023
Books Completed Since September 1
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 America. 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.
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 "Peter Pan...Americanized the English tale Peter and Wendy and incorporated Indian characters and music in its depiction of Never Never Land." The "Red Indians" (as the British called them) in Peter Pan 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.
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?
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.
This has the most beautiful cover of any of the Pumpkin Falls mysteries. I'd love to have a print of it to frame!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Warning: some people have had problems with this story because there's a very subtle gay character in it. Big deal.
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.
This is the third in the series of "Nikki Heat" novels supposedly written by the author hero of the television series Castle. The stories are basically extended Castle 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.
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.
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!
This is a nifty combination of a narrative of the voyage of the Titanic 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 Titanic 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 Titanic and the space shuttle Challenger, since both were done in by ice.
Not your typical Titanic book!
30 November 2021
Books Completed Since November 1
For hundreds of years, different Algonquin tribes lived in the area we now call "New England": the Narragansett, the Wampanoag, the Massachusett, the Abenaki, the Mohegan, and the Pequot among others hunted, farmed, and fished, traveling to water areas in the summer and winter quarters as the weather grew colder. They had no great cities or even towns, but were self-governing (with not just male but female leaders) with lawful inhabitants. In the 16th century they began being visited by ships from across the ocean inhabited by men who wanted to trade but who also wanted to steal or capture Natives for slaves. In the early 17th century, these interlopers decided to settle on land that was part of these Native tribes' fishing or hunting grounds. Early dealings were mainly peaceful, and the Natives helped these new settlers, but as they began overrunning the land and taking it by trickery, relationships soured, leading to "King Philip's War" (Philip being the name for the Wampanoag sachem Metacom) and the eventual subjugation of the New England tribes.
It's not a pretty story, but it's pretty much the history of the world, with one civilization overrunning another without regard to feelings or mercy. The Wampanoag took the English at their word, as did the Narragansett and the Mohegans, and allied themselves with the English to defeat their traditional enemies, not knowing the people they were trusting would eventually take their land by trickery or by their new laws, and having no way to fight off a burgeoning English population.
The book corrects many misconceptions, such as the Indians having had little contact with the English before the landing at Plymouth except for a couple of trade ships (they had much more contact and were therefore wary of the new settlers), and that Indians "vanished" from New England after King Philip's War (in fact they did not and were further badly treated when they began to intermarry with former slaves and thus considered no longer "Indians" but "Negroes" with even less status).
The subtitle of this is "The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the
Troubled History of Thanksgiving," but it does acknowledge that the
traditional "Thanksgiving story" several generations of children learned
in school was invented by Victorian-era Americans endeavoring to teach
American history to the new flood of immigrants coming into the country
in the late 19th and early 20th century. An unflinching look at a Victorian-made myth that has stained the history of Thanksgiving with blood.
This is part of Scholastic's "Royal Diaries" series, which like the "Dear America" books, involve a 10- to 14-year-old girl in historic settings. (The Royal Diaries are not, however, reserved to the United States: there is a book about Queen Victoria, another about Marie Antoinette, etc.) However, this book features a rare American character, Weetamoo, daughter of the sachem of the Wamponaug people who lived on the land that is now part of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Smith, a descendant of the Micmac people of New England, has used her own heritage as a basis for this story of the Native American people and how they lived just as the "Coat-men" (English) are arriving on American shores. As with all these stories, Weetamoo faces the usual growing pains while learning her responsibilities as a member of the tribe.
This is a sobering book to read after the Silverman volume, since one of the men Weetamoo married was the ill-fated Wamsutta, brother of Metacom, who was later known as "King Philip" and savagely defeated in the English/Native conflict known as "King Philip's War." She met a sad end by drowning fleeing her now English enemy, but was spared the fate of her sister, who married Metacom and was sold into slavery at a sugar plantation along with her son.
The fact that Smith has done her homework as well as incorporating her own heritage makes this a better than usual entry in the series.
Here's my original review:
Okay, I admit I'm a little prejudiced about this book since I know the
author. On the other hand, I love books of lists, and since this is a
book of lists about Doctor Who episodes, it's now a triple threat of goodness.
The one novelty about this book is that the author includes episodes of
the series that aren't usually included in lists of this kind; "The
Gunfighters," for instance, never makes a list of 10 (or 25, or
whatever) "best episodes." But then these aren't always the "best," but
episodes Alan finds notable for reasons he explains ("The Gunfighters"
for its setting and for William Hartnell's delight in his role and also
because it's one of the historical episodes that were later dropped from
the show).
My favorite part of this book is that I can hear Alan's voice in it;
it's a nice informal countdown of his favorite bits, characters, etc.
and he doesn't mind telling you straight out about things that bother
him as well. Doctor Who fans should certainly enjoy.
And now for the reboot:
Can I squee? Thirty brand-new chapters, including a new chapter on the show's origin. New Illustrations! Each story "placed in its Cultural Context"! Recommended viewing of other episodes similar to or related to the one reviewed! Up to date through the 2019 episode "Resolution"! Best of all, lots more of Alan, and it's been edited so well you can't tell which is the old and which is the new. Doctor Who fans will still enjoy!
The title makes this sound as if it's about a death at a school, but actually takes place at the theater at St. Winifred's, where the local repertory company is about to do a production of Arsenic and Old Lace. The theater company director, Nola Kirkpatrick, who the "Ferrara women" (65-year-old Alberta Scaglione, our protagonist; her sister the ex-nun Helen; her former sister-in-law Joyce; and her granddaughter Gina, known as "Jinx") cleared of murder recently, has scored a coup: former child actress Missy Michaels will play one of the leads in the play. The Ferrara gang, Alberta's boyfriend Sloan, and Helen's nemesis Father Sal were all big Missy Michaels fans, so they wait to welcome her with open arms, only to find her dead in her dressing room, presumably of suicide—until Alberta takes a close look at the corpse and knows it's murder!
These cozies with the Ferrara ladies are written as serio-comic, but this one seems more madcap than usual, with Father Sal turning out to be a complete fanboy, Helen jockeying for the lead opposite Missy, and even dependable Vinny D'Angelo, the local sheriff (and the kid Alberta used to babysit), involved in some secret project of his own. The Missy Michaels movies cited seem to be based on Shirley Temple, but read as really out of place for a series of films that began in 1957. The titles sound more like Whitman kids' books (like Trixie Belden or Donna Parker) than 1950s-1960s movie titles, and the films sound more like something that would have been hits in the 1930s or 1940s. Add Nola's frenetic director boyfriend Johnny, a directionally-challenged actor named Kip, a secret room, and a main character who's not introduced until the final third of the book, and you have a story that's rather scattershot, although the mystery is fairly complicated.
Luckily I love all the Italian characters, although I don't know how they stay healthy with the monumental meals they keep eating!
Once again I haven't been reading a lot because I've been writing.