tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63402961553049856792023-11-17T02:52:25.333-05:00Sheep In FogElizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04071581152298241042noreply@blogger.comBlogger600125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6340296155304985679.post-7896422159732541212021-05-03T18:15:00.000-04:002021-05-03T18:15:31.934-04:00Quarantine: Current Affairs<p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">I have several parental talents, but one talent I do not have is discretion when it comes to discussing world events with my 8 year-old. This is why if you had visited our household a month or so ago you might have heard Owen holding forth in an impassioned harangue against Italians. Wait, what? Sean came to me and asked me why Owen was trash-talking Italians, and I had to think long and hard before I figured out that Owen did not mean Italians, but the Taliban! Oops. Once that little misunderstanding was cleared up, I expected Sean to be impressed by Owen’s list of all the Taliban was doing wrong, but he was more horrified that I would even discuss it with him in the first place.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">I tried to explain that we had started talking about why we used to dislike George W. Bush, but Trump made him seem not as bad, but then there was the needless war in Iraq thanks to W’s daddy issues, and then we were on to Afghanistan and how our Iraq war made things even more precarious in that country because our resources were split, and then we ended up talking about Osama Bin Laden and the twin towers, and oh dear, might you want to hear Owen’s Ted Talk about the detriments of sharia law?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Perhaps not. Owen can also tell you all about how in this household we firmly believe women have the right to make all the decisions about their bodies, and are not wedded to the color pink, and although women are of course equal in intelligence to men, it is still sometimes the right thing to hold open a door for one, or offer up one’s seat on a train. The world can always use another chivalrous feminist.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">In this reality-challenged political age, though, it is hard to present our country’s potential in a positive light. I want Owen to feel like it is worth working to make this country a better place, while at the same time not minimizing how precarious I believe the last four years have been. I want him to know the difference between truth and lies, fact and (no, not fiction) lies, while also being sensitive to nuance and subtext.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">It is much harder than it used to be. Add covid to this and throw in the fact that some people are able to rationalize away a horrifying death count and it becomes clear why one of my most used expressions these days is “it is hard to explain.” In the meantime I do my best to minimize the bogeymen and make sure to pass along all the myriad ways the light still shines bright.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgumUPmJ151OggJrrU5soDAU_nf51PEu-zfgFYtaC2T3RZgDY3BfN2Dzmptb8aytwKfBai1wQnnj4cE3R7u2jl4OirJJXvYphhz_LeJr4PAOYhttEJofY4pl7sCckTCH7p1wV0c-anKbC4e//" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgumUPmJ151OggJrrU5soDAU_nf51PEu-zfgFYtaC2T3RZgDY3BfN2Dzmptb8aytwKfBai1wQnnj4cE3R7u2jl4OirJJXvYphhz_LeJr4PAOYhttEJofY4pl7sCckTCH7p1wV0c-anKbC4e//" width="180" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02984304910229897406noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6340296155304985679.post-54569108975596984752021-03-23T18:21:00.003-04:002021-03-23T18:21:33.837-04:00Quarantine: Siblings<p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">When you are an only child and spend a year in your house because of a pandemic, you start talking frequently with your cat and your dog. You build alliances, which fracture and dissolve and are built again. You have a buddy one day who is a frenemy the next. This week Owen is pro-Maple and anti-Plum. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Plum, about to turn 16, is an old man who likes his sleep. He does NOT like when people tread past him repeatedly and noisily. He’ll put up with one or two times, three or four perhaps, but the fifth time he will be forced to show you how rude you are being. He will puff his tail up and start marching angrily towards Owen, upon which Owen will get treed on the couch and call out, “Mom! Plum is trying to attack me!” And I – I admit – will giggle a bit before going to Owen’s rescue. I’ll walk in the living room and find Owen backed into a corner on the couch, while Plum lectures him on all he is doing wrong, before going in for the slap. (In Plum’s defense, he doesn’t just pick on the child: he’ll do the same thing to Sean when it is a rainy day and Sean is trying to get his steps in. Plum will attempt to cut Sean off at the pass, upon which they’ll have a mock boxing match which ends up in a purr and cuddle.)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Owen’s relationship with Maple is more of a competition. I’ve learned, while out on a walk, that the easiest way to get Owen to speed it up a little is to have Maple walk beside him while I remark, “She’s ahead by a nose!” Instantly Owen breaks into a trot!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Owen cannot pass up the chance to mansplain something to Maple, and this morning I overheard him telling Maple that the reason why Plum always had food in his bowl and Maple does not is that Maple does not understand the meaning of the phrase “save for later.” Indeed she does not, as Owen continued, “know what the phrase means when used in a sentence.” Owen is always happy, though, to take Maple out into the yard to putter. I’ll check outside frequently and find them playing sometimes together and sometimes apart, and problems only arise when they both want to play with the same stick. And even then, it is a skirmish that ends in zoomies, so all’s well that ends well.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilS-R9S7IpXzBvRnxDms8ICEah3eVudyYoyPTSLNE2VN_Pa6hGyGxOSiMqLNn2lcHXkHtKrRbXvljt2f_ag9us2G3nV3IspEkbqsqe03D7N94PMGqW14fp1mFmbBNwyuA9hErdYNIrV3Q6//" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilS-R9S7IpXzBvRnxDms8ICEah3eVudyYoyPTSLNE2VN_Pa6hGyGxOSiMqLNn2lcHXkHtKrRbXvljt2f_ag9us2G3nV3IspEkbqsqe03D7N94PMGqW14fp1mFmbBNwyuA9hErdYNIrV3Q6//" width="180" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><i>Plum wondering if peace and quiet is too much to ask?</i></span></div><br /><p></p>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02984304910229897406noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6340296155304985679.post-6183062930722659452021-02-23T14:35:00.003-05:002021-02-23T14:35:39.766-05:00Quarantine: The Commute<p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">It is never a good sign, when you are driving home from a long day at work, to realize that there are four helicopters hovering overhead. I saw them above and at first tried to pretend that they were really to the left of where my road was going, but soon enough reality invaded this fantasy and I was stuck making the slow choice, along with all other traffic, of turning left or right instead of continuing straight. I was in a part of Philadelphia that I didn’t know much about other than I didn’t really want to be there, lost, after dark, even in a locked vehicle. But after choosing to go right, I didn’t have any decisions to make, since we were all moving an inch to the hour down twisting semi-residential streets.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">I decided to call my husband, a Philadelphia native, to see if he could help me navigate. My thinking was that he could look at where I was on his “find my phone” feature and then yell directions at me, like “For the love of god, don’t go down that street!” Or maybe: “Turn left! Left! No, the other left!” Etc. Strangely enough, however, Sean wasn’t so keen on this idea. He reminded me that our car had a garmin navigator and suggested that I use it. But forcing me to make a dangerous U-turn only to take me back to the main road still closed off by police and ambulances and mayhem sounded like just the thing our garmin would do. (We often fight, garmin and I.)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Sean then told me to choose the address of his workplace in the garmin and then once I had headed in that direction for many miles, click my ruby slippers and tell garmin I want to go home. This is what I did, even though this entailed driving white-knuckled in the middle lane of a seven-lane highway, trying to figure out how to get to the left lane to make a left turn while garmin got increasingly disappointed in me.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">At one point too I heard a ding from the Subaru dashboard, upon which a message came up that said something along the lines of, “It has now been two hours since you put your key in the ignition!” Thanks for pointing that out, car; time flies when you are having fun.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02984304910229897406noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6340296155304985679.post-6327608652739575172021-02-09T18:34:00.000-05:002021-02-09T18:34:05.636-05:00Cheesecakes<p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">I am generally a serviceable cook, in that I can follow a recipe and have whatever I’m making (mostly) turn out. There are exceptions to this rule, however, one being pie (damn you, pie crust!), and the other being cheesecakes. I would say 3 out of 5 cheesecakes I make turn out perfectly, and the other 2 end up edible but nothing you’d serve to someone proudly.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">(Which reminds me: years ago in my twenties I made a cheesecake for a book group I was in, and it turned out an absolute disaster. However, since I was in my twenties, it didn’t really occur to me NOT to bring it, and to, say, pick something up at a bakery on my way there. Instead I brought the brick of a gloppy cheesecake to the meeting and served it miserably. I think I was hoping that it wasn’t as bad as it so obviously was. It’s something that now appears in my head from time to time: why did I bring that cheesecake?)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">A couple of months ago I kept reading about the Basque cheesecake that you cook at a high temperature for a short amount of time and it gets all blackened on the outside. This appealed to me so much that I even got a special little six-inch pan to make it in. I used a recipe from the blog, The Little Epicurean. This one is more of a basque-esque cheesecake, since she very wisely added a crust made from ‘nilla wafers. (I mean, is not the crust the best part? I think if I got served a crust-less cheesecake I’d cry a little.) Anyway, this was one of my 3 out of 5’s: it was a beautiful little thing with an almost feathery texture. I recommend.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I’ve been eyeing a recipe for a mocha cheesecake in my New York Times cookbook, and will make it someday, even though I don’t really like chocolate in my cheesecake or cheesecake in my chocolate. Amanda Hesser’s description of this cake however – how she thought it was too rich, but her husband got angry when she threw out the last piece, so she included it in the book as a peace offering – means that I will have to try it at some point. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Instead I saw a recipe saved on my Instagram site from the website Kitchn for a sweet potato cheesecake. It was a modestly sized cheesecake – it only called for 3 boxes of cheese, as compared to the 5 required for the mocha cheesecake – so I gave it a whirl. My cheesecake fairy godmother had gone on break, though, for this cake was not at all magical. First there was a grand canyon of a crack running across the top, despite all the different things they have you do to prevent this happening. And the cheesecake itself was fine, except that here and there were little nodules of cream cheese and occasionally even of sweet potato. My guess is I did not let the cheese soften enough before mixing. The crust was great, but I will not be saving this recipe.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">My college friend and I were texting not too long ago about baking, and she mentioned some cheesecake I used to make that, apparently, was very good, yet I have zero memory of repeatedly making a good cheesecake around the time we lived together in Boston! It’s a mystery. I think there was a ricotta cheesecake in one of the Moosewood cookbooks that I made from time to time, so surely this must be it? But she thinks it was not ricotta. It’s a cheesecake mystery.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhedZuTy842pkxGj5mMgOd5IGTOZ-fzcr1jq5HixXjHD0NDsbbBVQciPeRteReXY3JbYLRuwGU9MSP56Ey4f4SXl4mrIRVQ-3DrmzWP3TETcOZAfXqdghRMlqVnI_kAy-E4YJP6Q_qqRpZF//" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhedZuTy842pkxGj5mMgOd5IGTOZ-fzcr1jq5HixXjHD0NDsbbBVQciPeRteReXY3JbYLRuwGU9MSP56Ey4f4SXl4mrIRVQ-3DrmzWP3TETcOZAfXqdghRMlqVnI_kAy-E4YJP6Q_qqRpZF//" width="180" /></a></div><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><i style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-align: center;">The Basque Cheesecake:</i></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i>it's supposed to look like this!</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02984304910229897406noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6340296155304985679.post-77295151138443092652021-02-01T11:16:00.001-05:002021-02-01T11:16:23.738-05:00She Ain't Never Caught A Rabbit<p><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Now that the weather is cold, Maple loves to go for a walk. And she loves even more to go on a walk through the forest. We take her on a 3.5 mile forest walk once or twice a week and she gets so excited about it. She starts tracking the minute we get out of the car, and being a stubborn girl, it is very hard to get her to move on when she has found herself an interesting scent. When she is really serious about a scent, she does this thing where she’ll stand on three legs, but kind of leans down on her folded right front elbow – it makes her nose closer to the scent.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">She thinks she should be allowed to drink from the creek whenever she is thirsty, and if that isn’t allowed, any muddy puddle will do. Once after a big rain storm there was a spring burbling up from the ground where she got a fresh drink, and now she finds and checks out that spot each time we pass it by, although it has long gone dry.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">She loves to say hello to any dog we pass, and loves even more to say hello to people. She’ll immediately show her belly to any person who looks her way. And what she likes even more is if someone we pass has met her before and says, “Hello, Maple!” She’s an extrovert in a family of introverts.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">She is a mostly very sweet and funny girl, who doesn’t so much want to please us, as she wants us to be pleased with what she has already decided to do. Perhaps that’s a hound dog trait? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">She IS a friend of mine.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOsmMcV-vXwbRKvjyxJ30IXNspor9wmDBqgTyAgPKdER9GY4UuB6sUoN2eCdZrsf8M_PZTTXyzNLViQQEhiGV80fqrQefGLSYllqG831tRG4ZrIjxpUTdwoThfHPA6OEcD6ufHkBKKt1RL//" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOsmMcV-vXwbRKvjyxJ30IXNspor9wmDBqgTyAgPKdER9GY4UuB6sUoN2eCdZrsf8M_PZTTXyzNLViQQEhiGV80fqrQefGLSYllqG831tRG4ZrIjxpUTdwoThfHPA6OEcD6ufHkBKKt1RL//" width="180" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02984304910229897406noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6340296155304985679.post-40903841537658993042021-01-25T15:14:00.001-05:002021-02-01T11:17:07.144-05:00Quarantine: De-Loccer<p><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Four days a week, Owen and I have lunch together. We used to go outside and eat on our “deck”, such as it is, but now it is too cold for that, so we eat indoors and then go outside for some exercise, and rosy cheekiness, and to give Maple some yard time. Plum is an indoor cat only, but sometimes we start the excursion by being Plum’s rickshaw-walla and bring him outside to sniff the breezes. I don’t put him down, and he purrs the entire time he’s out there. He seems to appreciate a brief change in scenery, and if I hold him up to any kind of greenery whatsoever, he will eat it. It’s his party trick.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Owen and I are currently in the midst of a tournament for a game we call de-loccer. It is kind of like soccer, and kind of like football, and it involves a lot of cheating and shoving and laughing. The best part of the game is that you never know when the mahogany snitch might come and grab the ball and run like a bullet in increasingly large circles. If you are losing, you can call on the Snitch to do just that and shake up the game a little. Maple is surprisingly fast, considering that her legs are about four inches long. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">We have two very close together trees we use as goal posts: if you kick the ball in you get 2 points, and if you throw the ball in, you get a ha’point. This usually causes one or both of us to burst out into the holiday song sung by muppets and involving a ha’penny. You know the one. The last time we played, it was 12.5 to 12 and I was victorious. Need I explain that the victor gloats? Today Owen won by 2.5 points. The game is over when Owen is due back in virtual school, or I need my afternoon coffee, whichever comes first. We feed the birds on the way in, and usually have to go get a spoonful of peanut butter to lure in the hound dog, who is convinced that the seed and nuts newly strewn on the picnic table should instead be in her gullet.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihntCy0hs6xyqIwuIHF4spgpJj6lYJu2ExdcrwzuxLjJYgMq53wyNpmXHVR6Sw8YtXRqXIh6BUUiMKvAi1Vr_CN6l05617iJZZQhZJaL80WIXwAsa6MChCzxx4CfC6j4EfuxkgSiLdYE6k//" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihntCy0hs6xyqIwuIHF4spgpJj6lYJu2ExdcrwzuxLjJYgMq53wyNpmXHVR6Sw8YtXRqXIh6BUUiMKvAi1Vr_CN6l05617iJZZQhZJaL80WIXwAsa6MChCzxx4CfC6j4EfuxkgSiLdYE6k//" width="180" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02984304910229897406noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6340296155304985679.post-49635637786932531412021-01-18T08:46:00.001-05:002021-02-01T11:17:46.586-05:00Quarantine: The Chipmunk 911<p> <span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">During the first few months of the quarantine last spring, my office was the kitchen. My work laptop was set up on the kitchen table each morning, and dismantled at night, our much-magneted refrigerator featured prominently in zoom meetings, and I could chat to myself while getting a drink of water at our kitchen sink. Back then we were novices at the whole virtual school bit, so we had Owen set up at the computer upstairs, not realizing yet that if he were to pay any attention whatsoever we had to be monitoring him like a hawk. Instead I sat at the afore-mentioned kitchen table and enjoyed watching the birds – and occasional hawk – out the kitchen window.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">I’ve long fed the birds and squirrels in our back yard daily, but now I had the opportunity to watch all the activity around the birdfeeder. It was definitely a perk of quarantine! I got to observe my favorite titmice and red-bellied woodpeckers, and I became particularly fond of a chipmunk who lived under our porch, and made a little running trail from the porch corner to the shed corner and over to the feeder. From April through June I’d watch the little guy peek out from his den and scamper to the shed, resting on the stone steps and enjoying what we called his patio, a wooden upright stake that he’d perch on before returning full-cheeked back from the feeder.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Occasionally I’d put some fruit or seeds out on an unused old picnic table we inherited from the previous owners, and he would easily climb up and enjoy a raspberry. (So too, I was surprised to see, did our resident yard woodchuck, who I would have thought was too portly to climb onto a table. She was not.) I was very fond of the chipmunk, and felt he was my quarantine buddy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Guess who else liked to observe the bird/chipmunk activity in our yard? The cats from up the street. Whenever we’d see a cat, I’d call out and Owen would come whooping down the stairs and Maple would come howling from her bed and we’d all go and chase the cats away with noise and motion and raised fists. Until one day, when a tabby got smart and approached the feeder from the other direction.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">I saw a whirl of activity out of the corner of my eye, realized it was a cat running towards a dove, and gave a little shriek. The tabby, startled, turned towards me and there, to my horror, was my beloved chipmunk limp in the cat’s mouth. Reader, I wailed. It might even have been a loud scream. At any rate, it was such an anguished sound that Sean, who was upstairs at the time, figured that something deadly was happening to me, Owen, or Maple. He thus grabbed his phone, so disturbed at the sounds coming from downstairs, and dialed 911. He then ran and found Owen completely fine in virtual school, and ran downstairs and saw me physically fine yet in mourning for my striped fellow. He had to tell the 911 operator that his wife and son (and dog) were fine, that the outburst had been over the sad fate of a chipmunk. Much giggling ensued from the operator, and much wrath from Sean.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">It was a long time before I could laugh at the incident. It played out over and over in my head. I kept seeing the cat turn in slow motion, the spiked corona virus himself, and face me, maskless and isolated and vulnerable.</span></p>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02984304910229897406noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6340296155304985679.post-20045199881714743212020-01-01T15:00:00.004-05:002020-01-01T15:00:54.254-05:00Book Reviews December 2019<b>Eileen</b> by Ottesa Moshfegh. At first I strongly disliked this novel. Everything was so ugly! By the end, however, I felt a slightly grudging admiration for what Moshfegh had achieved. The narrator, Eileen, is writing about a time in her early adulthood when she was stuck in a horrible home with a horrible job and a horrible mindset. Things come to a head and she escapes, but oh! The ugliness!<br />
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<b>Abandon Me </b>by Melissa Febos. This was an interesting nonfiction book about an intense love affair. Febos is a good writer and the book reminded me of a modern day version of Marguerite Duras's <i>The Lover</i>. I do recommend.<br />
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<b>Disappearing Earth</b> by Julia Phillips. I loved this novel. It takes place way in the north of Russia and each chapter focuses on a different woman in the city. All have links in various ways and in each chapter there is a reference to the events of the first chapter in which two sisters are kidnapped. Phillips's writing is really impressive and it was a fascinating read.<br />
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<b>The Problem With Everything</b> by Meghan Daum. I generally really enjoy Meghan Daum's writing. She's two years younger than I am and always seemed to me to be a smart voice of generation X. I thought she was a little "off" in this book, however -- a little grumpy and a little wrong. She's writing about the #metoo movement and thinks that people need to buck up. I think she willfully misconstrues the point and that we perhaps need to temporarily pass though an extreme to reach an equilibrium. I don't quite agree with her slant, and found it an odd topic on which to base an entire book of essays.<br />
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<b>Before We Were Yours </b>by Lisa Windgate. This was a fun read although not hugely nuanced. It goes back and forth between a family in the 30's who lived on a houseboat and whose kids were kidnapped by a state agency and adopted out to wealthy couples (a true story), and a modern day southern political family who discovers the truth about these origins.<br />
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<b>The Bird Boys</b> by Lisa Sandlin. I read this on the recommendation of the New York Times's Marilyn Stasio, but I didn't like it. It's about a detective, Phelan, and receptionist, Delpha, who have an agency in Texas in the sixties. They get hired to find a missing brother and solve a few crimes in the process. The writing is good and the story interesting enough; it just wasn't my style.<br />
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<b>Too Much and Not The Mood </b>by Durga Chew-Bose. People love this book of essays, but I did not. Her style is very stream of consciousness and veers from subject to subject in a way that I found frustrating. It was simultaneously too personal and too random, and to me an unenjoyable read.<br />
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<b>The Second Sister</b> by Claire Kendal. My response to this was similar to the Wingate novel above: a good read if a bit improbable and a bit under-developed. Ella's sister disappeared ten years ago leaving an infant behind. Ella has spent the last ten years raising her nephew with her parents and searching for her sister. The story involves two serial killers and a sudden confluence of events.Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02984304910229897406noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6340296155304985679.post-87650336435587245392019-12-01T09:27:00.003-05:002019-12-01T09:27:52.709-05:00Book Reviews November 2019<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Conversations with Friends</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> by Sally Rooney. I had heard much hubbub about this book when it came out a couple of years ago, and I must say, the hubbub was very much deserved. The main character, Frances, is 21 and a college student in Dublin. She and her ex-partner, but still current collaborator, Bobbi, meet Melissa and Nick, an author and actor married couple when Melissa is doing an article on Frances and Bobbi’s spoken word poetry performances. I thought I wouldn’t find the book very interesting, not being hugely invested in the conversations and inner monologue of 21 year olds, but it was so well done! And charming and wry. Rooney does such a good job with Frances, and even if she is a flawed and self-centered person in the way that everyone is at 21, it was a really interesting book. I recommend.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The Honeymoon</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> by Dinitia Smith. This is a historical novel recreating the life of George Eliot. It begins with her “second” marriage when she was sixty to a much younger man, John Cross, concentrating on their honeymoon in Venice when Cross apparently tried to commit suicide by jumping from a balcony into a canal! I had not known about that tidbit of info: apparently it was written about in Venice newspapers but the connection to Eliot the writer was pretty well masked. Anyway, the chapters go back and forth from the honeymoon to Eliot’s entire life, and it was an interesting read. She was so smart and successful, and really had to fight her way to the life she achieved.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The Bluebird Effect: Uncommon Bonds With Common Birds</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> by Julie Zickefoose. Julie Zickefoose is a bird artist, a writer, and a songbird rehabilitator. In this book she writes of all the different birds she has interacted with over the years – many of whom were giving to her as fledglings in distress. She nurses them, raises them, and then in most cases sets them free. The drawings were beautiful and the stories fascinating. I read it slowly over months and enjoyed it very much.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The Family Upstairs</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> by Lisa Jewell. This was a great read! I highly recommend. Lucy is a down and out mother of two, living a somewhat homeless existence in the south of France. The book switches between her and Henry, her brother, a very unreliable narrator who tells the story of their childhood, when their once wealthy socialite parents welcomed into their home a man who became a kind of mini cult leader. Meanwhile, another main character, Libby Jones, has just discovered that she has inherited a mansion in Chelsea where all the events described by Henry took place years ago. It’s a fun and very fast-paced thriller.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> by Michael Ruhlman. This is a book about grocery stores in the US, how they have changed over the years, and what the business is like now. He focuses in particular on Heinen’s, a small grocery chain in Ohio. It was interesting, at times, although Ruhlman loves a list and used way too many of them. On the whole, an essay about this topic would have been enough for me.</span></div>
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Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04071581152298241042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6340296155304985679.post-24065289054054840462019-11-01T10:37:00.000-04:002019-11-01T10:37:58.136-04:00Book Reviews October 2019<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Salt Lane</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> by William Shaw. This is the second mystery of his that I have read, and it focuses on detective Alex Cupidi from the previous book. It’s another mystery set on the Kent coast, and the land there plays a central role. It was very well written, and I liked that he continued on with Detective Cupidi, who is still dealing with her teenage daughter, as well, in this book, as her mother and a past lover. It is suspenseful, and Shaw has a great eye for detail. I recommend.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Bloody Genius</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> by John Sandford. I can never pass up a new Virgil Flowers mystery: they are always so well paced and quietly entertaining. This was a good one. Instead of getting sent to the outer bits of Minnesota, in this one Virgil is in Minneapolis at the University, trying to solve the mystery around the death of a professor in the library. Virgil is as methodical and laid-back as ever, and slowly, eventually, puts all the clues together. It is fun.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Olive, Again</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> by Elizabeth Strout. I loved the first Olive Kitteredge book, and was so happy to discover that Strout was writing another one. Like the first, it is really a book of short stories based in the fictional town of Crosby, Maine. Some are directly about Olive, but in many she just makes a brief appearance. I think Olive is such a brilliantly conceived character. She is always completely Olive, and always a delight. In this book, Olive is aging and dealing with the infirmities that come along with. She’s trying to fix her relationship with her son, and continues on doing her quiet good deeds while never thinking a thought that goes unsaid. It was delightful and beautifully written, and soon I will read it again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Catch and Kill</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> by Ronan Farrow. I finally submitted to the buzz and got this book, and it was a much more enjoyable read than I thought it was going to be, based on the subject matter. Farrow wisely chose to make the book about his pursuit of the Harvey Weinstein story, rather than the story itself. Of course the story is worthy, but focusing on how he investigated it, the interviews he got, and how he was stymied at almost every turn by NBC was really fascinating. Not to mention disheartening. It is a fast, smart, and astonishing read.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Small Wonder</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> by Barbara Kingsolver. I really enjoy Barbara Kingsolver’s nonfiction voice, and I hadn’t read this collection of essays, so was looking forward to it. And it was good – and many of the pieces I quite enjoyed – but she wrote a lot of them in response to 9/11, so they are very much from that specific time period. Her quirkiness can get a bit preachy at times.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04071581152298241042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6340296155304985679.post-76708322594571752352019-10-01T09:39:00.001-04:002019-10-01T09:40:36.160-04:00Book Reviews September 2019<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Reasons To Be Cheerful</b> by Nina Stibbe. I love Nina Stibbe’s books. She has a quirky, wonderful sense of humor and a great eye for character. Like her first two, this novel stars the wonderful Lizzie, who is now done with school (and done with her job in the nursing home) and has now found a job working for a horrible English dentist. Lizzie’s mother is still as loose a cannon as ever, but Lizzie is beginning to spread her wings and move away from her family. Although the dental work scenes can be hard to read if you are dental work sensitive, Stibbe is just so funny and makes Lizzie even more so. Lizzie’s desire for a sexual relationship with her somewhat boyfriend, who also might perhaps be her mother’s boyfriend, is so real and poignant. I enjoyed this throughout.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Purple Hibiscus</b> by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I got three of Adichie’s novels after reading an article about her in The New Yorker. This one was her first and it was a good story. She immediately draws the reader in and sets the scene well with a young girl, Kambili and her brother, Jaja, two wealthy kids in Nigeria with a controlling and abusive father. That was actually my problem with the novel: that an abusive father is kind of an “easy” plot twist. It’s a cheap thrill in a way. I do look forward to reading her second novel next.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>The Birdwatcher</b> by William Shaw. I liked this mystery. It was surprisingly subtle and good. William South is a police officer in a coastal town in England. He is an everyday policeman, but gets involved in the solving of a murder, because it was his friend and neighbor who was killed. The book switches back and forth from the present day case, to the death of Billy’s father in the troubles in Northern Ireland when he was young. He also befriends the lead detective on the case and her teenage daughter. The strange landscape is a main character of the book and the whole thing was smart and well done.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Even If Your Heart Would Listen</b> by Elise Schiller. This is an account of the addiction and death of Schiller’s daughter, Giana Natali, from a heroin addiction. Schiller’s study is mainly about how the existing rehab programs failed her daughter, relying as they do on the format for alcohol addiction. Most of the many rehab programs Giana went to also emphasized moral failure (re the 12 steps), instead of treating opiate addiction in the ways that are proven to have the best chance: via inhibitor drugs. It was a sad and eye-opening read. Schiller is honest about what she and Giana’s father failed to notice and do, and has gone on to advocate for better options for others. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Bluebird, Bluebird</b> by Attica Locke. I got the second book in this series and was about to read it, having heard the author and enjoyed her on NPR, when I realized that there was a first book. So I got it but did not really enjoy it. It is about Darren, a Texas Ranger, who is estranged from his wife who wants him to return to law school. Darren has a love/hate relationship with his job and badge and can’t leave it yet. He starts to work on a case involving two murders in the backwoods of Texas, that are probably aryan brotherhood related. For me, the book got off to a very slow and sometimes confusing start. Halfway through it began to pick up a little, but on the whole, I wasn’t hugely enamored with it.</span></span><br />
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Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04071581152298241042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6340296155304985679.post-76180174872718955522019-09-01T14:22:00.000-04:002019-09-01T14:22:11.014-04:00Book Reviews August 2019<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Lady In The Lake</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Laura Lippman. I really enjoy Laura Lippman’s novels, and this was a good one. It takes place in the sixties, and the main character, Madeline Schwartz, is on the verge of exiting her marriage and housewife life. She had always wanted to write, so finagles her way onto the staff of a Baltimore newspaper, more or less as a secretary. She becomes involved in the discovery of a dead body, and pursues the case even though – because the dead woman was black – the police want to write it off as a suicide. Maddie investigates and annoys people on all sides of the case. She is interested in the truth, and in setting herself free with it. It’s a good read.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Perfect Nanny</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Leila Slimani. I did not like this at all. It’s a fictionalization of the horrible case in NYC where a nanny killed two young children. I don’t think Slimani adds anything of interest to the story. Her nanny lives in France, and slowly unravels, but since you know the outcome from the beginning, it is a painful slog.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Fleishman Is In Trouble</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Taffy Brodesser-Akner. I loved this novel and thought it was brilliant. First, it is a compelling read, despite the fact that the characters aren’t hugely likeable. In the first two-thirds of the book, you follow the newly separated Toby, a hepatologist and father of two young children as he navigates his new life as a divorcee. Toby is angry at his ex, Rachel, and the reader is treated to explanations of all she has done wrong. Meanwhile, he is also dating with apps and, as the parent with a more flexible work schedule, taking care of his children. I should add that Toby’s tale is being told by an old college friend, Elizabeth, who is going through a midlife crisis of his own. Even though Toby is a bit of a jerk, it is still a really compelling read, but when Brodesser-Akner gets to the Rachel section, the structure of the book was so amazingly conceived. When you read of what Rachel is going through, it totally changes all that you learned from Toby in ways that I think are really specific to women’s experiences. Elizabeth’s situation adds to this too. It makes you realize all that women are still up against, and it is done so cleverly. It really seemed to me to be a modern day <i>Mrs Dalloway</i>, and so poignant when you take into consideration who is doing the telling and why. I highly recommend.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Last Child In The Woods</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Richard Louv. This is a book about how children today are so much more separated from nature (in the U.S.) than at any time in the past. He writes of how children used to have a lot of wandering time in nature, and how now – because of development and safety and electronics – this has changed for the worse. He investigates connections between ADHD and lack of time outdoors, and explores the idea of “nature deficit disorder” in children today. It was interesting, if a bit long. It’s already over ten years old, so he doesn’t address climate change issues, which definitely have an impact on his topic. I was hoping it would be more along the lines of parenting advice, and it really isn’t that kind of book. He does do a good job at examining the programs people are starting to try to fix the issue, including outdoor classrooms and nature perserves where kids can dig and play, etc. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Safest Lies</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Megan Miranda. This is one of Miranda’s many YA novels, and it was good, if a bit overly action-packed. Kelsey is a high schooler with a mother who is paranoid because of a kidnapping incident in her past. She has been raised to always expect the worst and to know how to react when it happens. And the worst keeps happening! From car accidents to home invasions to spending time in a panic room: Kelsey experiences all, and most with the help of the boy she is interested in from her math class. It was a suspenseful read and I’d recommend it to those in the mood for some suspenseful YA fiction.</span></div>
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Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04071581152298241042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6340296155304985679.post-60806653573880387352019-08-01T07:09:00.000-04:002019-08-01T07:09:31.882-04:00Book Reviews July 2019<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Big Sky</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Kate Atkinson. Kate Atkinson is one of my all-time favorite authors, and I was very excited to hear that after a few novels’ hiatus, she was returning to write about the detective Jackson Brodie. She is such a skilled author that reading her books is a treat – you can relax, knowing that you are in excellent hands, and enjoy the mystery as it unfolds. Jackson has moved to be closer to his ex, Julia, and his son, Nathan, and as per usual, crimes seem to find him. He is hired by a woman who thinks she is being followed, plus he witnesses a young hitchhiker picked up by a suspicious older man and his wheels start a-turning. It is a fast, fun, and suspenseful read. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Crow Planet: Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Lyanda Lynn Haupt. I first read this a few years ago when it came out and loved it. I got it out to loan to Sean because I thought he might like it, but then I took it back because I wanted to read it again. I did and it was just as good as the first time. Haupt is very knowledgeable about birds, and it is a book about seeing crows in the urbs and suburbs, but it is also about living on this planet amongst birds and animals, the changes to our planet, and life in general. I don’t always agree with Haupt, but her writing is intelligent and thought-provoking and I highly recommend.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">He Said, She Said</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Erin Kelly. This was an excellent train read, except that I got so involved in it I kept almost missing my train stops. Laura and Kit are a new couple back in the nineties when they go to watch an eclipse in Cornwall and end up stumbling upon a rape in progress. They help the woman and, as witnesses, later testify in the trial of the rapist. The book goes back and forth between the events of the past and the current time, in which they are living undercover so that the woman who was being raped can’t find them. It goes back and forth from Laura’s story to Kit’s, both of whom are keeping secrets from each other. It is well planned and a really good read.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Darkness</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> and <b>The Island</b> by Ragnar Jonasson. I read two Icelandic mysteries by Jonasson featuring a detective named Hulda Hermansdottir. They were both good, light reads – light not in subject matter but in depth. They read quickly and don’t have much variety of detail. In the first, Hulda is on the job, when she is told by her boss that she is being forced to retire. She has two weeks left to work and is told to pick a cold case to work on. She does, and starts finding out information about an immigrant whose death was declared a suicide, but who Hulda expects was murdered. Hulda has many past traumas which are brought to light as she works on the case. It has an ending which keeps the reader hanging. Then I read the second book in the series (there are only two books so far), but it begins chronologically many years before the events of the first book. It’s similar to the first: an okay mystery with interesting scenery, but nothing spectacular. A young woman was killed ten years ago and a group of her friends get together to reminisce, when things go awry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Last House Guest</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Megan Miranda. This was a really fun read and I recommend it. It takes place in a fictional town in Maine; Avery is a townie who has a career as a property manager for rentals owned by a wealthy family who summers there. The time swings back between a year ago, when Avery’s best friend, Sadie, was found dead, to now, when Avery begins to find out things about Sadie’s death which she finds perplexing. It’s a good mystery and very well written. Miranda is great with detail and she does a very satisfying wrap-up at the end.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Perfect Stranger</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Megan Miranda. I liked <i>The Last House Guest</i> so much that I moved straight on to another of her books (she has many! Yay!), and liked this one even more. Leah is a journalist, who has become a teacher and randomly moved to Western Pennsylvania with an old friend who was relocating there. The friend, Emmy, has a night job, and it takes awhile for Leah to realize that she hasn’t seen her in a few days. She is finally concerned enough to contact the police, and when she does so, the police, after investigating, don’t quite believe this person exists. Leah then sets out to both find her friend and figure out what has happened. It is so well done and well written and was an excellent read.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Conviction</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Denise Mina. I love all of Denise Mina’s books, but this one is definitely one of her best. It was such a good read and a good idea. The main character is Anna, who begins her day looking forward to listening to a podcast once her kids are off to school. When she does so, she realizes that the true crime podcast features someone that she used to know. When her current life situation is upended unexpectedly, she decides on a whim to figure out what really happened to her old friend. She keeps referring to episodes of the podcast, which are printed out, and then ends up starting a podcast of her own, while now totally mixed up in the mystery featured in the original podcast. It is really suspenseful and such a good read. I highly recommend!</span></div>
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Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04071581152298241042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6340296155304985679.post-23011461020136366912019-07-01T18:26:00.000-04:002019-07-01T18:26:09.186-04:00Book Reviews June 2019<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Aimee Bender. This book started as one thing, and then at some point became a completely different kind of book! Completely! I was so surprised! I did not see it coming. The narrator, Rose, is a young girl growing up in California with her parents and brother. Her mother is a little lost and her father a little clueless. One day her mother bakes her a lemon cake and Rose can taste all her mother’s angst in the cake. From that point on, she has to be very careful of what she eats, because she can taste the mood of the cook in the food. Okay, so it’s quirky, and a little bland, and I was getting annoyed that the narrator was a kid, when all of a sudden, Rose learns something about her brother, which is NOT what you would expect. And the book completely changes. I will not say more than that. I’m not sure Bender pulls it off, and I didn’t love the book, but kudos to her for trying!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Mirror, Shoulder, Signal</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Dorthe Nors. This was a beautiful book and I found it heartbreaking and original. Sonja is a 40 year-old woman living in Copenhagen and learning to drive for the first time. She is also at a crossroads in her life, having grown up in the countryside and become a successful translator of mystery novels. Her interactions with her driving instructors, and learning how to drive become a symbol of all that she is confronting now with what her life has become. She has a good friend with whom she no longer has much in common, and a sister who does not want much to do with her. It is a fast read and smart and lovely.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Unfuck Your Habitat</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Rachel Hoffman. This is a Marie Kondo-esque book about not living in squalor. She makes some good points and has good strategies about how to unclutter your physical surroundings, but it is more a book geared to a young twenty-something (very slobby) audience.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Idiot</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Elif Batuman. I really enjoy Batuman’s pieces in <i>the New Yorker</i>, so decided to read her first novel. At first I was a little put off because the narrator, Selin, is a first-year student at Harvard and in love with her first love, Ivan, and Batuman gets it so right, that it is rather painful to read. It was bad enough to experience that the first time – one really does not want to dwell. So at first I was a bit grumpy with the book, but Selin – although often infuriating in her inaction – is cerebral and charming and awkward and ultimately very likeable. She very much tries to live what she learns in her college courses and tries to make sense of her feelings for and interactions with Ivan, ultimately following him to Hungary in the summer where she teaches English in small villages. It’s a good novel and I felt tender toward it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Bad Blood</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by John Carreyrou. This is the story of Elizabeth Holmes and her company, Theranos, which was supposed to change the whole blood testing world, but ultimately ended up a scam. Carreyrou is the journalist who broke the story in <i>the Wall Street Journal</i>, and it was a fascinating read. It’s an interesting story and he gets so many great sources, and the whole time I was reading it I just didn’t understand how/why she pulled it off for so long. So manly people could see that her technology didn’t work, yet she retained a board of political superstars. Anyway, I recommend the book, and listening to the podcast, “The Dropout” afterwards.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">All Grown Up</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Jami Attenberg. I didn’t love this book. It is all about one woman, Andrea, the narrator, but each chapter is sort of set up like a stand-alone short story, so you end up getting repeated bits of information that I found confusing. At first I thought each chapter had a different, yet obviously similar, narrator. So it took me awhile to work out the form. Andrea is a 40 year-old single woman living in New York and conflicted about relationships. She had a turbulent childhood, and a difficult relationship with her mother, yet is very upset when her mother moves to New Hampshire to help out her brother and his wife, who have a dying child. It is witty and well-written, but ultimately unsatisfying.</span></div>
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Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04071581152298241042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6340296155304985679.post-68246734577707115872019-06-01T12:35:00.000-04:002019-06-01T12:35:19.516-04:00Book Reviews May 2019<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Ancillary Justice</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Ann Leckie. This is the first in a three-volume science fiction series, and I immediately understood while reading it why it has won so many awards. It is told from the point of view of a ship, which sounds quite odd, but makes sense in the context of the book. The narrator is actually part of the consciousness of a ship, and is on the lam after realizing and witnessing some damaging information about the leader/s of her world. The writing is excellent: Leckie immediately draws you into the world (galaxy really), having you make sense of things by the narrator’s account of the past and present. It is hard to explain, but I very much recommend.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Strangers Tend To Tell Me Things</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Amy Dickinson. This is a memoir about returning to live full-time in a rural town in New York state by Amy Dickinson, who is the Amy of the advice column, “Ask Amy”, and a regular participant on NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. She left the town when she went away to college, and then lived in Chicago and DC, but as the single mother of a daughter would return to her hometown in the summers. When her daughter is grown, she returns in part to help take care of her ailing mother. The book is about her past and her life growing up in the town, but also about finding a second chance at love there and marrying a high school friend. She’s an entertaining writer, and I enjoyed the book, although I didn’t particularly find her to be a kindred spirit. I’m still laughing at a line she wrote about going on a blind date with a (rather mean) guy who had very tiny hands, and all she could think of was those hands washing an apricot in a stream. Ha!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Something In The Water</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Catherine Steadman. This was a fun British thriller written by an actress who had a role in one of the seasons of Downton Abbey. It’s a fast and hard to put down read, although once you are finished, I’ll admit, not everything quite adds up. However, it begins wonderfully and the suspense is high. Basically Erin and Mark are on their honeymoon in Bora Bora when they find a bag in the ocean filled with money and diamonds and a gun. At first their intent is to do the right thing, but down on their financial luck, they consider keeping their find and start to plan how they could get away with it. The criminal owners of the bag are soon on their trail. It is fun!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Late In The Day</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Tessa Hadley. This is a rather melancholy novel about what happens to two intertwined London couples and their families when one spouse dies. Zachary was the glue that held them all together, so when Christine, Lydia, and Alex are left behind, there is a certain amount of unraveling. Christine is the main character, an artist who worked closely with Zachary and his art gallery. She and Alex invite Lydia to live with them while she is grieving. There are stories of the past woven into the present, and you hear about how the four met and what has happened in their lives over the past twenty years. It was a nice, calm, read, but my problem with it is that I basically disliked all four main characters, plus their two daughters. All bothered me for different reasons.</span></div>
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Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04071581152298241042noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6340296155304985679.post-52470277279424073202019-05-01T07:15:00.000-04:002019-05-01T07:15:03.858-04:00Book Reviews April 2019<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">How To Live With Kids: A Room-By-Room Guide</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Gabrielle Stanley Blair. This book had been on my nightstand for a while. It’s the kind of book that is fun to dip into now and then and get inspiration. However, I was tired of it taking up space in my “to read” pile, so finished it to move it along. It is basically a book about home décor, the best part of it being the pictures of various options. What she does well is a sort of “Marie Kondo” approach of making sure that you consider how each space in your home can best work for you with the least amount of clutter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Nix</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Nathan Hill. This was the longest-residing book on my kindle, and as I was in an orderly mode, its time was up. It is a very long read, and while reading the first half of it I was a little grumpy; however, the second half won me over. The first half was primarily the narrator’s childhood reminiscences, and I find I’m a little resistant to so much of that. I think the book would have been better had those parts been edited out. But I do see why the book made it to so many top ten lists of 2017. The narrator is Samuel Andresen-Anderson, an English professor who is not very motivated by his job or life. He spends most of his off hours playing a video game, until one day when his mother, who left Sam and his father when he was 11-ish, is in the news for throwing a rock at a Trump-like politician. Samuel has a publisher – for a novel that has long been in the works – and this guy gets him to go visit his mother to try to write a book about her actions. As mentioned above, the book goes into too much detail about Samuel’s childhood; it also goes into his mother’s considerably more interesting past, and why she abandoned Samuel. There’s also a very funny and well-written storyline that involves the star player of the video game he plays, who goes by the moniker Pwnage, and is addicted to gaming. The writing is often very funny, and when everything starts coming together in the second half, I really liked it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Craig Brown. Ugh. I HATED this. It is a biography, more or less, about Princess Margaret, but it becomes more about how impossible a biography is, especially a biography of a royal figure, who is so much façade to begin with. I could easily get on board with such a metanarrative – and with 99 sections both very short and long; however, I just found Brown tiresome and annoying. He does gimmicks where he pretends Margaret married Picasso, and there is a section or two where this topic is treated as fact. Sometimes he did do interesting studies, such as presenting all the different viewpoints/opinions of an event. But I found the majority of his ideas puerile and it was all I could do to make myself finish reading the book. Don’t so torture yourselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Savage News</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Jessica Yellin. I follow Jessica Yellin on Instagram, and really like her stories, in which she presents the news of the day. Her thing is to do “news not noise,” filtering out all the stories of the day in Washington that are really just noise. I recommend her. Anyway, Savage News is her first fiction, and it is a fun, light read. She wanted to write a news novel that was a comedy and I’d say her book is a success. The narrator, Natalie Savage, is a broadcaster trying to make it as a serious journalist in the world of television news. She wants to report the facts, and her bosses want her to get her hair straightened, and report on the gossip and rumors rather than what might really be going on behind all the bluster. She tries to please her bosses enough to not get fired, while following a real story about a disappearance of the first lady and all its political implications. It’s a quick and fun read.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Hold Sway</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Sally Ball. I read one of my best – and oldest! -- friend’s new book of poetry this month and it was a treat. <i>Hold Sway</i> is Sally’s third poetry book and it is a rich collection. There’s so much in it to stop and think about, and when I finished it I found myself immediately returning to the first poem to start all over again. It did not come as a surprise to me that Sally’s poetry is smart and reflective, but there was so much humor, both wry and otherwise in the book! There are a pair of dog poems, both called “Can You Hear My Dog?” which – having a new young reader in my household, reminded me of the do you like my hat sequences from <i>Go Dog Go</i>. There’s also a line about a hiking trip, in which the food carried is “lentils, lentils, lentils, quinoa!, lentils” which cracked me up. And a poem about a Shakespeare sonnet we had to memorize in 10<sup>th</sup> grade that ends with the BeeGees! It is all done, too, in a thought-provoking, original, and lyrical manner. I think my favorite is a poem called “Breaker,” in which the narrator shuts down, emotionally, like a circuit breaker powering off, switch by clicking switch. Her topics range from being in Paris during a terrorist attack, to seeing a heron fly up and away, and listening to her daughter sing jubilantly in the car. There’s also the wonderful poem, “Hold”, about the disturbing state of our planet and its changes in climate. <i>Hold Sway</i> is an impressive book of poems that will stay with you long past your initial reading of them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Hollow of the Hand</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by PJ Harvey and Seamus Murphy. PJ Harvey is my favorite musician of all time, and I was pleased to receive her first book of poetry as a gift. The book is half poems, half pictures taken by the photographer, Seamus Murphy, when they were traveling in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Washington DC. Each location has its own section in the book of poetry followed by photography. Her poetry reads a lot like her song lyrics, which is not to denigrate either. As I read though, I could hear her singing the words (and some of the phrases from the Washington DC section in particular appear in her album, The Hope Six Demolition Project.) As you can imagine from the locales to which they travel, the subject matter is bleak. Harvey is good at painting a scene in few words and closing with an image that is poignant and food for thought. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Good Riddance</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Elinor Lipman. I adore Elinor Lipman’s books and this one does not disappoint. Her books tend to stay on the surface, in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get manner, but she is really funny and she has a knack for setting up humorous situations. Here, Daphne is a young woman whose marriage has ended and mother recently died. She found out that her husband had only married her to get his trust fund money, so she is bitter about that. Then when her mother dies, she bequeaths to Daphne a yearbook filled with notes about what all the graduates went on to be and do. Daphne decides she doesn’t want this and puts it in the recycling bin in her Manhattan apartment building. However, a woman down the hall finds it and decides to make a podcast out of the information. In trying to stop her from doing so, Daphne discovers a secret her mother had been keeping. Meanwhile too, her widowed father has moved from NH to Manhattan and is enjoying his retired life as a professional dog walker. Daphne also starts dating an actor who lives next door. She frequently travels to NH regarding the information from the yearbook, and it is all an amusing farce. </span></div>
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Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04071581152298241042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6340296155304985679.post-30763510140386978072019-04-01T07:20:00.000-04:002019-04-01T07:20:16.850-04:00Book Reviews March 2019<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Clockmaker’s Daughter</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Kate Morton. I really enjoyed reading this. It is very much a Kate Morton novel, in that there are multiple parallel storylines going on that all take place in different times but share a connection. In this novel the connection is a house out in the countryside in England that was first an artist’s retreat in the late 1800’s, and then a school for girls in the early 1900’s, and then a refuge for a family whose home was bombed in London in WWII. The daughter of the title, who is one of the main narrators, is a ghost (which you learn right away so I’m not being a spoiler in revealing it). She, known as Lily, was the muse of the painter who lived in the house in the 1860’s, and was trapped there after an incident which had reverberations for years to come. It’s hard to explain without giving too much away, so I won’t. But all of the characters are interesting and well written and it is easy to get invested in their stories and fun to piece all the parts together. I recommend.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">My Sister, The Serial Killer</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Oyinkan Braithwaite. I kept hearing good things about this book and was not disappointed. It’s a light, quick read – more a novella – and simply done. Korede is the narrator, and she is a hard-working nurse at a hospital in Nigeria. She is the opposite in looks and temperament from her sister, Ayoola, who is a beautiful serial killer. When the book begins, Korede has been called to clean up after Ayoola’s third murder. As her sister’s caretaker, she does, but when Ayoola shifts her attentions to a doctor at the hospital at which Korede works – and a doctor who Korede has feelings for – Korede is torn between helping her sister stay out of trouble and helping the doctor. It is fast-paced and stripped down.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Fredrik Backman. This is the third Fredrik Backman novel I’ve read and I am quite fond of them. His books are sweettarts – sugary treats with a sour narrator and generally happy endings. This book follows the tradition of <i>A Man Called Ove</i>, and B<i>ritt-Marie was Here</i>, in that they have a slightly on the spectrum narrator who likes things just so. In this case, however, the narrator is a 7 year old, Elsa, who is teased at school for her oddness and rigidity, and who has a wild granny she adores. Her granny is fighting cancer, and leaves Elsa a series of letters to deliver to various people in her neighborhood, who then tell Elsa their story. Britt-Marie lives in Elsa’s building (her novel comes after this one in sequence), and is as OCD as ever, making sure people don’t put signs up or let their dogs bark, etc. I thought it would be a good novel to read after reading about a serial killer, and I was right. It’s fun, and although Backman definitely has a formula, his books are quirky and enjoyable. I will continue to read them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Stranger Diaries</b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: small;"> by Elly Griffiths. This was a fun ghost story/thriller read. It's a "stand alone" book and not part of any of Griffiths' series. Clare is a high school teacher and is also working on a book about an author of a famous ghost story. A fellow teacher and friend of Clare's is murdered, and the whole community is thrown for a loop. When a second teacher is next to die, things get serious! The point of view rotates between Clare, her teenage daughter, Georgie, and Harbinder Kaur, the detective in charge of the case. Interspersed throughout is also the full text of the ghost story, which begins to run </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">parallel to the events Clare is living through. I did figure out who the murderer was pretty early on -- and if I did, then all of you will figure it out much faster -- but that did not inhibit my enjoyment of the book.</span></div>
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Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04071581152298241042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6340296155304985679.post-75883967286619662652019-03-01T11:35:00.003-05:002019-03-01T11:35:47.965-05:00Book Reviews February 2019<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Lethal White</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Robert Galbraith. This is the fourth Cormoran Strike/Robin Ellacott mystery novel by J.K. Rowling, and I found it as delightful as the first three. It is thick and meaty and slow-going in a good way – I was very excited to read a few chapters each night, and was sorry when it was over. It begins more or less a year after where the third novel left off – Robin has married Michael, and is recovering from her serial killer attack. She is back at work with Cormoran, and they get a new case figuring out who is blackmailing Jasper Chiswell, a member of parliament. Robin goes undercover and works in Chiswell’s parliament office, while Strike chases down other leads. Chiswell has many adult children and a wife and ex-wives, and all seem to be working at cross purposes. Plus the Olympics are underway in London, and Michael is as displeased as ever with Robin’s job. Like all in this series, it’s a very detailed, slow-paced and satisfying read.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Everything Under</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Daisy Johnson. I had heard good things about this book, which was nominated for a Booker, but it wasn’t the book for me. I should begin with my pet peeve, which is when people write a novel with the events all out of sequence for no reason whatsoever. Now when this is done well, I love it, but I feel it is too often used as a crutch to disguise a weak narrative. This novel is basically a re-writing of the Oedipus story in present day time, and the narration is mostly that of Gretel, a woman who has just found her mother after a 16-year disappearance. Her mother now is senile and doesn’t understand who she is or that Gretel is her adult daughter. We get flashbacks to their life together on a houseboat, and Gretel tries to work out why her mother disappeared suddenly from her life ten years previously. Then we also get chapters from the point of view of Margot, who transitions to Martin, and who ran away from home because a neighbor predicted he’d kill his father and sleep with his mother. All of this could, possibly, have worked, but I didn’t like any of the characters, fitting together the back and forth timeline was annoying, and although most of it takes place on the river Avon in England, the locale of it all was strangely generic. Plus Gretel steals a dog and then later on loses him, and is not at all bothered by this. Sigh.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Watching You</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Lisa Jewell. This was a really good read. It takes place in a small town outside of London, and the chapters switch back and forth between Joey, a young woman newly married and recently returned from living abroad, and who is trying to get her life together and be a more responsible adult; Jenna, a high schooler who is living with a mother with mental illness that manifests itself in paranoia; and Freddie, a high schooler on the spectrum, and the son of the head superintendent of the local school. When the novel begins, someone has been murdered, and it is someone connected to Tom, Freddie’s father, a charismatic and successful man. Everyone is watching everyone else: Freddie takes pictures of people in the town from his window, Tom seems to be watching two high school girls in particular, Jenna’s mom thinks the whole world is in on some spying conspiracy involving her, etc. etc. There are layers and layers of watching, all skillfully done, and it is fun trying to figure out when the watching is nefarious and who is guilty of what. It’s well written and very enjoyable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Rivers of London</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Ben Aaronovitch. I didn’t like this one. Apparently, it is the first of a series, but I won’t be reading the rest. It’s about a young London policeman, who one day out on patrol sees a ghost hanging around the scene of a crime. Because of this ability, he becomes an apprentice in a kind of hidden police version of the ministry of magic, and is taught about the magic underworld existing in tandem. They also then are working to figure out why there are so many murders committed by non-criminals. There’s this whole plot about all the murders acting out old Punch & Judy puppet shows, and then the young policeman is also meeting all the gods of London’s rivers, etc. etc. It was clever, and the writing wasn’t bad, per se, it just came across to me as an exercise. I was glad when I finished the book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Lost Man</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Jane Harper. I loved this book and highly recommend it. She is such a good writer. This is her third book, and whereas the first two had characters in common, this one is “stand alone.” It’s about a ranching family in the way outback in Australia, where the sun is so hot that you can’t be outside without a water supply nearby. It begins with Nathan learning that his younger brother Cameron has died from such a fate. Cameron was an experienced rancher, though, and shouldn’t have been defeated by the elements. Things get even stranger when they discover that his car, stocked with food and water and working air conditioner, was nearby. The police expect it was a suicide, but something doesn’t add up. Nathan has a farm nearby, but he goes to stay at the main homestead with his extended family, and they all try to piece together what happened. Nathan is working through his own difficult path, so that often the title refers to him as much as to Cameron. The writing is so wonderful! Harper is so good at creating interesting characters and then shaping them subtly. It’s well-paced and fascinating and I loved it from beginning to end. Read this book!</span></div>
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Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04071581152298241042noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6340296155304985679.post-68243176092496464402019-02-01T13:43:00.001-05:002019-02-01T13:43:12.062-05:00Book Reviews January 2019<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Unsheltered</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Barbara Kingsolver. I really enjoyed this novel. It flips back and forth from a family in the present day living in a ramshackle house in Vineland, NJ, to a family living perhaps in the same house 100 years earlier. In the present day, Willa is a middle-aged woman whose family is having financial difficulties. Her husband is a professor whose job keeps getting downsized, her son is a widower with a newborn, and her daughter is a hipster with leftwing beliefs that tend toward the extreme. Willa is not where she thought she’d be at this point in life, and the house they inherited is falling apart around her. She starts doing research to see if they can declare it of historical value, and discovers that a famous scientist who corresponded with Darwin, Mary Treat, might have lived there. Meanwhile the reader knows Mary Treat lived next door, since we are also privy to the situation of Thatcher, a young teacher and Darwinist who is trying to support his wife and her mother and sister, in the manner to which they would like to be accustomed. He is trying to teach a more modern science in the high school there, but comes up against the founder of Vineland, a bit of a tyrant. It has a welcoming, leisurely pace and Kingsolver of course does a great job of creating a world both factual and fiction and connecting it to what is going on today (there are many interesting connections between Trump and the tyrants of yore). I recommend. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">At The Water’s Edge</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Sara Gruen. This was a pleasant, light read – nothing spectacular but it is fun in a tense way. When the book begins, it is WWII and the young Maddie and her husband and best friend are living a rich alcoholic kind of life in Philadelphia, Ellis and Hank tried to enlist in the army, but couldn’t, and the three of them are dealing with scorn from those who think they are cowards. Ellis’s father was involved years ago in a discredited search for the Loch Ness monster, so on a drunken whim, the three end up crossing the ocean during wartime (and getting shot at), and end up in Scotland looking for the beast. Maddie soon realizes that she didn’t know her husband as well as she had thought, and that he has all sorts of nefarious plans he is trying to bring to fruition. Meanwhile, she becomes close to the owners and workers in the small guesthouse in which they are staying. It’s a fun, fluffy, yet also tense romp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">This Close To Happy: A Reckoning With Depression</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Daphne Merkin. This was a more “enjoyable” read than I had guessed it would be, since the subject is Merkin’s life-long depression, which has had her in and out of institutions since childhood. She is an excellent writer, though, and begins with her fascinatingly odd childhood as one of six kids born to wealthy Park Avenue parents who don’t seem at all interested in having or caring for children. She and her siblings have thus struggled emotionally all their lives. Merkin examines the beginnings of her depression as a young child, and explores honestly, it seems to me, how it was only when she was depressed that her mother would care for her. It’s an honest and interesting exploration of her condition and how it has affected her personal and professional life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Behind Closed Doors</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by B. A. Paris. This was a really fun thriller to read! I recommend. One has to suspend disbelief a bit, but if willing to do so it won’t disappoint. Jack and Grace seem to have the perfect marriage. Jack is a wealthy lawyer, and a doting husband, who seems like he’d do anything for Grace and her disabled sister, Millie. About a third into the book, however, you discover that all is not what it seems. And all is pretty horrific! I can’t say more without giving it away, but it is well-done and tense and very fun, subject-matter notwithstanding.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Since We Fell</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Dennis Lehane. This is the first Dennis Lehane book I’ve read and it has made me curious about the rest. The first half of the book is about Rachel, a young woman who is trying to learn the secret of who her father might be, since her mother will not tell her. She becomes a journalist, and investigates many leads. She then becomes a successful television journalist, until her stint in Haiti causes her to have a breakdown live on TV. So the first half of the book is establishing who Rachel is, and I found her compelling and the novel interesting. But then! Then all of a sudden she gets an inkling that her husband is not who he says he is. She starts investigating what he has told her and then the rest of the book is this amazing fast-paced thriller, in which she discovers secret after secret, many of which are dangerous. It is an exciting read, although I am still trying to piece together some of what happened. I couldn’t put it down.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Astrophysics for People In A Hurry</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Neil DeGrasse Tyson. I know nothing about physics, sadly, and not much about astrophysics either. I’m not sure I’m “in a hurry”, but I definitely needed to start with the basics, and Tyson does a good job doing that. He’s a good conversational writer, and also good at putting things in layman’s terms. I think I’d fail a test on the material, but I happily read a chapter each night, and enjoyed trying to wrap my mind around what he was explaining.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Inheritance</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Dani Shapiro. I really enjoyed Dani Shapiro’s writing, and would like to read some of her other memoirs. This one centers around two years ago when she does the Ancestry DNA test and discovers from the results that her half sister is not related to her. She begins investigating why her father is not her biological father – her parents are both dead so she has to figure it all out for herself. She remembers a conversation she had in her twenties with her mother, who mentioned a fertility institute in Philadelphia, so Shapiro pieces it together – and somewhat amazingly figures out who her real father is in the course of two hours. The rest of the book is her contacting her biological father, a man much different from the orthodox Jewish father who raised her. Shapiro is smart and calm and explores all aspects of her new information, how it answers questions she always had about herself growing up (the only blonde in the family), and how it affects her sense of self and family. It’s a very good read.</span></div>
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Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04071581152298241042noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6340296155304985679.post-16516320910160883682019-01-01T10:31:00.000-05:002019-01-01T10:31:03.563-05:00Book Reviews December 2018<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><b>Becoming</b> by Michelle Obama. I was looking forward to reading this and enjoyed it even more than I thought I would: Michelle Obama is a very good story-teller. She starts from the beginning, writing a lot about her childhood growing up on Chicago’s South Side, in a family that gave her and her brother a lot of support. I wasn’t surprised that she is who she is, after seeing how she grew up. She writes poignantly about the death of her father, and hilariously about the meeting of young Barack. It was really interesting to see things from an insider’s point of view, even if occasionally some of her descriptions of her FLOTUS initiatives could be a little longwinded toward the end. It was an inspiring read and I highly recommend it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Sabrina</b> by Nick Drnaso. This is a graphic novel that (I think) was on the short list for the Booker prize — or nearly so. It was hard to get ahold of, and I read tons of high praise for it before beginning it myself. So perhaps that is why I remained a bit indifferent to it. It’s a good story and an interesting read, and I did see the advantages that a graphic novel can have over a “regular” novel, in the scenes that it can show without committing to words. I guess what left me slightly underwhelmed was how things were wrapped up at the end. I wanted a bit more umph, somehow. The novel begins with a woman, Sabrina, petsitting for her parents. In the next chapter, we learn that Sabrina has disappeared in what seems like a kidnapping type crime. Her boyfriend has had a nervous breakdown and shows up at an old childhood friend’s house. The friend, Calvin Wrobel, is really the main character of the book. He is in the military, and is dealing with having been left by his wife and child, who now live many states away in Florida. Anyway, Calvin is nice to the boyfriend, who lies in bed and listens to conspiracy theories on right-wing radio, getting more and more radicalized. The theories start co-opting the disappearance of Sabrina, and Calvin has to try to talk his friend off a ledge. It was good and I would read more from Drnaso; I just had built it up too much before reading.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Cockfosters</b> by Helen Simpson. Short stories are not my favorite genre, but Helen Simpson is my favorite short story writer by far (I guess second would be Lorrie Moore and Alice Munro). I really like her style of writing, and more so, I like her topics. She is my age, so her characters are now similarly aged women dealing with the trials and tribulations and realizations that come with one’s late forties and early fifties. Many of these stories are two women talking — on a train, or in a restaurant — and they are witty and insightful and moving. Her story collections are always on my must-read list.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><b>Grief Is The Thing With Feathers</b> by Max Porter. This is an odd little book, and I wasn’t sure while I was reading whether or not it was fiction or nonfiction. I still am not. It is about a man with two young sons whose wife dies unexpectedly. The characters are four — the man, his two sons, and Ted Hughes’s crow, who is there to torment and help the family. The prose is often poetic, and Porter marks each section with who is speaking, Father, Sons, Crow. Crow puts up with the grief for awhile, but then he is having none of it. There is even an appearance or two by Ted Hughes. It’s interesting, and a very quick read, although I’m not 100 percent convinced of its success.</span><br />
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Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04071581152298241042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6340296155304985679.post-8200107106856372532018-12-01T10:26:00.001-05:002018-12-01T10:26:43.288-05:00Book Reviews November 2018<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Witch Elm</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Tana French. Tana French’s novels are always wonderful and this one is no exception. It is different from the rest in that it is not from a detective’s point of view. It takes place in Ireland, though, and involves crimes. The narrator is Toby, a guy who for the first 30 or so years of his life has lead a charmed one. He has a good job in Dublin and a good girlfriend and all is well. But then one night he wakes up and finds burglars in his living room and is viciously beaten by them. He finds himself a changed man, and the head injuries don’t help. While in recovery, he goes to live with a beloved uncle. He and his two cousins spent their summers living with this uncle, and when the uncle is diagnosed with brain cancer, Toby – with his life on hold anyway – is designated as the one to help. While there, however, a body is discovered in a hole in the witch elm in the back yard. The Dublin Murder Squad comes and Toby ends up a prime suspect. Toby and his cousins work to discover what really happened, and it’s a fascinating mix of chance and secrets and circumstance. All throughout, too, Toby muses on the notion of luck and fortune. It’s a great read.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Sometimes I Lie</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Alice Feeney. This was a really fun read with a powerful twist in the middle. The novel begins with the narrator giving the reader three facts, but the third one is “Sometimes I lie.” So of course as you read you have to keep in mind her unreliability. Also when the novel begins, the narrator, Amber, is in a coma and narrating what happens as she drifts in and out of consciousness. These moments are interspersed with a childhood diary. It’s a well-done premise, especially when halfway through the book something is revealed that changes everything. I recommend.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Nine Perfect Strangers</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Liane Moriarty. I love Liane Moriarty’s novels! She’s a good writer and a good story-teller, and her characters are always so likeable in interesting ways. I’d say this is one of her best novels yet. It begins with Frances, a delightful fifty year old woman who is on her way to a ten-day spa stay at Tranquillum House in the country in Australia. Frances is a romance novelist and is recovering from a romantic scam perpetrated on her by someone she met on the internet. She is humiliated, but jolly and wry. The other eight strangers are all clients who are at Tranquillum House for this retreat. We meet them all – from an ex football player, to a family in grief over the death of their son, to the somewhat crazed director of the resort, who has her own agenda. It is a funny and poignant read and I enjoyed it immensely throughout.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Silence of the Girls</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Pat Barker. At the risk of having too many good reviews in a row, I loved Pat Barker’s new book as well. She is one of my favorite authors, and this novel reminded me of her WWI trilogy, which first got me hooked. Unexpectedly, it takes place during the Trojan war and the narrator is Briseis, a young queen of a Trojan city who becomes a slave when Achilles and company ransack the town. The novel is about the women who are the spoils of war, and what exactly it is like to go from luxury to slavery. Briseis “belongs” to Achilles after he won the city, but Agamemnon claims Briseis when he is forced to return his own female slave to her father. Because of this, Achilles and his Myrmidons stop fighting and the Trojans gain ground over the Greeks. Briseis is smart, and an observer, and she is trying her hardest to figure out how to make this terrible situation work for her. She wants to have agency over her own story and fate. It was a really wonderful book; now I need to go re-read the Iliad.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Katarina Bivald. At first this book made me a little grumpy with its cuteness and obviousness of plot. But by the end my cold heart grew a size or two and I’m willing to admit that it has its moments: in general, however, it is just not my kind of book. Sara is a woman from Sweden, who when the book begins has landed in Broken Wheel, Iowa, a depressed town in the middle of nowhere with not much going for it, to visit a penpal named Amy. She discovers that Amy has died, but stays on in the town for a while, and gets to know the inhabitants she has heard so much about already via letter. Sara is a booklover who used to work in a bookstore, so she decides she will set up a store of sorts in the downtown and give away Amy’s books. She believes there is a book for everyone, and nothing a book can’t fix. There are Romances and Realizations and several meet cutes.</span><br />
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Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04071581152298241042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6340296155304985679.post-46166508845016084342018-11-01T07:22:00.000-04:002018-11-01T07:22:24.863-04:00Book Reviews October 2018<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Spinning Silver</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Naomi Novik. I loved this book! It was even better than her<i>Uprooted</i>, and that was a book so good I was jealous not to have written it myself. This one has some similarities, in that it is very fairy tale-esque. Novik takes from Rumpelstiltskin the bit about the girl having to turn straw into gold and runs with it. What she ends up with is this wonderful story of strong women who save their town, country, people, selves using their own smarts and bravery. Miryem is the daughter of a poor money-lender in a small village. Her father is too nice to be a good money lender, and when her mother gets sick, Miryem decides she will collect the debt owed to her father. She becomes so successful at it, that she catches the eye of the king of the Staryk, a winter people who live in a parallel universe to Miryem. The king sees Miryem making money and wants her to change his silver into gold. There’s also Wanda, a servant who Miryem helps, and who helps her and her parents in return, and Irina, a princess who has to defeat a demon and save her kingdom. It’s wonderful! It was such a fun and compelling read – I plan to give it to my nieces with November birthdays. </span><span style="font-family: "wingdings"; font-size: 12pt;">J</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Calypso</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by David Sedaris. I had been warned that this book was a bit more melancholy than some of his previous work, but I liked it the better for that. Sedaris is always funny – and he continues to be so in <i>Calypso</i> – but he is also an excellent writer, and I think his writing skills were highlighted in this book where his topics tend more to the bittersweet. As always, he is a master at the turn of phrase, and weeks later I am still laughing to myself at his wording. I recommend. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Holy Ghost</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by John Sandford. I’m a big fan of John Sandford’s Virgil Flowers mysteries, although I can’t quite articulate what it is I like about them. They are ordinary, yet entertaining, and it is fun to watch the smart, Virgil Flowers, who is a secret thinker who doesn’t take himself too seriously, piece together another Minnesota mystery. This one takes place in Wheatfield, MN, a town that has recently had two Virgin Mary sightings in their church. The sightings have revitalized a dying town, and so when a sniper starts shooting people, the town both wants to apprehend the murderer and keep their new tourist business intact. Virgil sets to figuring it out. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Transcription</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Kate Atkinson. Kate Atkinson and Pat Barker are two of my top-five favorite authors, and both have new novels out. The whole time I was reading this one, I kept thinking I was reading the new Pat Barker – it is very Pat Barker in theme and tone! It was a really interesting read and, like I often do with Atkinson’s novels, I plan to read it again very soon. Her writing is so good and has zero clutter, so I think it is often easy to miss details I’d like to note. <i>Transcription</i> is a spy novel that takes place during WWII and in the decade after. Juliet Armstrong is a wonderful main character! She’s smart, and brave, with a really wry sense of humor. She works for MI5 as a transcriber during the war. She types conversations that occur in an adjacent apartment between another spy and British supporters of Hitler. She’s also occasionally sent into the field, as it were, as a young third Reich supporter, Iris Carter-Jenkins. This is half of the book. The other half, interspersed with the war scenes, are in the 1950’s when Juliet is working for the BBC putting together educational radio programs. She had her own share of trauma during the war, and is finding that it is hard to completely leave the MI5 – there is always one more favor she can do for them. It was a fascinating read and, as always with Atkinson (and Barker!), well done.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04071581152298241042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6340296155304985679.post-40717751499806833042018-10-01T07:13:00.000-04:002018-10-01T07:13:00.588-04:00Book Reviews September 2018<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Then She Was Gone</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Lisa Jewell. This is a well-written thriller that I couldn’t wait to read on my train ride every day. It’s about a girl, Ellie, who disappears one day at 16 when she is walking to the library. We get Ellie’s point of view in the beginning, along with warnings she gives herself –it’s an interesting technique. Then a decade passes and we see Laurel, Ellie’s mother, trying to live her life without knowing what happened to her daughter. Ellie starts dating again, and the man she dates, Floyd, has an ex-partner who used to tutor Ellie for her exams. This connection starts to seem sinister. It’s all quite well-done: Jewell introduces more points of view, and does an amazing job with Laurel, showing how her life fell apart and how she tries to get it back together, and what happened with her relationships with her other children. She also begins to suspect Floyd and the tutor –it’s a great read!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Do Not Say We Have Nothing</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Madeleine Thien. This is a long epic novel about China under the cultural revolution of Mao and his cronies, and then all about the Tiananman Square massacre. Thien begins in Vancouver with a young girl, Marie, whose family takes in a student, Ai-Ming, who is on the run after Tiananman. Marie’s and Ai-Ming’s families have connections which go way back, and Thien basically leaves Marie to elaborate on the long story of Marie’s father and many branches of Ai-Ming’s family, who were musicians in Shanghai. I haven’t read many novels about this time in China, so in that regard I found this novel an interesting read. Structurally, however, it was more of a mess than I would have guessed from the raving reviews. Thien returns to Marie and her search in China for Ai-Ming every now and again, but the shifts in time are awkward. There’s also a symbolic novel within a novel that people try to save during the cultural revolution when all books, etc., were destroyed (as were the people who owned and read them). I get what Thien was trying to do with this inner novel, but it just got confusing. You basically have to read for the story and the well-done portrayal of a horrific time, and give up trying to make the overall structure and all the parts into a coherent whole.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Where The Crawdads Sing</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Delia Owens. I kept hearing good things about this novel, but was not impressed with the writing. It’s about a “marsh girl,” Kya, who grows up on her own in a shack in the North Carolina marsh after being abandoned by her mother and siblings. Kya learns how to eke out a living and evade the truant officer, and grows up with the marsh as her friend. I really enjoyed all the descriptions of the marsh, and its bird life, but the overarching story is sort of silly. A local ex-football star is found dead below a water tower, and the sheriff begins to expect that Kya had something to do with it. We then get Kya’s life in long flashbacks, with the novel switching from her life growing up to the present day of 1970, when the sheriff is trying to figure out what happened. Kya, of course, is a quiet genius, and ends up the author of several books on marsh wildlife. A young local lad teaches her how to read, and – you’ve guessed it – romance ensues. It’s not a bad read – it just was not for me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Sea Around Us</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Rachel Carson. I borrowed this from my parents this summer after reading in <i>The New Yorker</i> that it was one of her best books. It is good, albeit a little slow-going. She’s a scientist writing about the formation of the seas from the beginnings of earth to the 1950’s when the book was written. It is hard to write poetically about the sea floor, I would think, yet Carson manages to do so. It has made me realize how much I do not know. Some of what she writes about is dated; there’s a chapter in particular in which Carson gets excited about the rising of the seas, thinking it was just the cycle of things, when of course we now know it is global warming. Also, when she was writing there was still so much unknown about the sea floors (and sea life) and instruments uninvented. We had yet to discover the blobfish! Yet still, I enjoyed reading this book and stretching my mind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Cooking For Mr. Latte</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Amanda Hesser. This is a part memoir part cookbook, or memoir with recipes – a genre I love and don’t read enough of. Hesser writes about her courtship of her now husband, but is really writing of food and her vast relationship to it. She writes well, she knows a lot about food and cooking, and although I haven’t come across many recipes I actually want to try, I like reading through them. My favorite chapters are the ones that feature her grandmother, Helen, who is almost always cooking crab while lecturing. She’s a pip.</span></div>
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Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04071581152298241042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6340296155304985679.post-27650509431967847712018-09-01T09:36:00.003-04:002018-09-01T09:36:47.374-04:00Book Reviews August 2018<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Animal, Vegetable, Miracle</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Barbara Kingsolver. I read and enjoyed this ten years ago when it first came out, and decided to give it another go. I like most of Kingsolver’s novels, but I think I like her nonfiction voice even more. She is interesting and knowledgeable and funny. The book is about a year in which Kingsolver and her family decide to eat mostly locally grown and sourced foods (they each have one thing they are allowed which is not local, like coffee and rice). She writes about what they ate, why eating locally is better for the planet, and also about their prodigious farming and animal husbandry. I found it just as fascinating the second time around.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">My Ex-Life</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Stephen McCauley. This was a delightful read. I was a fan of McCauley’s books in the nineties, but then he fell off my radar. I saw a review of this book recently and remembered how much I enjoyed his writing, and this did not disappoint. David Hedges, the main character, lives in San Francisco and works as a consultant helping students get into a college that is right for them. When the book begins, he hears out of the blue from Julie, a woman he was married to briefly, before he realized he was gay. Julie is living in a big house on the coast in Massachusetts, and is dealing with the dissolution of her second marriage. She is trying to keep her big house, which her ex wants her to sell, and is also troubled by the recent antics of her teen-age daughter, Mandy. McCauley switches deftly between David, Julie, and Mandy, and creates them accurately and with humor. David and Julie are both funny and, more importantly, nice – although not at all dull in the way that word might conjure. It’s a really good book about people in mid-life, and the problems and realizations that come with the age. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Catastrophic Happiness: Finding Joy in Childhood’s Messy Years</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Catherine Newman. Catherine Newman is an excellent writer, and her earlier memoir, <i>Waiting for Birdy</i>, was one of the best books I read about infants and toddlers. In this one, she continues writing about her children, Ben and Birdy, as they age from about 3 or 4 to mid-teens. She is funny and honest and wise, and is quite good at doing what the title proclaims: finding the good moments in the midst of the chaos.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Social Creature</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Tara Isabella Burton. I thought this was a good read, although since finishing it I’ve been seeing some unfavorable comparisons to <i>A Talented Mr. Ripley</i>. But I’ve never read that! So no comparisons to it here. I thought it was well-done. Louise, the main character, is a 29 year old trying to make it in New York city, and having trouble making ends meet. She meets Lavinia, a high-society “It” girl, who sweeps Louise up into her circle in rather disturbing ways. Louise starts living more and more beyond her means, and Lavinia manipulates the situation in unstable ways. Eventually Louise gets in over her head and does what she feels she has to do to not retreat back to her small town. The writing is nicely spare, and Burton is talented enough so that the reader gets swept up in Louise’s momentum, and wants her to succeed, while also taken aback by her actions. I recommend.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">Less</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Andrew Sean Greer. By the end of this book, I liked it, but it took me at least the first half of the book to get drawn in. My problem with it is that it seemed like it was going to be about the slow dissolution of Arthur Less, who is turning fifty and is having all sorts of things suddenly not work out for him – he’s a writer who gets dropped by his publisher, his ex boyfriend is getting married, etc. The narrator seemed to look at Less from a wry distance, and I was rather bored – and somewhat pained – at watching all the small injustices that Less has to suffer, even while recognizing the good writing and humor that described them. However, I began to like the occasional narrator interruptions that occur: the narrator is someone who at first seems to know Less from afar, and it was an interesting technique. It is the excellent writing that won me over, but it took me a while to get there. The first half is a comedy of errors, but it does become more than that by the end.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;">You’re On An Airplane</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Parker Posey. I loved this memoir. I’m a fan of Posey’s work in movies, and throughout this book I could hear her distinctive voice speaking all the lines. I’m not surprised that she is a good writer, but I was happily surprised by how smart and charming her writing is. She tells stories from her life experiences, and of her experience as a woman in Hollywood, who didn’t necessarily fit into the usual roles. After doing really well in independent movies in the nineties, she ended up getting bit parts in movies after that, and has very wry commentary on why she didn’t necessarily fit in. There’s a lot of celebrities waltzing in and out of her stories – so that aspect is certainly fun – but her book is much more than that. She is silly, sure, but also an astute observer of people and getting older and life. It was better even than I thought it would be.</span></div>
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Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04071581152298241042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6340296155304985679.post-836755383096987422018-08-01T07:16:00.000-04:002018-08-01T07:16:36.115-04:00Book Reviews July 2018<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by John LeCarre. I was reading some article several years ago about spy novels in which they said everyone should read Tinker, Tailor by LeCarre. I’ve never read any of his books – somewhat on purpose; it’s a long story – but decided to get this one and read it. And then see the movie. I didn’t love reading it, although I can see how it would work well as a movie. I liked the main character, George Smiley, the British CIA character who is doing the sleuthing, but overall I found it confusing, and felt like I had to work too hard to figure everything out, and simultaneously not inspired at all to do so. So: check, check! I’ve read a LeCarre book, and won’t be doing it again, I don’t think.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Happiness Is An Inside Job</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Sylvia Boorstein. I really enjoyed this book. It was the right length for a self-help-ish book (short), and Boorstein’s tone was exquisite. She doesn’t lecture, or overload with examples, and has a great knack for getting straight to the heart of the matter. It is about mindfulness from a Buddhist point of view, really, and how to not let negative emotions and thoughts run rampant. She is wise and I was left with much food for thought.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Mindful Way Through Anxiety</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Susan M. Orsillo and Lizabeth Roemer. This is a book about how to control your anxiety through mindfulness instead of, say, meds. It could definitely have been shorter, and I got a little tired of the examples, which were bereft of ambivalence, but I cannot quibble with many of the insights offered. Orsillo and Roemer walk the reader through arresting anxiety by confronting and dissecting it, as well as really delving into the “muddy emotions” which generally surround anxiety. I also am a big proponent of knowing your own underlying impulses: you can’t have the same negative reactions again and again if you truly understand why you have them in the first place. It’s a helpful book, although I’d recommend skimming it in parts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Your 6 Year-Old: Loving & Defiant</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Louise Bates Ames and Frances L. Ilg. I’ve read all these books as Owen reaches the ages except for the 5 year-old one, and they are helpful (as long as one skips the dated ectomorph /mesomorph chapter and overlooks a lot of the BLATANT sexism). It is always oddly reassuring to see that one’s child’s annoying aspects are mostly just a result of the age he happens to be. It makes it easier to choose one’s battles. Six is not an easy age, in case you all are wondering. You want to be the best at everything and know the most, and you get very upset when confronted with contrary facts. But at the same time, six is very enthusiastic and loving, and still considers his/her parents to be the smartest and most wonderful people ever. So there’s that!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Blood, Salt, Water</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Denise Mina. I decided I couldn’t wait and went ahead and read the last (so far) of the Alex Morrow series. It was as wonderful as all the others. I really think Asa Larsson and Denise Mina are the best mystery/crime writers I have read thus far. Mina’s writing is so wonderful. Her prose is sparing: she tells you the minimum you need to know, yet it ends up being just the right amount. She’s also kind to her characters in a way I’ve come to appreciate. In this one, Alex is investigating a disappearance in Helensburgh, a resort town outside of Glasgow. There is a woman in town who is not whom she seems to be, and of course there are all sorts of competing interests in the police force regarding money and power. It’s quietly superb.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Bring Me Back</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by B.A. Paris. I have mixed feelings about this one. I kept reading that it’s the kind of book one can’t put down – and it definitely was that. I was excited to read it and annoyed when I had to stop, upon which I would wonder what was happening until the next time I could read again. It is suspenseful, certainly. But ultimately, the “answer” or discovery or what have you, was so particular and/or contrived, that I found the book disappointing on the whole. The premise is that twelve years ago, Finn was on vacation with his girlfriend, Layla, when they stopped at a rest stop in France and when he came out of the restroom, Layla had disappeared. Twelve years pass in which Layla has never been found and Finn has been exonerated of any crime. Finn is now living and romantically involved with Layla’s sister Ellen, when he starts getting emails from someone who might or might not be Layla. It’s a good premise, if you can get past that “romantically involved with Layla’s sister” part. Because, ew. But ultimately it is all a bit too fantastic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">If We Had Known</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Elise Juska. This is an excellent book and I highly recommend it. It concerns the aftermath of a shooting – but it isn’t about the actual shooting, per se, but more the people who get caught up in the wake very distantly. A young man shoots people in a mall in Maine; he was a former student at a Maine university, and the main character, Maggie, who teaches writing at the university, realizes he was a student of hers five years ago. One of her students from that class writes a post on facebook about how the shooter as a student was scary and that there were warning signs, and the post goes viral, setting off a chain of events. The other main character of the book is Maggie’s 18 year-old daughter, Anna, who is going off to college in Boston for the first time. Anna is recovering from anxiety issues, and the shooting plus her mother’s connection to it, trigger Anna’s anxiety. Juska’s characters are excellently created – they are flawed and real, cerebral and interesting. There aren’t many details of the shooting, which I thought was a good choice: it’s more a book about how the rest of us carry on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Into The Raging Sea: Thirty-Three Mariners, One Megastorm, and the Sinking of El Faro</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Rachel Slade. I loved this book, too, and couldn’t wait to read it each night. I drove my family crazy talking about it non-stop too. It was just so interesting! I had heard about the sinking of the ship when it happened, but didn’t know that much about it. Slade does a great job going into detail about the people working on the ship, and describing the business decisions and personal decisions that led to El Faro sailing straight towards Hurricane Joaquin. There were so many moments when the captain could have turned the ship around, yet didn’t, and although he was certainly to blame, Slade shows how the TOTE company’s cost-saving measures were the true reason the ship went down – in multiple different ways. It was fascinating reading about the lives of the people on the ship and the many jobs that are done on board, as well as the history of the shipping industry. And her description of the last few hours is terrifying and heartbreaking.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Seas</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by Samantha Hunt. This book is beautifully poetic and well written, and thirty years ago I would have been absolutely enthralled with it. It’s half fantasy, half real, and the line between the two is crossed to the point where the reader isn’t quite sure which is which. Hunt does this well. The narrator of the book is a 19 year-old girl, and a 19 year-old girl In Love, at that. That’s the part that I would have loved when I was closer to that age, and was a bit exasperated with at the age I am now. She lives in a town on the coast in the north – I don’t think it is named as Maine, but clearly is. Her father was an alcoholic who walked into the sea and presumably drowned when she was eight, and who told the narrator that like him, she was from and of the sea and was a mermaid. She’s in love with Jude, a returned Iraqi war veteran, who has major PTSD. Her love for Jude is fierce, and not returned, although he spends time with her. The narrator is funny and passionate, and her grasp on reality is tenuous. She thinks that since she is a mermaid, her father in the sea wants to kill Jude, so that she will not marry him and remain on land. It is very well done, especially how the reader has to piece together what is actually happening from what the narrator thinks is happening. It’s a book of haunting originality.</span></div>
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Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04071581152298241042noreply@blogger.com0