So far in 2024, I’ve read 53 books:
Ratings legend:
| ★★★★★ | Completely enthralling, couldn’t put it down. and/or More than just entertaining (e.g., educational, enlightening). Would highly recommend. |
| ★★★★☆ | Really great book in all respects with perhaps some minor flaws. Would definitely recommend. |
| ★★★☆☆ | Average. An entertaining read but probably forgettable. Might or might not recommend. |
| ★★☆☆☆ | Finished, but did not like. Would not recommend. |
| ★☆☆☆☆ | Abandoned before finishing, usually because it was poorly written or just uninteresting to me. |
The books I’ve read so far in 2024—summary
Clicking on the title of a book will take you to its detailed entry further down on the page, which contains a description of the book and some thoughts I had about it.
| Number | Title | Author | Pages | Duration | Rating | Genres |
| 53 | The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | Mark Twain | 305 | 11/13/24 – 11/18/24 (6 days) | ★★☆☆☆ | historical fiction, literature, classic, race |
| 52 | The Trees | Percival Everett | 309 | 11/10/24 – 11/12/24 (3 days) | ★★★★☆ | historical fiction, mystery, horror, race, crime |
| 51 | The Corpse in the Cabana | Shéa MacLeod | 207 | 11/05/24 – 11/06/24 (2 days) | ★★☆☆☆ | fiction, cozy mystery, romance, authors |
| 50 | James | Percival Everett | 349 | 11/01/24 – 11/04/24 (4 days) | ★★★★★ | historical fiction, literary fiction, race, retellings |
| 49 | Running in the Family | Michael Ondaatje | 208 | 10/29/24 – 10/31/24 (3 days) | ★★★☆☆ | nonfiction, memoir, autobiography, family, travel |
| 48 | A Very Bad Thing | J.T. Ellison | 446 | 10/22/24 – 10/26/24 (5 days) | ★★★★★ | fiction, mystery, thriller, suspense, crime, books about books |
| 47 | Love Makes a Family | Sophie Beer | 24 | 10/18/24 – 10/18/24 (1 day) | ★★★★★ | fiction, picture books, board books, LGBT, childrens, family, love, storytime |
| 46 | Go, Planes, Go! | Addie Boswell | 22 | 10/18/24 – 10/18/24 (1 day) | ★★★★☆ | fiction, picture books, board books, toddlers, storytime |
| 45 | Are You My Mother? | P.D. Eastman | 64 | 10/18/24 – 10/18/24 (1 day) | ★★★★☆ | fiction, picture books, children, animals, family, storytime |
| 44 | Grave Talk | Nick Spalding | 314 | 10/12/24 – 10/18/24 (7 days) | ★★★☆☆ | fiction, family, humor, death, grief |
| 43 | Remember Me Tomorrow | Farah Heron | 281 | 10/05/24 – 10/11/24 (7 days) | ★★★★☆ | fiction, mystery, romance, magical realism, time travel |
| 42 | Barbra Streisand: A Little Golden Book Biography | Judy Katschke | 24 | 10/04/24 – 10/04/24 (1 day) | ★★★★☆ | non-fiction, biography, children’s book |
| 41 | The Moonflowers | Abigail Rose-Marie | 329 | 09/26/24 – 10/03/24 (8 days) | ★★★★☆ | historical fiction, mystery, women’s health, family |
| 40 | The Little Paris Bookshop | Nina George | 392 | 09/12/24 – 09/25/24 (14 days) | ★★★☆☆ | fiction, romance, France, books about books |
| 39 | Tom Lake | Ann Patchett | 309 | 09/05/24 – 09/11/24 (7 days) | ★★★★★ | literary fiction, romance, family, farming, pandemic |
| 38 | The Starless Sea | Erin Morgenstern | 498 | 07/28/24 – 09/01/24 (36 days) | ★★★★☆ | fiction, fantasy, magical realism, romance, LGBT, books about books |
| 37 | Natural Selection: A Short Story | Elin Hilderbrand | 54 | 08/25/24 – 08/25/24 (1 day) | ★★★★★ | fiction, short stories, romance |
| 36 | Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail | Ben Montgomery | 292 | 07/10/24 – 07/11/24 (2 days) | ★★★★★ | nonfiction, biography, travel, history, nature, adventure, Appalachian Trail |
| 35 | The Chessmen | Peter May | 308 | 07/05/24 – 07/10/24 (6 days) | ★★★★★ | fiction, mystery, crime, thriller, Scotland, trilogy |
| 34 | Braiding Sweetgrass | Robin Wall Kimmerer | 308 | 06/19/24 – 06/23/24 (5 days) | ★★★☆☆ | nonfiction, science, nature, memoir, environment, spirituality, Indigenous peoples |
| 33 | The Lewis Man | Peter May | 320 | 06/09/24 – 06/18/24 (10 days) | ★★★★★ | fiction, mystery, crime, thriller, Scotland, trilogy |
| 32 | Demon Copperhead | Barbara Kingsolver | 560 | 06/03/24 – 06/08/24 (6 days) | ★★★★☆ | literary fiction, coming of age, addiction, foster care, retellings, book club |
| 31 | The Blackhouse | Peter May | 432 | 05/21/24 – 05/29/24 (9 days) | ★★★★★ | fiction, mystery, crime, thriller, Scotland, trilogy |
| 30 | The Last Negroes at Harvard | Kent Garret, Jeanne Ellsworth | 320 | 05/17/24 – 05/20/24 (4 days) | ★★★★☆ | nonfiction, memoir, race, history, education, social issues |
| 29 | The Best Strangers in the World | Ari Shapiro | 256 | 05/12/24 – 05/15/24 (4 days) | ★★★☆☆ | nonfiction, memoir, LGBT, Journalism, Travel |
| 28 | Crossing to Safety | Wallace Stegner | 327 | 05/02/24 – 05/11/24 (10 days) | ★★★★☆ | fiction, classics, literary fiction, historical fiction |
| 27 | V is for Vengeance | Sue Grafton | 448 | 04/28/24 – 05/01/24 (4 days) | ★★★☆☆ | fiction, mystery, crime, detective |
| 26 | Bedfordshire Clanger Calamity | Steve Higgs | 213 | 04/23/24 – 04/24/24 (2 days) | ★★★☆☆ | fiction, cozy mystery, crime, dogs, British |
| 25 | Stilton Slaughter | Steve Higgs | 225 | 04/21/24 – 04/22/24 (2 days) | ★★★★☆ | fiction, cozy mystery, crime, dogs, British |
| 24 | Bakewell Tart Bludgeoning | Steve Higgs | 202 | 04/19/24 – 04/20/24 (2 days) | ★★★★☆ | fiction, cozy mystery, crime, dogs, British |
| 23 | Pork Pie Pandemonium | Steve Higgs | 223 | 04/17/24 – 04/18/24 (2 days) | ★★★★☆ | fiction, cozy mystery, crime, dogs, British |
| 22 | Matilda | Roald Dahl | 192 | 04/16/24 – 04/16/24 (1 day) | ★★★★★ | fiction, childrens, classics, fantasy, middle grade, young adult |
| 21 | Ethan Frome | Edith Wharton | 99 | 04/12/24 – 04/13/24 (2 days) | ★★★★★ | fiction, classics, literature, romance |
| 20 | The Age of Innocence | Edith Wharton | 330 | 04/04/24 – 04/09/24 (6 days) | ★★★★☆ | historical fiction, classics, romance, literature |
| 19 | X | Sue Grafton | 403 | 03/29/24 – 03/31/24 (3 days) | ★★☆☆☆ | fiction, mystery, crime, detective |
| 18 | A Roaring Murder | Ava Ness | 258 | 03/21/24 – 03/27/24 (7 days) | ★★★★☆ | fiction, cozy mystery, historical fiction |
| 17 | Gift from the Sea | Anne Morrow Lindbergh | 130 | 03/20/24 – 03/21/24 (2 days) | ★★☆☆☆ | nonfiction, memoir, classics, essays, self help |
| 16 | Obit | Victoria Chang | 113 | 03/18/24 – 03/18/24 (1 day) | ★★★★☆ | nonfiction, poetry, death, memoir, Asian literature |
| 15 | The Floating Feldmans | Elyssa Friedland | 346 | 03/06/24 – 03/17/24 (12 days) | ★★★★☆ | fiction, humor, family, chick lit |
| 14 | I’m Glad My Mom Died | Jennette McCurdy | 320 | 03/03/24 – 03/05/24 (3 days) | ★★★★★ | nonfiction, memoir, autobiography, mental health |
| 13 | My Name is Barbra | Barbra Streisand | 1040 | 02/20/24 – 02/29/24 (10 days) | ★★★★☆ | nonfiction, memoir, autobiography, music, acting |
| 12 | In the Land of Long Fingernails | Charles Wilkins | 220 | 02/15/24 – 02/19/24 (5 days) | ★★☆☆☆ | nonfiction, memoir, death, Canada |
| 11 | When We Were Enemies | Emily Bleeker | 345 | 02/07/24 – 02/13/24 (7 days) | ★★★★☆ | historical fiction, romance, war, WWII, family, fame |
| 10 | The Spy Coast | Tess Gerritsen | 341 | 02/04/24 – 02/07/24 (4 days) | ★★★★☆ | fiction, mystery, suspense, spy, espionage |
| 9 | Obit: Inspiring Stories of Ordinary People Who Led Extraordinary Lives | Jim Sheeler | 242 | 02/02/24 – 02/03/24 (2 days) | ★★★☆☆ | nonfiction, biographies, essays, death |
| 8 | The Bob Book | David Rensin | 174 | 02/01/24 – 02/01/24 (1 day) | ★★★☆☆ | fiction, humor, names |
| 7 | A Gentleman in Moscow | Amor Towles | 462 | 01/28/24 – 01/31/24 (4 days) | ★★★★☆ | historical fiction, Russia, chosen family |
| 6 | Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock | Jenny Odell | 400 | 01/22/24 – 01/24/24 (3 days) | ★★☆☆☆ | nonfiction, self-help, philosophy, psychology |
| 5 | The Promise | Damon Galgut | 293 | 01/18/24 – 01/21/24 (4 days) | ★★★★☆ | historical fiction, South Africa, family, race |
| 4 | The Widow’s Retreat | A.J. Carter | 334 | 01/17/24 – 01/18/24 (2 days) | ★☆☆☆☆ | fiction, thriller, holiday |
| 3 | Jane Eyre | Charlotte Brontë | 532 | 01/13/24 – 01/16/24 (4 days) | ★★★★★ | historical fiction, classics, literature, gothic |
| 2 | The Sense of an Ending | Julian Barnes | 162 | 01/12/24 – 01/12/24 (1 day) | ★★★★★ | literary fiction, British literature, book club |
| 1 | Great Circle | Maggie Shipstead | 651 | 01/04/24 – 01/11/24 (8 days) | ★★★★★ | historical fiction, literary fiction, adventure, travel, flight |
The books I’ve read so far in 2024—details
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| 📕10-word summary: Huck and Jim, a runaway slave, raft down the Mississippi. 🖌6-word review: Dialect writing. Unlikable characters. Excruciatingly dated. |
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| Description:* The great American humorist Mark Twain follows the escapades of Tom Saywer’s best friend, Huckleberry Finn, on a raft trip down the swirling waters of the Mississippi River. Join Huck and Jim, a runaway slave, on their remarkable adventure, where they meet con artists and slave traders, while learning the power of friendship.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: I hadn’t read this classic, and I wanted to read it right after reading James—a re-imagining of this story told from the point of view of Jim, the slave. I found this book positively dreadful. I’m very grateful now that I didn’t have to suffer through it when I was in high school. That “duke” and “king” were despicable characters and were part of the story for way too long. I don’t like reading dialect and there was a fair amount of it. The use of the n-word makes me cringe (among other things—like raising my blood pressure, probably), and it is ubiquitous in this book. (I get that this writing was from another time and place. The doesn’t make it any easier for me to read it now.) Jettison this book and read James by Percival Everett; it’s incomparably better. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Local, SBI, & FBI detectives try to solve bizarre-scenario murders. 🖌6-word review: Hard-to-fathom United States history of lynching. |
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| Description:* When a pair of detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation arrive in Money, Mississippi, to investigate a series of brutal murders, they find at each crime scene an unexpected second body: that of a man who resembles Emmett Till. After meeting resistance from the local sheriff, his deputy, the coroner, and a string of racist white townsfolk, the MBI detectives suspect these are killings of retribution. Then they discover eerily similar murders taking place in rapid succession all over the country. The past, it seems, refuses to be buried. The uprising has begun.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: This book was pretty good, but I wanted it to be better than I found it. A few things contributed to that for me: 1) I listened to the audiobook, and I don’t like when one narrator has to do so many characters, especially when it’s a male narrator and a lot of the characters are women. They typically don’t do them justice. 2) It was excruciating how long the reading went on of the names of people who have been lynched. I get the rhetorical intent of it—it’s not unlike reading the names of gay men who have died from AIDS—but I would have gotten the point with half the names. 3) Ditto that later in the book when reading the list of all of the cities where lynching took place. 4) I would have liked to better understand how the gruesome, complex murder scenarios were actually carried out, and perhaps learn earlier in the story who was responsible for them. With all that said, Percival Everett’s writing is excellent. I just learned that the movie American Fiction was the film of his book, Erasure, which makes me want to read that soon. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Amateur sleuth insists on solving multiple murders at writers’ conference. 🖌6-word review: Somewhat interesting storyline, but unimpressive writing. |
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| Description:* Sassy, snarky Viola Roberts quit her boring accountant job to pursue her dream of writing novels. Now that her career has taken off, she’s headed to a writers’ conference at an exotic Florida resort, where she plans to lounge in the shade drinking frosty beverages with little umbrellas. And, of course, no sojourn to tropical climes would be complete without her boozy, wise-cracking best friend, Cheryl. When Viola discovers the diva of the author world dead of unnatural causes, the police immediately consider Viola and Cheryl their prime suspects. Along with help from hunky fellow writer, Lucas Salvatore, Viola is determined to ascertain who killed the corpse in the cabana before she, or Cheryl, wind up in jail. Or worse.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: This book was a free e-book download from BookBub, and I didn’t care for this author’s writing at all. In addition to mentioning her “generous backside” more times than necessary (which would have been once), she referenced Jessica Fletcher 3 times (fancying herself as an amateur version of her), and most annoying of all, she used the word “conspiratorially” thrice and the word “conspiratorial” twice. One might argue that this is an editing issue, but if the writer wouldn’t have used it so often to begin with… The protagonist’s character was annoyingly pushy, with a lack of emotional intelligence, which did not enhance what little likeability she had to begin with. I gave this book 2 stars, because my 2-star rating indicates: “Finished, but did not like. Would not recommend.” |
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| 📕10-word summary: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn told from a different perspective. 🖌6-word review: Things taken for granted become obvious. |
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| Description:* When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. Thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. While many narrative pieces of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place, Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: This book was recommended to me by a friend, and I got on the library waitlist for it on August 2 at #63 for the large-print book and at #296 for the audiobook. At about halfway through the printed book, the audiobook became available so I listened to the second half. Because small parts of it were written in dialect (which I don’t love reading), I enjoyed the audiobook more. In the beginning, I wish I’d read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn first, but stopped to read a detailed synopsis of its plot, and that sufficed. I loved a lot of things about this book, but they’re hard to articulate in a short paragraph. I’ve been “hit or miss” with books of the retellings genre that I’ve read, but this is one of the best, if not the best. I’m pretty sure I’ll make this a book club book in the future, once the waitlist dissipates. As my 5-star rating indicates, I highly recommend it. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Author Michael Ondaatje’s memoir about retracing his Dutch-Ceylonese family history. 🖌6-word review: Too lyrical for my taste. YMMV. |
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| Description:* In the late 1970s Ondaatje returned to his native island of Sri Lanka. As he records his journey through the drug-like heat and intoxicating fragrances of that “pendant off the ear of India, ” Ondaatje simultaneously retraces the baroque mythology of his Dutch-Ceylonese family. An inspired travel narrative and family memoir by an exceptional writer.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: I read this book on a recommendation from Ann Patchett, who actually recommended a different book by this author, In the Skin of a Lion, but the WCPL didn’t have that one. This book was good enough, even great in a few places, but overall it was too lyrical for my taste. I don’t like when writing is so poetic and flowery that I’m not really sure what exactly it’s saying. That happened a lot in this book, especially in the few chapters that were flat out poetry. I probably won’t read In the Skin of a Lion now even if it becomes available, because I also read The English Patient by this author in 2018 and abandoned it. Obviously his writing doesn’t resonate with me. (“𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘸𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘳𝘦, 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦.”) I was tempted to give this book 4 stars, but my rating system states that I’d “definitely recommend” a 4-star book, while a 3-star rating says, “might or might not recommend,” which is the case for this one. I 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 recommend this book if you 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 lyrical writing or poetry. |
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| 📕10-word summary: A bestselling author’s disastrous past comes back to hurt her. 🖌6-word review: Revelations dispensed at a good pace. |
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| Description:* A great writer knows when to deliver a juicy plot twist. But for one author, the biggest twist of all is her own murder. With a number of hit titles and a highly anticipated movie tie-in, celebrated novelist Columbia Jones is at the top of her game. Fans around the world adore her. But on the final night of her latest book tour, one face in the crowd makes the author collapse. And by the next morning, she’s lying dead in a pool of blood. Columbia’s death shocks the world and leaves Darian, her daughter and publicist, reeling. The police have nothing to go on—at first. But then details emerge, pointing to the author’s illicit past. Turns out many people had motive to kill Columbia. And with a hungry reporter and frustrated cop on the trail, her secrets won’t stay buried long.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: I chose this book as one of my two October 2024 First Reads offerings, which provides free early access to an editors’ pick from Amazon Prime. I thoroughly enjoyed the unraveling of the mystery in this book. At one point, there was one plot element that reminded me of a book that I loved, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, which I read and reviewed in 2022. It did end up being a similar plot line to that one, but there were many more plot twists than that as this story unfolded. I added the genre of “books about books” to my genres list, because it’s a big element of this story—one that I’m very surprised Goodreads didn’t include in their genre list for the book. |
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| 📕10-word summary: A respectful number of adult permutations comprising families are included. 🖌6-word review: Fantastic illustrations. Love-is-a-verb focused. Pretty inclusive. |
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| Description:* Whether you have two mums, two dads, one parent, or one of each, there’s one thing that makes a family a family… and that’s love. *From goodreads.com’s synopsis. |
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| Thoughts: I am going to add this book to 2 books a Mostly Social Book Club member has chosen for a future discussion: Go, Planes, Go! and Are You My Mother?. I feel strongly about talking about all kinds of families as early as possible with children so that the reality of their existence is not kept from them “until they’re old enough to understand them.” This quick-reading, 24-page book includes all kinds of combinations of adults comprising a family including 2 moms, 2 dads, a mom and a potential non-binary person, and black, white, & brown single & partnered parents and/or caretakers. I loved the illustrations in it and the fact that love is described in terms of acts instead of what the people doing the acts look like. |
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| 📕10-word summary: A wide variety of planes are vibrantly and whimsically illustrated. 🖌6-word review: Catchy little story told in rhyme. |
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| Description:* This fun and playful board book introduces young children to the world of planes in their many forms. There are thin planes, fat planes, planes that draw across the sky, and many more!*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: A member of our Mostly Social Book Club has chosen 2 children’s’ books for a future discussion: Go, Planes, Go! and Are You My Mother?. She has recently become a grandmother, so these are some of the kinds of books she’s reading these days. Of course, this was a quick 22-page read that I could easily see engaging young readers. I thought the illustrations were well done and the entire story is written in rhyme, which appealed to me. |
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| 📕10-word summary: A fledgling sets out to find its mother who’s foraging. 🖌6-word review: Unnecessarily gendered bird in engaging story. |
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| Description:* Are You My Mother? tells a very simple story for children who have just started to read. Their younger brothers or sisters will also want to follow the baby bird’s quest as he asks everyone and everything he meets, “Are You My Mother?“.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: A member of our Mostly Social Book Club has chosen 2 children’s’ books for a future discussion: Are You My Mother? and Go, Planes, Go!. She has recently become a grandmother, so these are some of the kinds of books she’s reading these days. Of course, this was a quick 64-page read that I could easily see engaging young readers. I thought the fledgling being male in the story was an unnecessary detail. I thought the illustrations were well done and engaging. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Annually, two strangers help each other work through their grief. 🖌6-word review: Preposterous at times; characters sometimes whiny. |
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| Description:* The last thing Alice expects to see at her husband’s graveside on his birthday is a giant, talking frog. On closer inspection, it’s a grown man dressed as Kermit. Turns out Alice’s husband is buried next to Ben’s older brother Harry, who—as a parting practical joke in his will—insisted that Ben visit his grave each year, on this specific day, dressed in an as-yet-undisclosed pageant of embarrassing fancy dress. With little but their grief and this one day in common, Alice and Ben form a very special, very strange friendship, meeting just once a same day, same time, same place—different silly costume. As the years pass and grief alters, can their unique bond help them cope with the hardest part of life?*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: I chose this book as one of my two October 2024 First Reads offerings, which provides free early access to an editors’ pick from Amazon Prime. I thought the premise of this book would make it interesting, but there were too many “preposterous” things that kept popping up in it to turn me off. Among them being Ben continuing to don stupid outfits his brother charged him with doing in his will, and especially not bringing regular clothes to change back into after doing his “grave ritual.” I disliked how both of these characters wallowed — for years — after the loss of their respective loved ones. It also didn’t work for me that after many years of meeting, the two main characters characterized their relationship as siblings-like. With all that said, I absolutely loved the twist that came about as a result of Alice digging into the circumstances surrounding her husband’s death in the hospital when trying to finally get some closure on his death. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Two students slightly-out-of-sync in time work to change an outcome. 🖌6-word review: An interesting take on time travel. |
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| Description:* East House is the oldest and least desirable dorm on campus, but it has a draw for lonely university freshman Aleeza Kassam: Jay Hoque, the hot and broody student who vanished from East House 5 months ago without a trace. It’s irresistible to an aspiring investigative journalist like Aleeza. But when she starts receiving texts from Jay, the mystery takes an unexpected turn. To put it mildly. His messages are coming not only from Aleeza’s own dorm room but from the past—only weeks before he disappeared. Sharing space, if not time, Aleeza and Jay are living the impossible, and they start working together to prevent his inevitable disappearance. Causing a temporal paradox that could blow up the universe is a risk they’re going to have to take. Aleeza digs through Jay’s suspicious friends, enemies, and exes, determined to find out what happened to him. Or what will happen to him. But it’s becoming more than a mystery. Aleeza is catching feelings for her charming new roommate. Wherever, and whenever, he may be.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: I chose this book as my September 2024 First Reads offering, which provides free early access to an editors’ pick from Amazon Prime. Time travel is the only subgenre of science fiction that I really care for. This one differed from the few I’ve read recently (Oona Out of Order, The Midnight Library, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, The Time Traveler’s Wife, & In Five Years) in that it was more about parallel universes with a 4-month spread between them. I became enamored with the notion of parallel universes after watching Nova’s 2003 TV mini series, The Elegant Universe. I liked that there was a diverse set of characters. I liked that the characters were concerned about causing a temporal paradox, albeit a time-travel trope. I didn’t like the Hollywood ending. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Introduction to EGOT-winning singer, actress, director, and producer, Barbra Streisand. 🖌6-word review: Classic “Little Golden Book” children’s book. |
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| Description:* This Little Golden Book about Barbra Streisand—the EGOT-winning singer, actress, director, producer, and star of Funny Girl and Hello, Dolly!—is an inspiring read-aloud for young readers.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: It was a fine book as Little Golden Books go. There’s really no way to summarize this talent in so few pages, and I dropped off a star for 2 editing errors in just 24 pages, with a minimal amount of text on each page! It said that Funny Girl won 8 Oscars, but it only won one—Barbra won for Best Actress in a Leading Role. It was nominated for 7 others—Best Picture; Best Actress (Kay Medford) in a Supporting Role; Best Cinematography; Best Sound; Best Film Editing; Best Music, Original Song; & Best Music, Score of a Musical Picture. The other editing error was spelling Barbra’s sister Roslyn’s name as Rosalind. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Granddaughter of local hero learns the disgraceful truth about him. 🖌6-word review: Slow start. Heroic women. Twist ending. |
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| Description:* Tig Costello has arrived in Darren, Kentucky, commissioned to paint a portrait honoring her grandfather Benjamin. His contributions to the rural Appalachian town and his unimpeachable war service have made him a local hero. But to Tig, he’s a relative stranger. To find out more about him, Tig wants to talk to the person who knew her grandfather, Eloise Price, the woman who murdered him fifty years ago. Still confined to a state institution, Eloise has a lifetime of stories to tell. She agrees to share them all—about herself, about Tig’s enigmatic grandmother, and about the other brave and desperate women who passed through Benjamin’s orbit. Most revealing of all is the truth about Whitmore Halls, the mansion on the hill that was home to triage, rescue, death, and one inevitable day that changed Eloise’s life forever.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: I chose this book as one of two August 2024 First Reads offerings, which provides free early access to an editors’ pick from Amazon Prime. A little slow to start, it nevertheless kept me wanting to get to the bottom of why Eloise Price poisoned Benjamin Costello 50 years ago, especially since they were best friends when they first met. It was a satisfying revelation, and there was a nice twist in the preantepenultimate chapter. I also loved the ending of Eloise’s personal story. If I had any complaint at all, I thought the writing came across as a little “preachy”—about women’s health issues—in the last couple of chapters with a little too much “tell” when we’d already had enough “show” throughout the story to “get it.” |
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| 📕10-word summary: A forlorn, lovelorn, assumed-rejected lover fancies himself a “literary apothecary.” 🖌6-word review: Fell asleep 5 times while reading. |
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| Description:* Monsieur Perdu calls himself a literary apothecary. From his floating bookstore in a barge on the Seine, he prescribes novels for the hardships of life. Using his intuitive feel for the exact book a reader needs, Perdu mends broken hearts and souls. The only person he can’t seem to heal through literature is himself; he’s still haunted by heartbreak after his great love disappeared. She left him with only a letter, which he has never opened. After Perdu is finally tempted to read the letter, he hauls anchor and departs on a mission to the south of France, hoping to make peace with his loss and discover the end of the story. Joined by a bestselling but blocked author and a lovelorn Italian chef, Perdu travels along the country’s rivers, dispensing his wisdom and his books, showing that the literary world can take the human soul on a journey to heal itself.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: I first read this book in 2018, and I’m reading it again because it is an upcoming Mostly Social Book Club book. I gave it 3 out of 5 stars the first time I read it, and I stand by that this time. I fell asleep 3 times listening to the audiobook version—one time waking up having no idea who 3 of the characters were that were being talked about. It turned out that I’d slept through ten chapters. 😂 After that, I got the (large-print) printed version of the book, after which I only dropped the book twice falling asleep while reading. In trying to figure out what it was about this book that didn’t work for me, because the premise greatly appeals to me, I’ve settled on the fact that it’s a lot of sadness, angst, and —frankly—whining about a past relationship. I mean, 20 years is an excessive amount of time, especially since I am definitely one of those “pick up the shattered pieces of your life and move on” kind of people. I look forward to hearing what the other members of the book club thought of it. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Mother, three daughters reexamine their lives while farming and storytelling. 🖌6-word review: Quintessential Ann Patchett. Awed me—again. |
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| Description:* In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family’s orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew. Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: I first read this book in October of 2023, and I’m re-reading it because I’ve made it my book choice in our Mostly Social Book Club. As I did the first time upon finishing this book, I sat staring into space reveling in the beauty of its writing, and how what’s a very simple story on the surface is told in a way that unravels the complexity of lives and relationships. This is my 4th Ann Patchett book, and if you’ve never read any of her work, indulge yourself with some of it. I can’t rank this one, bel canto, and The Dutch House, because all three of them are that good. The other book of hers that I’ve read is These Precious Days, which comprise some of her nonfiction essays that are good but nothing like her novels. |
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| 📕10-word summary: A grad student comes upon—and into—an inexplicable book. 🖌6-word review: An indescribably imaginative frame narrative entertains. |
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| Description:* Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a grad student in Vermont when he discovers a mysterious book hidden in the stacks. Together with Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired protector of the place, and Dorian, a handsome, barefoot man with shifting alliances, Zachary travels the twisting tunnels, darkened stairwells, crowded ballrooms, and sweetly soaked shores of this magical world, discovering his purpose—in both the mysterious book and in his own life.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: I first read this book in 2022, and because I was considering making it my next Mostly Social Book Club book, I re-read it to make sure it was all I remembered. I’m glad I did, because I didn’t enjoy it as much on this read. It’s a complicated (understatement!) story written as a frame narrative: “A literary technique that serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, where an introductory or main narrative sets the stage either for a more emphasized second narrative or for a set of shorter stories. The frame story leads readers from a first story into one or more other stories within it. The frame story may also be used to inform readers about aspects of the secondary narrative(s) that may otherwise be hard to understand.” As I did the last time, I found myself alternately thinking about 1) a graduate course I took, EAC 795 Games & Learning Design, in which after we learned about game design, we actually designed one, and 2) playing the adventure text-based game from the 80s, Colossal Cave Adventure. After re-reading it, I changed my next book club book selection to Tom Lake, which I read in October of 2023, and loved. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Woman meets man. Falls in love. Finds out about wife. 🖌6-word review: Read easily. Moved along. Interesting enough. |
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| Description:* When her boyfriend bails at the last minute, a New York woman embarks on their couples’ cruise alone to find that maybe the person she was supposed to fall in love with was herself. After a string of bad dates and no prospects, Sophia Othonos has finally hit the jackpot: an actual nice guy. When he suggests a romantic getaway, she’s sure they’re about to take the next step toward their future. A rustic cruise to the Galápagos Islands isn’t exactly her idea of a vacation, but Sophia is ready for anything… until her boyfriend has to cancel. Now she’s all alone on a trip that was meant for two. Sophia finds herself at a crossroads about who she is, what she wants, and whether her relationship is really everything she thought.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: I chose this book as one of two August 2024 First Reads offering, which provides free early access to an editors’ pick from Amazon Prime. I’ve read 3 other books by this author—Winter in Paradise, What Happens in Paradise, & The Identicals—all of which I enjoyed, so I jumped on this short and free story. There was nothing “deep” about this book, so there’s not much to say. It was a fine way to kill an hour. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Emma Gatewood hiked all 2,190 miles, “because she wanted to.” 🖌6-word review: Fascinating story succinctly told without hyperbole. |
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| Description:* Emma Gatewood was the first woman to hike the entire Appalachian Trail alone, as well as the first person—man or woman—to walk it twice and three times and she did it all after the age of 65. This is the first and only biography of Grandma Gatewood, as the reporters called her, who became a hiking celebrity in the 1950s and ’60s. She appeared on TV with Groucho Marx and Art Linkletter, and on the pages of Sports Illustrated. The public attention she brought to the little-known footpath was unprecedented. Her vocal criticism of the lousy, difficult stretches led to bolstered maintenance, and very likely saved the trail from extinction.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: This is an upcoming Mostly Social Book Club book, and it was a great read—1000 times better than the one other Appalachian-Trail-related book I’ve read, A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson, which I read in 2016. I listened to the audiobook version of this book, read by Patrick Lawlor, which was very well done—he’s recorded more than 300 audiobooks. What I liked most about this book was how succinctly the story was told. There wasn’t a ton of detail, especially about many of the grueling incidents, which can often come across as gratuitous, hyperbolic, and histrionic. One thing that I found a little jarring about it was that there were many flashbacks to her life before she started her trek, and they happened within chapters, instead of being their own chapters. I wonder if the printed or electronic text versions had a separator icon, font change, or any other rhetorical device to indicate a flashback was starting. During one of Emma’s (Grandma Gatewood’s) 3 walks, she went through 7 pairs of shoes (mostly tennis shoes / sneakers), and more than once, I found myself, yelling at the recording, “For god’s sake, get some hiking boots, woman!” As my 5-star rating intimates, I’d highly and confidently recommend this book. |
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| 📕10-word summary: A long-buried secret is exposed with explosive consequences—concluding trilogy. 🖌6-word review: Continued superb writing with brilliant cadence. |
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| Description:* Fin Macleod, now head of security on a privately owned Lewis estate, is charged with investigating a spate of illegal game-hunting taking place on the island. This mission reunites him with Whistler Macaskill—a local poacher, Fin’s teenage intimate, and possessor of a long-buried secret. But when this reunion takes a violent, sinister turn, Fin realizes that revealing the truth could destroy the future.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: This was a very compelling and satisfying third and final book in Peter May’s series, The Lewis Trilogy. Following The Blackhouse and The Lewis Man, the The Chessmen reveals several things left unknown in the first two books. And as in the first two books, Peter May has an uncanny sense of timing in releasing “the next bombshell” that takes the story to a whole new level. I can’t remember the last trilogy I read, which is to say I don’t read many, but I’m glad I read this one. Thanks to my sister-in-law who recommended it to me. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Captures the true reverence between Native Americans and the earth. 🖌6-word review: Informative. Not my cup of tea. |
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| Description:* As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: This is a highly touted, well-written book that just wasn’t my cup of tea, as I’m not interested in stories about nature to begin with, and this book not only talks about it in great detail, it anthropomorphizes it, which is something that really doesn’t resonate with me. While I can appreciate the intellectual and philosophical notion of reciprocity between humans and nature, I just don’t think it’s a realistic expectation. It reminds me of the highly touted notion that we “should live every day like it is our last—because it just might be.” While that sounds lovely, it’s just not realistic or sustainable. Call me cynical, call me pessimistic, call me a buzzkill. (I don’t care which, just call me.) I do appreciate the opportunity to have read a book by a Native American author with a Native American worldview. This is a Mostly Social Book Club book, and I do look forward to the discussion about it. I’m predicting the other 3 members will really like it, which is great. I definitely would have abandoned it had it not been a book club book, so I probably wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, at least not without a lot of caveats, which is why I only gave it 3 stars. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Fin Macleod investigates an unidentified corpse in a peat bog. 🖌6-word review: Impressively-timed revelations kept me wanting more. |
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| Description:* In The Lewis Man, the second book of the trilogy, Fin Macleod has returned to the Isle of Lewis, the storm-tossed, wind-scoured outer Hebridean island where he was born and raised. Having left behind his adult life in Edinburgh—including his wife and his career in the police force—the former Detective Inspector is intent on repairing past relationships and restoring his parents’ derelict cottage. His plans are interrupted when an unidentified corpse is recovered from a Lewis peat bog. The only clue to its identity is a DNA match to a local farmer, the now-senile Tormod Macdonald—the father of Fin’s childhood sweetheart, Marsaili—a man who has claimed throughout his life to be an only child, practically an orphan. Reluctantly drawn into the investigation, Fin uncovers deep family secrets even as he draws closer to the killer who wishes to keep them hidden.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: I can’t say enough good things about this author and about this second book in his trilogy—The Blackhouse, The Lewis Man, and The Chessmen. Peter May has an uncanny sense of timing in releasing “the next bombshell” that takes the story to a whole new level. And as I’ve mentioned before, when reading a series, I love when you read a simple line that’s meant to fill in the reader of something that happened in the previous book, and you think, “Oh, that’s all you really need to know right now, but boy is there a whole rich past behind that short, expositive sentence! Whew.” The only negative in this book is my ongoing obsession with authors’ overuse of the word “conspiratorial” (or one of its derivatives), which appeared no fewer than 3 times in this book: “Catherine had come to us the day before, with a wink and a smile and a conspiratorial tone.” | “She grinned conspiratorially and lowered her voice to a whisper.” | “[I] heard the sound of distant voices, low and conspiratorial, talking somewhere deep in the house[.]” I am very much looking forward to reading the third, and final, book in the trilogy—after I read our next Mostly Social Book Club book, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. |
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| 📕10-word summary: David Copperfield reimagined with a backdrop of the opioid crises. 🖌6-word review: Good. Wanted to like it more. |
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| Description:* Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: Several months ago, I started at around #650 on the library’s waiting list for this book, and I got it earlier this week. I wanted to like this book more than I did, it being so wildly popular and a Pulitzer Prize winner. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t dislike it; I just didn’t love it. I wish I hadn’t listened to the interview of Kingsolver by Ruth Ozeki about this book, because I think it negatively affected my reading. I knew the book was a “re-imagining” of Dickens‘ David Copperfield, but in the interview, I learned she used the opioid crises to drive the characters and the plot, so I was hyper-aware when she seemed to be making a statement about it, at times approaching getting preachy about it, and it became distracting. Also, I didn’t like the one character’s nickname, “Maggot,” and another’s, “Fast Forward,” which every time I heard it (I listened to the audiobook of this novel) made me think the reader was starting a sentence in the context of “Fast forward to…” And Fast Forward was a major character, so his name was said a lot. I do think Kingsolver did an amazing job of writing a first-person, male narrator/protagonist, and I’m glad she chose a male voice to record the audiobook. I guess I’m hit or miss with the retellings genre, as I loved Puccini‘s La bohème reimagined as Rent and The Wizard of Oz reimagined as Wicked. However, I didn’t love Kell Woods’ After the Forest as a reimagination of Hansel & Gretel. With all that said, I ended up giving the novel a 4-star rating, and I am glad to have read it just to know what all the hubbub about it is. And finally, with regards to Kingsolver as an author, I guess I’m “hit or miss” with her, too. I really liked The Bean Trees, and I greatly disliked The Poisonwood Bible. |
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| 📕10-word summary: A possible copy-cat murder leads to Fin Macleod’s more-than-an-investigation journey. 🖌6-word review: Exposed layers of complexity add profundity. |
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| Description:* When a brutal murder on the island bears the hallmarks of a similar slaying in Edinburgh, police detective Fin Macleod is dispatched north to investigate. But since he himself was raised on Lewis, the investigation also represents a journey home and into his past. Each year the island’s men perform the hunting of the gugas, a savage custom no longer necessary for survival, but which they cling to even more fiercely in the face of the demands of modern morality. For Fin the hunt recalls a horrific tragedy, which after all this time may have begun to demand another sacrifice.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: This book is the first of a trilogy, and it was recommended to me by my sister-in-law, Carol. I will definitely be reading the second book; in fact, its status is “In transit,” indicating it’s being transferred to my library (Fayetteville Express Library) from the North Regional Library and scheduled to be available on Monday. This book is so much more than what you might think of when you hear that a book’s genre is either mystery, crime, or thriller. You learn a great deal about the protagonist, at a good pace, in the course of his investigation, but then, 2 or 3 times, “a bomb” is dropped about him in a way that both he and the reader find that thing out at the same time. While you’re processing your own reaction to it, you get to watch how he is going to respond to it. Another thing I really liked about this book is that it was one of those where I thought I still had 30 pages to go, but when I turned a page, the book ended—with the remaining 30 pages being a “tease” of the first 30 pages of the second book in the trilogy. The second book in the trilogy is The Lewis Man, and the third one is The Chessmen. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Parts memoir, portrait, and narrative history—18 fascinating men’s stories. 🖌6-word review: Interesting, educational; good ending with portraits. |
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| Description:* In the fall of 1959, Harvard recruited an unprecedented eighteen “Negro” boys as an early form of affirmative action. Four years later they would graduate as African Americans. Some fifty years later, one of these trailblazing Harvard grads, Kent Garrett, would begin to reconnect with his classmates and explore their vastly different backgrounds, lives, and what their time at Harvard meant. Garrett and his partner Jeanne Ellsworth recount how these eighteen youths broke new ground, with ramifications that extended far past the iconic Yard. By the time they were seniors, they would have demonstrated against national injustice and grappled with the racism of academia, had dinner with Malcolm X and fought alongside their African national classmates for the right to form a Black students’ organization.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: I really enjoyed this book. I like the parts about the actual men—what it was like for them arriving, and then their day-to-day experiences, and eventually progressing through their years. I was less interested in chapter 4, which contained a lot of citations about a report that one of the men had written. And later in the book, when they talked about a lot civil rights movement incidents and what prompted them and why they were important, I found that less interesting. It’s not to say that citations and civil rights history aren’t important, but I’d rather read that kind of stuff in an academic paper or in a history book, respectively. I thought the retort to Harvard administration’s claim that the men wanting to start an all-Black club was reverse racism was well handled. My favorite part was the ending when the authors highlighted each of the men and gave us an update with the latest information about them. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Stories about being gay, Jewish, a journalist, and a musician. 🖌6-word review: I liked from chapter 13 on. |
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| Description:* In his first book, broadcaster Ari Shapiro takes us around the globe to reveal the stories behind narratives that are sometimes heartwarming, sometimes heartbreaking, but always poignant. He details his time traveling on Air Force One with President Obama, or following the path of Syrian refugees fleeing war, or learning from those fighting for social justice both at home and abroad. As the self-reinforcing bubbles we live in become more impenetrable, Ari Shapiro keeps seeking ways to help people listen to one another; to find connection and commonality with those who may seem different; to remind us that, before religion, or nationality, or politics, we are all human.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: I really wanted to like this book more than I did. I was drawn to it after hearing Terry Gross interview Ari on an Episode of Fresh Air. As a broad generalization, I’d say the first third of the book was about being gay and Jewish, the second third of the book was about his experiences as a journalist, and the final third was what I was interested in, which is to say how it is hosting All Things Considered on NPR and about his “side gig” as a musician singing with Pink Martini. I dislike reading about anything war-related and human oppression and abuse, and most of the stories he writes about covering—in the part about his experiences as a journalist—are stories of that ilk. If you’re the type of person who likes, or at least doesn’t mind that, you’ll probably love this book. Unsurprisingly, Ari is a good communicator and the book is well written. It just wasn’t for me. |
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| 📕10-word summary: The ebb and flow of two couples’ relationships throughout life. 🖌6-word review: Fantastic characterization. Final chapter hits hard. |
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| Description:* Crossing to Safety has, since its publication in 1987, established itself as one of the greatest and most cherished American novels of the twentieth century. Tracing the lives, loves, and aspirations of two couples who move between Vermont and Wisconsin, it is a work of quiet majesty, deep compassion, and powerful insight into the alchemy of friendship and marriage.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: I can’t remember how this got on my “want to read” list, but it’s been there for a while. Fortuitously, a fellow Mostly Social Book Club member put it forth for our next book as it was recommended to her by long-time family friends of hers. There were a lot of flashbacks in this book, and at times I was lost for a bit at the beginning of a chapter until I got situated in its time. I also had to look up two character’s names during the book to be reminded of who they were. I don’t like that. The story, however, was compelling. Two things stay with me from the book: 1) In a twist to the old “I want to die at home” trope, a character who wants to be taken to the hospital at the end of their life says, “I don’t want to die where I’ve live so much.” and 2) In a “meta moment,” the narrator in this story is a writer and another character tells him he ought to write a book about his wife and their two friends, and the narrator/writer says, “How do you make a book that anyone will read out of lives as quiet as these?” which is exactly what the author of this book has done. And unequivocally, part 3 in general, and the last chapter in particular, was brilliant enough to have upped my rating to 4.5 if I had half-ratings. I definitely can see why this book is considered a classic. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Detective Kinsey Millhone digs herself deep—and eventually back out. 🖌6-word review: Followable complex plot. Heavily descriptive narrative. |
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| Description:* Private detective Kinsey Millhone feels a bit out of place in any department store’s lingerie section, but she’s entirely in her element when she puts a stop to a brazen shoplifting spree. For her trouble she nearly gets run over in the parking lot by one of the fleeing thieves—and later learns that the one who didn’t get away has been found dead in an apparent suicide. But Audrey Vance’s grieving fiancé suspects murder and hires Kinsey to investigate a case that will reveal a big story behind a small crime and lead her into a web that connects a shadowy “private banker,” an angry trophy wife, a spoiled kid with a spiraling addiction, and a brutal killer without a conscience…*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: This joins my reading of previous Sue Grafton books in The Kinsey Millhone Alphabet Series, C is for Corpse (October 1992), T is for Trespass (July 2023), and X (March 2024). I very much disliked the last one, X, for the excruciating amount of detail of things nonessential to the plot. It was less so in this novel, but I still skimmed over paragraphs and paragraphs of what I call “Who cares?” detail. The plot was pretty complex in this one, but I think she did a good job helping the reader follow it. At the beginning, I did have to Google V is for Vengeance character list to remind me of who a couple of characters were when the reappeared after not hearing from them for a while. Overall, I’m glad I read this, but sadly, it’s going to be my last novel in the series. Thanks to my sister for passing it along to me. |
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| 📕10-word summary: The protagonist with dog immediately gets saddled with another dog. 🖌6-word review: Dogs talk to each other. No. |
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| Description:* In the small Bedfordshire town of Biggleswade, retired detective Albert, and former police dog, Rex, are enjoying a peaceful break from the murder and mayhem of the last week. Until the waitress serving him is arrested for murder … and he discovers she killed the café’s owner three days ago. But Albert saw her eyes when the police came for her–she is innocent! In no time at all Albert becomes a target and this time it will take more than Rex to keep him safe. Is there a master criminal working behind the scenes? What possible motive could he have? One thing is for sure … this is no underdog tale!*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: This book was a free download from BookBub and it’s book #4 in a 10-book Albert Smith’s Culinary Capers series. I got all 10 of them for $.99 and used a credit I had for delayed delivery of Amazon packages, which made them free. This 4th stop on Albert’s culinary tour doesn’t start with a murder or incident happening immediately upon his arrival, but it isn’t long after that that a murder takes place. You can read my thoughts on the previous 3 books in this series below, but my biggest beef with it is that the protagonist has a dog that talks, which doesn’t work for me. This book sent me over the edge when a second dog is introduced into the story and the two dogs can talk to each other—in complete sentences in English. And they spent a good deal of time doing so. No. I’m aborting the series at this point. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Murders continue to follow a retired detective on culinary tour. 🖌6-word review: Interesting-enough story. Dog continues to annoy. |
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| Description:* When retired cop, Albert, arrives in Stilton for a festival, he has cheese on his mind, but that’s not what he gets …… arriving the morning after the factory and warehouse have been raided, all the stilton is gone, and the security guard, Dave, who bravely fought to stop the thieves, needs someone’s help to save the day. With sidekick Rex Harrison, the failed police dog, at his side, our aging but sprightly hero will put his ear to the ground and his mind to work as he unravels the clues to this mystery. Rex and Albert will be tested like never before in this quiet English town as they catch the first glimpse of a criminal mastermind at work. Can they find the cheese in time to save the festival? Will Rex be able to smell the answer with all the stinky cheese around? It’s a race against time to solve this crime but is there something bigger going on? Can this really just be about some mouldy cheese?*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: This book was a free download from BookBub and it’s book #3 in a 10-book Albert Smith’s Culinary Capers series. I got all 10 of them for $.99 and used a credit I had for delayed delivery of Amazon packages, which made them free. On this 3rd stop of Albert’s “Culinary tour,” conveniently for retired Detective Albert Smith, but inconveniently for the victim, murder (and—possibly related—grand theft) has happened just as he is arriving in the English village of Stilton. I’m not going to belabor the point, as I expect that I’ll have similar thoughts about all of the books in this series, so I’ll leave it at interesting enough to read, but not riveting. And for the record, you’d never, in a million years, catch me eating Stilton cheese. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Retired detective helps solve murder including getting his children involved. 🖌6-word review: Pleasant detective story. Annoying “speaking” dog. |
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| Description:* On a culinary tour of the British Isles, retired Detective Superintendent Albert Smith and snarky former police dog Rex Harrison find something quite unexpected waiting for them at their B&B … it’s the almost-dead body of their landlady. Refusing to believe in coincidence, Albert and Rex set out to discover why her “accident” is the second terrible event there in two days. Something is stirring in Bakewell and it’s not the ingredients for a famous tart.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: This book was a free download from BookBub and it’s book #2 in a 10-book Albert Smith’s Culinary Capers series. I got all 10 of them for $.99 and used a credit I had for delayed delivery of Amazon packages, which made them free. On this 2nd stop of Albert’s “Culinary tour,” he lands in the middle of an attempted murder, which followed a successful murder the night before. In spite of being 20 pages shorter, this story’s a lot more involved with regards to the number of nefarious characters comprising the “criminal element.” Unfortunately the thinking/talking dog is in this one, too, and it’s obvious it’ll be with Albert throughout the entire 10-book series, so I’ll stop harping on it. You’re a good boy, Rex. Oh, also, there’s a recipe at the end of each chapter of the food item in the title of the book (e.g., a recipe in this book for the Bakewell Tart). I am completely uninterested in them, albeit I’m grateful for them, as they let me finish the book 10-15 pages sooner than expected. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Retired detective helps solve murder attached to a severed thumb. 🖌6-word review: Pleasant detective story. Annoying “speaking” dog. |
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| Description:* When a retired detective superintendent chooses to take a culinary tour of the British Isles, he hopes to find tasty treats and delicious bakes … what he finds is a clue to a crime in the ingredients for his pork pie. His dog, Rex Harrison, an ex-police dog fired for having a bad attitude, cannot understand why the humans are struggling to solve the mystery. He can already smell the answer—it’s right before their noses. He’ll pitch in to help his human and the shop owner’s teenage daughter as the trio set out to save the shop from closure. Is the rival pork pie shop across the street to blame? Or is there something far more sinister going on?*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: This book was a free download from BookBub and it’s book #1 in a 10-book Albert Smith’s Culinary Capers series. I got all 10 of them for $.99 and used a credit I had for delayed delivery of Amazon packages, which made them free. I’m not sure I’ll read all 10 of them, but I’m going to commit to 5. It’s your classic “cozy mystery,” which I recently learned means it contains no graphic violence, no profanity, and no explicit sex, an example of which in this book was when just as one of the characters was let down into a meat grinder, another character hit the emergency stop button to preclude any blood and guts. Also, the severed thumb, which was virtually a main character in the story, made its debut on top of a pork pie—already severed. There’s a German Shepherd “assistance dog” in the story that shares his thoughts as if he’s speaking, which was pretty distracting if not annoying. All in all, it was a fine read, but nothing earth shattering. |
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| 📕10-word summary: An exceptional little girl finds love in her beloved teacher. 🖌6-word review: A never-read classic. Fulfills its hype. |
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| Description:* Matilda is a sweet, exceptional young girl, but her parents think she’s just a nuisance. She expects school to be different but there she has to face Miss Trunchbull, a menacing, kid-hating headmistress. When Matilda is attacked by the Trunchbull she suddenly discovers she has a remarkable power with which to fight back. It’ll take a superhuman genius to give Miss Trunchbull what she deserves and Matilda may be just the one to do it!*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: Last month I attended a local, high school production of the Broadway play, Matilda the Musical, which I don’t remember being on Broadway from April 2013 to January 2017. It’s not the kind of play that would grab my attention, since it’s based on a children’s book, which I also had never heard of. I went to the play because one of my dearest friend’s daughter starred in it as Matilda, and that’s when I learned about Roald Dahl’s 1988 novel and decided to read it one day. It was a short—I read it in 4 hours—delightful story, which did not include the entire subplot about “The Acrobat and the Escapologist” that’s in the play. I was fine with that, but I also thought the subplot was a nice addition to the play. I can see how it would be a successful children’s book, and I’m glad I read it. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Tormented threesome traipses turbulently through time toward their tragic terminus. 🖌6-word review: Darkness, deplorability, depravity, deviousness—deliciously done. |
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| Description:* Ethan Frome works his unproductive farm and struggles to maintain a bearable existence with his difficult, suspicious and hypochondriac wife, Zeena. But when Zeena’s vivacious cousin enters their household as a hired girl, Ethan finds himself obsessed with her and with the possibilities for happiness she comes to represent.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: Since I had just read Wharton and had discussed literature read in high school, I wanted to revisit this one. I love a dark story without a happy ending, and this story not only qualifies for that, it may be over-qualified. That assertion—that I love a dark story—makes me think of a collection of 16 short, dark stories that I read in December of 2023, called Here in the Dark. In Ethan Frome, I was completely confused by the last chapter, which not only switches to first person (the rest of the book is in third person), but also jumps ahead 20 years, without cluing in the reader to that until halfway through the chapter. With the plethora of search results to questions like, “Who is speaking in the last chapter of Ethan Frome?” and “Who is the ‘I’ in the last chapter of Ethan Frome?” and “Explain the last chapter of Ethan Frome,” I’m not the only one who was confused. All-in all, if you like dark stories comprising characters with down-trodden lives, and a confusing—but definitely sad—ending, this is your book. And mine. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Dramatic love-triangle plays out in high-society 1870s New York City. 🖌6-word review: Flawed, relatable characters; loved the ending. |
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| Description:* This is Newland Archer’s world as he prepares to marry the beautiful but conventional May Welland. But when the mysterious Countess Ellen Olenska returns to New York after a disastrous marriage, Archer falls deeply in love with her. Torn between duty and passion, Archer struggles to make a decision that will either courageously define his life—or mercilessly destroy it.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: I read this book in anticipation of making it my next choice for our Mostly Social Book Club. Last year, we read The Radcliffe Ladies’ Reading Club, and this book, The Age of Innocence, is one of several books mentioned in the Radcliffe book, a few of which we agreed to read in our own book club this year. It’s a classic that I’d never read—not unlike Jane Eyre, which I read back in January. While I liked Jane Eyre much more, I didn’t dislike this book. Typical of these period pieces, I found the characters flawed, which is to say believable and relatable, and to Wharton’s credit, very sharply drawn. I love when a book “fast forwards” 20 or 30 years at some point, which this book did and I appreciated. And I loved the ending of the book. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Female detective working on 3 crimes in author’s penultimate book. 🖌6-word review: Excruciating details ruined it for me. |
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| Description:* The number ten. An unknown quantity. A mistake. A cross. A kiss… Perhaps Sue Grafton’s darkest and most chilling novel, X features a remorseless serial killer who leaves no trace of his crimes. Once again breaking the rules and establishing new paths, Grafton wastes little time identifying this deadly sociopath. The test is whether private investigator Kinsey Millhone can prove her case against him—before she becomes his next victim.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: You won’t know it by this review, but I am a fan of The Kinsey Millhone Alphabet Series by Sue Grafton. Just not this one. She died from cancer of the appendix before she could write the final, “Z” book, making this one her penultimate one. I read one reviewer of this book who generously suggested that it was the chemotherapy that affected the quality of this particular novel. All I know is that the details included in this book were excruciating. For example, in chapter 3, after the first 8 minutes (I listened to the audiobook) of the chapter, there was exactly one paragraph that advanced the plot, and the remaining 11 minutes, like the first 8, all comprised descriptions of what rooms looked like when she walked in, how they were decorated (e.g., wallpaper; how many windows, and where they were in the room; the furniture, down to the fabric types and prints); and if there were people in the room, what they looked like (e.g., height, face, hair, clothes). Who cares??? At another point, she said, “It was your typical office… [SHOULD HAVE BEEN FULL STOP RIGHT THERE, BUT NO, SHE WENT ON], “it had a desk; two chairs, one a rolling desk chair, the other a guest chair, with a floral print that contained greens and blues; a filing cabinet, with 3 drawers; and a serving table with a coffee pot and water for guests.” I think we all can imagine what’s in a “typical office.” Last example, lest I start sounding like her with too many detailed examples. At another point, she wrote: “I pulled the carpet aside, dialed the combination to the safe, and opened it. I retrieved the mailing pouch, and then went through the reverse of the operation, closing the safe again and rolling the carpet into place.” Two things: 1) I think we can all figure out what the “reverse of the operation” was that you just provided every single step of, and 2) Here’s my edit: “I got the mailing pouch out of the safe.” So, that’s where my 2-star rating came from. With all that said, I have read C is for Corpse and T is for Trespass, neither of which I remember this problem in, and both of which I remember liking. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Amateur lady detective inserts herself into a train murder mystery. 🖌6-word review: Classic cozy mystery. Agatha-Christie-like story entertains. |
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| Description:* Lady Marigold Grey—former British spy and daring adventuress—sets out for England on a luxury train, but where Marigold goes, trouble follows. When the director of the train is murdered—and false evidence linking her to his death emerges—Marigold suddenly finds herself on the fast-track to becoming a prime suspect. With the help of her fashion-loving German assistant, overly protective English butler and troublemaking fluffy white terrier, Marigold resolves to clear her name and stop the killer in their tracks.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: This was a free e-book download from BookBub that I got back in July 2023. It read a lot like an Agatha Christie book, and was even about a murder on a train. Though it took me 7 days to read, it was a fairly short book and easy to read. I just had a lot going on over the past week so didn’t read as much as I normally do. Perhaps the most interesting thing about this book is that, after it “ends,” a reporter “interviews” the main characters of the book, with 3 basic questions: “What was the experience like being on a train with a murder on it?” “Some passengers thought Lady Marigold was too involved in the situation, do you agree?” and “Has this experience changed your perspective in any way?” Oh yeah, there was an annoying little dog in this book, and the reporter interviewed “Pepper” last, and it was stupid. |
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| 📕10-word summary: A “graceful, lucid, and lyrical” meditation on youth and age. 🖌6-word review: Mercifully short. Didn’t “speak” to me. |
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| Description:* In this inimitable, beloved classic—graceful, lucid and lyrical—Anne Morrow Lindbergh shares her meditations on youth and age; love and marriage; peace, solitude and contentment as she set them down during a brief vacation by the sea. Drawing inspiration from the shells on the shore, Lindbergh’s musings on the shape of a woman’s life bring new understanding to both men and women at any stage of life. A mother of five, an acclaimed writer and a pioneering aviator, Lindbergh casts an unsentimental eye on the trappings of modernity that threaten to overwhelm us: the time-saving gadgets that complicate rather than simplify, the multiple commitments that take us from our families. And by recording her thoughts during a brief escape from everyday demands, she helps readers find a space for contemplation and creativity within their own lives.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: Last year, our Mostly Social Book Club read The Radcliffe Ladies’ Reading Club, and this book, Gift from the Sea, is one of several books mentioned in the Radcliffe book, a few of which we agreed to read in our book club this year. It’s one I’ve never heard of. I wish I still could say that I’ve never heard of it. The elaborate sea shells metaphor for living and aging didn’t work for me. I really don’t find any “wonder” in sea shells. In essence, this is a self-help book and a lot of it works on the assumption that people don’t like—or know how to be—alone. I’m very comfortable being alone. First published in 1955, the reviews I read of this book call it “timeless,” “still rings true today,” etc. I respectfully disagree—or as “they” say these days, “It hasn’t aged well.” I found too many “all women (do/say/think)…” type statements, too many gender role stereotypes, and definitely some classist-type statements. I didn’t relate to most of it, even as “a gay man who is in touch with his feminine side.” If this wasn’t one of our book club books, I definitely would have abandoned it. |
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| 📕10-word summary: An author’s outlet to process and grieve her mother’s death. 🖌6-word review: Creative prose poetry. Esoteric at times. |
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| Description:* After her mother died, poet Victoria Chang refused to write elegies. Rather, she distilled her grief during a feverish two weeks by writing scores of poetic obituaries for all she lost in the world. In Obit, Chang writes of “the way memory gets up after someone has died and starts walking.” These poems reinvent the form of newspaper obituary to both name what has died (“civility,” “language,” “the future,” “Mother’s blue dress”) and the cultural impact of death on the living. Whereas elegy attempts to immortalize the dead, an obituary expresses loss, and the love for the dead becomes a conduit for self-expression. In this unflinching and lyrical book, Chang meets her grief and creates a powerful testament for the living.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: I recently had my 50-word stories collection critiqued by one published author and three literary agents, and the net of the feedback and discussions was that my stories have the best chance of being published as prose poetry, probably by a literary press or a university press. (We also considered the flash fiction and literary fiction genres.) As someone who’s not fond of poetry (mostly because a lot of times I just don’t get it), I initially balked at the idea, and one of the agents suggested I read this book to see how “contemporary” poets are treating poetry, which is how we’ve arrived here. Though I enjoyed this book overall, there were definitely (as expected) times when I thought, “What the hell is she talking about?” With all that said, I have 30 pages of a book started comprising mostly my 50-word stories, but also other creative literary writing I’ve done over the years. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Family dysfunction takes to the high seas where it crests. 🖌6-word review: Not riveting. Good enough. Tidy ending. |
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| Description:* Between the troublesome family secrets, old sibling rivalries, and her two teenage grandkids, Annette’s birthday vacation is looking more and more like the perfect storm. Adrift together on the open seas, the Feldmans will each face the truths they’ve been ignoring–and learn that the people they once thought most likely to sink them are actually the ones who help them stay afloat.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: This was a Mostly Social Book Club book, and as you can tell by how long it took me to read it, I had a hard time “staying with it” for any period of time. Many times over the course of the 12 days, I read maybe one chapter before I put it down to do something else. It was a good enough story, and I was interested in seeing how the family would react to the big secrets we were let in as the story progressed. There was one cruise-related thing that aggravated me to no end throughout the book, and that was referring to the “boat” instead of the “ship.” Anyone who’s actually been on a cruise knows you’ll get corrected if you call it a boat. I clutched my pearls when even the gay Cruise Director of the ship referred to it as a boat. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Nickelodeon child actor bares all in ultimately surviving over-bearing mom. 🖌6-word review: A fast-paced, deeply personal, honest accounting. |
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| Description:* Jennette McCurdy was 6 years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,” eating little and weighing herself 5 times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?” She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income. In I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail—just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly, she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi (“Hi Gale!”), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: I chose this book to read because it was the #1 checked-out book at the New York Public Library in 2023. I’ve never watched Nickelodeon nor had I ever heard of this actor, so neither of those was a factor in choosing, or enjoying, this book. The only complaint I have about the book is that it was obvious early on in the story that Jennette needed to seek therapy, but it wasn’t until 75% of the way into the book that she finally sought it. It’s an interesting glimpse into how one doesn’t realize something isn’t “normal” until many years later and seeing what was happening to you through another lens. |
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| 📕10-word summary: The ultimate-“hyphenate,” Barbra Streisand, details her music and acting career. 🖌6-word review: Not a stone is left unturned. |
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| Description:* Barbra Streisand is by any account a living legend, a woman who in a career spanning six decades has excelled in every area of entertainment. She is among the handful of EGOT winners (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) and has one of the greatest and most recognizable voices in popular music. She has been nominated for a Grammy 46 times, and with Yentl she became the first woman to write, produce, direct, and star in a major motion picture. In My Name Is Barbra, she tells her own story about her life and extraordinary career, from growing up in Brooklyn to her first star-making appearances in New York nightclubs to her breakout performance in Funny Girl (musical and film) to the long string of successes in every medium in the years that followed. The book is, like Barbra herself, frank, funny, opinionated, and charming. She recounts her early struggles to become an actress, eventually turning to singing to earn a living; the recording of some of her acclaimed albums; the years of effort involved in making Yentl; her direction of The Prince of Tides; her friendships with figures ranging from Marlon Brando to Madeleine Albright; her political advocacy; and the fulfillment she’s found in her marriage to James Brolin.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: I wanted to listen to the audiobook version of this book since Barbra narrated it herself. I started off at about #250 on my library’s waitlist for it, and then a friend bought it for me as a very generous gift. Thanks, Patrick! Like the stereotype, I am a gay man who loves Barbra, so it was a no-brainer that I’d be reading this book. As is her way, this audio version was a production in which she added audio clips from both her records and her movies (including some scenes from some movies) as she discussed them. As a singer-actor-director-producer (a multi-hyphenate) and an EGOT winner, there’s a lot of ground to cover and she covers it beyond detail. I don’t mind long books, and I love Barbra, but even I found it just a tad too long. As someone who is not interested in decorating and fashion, I have to agree with one reviewer: “Does anyone really want to know about each furnishing in every room she ever walked into, or how each costume or dress she wore was made and how it looked?” That aside, I loved learning about the process she goes through to sing, act, direct, and produce; about all the people she worked with; and all the battles she had to fight to sometimes do something a man would never have to fight for. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Young man details his summer job in a Canadian graveyard. 🖌6-word review: Some interesting anecdotes, but disappointing overall. |
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| Description:* During the hazy summer of 1969, Charles Wilkins, then a student at the University of Toronto, took a job as a gravedigger. The bizarre-but-true events of that time, including a midsummer gravediggers’ strike, the unearthing of a victim of an unsolved murder, and a little illegal boneshifting, play out amongst a Barnumesque parade of mavericks and misfits in this macabre and hilarious memoir of mortality, materialism, and the gradual coming-of-age of an impressionable young man.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: This was a free e-book download from BookBub, and it’s now the second death and dying—a topic to which I’m inexplicably drawn—book that ended up a disappointment to me. I’m glad it was free. I couldn’t remember which character was which—all throughout—and I’m not sure if it was because they were never strongly drawn or because I just didn’t care about them. By far, the most interesting chapter to me was chapter 11: The Remains of the Day, when the body of a woman buried in their cemetery, who had been electrocuted by a radio in her bathtub, had to be exhumed as potential evidence in the trail of the woman’s husband who was now suspected of pushing the radio into the tub, or drowning her and then dumping the radio in the tub, to mislead police. In terms of the writing, the word “goddamn” was spelled “gawdam” throughout, which annoyed me, and it was used a lot. And, overall, it felt to me like the author was trying too hard to use big words and flowery phrases. I think doing sparingly throughout a book is effective, but doing it all the time, it wears thin. Just one example: “While the depredations of the afternoon continue to go unspoken, there is for both of us a fairly obvious need to throw off the memory of Gus Bowness,” could instead easily have been: “We don’t talk about what happened this afternoon, as we both need to forget about Gus Bowness.” I’m also turned off when the jacket says things like “it’s a hilarious memoir,” as I didn’t find it anywhere near that. The most I would give it is “funny at times.” Color me cranky. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Daughter’s and grandmother’s similar-element life stories unravel in alternating chapters. 🖌6-word review: Slow start slowed down my reading. |
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| Description:* Camera-shy Elise Branson is different from the other women in her matriline. Her mother is an award-winning actress. Her late grandmother, Vivian Snow, is a beloved Hollywood icon. But when Elise’s upcoming wedding coincides with a documentary being made about Vivian, Elise can’t escape the camera’s gaze. And even in death, neither can her grandmother. It’s 1943 when Vivian, a small-town Indiana girl, lends her home front support to the war effort. As a translator in the nearby Italian POW camp, she’s invaluable. As a celebrated singer for the USO, she lifts men’s spirits and falls in love with a soldier. But behind this all-American love story is a shocking secret—one vital to keep buried if Vivian is to achieve the fame and fortune she covets. For Elise and Vivian, what’s hidden—and what’s exposed—threatens to unravel their lives. The heart-wrenching choices they must make will change them both forever.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: I chose this book as my November (2023) First Reads Offering, which provides free early access to an editors’ pick from Amazon Prime. I like multi-generational stories, which is why I chose this one of the 8 books offered. Although 3 generations (daughter, mother, and grandmother) were part of the story, the alternating chapters bounced back and forth between the daughter’s (present day) story and her grandmother’s (1943 time frame) story. There were some similarities to the trajectory of both of their lives—one being their attraction/involvement with a priest. I was not enthralled in the story at the beginning, so I kept reading one or two chapters, then picking up my phone to be distracted for a couple of hours or sometimes the rest of the night. I would say the pace really didn’t get to where I wanted it until about 70% into the book. Like the last book I read, I liked this book, but I didn’t love it. |
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| 📕10-word summary: 4 retired CIA operatives get dragged back into as case. 🖌6-word review: Good story as spy genre goes. |
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| Description:* Former spy Maggie Bird came to the seaside village of Purity, Maine, eager to put the past behind her after a mission went tragically wrong. These days, she’s living quietly on her chicken farm, still wary of blowback from the events that forced her early retirement. But when a body turns up in Maggie’s driveway, she knows it’s a message from former foes who haven’t forgotten her. Maggie turns to her local circle of old friends—all retirees from the CIA—to help uncover the truth about who is trying to kill her, and why. This “Martini Club” of former spies may be retired, but they still have a few useful skills that they’re eager to use again, if only to spice up their rather sedate new lives. Maggie’s hunt for answers will force her to revisit a clandestine career that spanned the globe, from Bangkok to Istanbul, from London to Malta. The ghosts of her past have returned, but with the help of her friends—and the reluctant local police chief, Jo Thibodeau—Maggie might just be able to save the life she’s built.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: I chose this book as my October (2023) First Reads Offering, which provides free early access to an editors’ pick from Amazon Prime. It’s been quite a while since I’ve read a true spy novel like this one. I liked that 4 ex-CIA retirees all ended up in the same place, “out in the woods,” in retirement. I also liked that two were men and two were woman, with the lead one being female. I don’t really have much more to say about it. It was a typical (classic) international spy story, and I liked it a lot, but wouldn’t go so far as saying I loved it. |
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| 📕10-word summary: 42 short essays about the life and times of folks. 🖌6-word review: Arguably not obits; I’d say eulogies. |
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| Description:* Obit is a wise and deeply moving book that illuminates the human condition. For ten years, Jim Sheeler has scoured Colorado looking for subjects whose stories he will tell for the last time. Most are unknowns, but that doesn’t mean they’re nobodies. Their obituaries are sometimes humorous, sometimes heartbreaking, and chock full of life lessons as taught by the people we all pass on the street every day. And thanks to Sheeler’s brilliant and compassionate prose, it’s not too late to meet them.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: My husband saw this book in a neighborhood free-book kiosk, and knowing my love of obituaries, he brought it home for my reading consideration. The topic and the relatively short page count sucked me in. First of all, I would argue that this is more a collection of eulogies than it is obituaries. Not to be a pedant but simply to establish my ethos on the subject, I did write a grad school paper called, The Obituary—A Genre Analysis, on which, I might add, I got an A+. (I know, “La-ti-fucking-da.”) I gave the book 3-stars mostly because it didn’t meet my expectations in terms of being obituaries, but also because of the subjectivity of its sub-title. While I agree with the stories being about “ordinary people,” I would argue that the “inspiring” and “extraordinary” adjectives are debatable. My edited title might be: Eulogies: Mostly Inspiring Stories of Ordinary People, Some of Whom Led Extraordinary Lives. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Much musing about, and celebration of, “the ultimate okay guy.” 🖌6-word review: Playful. Dubious claims. Statistics not cited. |
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| Description:* A tribute to the name Bob, this book looks at famous and not-so-famous namesakes in history, and takes a tongue-in-cheek look at hairstyles, aftershaves, clothing, and personality traits associated with the name.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: Bob has owned this book forever. I saw it on our bookshelves and decided to reward myself with its mere 174 pages. It contains completely made up statistics and generalizations about people with the name Bob—but it’s fun nonetheless. Its 4 parts are delineated as: 1) The meaning of Bob (Why Bob, Who is Bob, Who isn’t Bob, “Bobness,” Bob in history, Bob as others see him, 2) The world according to Bob (The Bob survey, The handy Bob, Bob’s great weekend, What makes Bob squirm, Bob in hell, Bob’s dreams, “Bobstyle,” The romantic Bob, The paternal Bob, In Bob we trust, Bad bobs [the rarest of breeds], What Bob knows for sure), 3) The Celebrated Bob (famous Bobs take the survey: Barker, Buffalo Smith, Costas, Cummings, Denver, Dole, Dylan, Einstein, Elliot, Eubanks, Evans, Feller, Goen, Goulet, Guccione, Jr., Hope, Kane, Keeshan, Mackie, Martwick, McGrath, Miller, Newhart, Richards, Saget, Urich, Vila, Weatherwax, and Welch), and 4) The Bob Appendix (Afterward and acknowledgements, Credit where credit is due, & The Bob index). It gave me a chuckle here and there. |
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| 📕10-word summary: A Russian count endeavors to better understand his life’s purpose. 🖌6-word review: Too history- and politics-heavy for me. |
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| Description:* A Gentleman in Moscow immerses us in another elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov. When, in 1922, he is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the count is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him a doorway into a much larger world of emotional discovery.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: I absolutely loved this author’s Rules of Civility—from its very first chapter I found the writing phenomenal. So, I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. In its defense (I guess), I’m not interested in American history and politics, much less Russia’s history and politics, and there was a good bit of it covered in this book. I really enjoyed the characters of the count and his close-knit circle of friends—Nina, Sofia, Andrey, Emile, & Marina. If you do like Russian history and politics, you’re sure to love this book. |
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| 📕10-word summary: A look at time through a different, and complex, lens. 🖌6-word review: Much like a treatise or dissertation. |
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| Description:* Odell took a deep dive into the fundamental structure of our society and found that the clock we live by was built for profit, not people. This is why our lives, even in leisure, have come to seem like a series of moments to be bought, sold, and processed ever more efficiently. Odell shows us how our painful relationship to time is inextricably connected not only to persisting social inequities but to the climate crisis, existential dread, and a lethal fatalism. This dazzling, subversive, and deeply hopeful book offers us different ways to experience time—inspired by pre-industrial cultures, ecological cues, and geological timescales—that can bring within reach a more humane, responsive way of living. As planet-bound animals, we live inside shortening and lengthening days alongside gardens growing, birds migrating, and cliffs eroding; the stretchy quality of waiting and desire; the way the present may suddenly feel marbled with childhood memory; the slow but sure procession of a pregnancy; the time it takes to heal from injuries. Odell urges us to become stewards of these different rhythms of life in which time is not reducible to standardized units and instead forms the very medium of possibility.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: This book wasn’t at all what I was expecting. During my years as an editor, I was asked to edit 2 dissertations, which I thought a lot about while reading this book. The most popular books have a readability score between the 4th – 7th Flesch-Kincaid (FK) grade level, and I’d estimate that this book is written between 14th – 16th FK grade level. It’s very “heady.” The author quotes many many authors, books, and theories—enough that I’m surprised there wasn’t a bibliography included. She would also mention somebody’s theory of something and then refer back to it only as “so-and-so’s theory” and by the 3rd or 4th one of those, I’m like, “Okay, what was that person’s theory again?” The thing I’ll probably remember the most from this book was a “mind-shattering” moment while she was talking about how there’s a discrete 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day, etc., but that’s just a “constructed time” that everyone agrees on and thinks of when we talk about time. But time doesn’t really pass like that, which is one of the reasons we moved away from the sundial to record time—because the sundial is affected by “solar variations” that are just “averaged out” with our 60-second clock. A lot of this book is about how our “painful relationship to time is inextricably connected not only to persisting social inequities but to the climate crisis, existential dread, and a lethal fatalism.” I kept waiting for something like, “With all that said, here’s a new way to think about time that might be more helpful in your life.” Yeah, that never came. The only practical “saving time” that came out of this book was that I listened to the 10.5-hour audiobook on 1.5x the speed, which at 7 hours, saved me 3.5 hours of reading time. Stick that in your sundial and smoke it. |
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| 📕10-word summary: “Hearsay” promise is at root of generational rift for decades. 🖌6-word review: Compelling story. Impedimental writing style detracts. |
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| Description:* The Promise, winner of the 2021 Booker Prize, charts the crash and burn of a white South African family, living on a farm outside Pretoria. The Swarts are gathering for Ma’s funeral. The younger generation, Anton and Amor, detest everything the family stand for—not least the failed promise to the Black woman who has worked for them her whole life. After years of service, Salome was promised her own house, her own land… yet somehow, as each decade passes, that promise remains unfulfilled. The narrator’s eye shifts and blinks: moving fluidly between characters, flying into their dreams; deliciously lethal in its observation. And as the country moves from old deep divisions to its new so-called fairer society, the lost promise of more than just one family hovers behind the novel’s title.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: My friend gave me this book back in 2022 (thank you, Susan!), and I finally got around to reading it. I really enjoyed this heart-wrenching-at-times story. It highlights a lot of family dysfunction, and big things happen to several of the characters. However, the writing style impeded my reading in a couple of ways: 1) this is another book that omits quotation marks around dialogue, which I find challenging, and 2) the point-of-view changed a lot, for example from third person to first person to third person omniscient—sometimes within the same paragraph! I found it very distracting, often thinking, “Huh? Who just said or thought this? Also, I googled, “Why are so many authors writing dialogue without quotation marks?” One response: “The reasons vary, but more writers are dropping speech marks to explore distances between readers and narrators and even to eliminate hierarchies.” That rhetorical purpose doesn’t resonate with me—the poor sucker bearing the brunt of it as the reader. IMHO, it takes an exceptional writer to pull off this style, especially if dialogue attribution (e.g., “he said”) is also omitted, a writer who provides enough context every time to make it clear who’s talking if it’s not marked or attributed. Overall, the end of the book is clear, but there was one little detail that remained ambiguous that I would have preferred to have had explicitly stated. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Overly emoting, histrionic, melodramatic, over-the-top protagonist suffers vociferously and interminably. 🖌6-word review: I abandoned it at 20%. |
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| Description:* Christmastime is torture for me. It’s a constant, brutal reminder of the day my husband was murdered. The decorations and merry cheers haunt me all through December, and there’s no escaping it. At least, not until I win a family trip to a secluded forest cottage. But as soon as we arrive, a mysterious note appears. It’s a threat from my husband’s killer, telling me he’s somewhere among the trees, watching, waiting for the perfect opportunity to come and finish the job. And there’s no way home–the forest’s terrain is completely unwalkable. We have to wait for our driver to pick us up. Only that’s days away, and the killer is coming closer than ever before, stepping foot inside our holiday home while we sleep. It’s only a matter of time before he gets me.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: I abandoned this book at the 20%-read mark. I couldn’t stand hearing the protagonist lament, to the extent and depth to which she did, about kissing her fiancé’s best friend once after a little bit to drink the night before their wedding. I mean, good god, you’d’a thunk they’d carried on a long, torrid affair after the marriage. I also don’t care for psychological thrillers in which a soulless man is mindfucking (or gaslighting) a woman. At the 20% mark, I got on my life-is-too-short-to-read-bad-books high horse and reminded myself that this is why I have a one-star rating. Done with it. |
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| 📕10-word summary: British, classic orphan-turned-governess, rise-in-status story with prodigious, melodramatic life turns. 🖌6-word review: Magnificently manipulated language. Surprisingly accessible, enjoyable. |
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| Description:* Charlotte Brontë tells the story of orphaned Jane Eyre, who grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, enduring loneliness and cruelty. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane’s natural independence and spirit—which prove necessary when she finds employment as a governess to the young ward of Byronic, brooding Mr. Rochester. As her feelings for Rochester develop, Jane gradually uncovers Thornfield Hall’s terrible secret, forcing her to make a choice. Should she stay with Rochester and live with the consequences, or follow her convictions—even if it means leaving the man she loves?*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: Recently, our Mostly Social Book Club read The Radcliffe Ladies’ Reading Club, and in that book, the reading club members were assigned 7 books: A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf, The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, and Emma by Jane Austen. At our discussion about that book in our January 2024 meeting, we decided we wanted to read each of those assigned books throughout this year. Thankfully, we read Anna Karenina in 2009, so we don’t have to invest time in that tome again. We also read The Great Gatsby in 2013. Jane Eyre is our first one from the list. Surprisingly, I loved this story, especially the way language was used in it, which made me COL (chuckle out loud) enough times that my husband said, “I didn’t realize Jane Eyre was so funny.” One example that particularly tickled me was what Jane said when describing someone she found uninteresting: “She had no point to which interest could attach.” This was a classic epic story, which at times reminded me of one of my all-time favorite classics, Thomas Hardy‘s The Mayor of Casterbridge. I highly recommend the audiobook read by Nadia May, published by Blackstone Classics Audio Collection. Although it’s great at regular speed, I listened to it at 1.25x speed, which took it down from almost 19 hours to around 15 hours. (The book is 532 pages.) I usually listen to audiobooks at 1.5x speed, but I couldn’t understand a lot of it at that speed with this one, the reader having a British accent and with the way language was used at that time. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Contact from past makes a man rethink his entire being. 🖌6-word review: So compelling, easily a 5-hour read. |
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| Description:* This intense novel follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he has never much thought about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance, one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. Tony Webster thought he’d left all this behind as he built a life for himself, and by now his marriage and family and career have fallen into an amicable divorce and retirement. But he is then presented with a mysterious legacy that obliges him to reconsider a variety of things he thought he’d understood all along, and to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: I first read this book (in 4.5 hours) in 2020, and I just reread it because I’m going to suggest it as my next book in our Mostly Social Book Club. I highly recommend reading this one on a Kindle or other eReader, because there were some serious vocabulary words in it, these among the ones I looked up the first time I read it: exculpated, susurrus, riposte, lachrymosely, puerile, lieder, deliquescent, fossicking, and priapic. I’ll echo the Goodreads blurb that calls it “a novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single sitting, with stunning psychological and emotional depth and sophistication, it’s brilliant.” To interject an original thought, I’d add “philosophical” to “psychological and emotional.” Also, it has a rather shocking twist ending. |
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| 📕10-word summary: Two ambitious women’s stories connect across time, generations, and space. 🖌6-word review: Two well-told stories; one more compelling. |
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| Description:* After being rescued as infants from a sinking ocean liner in 1914, Marian and Jamie Graves are raised by their dissolute uncle in Missoula, Montana. There—after encountering a pair of barnstorming pilots passing through town in beat-up biplanes—Marian commences her lifelong love affair with flight. At 14 she drops out of school and finds an unexpected and dangerous patron in a wealthy bootlegger who provides a plane and subsidizes her lessons, an arrangement that will haunt her for the rest of her life, even as it allows her to fulfill her destiny: circumnavigating the globe by flying over the North and South Poles. A century later, Hadley Baxter is cast to play Marian in a film that centers on Marian’s disappearance in Antarctica. Vibrant, canny, disgusted with the claustrophobia of Hollywood, Hadley is eager to redefine herself after a romantic film franchise has imprisoned her in the grip of cult celebrity. Her immersion into the character of Marian unfolds, thrillingly, alongside Marian’s own story, as the two women’s fates—and their hunger for self-determination in vastly different geographies and times—collide.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||||||
| Thoughts: This book was recommended to me by a friend at a New Year’s Eve party, and my first reaction was, “Do I really want to start my reading year off with a 651-page tome? Well, I did. And the first thing I did was request the large-print edition—which checked in at 944 pages—from the library. I loved this book and reflect on it with two major thoughts: 1) of the two story lines, I much preferred the one about Marian over the one about Hadley and I was grateful that most of the book was about Marian, and 2) about my admiration of the sheer determination and perseverance of the author to write such a long, involved story, including, carefully chosen, what on first glance seemed like tangents, but in the end were interesting and welcomed “asides.” More specifically, I’m talking about the decision to give more background on a particular character or situation when the story might otherwise have proceeded, without harm but perhaps not as a richly, without that background. I also loved a few of the epic turn of events that seemed to be just “dropped in,” like a detonated bomb. I would recommend this book without hesitation or qualification. |
Go to my books read list for: 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019