Mark Twain's Helpful Hints for Good Living

Mark Twain's Helpful Hints for Good Living: A Handbook for the Damned Human Race by Mark Twain, compiled & edited by The Mark Twain Project  221 pp.

This collection includes quotations, anecdotes, cautionary tales, and advice gleaned from Twain's published and unpublished works. Included are tips on etiquette, modes of dress, child rearing, dealing with unwanted salesmen, health, and food. His advice on proper behavior at funerals made me laugh out loud, as did his description of the overblown dress worn by a woman at a social event. The tale of the overly protective, worried mother is probably the best of the bunch. It's a delightful little book for fans of Mark Twain.

Saving Face

Saving Face: The Art and History of the Goalie Mask by Jim Hynes and Gary Smith, 176 pages

Even though hockey has been around for AGES, and professional hockey for more than a century, it wasn't until relatively recently that players began wearing protective gear. Saving Face looks at one specific piece of gear, the goalie mask — which wasn't worn in an NHL game until 1959, and wasn't ubiquitous among goalies until more than a decade later — and examines the development and evolution of the mask from an uncomfortable, emasculating thing worn only to protect healing facial injuries to a nearly indestructible and essential piece of equipment, that also serves as the canvas for the best art in sports. This coffee-table book is fascinating and provides plenty of high color images to illustrate the designs that are discussed. For a big hockey fan, or for someone new to the sport, this is an excellent book.

The View from the Cheap Seats

The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction by Neil Gaiman  522 pp.

This is a collection of articles, essays, reviews, book introductions, and columns compiled into one volume. While there is a bit of repetition, it is another look at the work of the prolific novelist whose work crosses genres. (There is an article about genre in the collection.) While most of it is concerned with literature, films, or music, there is some biographical material, and small bits of his personal life, as well as a first hand account of a visit to a Syrian refugee camp. I am surprised at how much I enjoyed this collection. After listening to the audiobook read by Gaiman, I came away thinking that this is a man with whom I could be friends. I'm also going to find some of the books he refers to and read them, beginning with Thurber's The Thirteen Clocks.

An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good

An elderly lady is up to no good / Helene Tursten, read by Suzanne Toren, 171 pgs.

Maud is a quiet and unassuming neighbor but also be aware that crossing her can be deadly.  One of her neighbors had an eye on switching apartments and Maud took care of the problem as a solution presented itself...crushing her with one of her own sculptures.  This isn't the only person dispatched by Maud.  She is never a suspect because she is old and knows when to act frail.  I loved hearing about Maud's exploits.  You probably don't want to get to know her too well but respect her space and she will respect yours.  The narrator does a great job conveying Maud in all her moods.

To Night Owl From Dogfish

To Night Owl From Dogfish by Holly Goldberg Sloan and Meg Wolitzer, 295 pages

This epistolary novel starts when headstrong 12-year-old Bett Devlin finds out that her dad is sending her to a camp in Michigan, the primary purpose of which is to get to know her fellow 12-year-old Avery Bloom. Why? Because, despite living on opposite coasts, Bett and Avery's dads are dating and are planning on a life together. What starts as an email exchange to thwart their dads' plans gradually turns into emails about Bett and Avery's growing friendship, their separate families, and their eventual dreams of sisterhood. It's a great story, and a perfect new twist on The Parent Trap-style stories of summer camp.

Passing Strange

Passing Strange by Ellen Klages, 219 pages

In 1940 in San Francisco, six intelligent women gather for an evening of pizza and wine. They're all lesbians, and they're all professionally hindered by their gender, but beyond that, they're all just loosely connected friends. But by the end of this short novel, they're all part of a lifelong pact. This is a wonderful exploration of female friendship, of love, of prejudice, and of San Francisco of 1940. I very much enjoyed this brief tale, though I wish there'd been more of it. But isn't that the mark of a great book?

Codename Villanelle

Codename Villanelle / Luke Jennings, 219 pgs

Everyone wants an employee like Villanelle. She is capable, highly trained, focused, and never fails to complete her tasks.   Her bosses are a shadowy organization that she doesn't meet but they pay her well.  She travels all around the world for work. Her supervisor Konstantin gives her support and praise. Of course the task is assassinating people, a job that she loves. She is so successful, others are taking notice of her.  Eve is a MI5 employee who is trying to track her down. This book mostly gives us some character background and a lot of killing.  It is the basis for the hit TV series Killing Eve.  I can see why it got snapped up.

The New Girl

The New Girl by Daniel Silva  479 pp.

I swore I was not going to read this the instant it came out because then I would have to wait another year for the next one. I only made it a few days before I just had to read it. This is the 19th book in the series about the now Head of Mossad, Gabriel Allon. The "new girl" of the title is the daughter of the Saudi crown prince, Khalid ben Mohammed -- KBM for short. When his daughter is kidnapped from her exclusive private school in Switzerland the prince, in an unprecedented move, enlists the help of Gabriel Allon to find her. The usual characters from previous books return in this episode including Sara Bancroft, Graham Seymour, Christopher Keller, and the Mossad team of agents that are like family to fans of the series. I won't give any spoilers here but this is one of Silva's best. The introduction tells how Silva started this book over after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The afterward by the author, who once worked for the State Department, is a chilling warning of what changing alliances could do to the disturbing international political climate. Now I wait for the next book.

Legend (Legend #1) by Marie Lu

Legend (Legend #1)
by Marie Lu, 305 pages

I think this book is better suited for a different reader. It is a real-written book with a plot that is relevant to our current society. The book follows two characters: June, who was born into wealth and privilege, and Day, who was born in the slums and is now considered the most dangerous terrorist in the country. The Republic tests children at the age of 10, the results of which dictate their path in life. June, who had a perfect score, believes in the system. Day, however, truly knows what happens to the poor children and those who do not score well.

June's entire worldview is thrown into chaos as soon as she meets Day. Each new question she asks uncovers a new layer of conspiracies. She is going to eventually have to choose a side - either the safety of the Republic, or the truth of the rebellion.

Anyone who loves dystopias, conspiracies, or the power of ordinary people to change society will like this book.

Murder By Serpents: The Mystery Quilt

Murder By Serpents: The Mystery Quilt (2007) 289 pages



Tennessee Sheriff Tony Abernathy investigates the death of a man found handcuffed in his car with a loose, live rattlesnake and copperhead. Meanwhile, other issues that come to the attention of Park County's sheriff range from drugs to infidelity to spousal abuse. The sheriff's wife runs a quilting shop. As a bonus for quilters, the book includes directions for a mystery quilt. The sheriff's staff and family all feel like real people, which makes this story feel comfy as a quilt.

Etiquette & Espionage and Curtsies & Conspiracies

I am combining these two books into one post because I read them back-to-back. I could not put them down! I am a fan of any book that weaponizes traditional behavior and clothing expectations that typically limit what women are able to do. A big skirt can hide many weapons, fainting can be used to redirect attention, etc. There are certainly some themes and moments that I found cringe-worthy but I enjoyed the books and will most likely read the last 2 books in the series.

I listened to the audiobook and you will either love or hate the narrator. The book takes place in a steampunk version of a mid-19th century British finishing school. The narrator leans into the snobbish accent pretty hard. I liked the accent because it felt more engaging but a friend of mine hated it so much, he told me to never play it in his presence.

Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School #1)
by Gail Carriger, 307 pages

This book sets up the series wonderfully. It starts out at a quick speed and does not slow down. The book is about Sophronia, a 14-year-old who has never been able to play by the rules. She is dreading the thought of finishing school - that is, until she finds out that the school trains girls in espionage.  Just as Sophronia is thrown into a new world she barely understands, the readers have no idea how the school is structured or who the instructors actually are. This is definitely fun for readers who like to be thrown into the deep end. The training is so immersive that the girls are tasked with keeping the headmistress in the dark about the true nature of the school. Throw in found family, supernatural elements, and a group of teens who must save society, and I'm caught. It was a fun read and a nice break from my usual books that which tend to have darker themes.

Curtsies & Conspiracies (Finishing School #2)

by Gail Carriger, 310 pages

This book starts shortly after the first book ends. It focuses more on vampires and werewolves. The werewolf/vampire rivalry has been done to death at this point and I rolled my eyes hard at the use of vampires as a metaphor for discrimination. This is especially frustrating because there is only one black character and racism he experiences is normalized, if the author even acknowledges racism in the story. Another over-done trope is the rich boy/poor boy love triangle. I doubt anyone can put an interesting spin on it at this point. 

However, the book is still enjoyable if you can get past these flaws. The book focuses more on the social aspects of school life. I can be guilty of enjoying a gossip or two so I was pretty into it. My interest in the series is starting to wane and I'm not planning on finishing it. However, I still enjoyed the first two books.

Orange World and other stories

Orange world and other stories / Karen Russell, read by a full cast, 271 pgs.

A fantastic collection of stories as only Russell can do.  One about a guy who raises tornadoes, two young grifters who end up at a party given by a dead construction crew and one about a young man who romances a girl he found in the bog.  Yes, an eclectic mix that covers a lot of bases.  All a little bit crazy.  I liked each and every one. 

Pastoralia

Pastoralia: stories / George Saunders, read by the author, 188 pgs.

A new audio version of a book originally published in 2000, this collection of stories read by the author is perfectly done.  It is hard to pick my favorite...perhaps the one about the male stripper who is haunted by his dead aunt who is trying to help him make money by marking women who will pay him for sex or the guy who is in an exhibit playing a stone age man.  You get it, all relatable stuff, right?  Saunder's reading is droll and perfect for the stories. 

The Confusion

The Confusion by Neal Stephenson  815 pp.

The Confusion is the second volume of Stephenson's "Baroque Cycle" and encompasses books four and five of the story. Book four is titled "Bonanza" and concerns the travels and travails of Jack Shaftoe aka The Vagabond King, aka Half-cocked Jack. Jack awakens from a syphilitic stupor to find himself a galley slave. He and fellow slaves conspire to steal a ship which turns out to be laden with gold and run afoul of the duc D'archchon who bears a murderous grudge against Jack. The action in this part takes Jack to India, Japan, and eventually back to Europe. Told in alternate sections with "Bonanza" is book five, "The Juncto", which concerns Eliza and her machinations in the conflicts between William of Orange and the Jacobites and later James II. Eliza suffers the loss of her fortune, the kidnapping of her illegitimate son, smallpox, and the death of her husband, regaining her fortune, and more. The other main character of "The Juncto" is Bob Shaftoe, brother of Jack, and his participation in war between William and James on the side of William. There are also appearances by Daniel Waterhouse, Isaac Newton, Gottfried Leibniz, and others who featured heavily in volume one.

How the Light Gets In

How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny (2013) 405 pages

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, head of homicide, is handling two very different cases: First, he's called by a friend in the tiny village of Three Pines, to talk about someone who was due to visit for Christmas, but who never showed up. This person was the last surviving quintuplet born to a Canadian family in the 1930s, who was doing everything she could to protect her privacy. What happened to her? Gamache's other case is of extreme importance: he's working to gain enough evidence to bring down the corruption in his very own office, the Sûreté of Québec, before it brings him down and does so much worse. Meanwhile, Gamache's beloved former right hand man, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, is under the thumb of the Chief Superintendent Francoeur, and Jean-Guy sees Gamache as his enemy.

I read with rapt attention; the book refused to let go when I wasn't reading. Louise Penny remains my favorite mystery writer!

The Language of Food: A Linguist Reads the Menu

The Language of Food: A Linguist Reads the Menu by Dan Jurafsky , 272 pages 

My friends were probably happy when I finished reading this book, to be honest. That's because I could not stop talking about it! Every time we talked, I had some new tidbit to share. Like, did you know that ketchup and fish n chips originate from the same Chinese dish? Macaroni and macaroons originate from an almond paste from Persia - who knew!

I found it very readable. It reminded me of a show on NPR. It has certainly changed the way I understand food and world history in general. People tend to put history into categories - Asian history, European history, Middle Eastern, etc. but it's all inter-connected. This book does a wonderful job of examining those connections.

The audiobook is read by the author, which is especially helpful in this case because he is able to pronounce the foreign words correctly.

Big sky, by Kate Atkinson

The latest (the fifth) in Atkinson’s popular Jackson Brodie series, featuring the ex-cop and current private detective.  This somewhat convoluted mystery is set near Whitby in North Yorkshire, where Brodie is currently living.  An old case involving the “magic circle,” a group of men, many wealthy and important, is being reexamined.  The two principals have been jailed for some time and one is dead, but there are still rumors of similar activities going on now.  Those in the magic circle participate in parties where minors are abused.  Perhaps too many figures from past novels make appearances in this one, which can be confusing even if you are a fan and have eagerly read the earlier novels, but it is still a diverting and cleverly written book.  Even the dogs have wonderfully drawn personalities.  As to what the title means, got me.  386 pp.

The Rosie Result

The Rosie Result / Graeme Simsion, 378 pgs.

Rosie and Don are back!  They have returned to Australia after a decade in New York.  Their son Hudson is almost 11.  Don's dad is dying of cancer, Rosie is having troubles with her boss, but the focus of their attention is Hudson.  Hudson is having problems in school.  Things Don can relate to because they are similar to HIS school years.  Don embarks on the Hudson project...to try to get Hudson the skills he needs to fit in and enjoy school more.  I mean, this is the simplest of explanations about the plot but there is so much more going on.  Don tackles projects with logic and a plan but he is willing to re-calibrate and change his approach. He remembers all the advice HIS dad gave him and his feeling about much of it so he understands Hudson's reactions. I enjoyed reconnecting with all of the characters and enjoyed every quirky minute of this book.

Monkey Mind

Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety by Daniel Smith, 212 pages

In his 2012 memoir, Smith offers a personal take on living with anxiety, describing how it feels to have an anxiety attack, how he's suffered, and how he's working through it today. It's an OK memoir in that it definitely gets the word out that there are others who have anxiety, but don't go here looking for inspiration on how to treat the condition. I enjoyed the humorous portions of the memoir, particularly his discussion of being a fact-checker at The Atlantic (a job he says is both uniquely suited and a horrible idea for sufferers of anxiety). However, at times, it felt a bit too cookie-cutter as memoirs go, and I wish it had been propped up with bit of research rather than personal comparisons to Kafka and Philip Roth.

Magic for Liars

Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey, 336 pages

Ivy Gamble is a private investigator with a long history of catching adulterers and cons. But Magic for Liars finds her taking on her biggest case yet — the murder of a teacher at a high school for magical children...where her twin sister works...and is therefore a suspect. Magic-free and trying to hide it, Ivy heads to Osthorne Academy for Young Mages to try to untangle the motives, magic, and high school rumors that surround this crime.

While a lot of people would hear "magical school" and immediately think of Harry Potter, this is thematically much closer to Veronica Mars in its examination of teenagers and the very real hijinks they can get up to. I enjoyed Gailey's take on high school, and I liked Ivy as a boozing PI character. I was able to figure out the twists way before I should have, but really, I loved the setting and the story enough to overlook it. I look forward to their next novel!

Woman World

Woman World by Aminder Dhaliwal, 247 pages

When a birth defect slowly wipes men off the face of Earth, women create their own communities. This excellent graphic novel focuses on one of those communities, jumping between stories of the young, the old, the nudist, the friend-zoned. It's fantastic, it's hilarious, and I loved it.

A Closed and Common Orbit

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers, 367 pages

Guys, I think I may have found a new favorite author! The (kinda) sequel to her awesome The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, A Closed and Common Orbit focuses on a few minor characters from the first book, offering both a continuing story and a backstory for them. In this book, techie fix-it gal extraordinaire Pepper and her partner Blue take in an AI that has been illegally moved into a very realistic humanoid kit. Sidra, as the AI has named herself, is struggling to adjust to the limitations of her new existence, and figure out her purpose in a non-ship environment. Interspersed with Sidra's story, however, are chapters that give Pepper's backstory as a genetically engineered factory slave who escapes and lives in a broken down ship with only a motherly AI named Owl for company.

Like she does in her first book, Chambers examines the nature of found families, identity, purpose, and love in this book. She gives as much heart and dimension to the artificial intelligences as she does to the other sentient characters, and while this book is narrower in scope than her first outing (only two main characters instead of the half-dozen or so of The Long Way...), its stories are expansive and universal. I absolutely love her books.

Billiards at half-past nine, by Heinrich Böll

Revisiting a favorite book from Nobel-prize-winning Böll.  Written in 1962, this novel follows the fortunes of the Faehmel family for three generations.  It is set on a single day in September 1958, with flashbacks and multiple points of view. Grandfather Heinrich, a young architect in the early 1900s, wins a prestigious competition to erect a massive abbey outside of the city.  (This city is based on the author’s native Cologne, Germany, which was largely destroyed in WWII.)  His intent is to establish his own dynasty of children, grandchildren, and future generations.  But like many plans, things do not go as hoped. Losing two children early to disease and an older son to World War II (in which this son is a willing, in fact, enthusiastic participant), he is left with a remaining son, Robert, also an architect.   Robert, like his father, has an unvarying routine.  While Heinrich always breakfasts on the same thing at the same restaurant he went to when he first arrived, Robert spends an hour at the office signing documents, then disappears at 9:30 until 11 AM.  His secretary is under orders to not call him at a number he leaves unless he is wanted by his father, mother (who has been institutionalized for decades), his son or daughter, or mysterious fifth name.  But important looking person, billing himself as an old school friend, talks her into telling him where Robert is (she’s long ago looked up the number and it is a nearby hotel).  This sets in motion the events of the day, which is the patriarch’s 80^th birthday.  It was very interesting to read this at a distance of fifty years since the major theme of the book is postwar Germany guilt and the refurbishing of reputations that has led to former Nazis and sympathizers returning to power in the new order.  Aside from Otto, the son killed in WWII, the Faehmel family has largely opposed Nazism.  Robert escaped most of the war, but then was conscripted and actually ends up blowing up his father’s abbey for a crazed general with a passion for “field of fire” in the waning days of the war.  His son is now rebuilding it.  It helps to have a background in German history to fully appreciate this novel.  It was interesting to reread it in light of German’s current place in the world, which is not, I suspect, exactly what Böll would have anticipated.  304 pp.