Oona Out of Order

Oona Out of Order / Margarita Montimore, read by Brittany Pressley, 338 page

Oona leaves each year at midnight and starts up the next day in a different year.  Sure, we all do that but she does it out of order.  So she "time travels" to a different  place in her life.  The book starts with her being 18 and the next year, she is in a 51 year old body but mentally 19.  This is a fantastic premise and had such promise.  Unfortunately, instead of being really cool, this is a pretty standard novel revolving around the romantic adventures of the title character.  Most of which are NOT that interesting. This could have been so much more.

The Opposite of Fate

The Opposite of Fate by Alison McGhee (2020) 265 pages

Mallie, a young massage therapist whose father is dead and who is estranged from her uber-religious mother, lives with her boyfriend and her teen-aged brother. One rainy night, while waiting to pick up her brother from a party, she is raped and assaulted and left comatose and pregnant. A whole array of people weighs in, including her mother's church community and neighbors who are Mallie's family-in-spirit. They fight not only for Mallie's life, but for or against abortion of the fetus sired by her rapist. When Mallie awakens from her coma sixteen months after the assault, the processing begins.  The book's imagery is compelling and poetic. The story is told from alternating points of view, mostly from Mallie and her neighbor, William T.

One measure of a great book is how much it grabs you from the time you first see the description by the publisher, and how it continues to haunt you each time you set the book down or try to sleep, and how it still consumes you after you've read the last page. For me, this is one of those books.

Leviathan Wakes

Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey, 582 pages.
Jim Holden is serving as the Executive Officer on the ice-hauler Canterbury making their regular run between Saturn and the Belt when they receive a distress call from a stranded ship. When Holden, Naomi Nagata, and three other crew members take a small skiff out to see if they can effect a rescue or at least some salvage, they stumble upon a secret that is going to change the lives of everyone on Earth, on Mars, and on all the colonies in the Belt.
That same secret drives Detective Miller, on Ceres Station, to go looking for the missing daughter of one of the richest men in the solar system. The two authors who write as Corey do an excellent job of creating interesting, likable characters and placing them in extraordinary circumstances. Great fun to read.

The Dam Keepers: Return from the Shadows

The Dam Keepers: Return from the Shadows by Robert Kondo and Daisuke "Dice" Tsutsumi, 191 pages.

A juvenile graphic novel that quite clearly states on its title page that it is "book three," but I didn't notice that and kept wondering when the backstory would become clear. I am slow like that. Anyway, this tale of a fox, a hippo, a pig, and their friends flying around in an airship, fighting against the waves of fog that threaten their whole world (maybe?) is pretty interesting and extremely well-drawn, so it is  all good. The author's have made a short film of The Dam Keeper, and both of them work at Pixar, so the art is very good. Looking forward to reading the first two volumes to see what was going on before the air adventure.

The Rakess

The Rakess by Scarlett Peckham, 383 pages

Everyone, even those who don't read romance novels, are familiar with the historical romance stereotype of the rake, that ne'er-do-well dashing man without a care in the world who leaves broken hearts in his wake wherever he goes. Well, in this novel, Peckham gender-swaps that role, with notorious authoress Seraphina Arden taking on this traditional role as the titular Rakess. But unlike her male counterparts, Seraphina is the target of harassment, slander, and dirty looks wherever she goes. The abuse doesn't seem to bother her, though her temporary neighbor, architect Adam Anderson, begins to see both the kind woman behind the facade, as well as the cracks the taunts are leaving in her carefully constructed persona.

This is a wonderful take on the traditional stereotype, and Peckham has created some fantastic characters in Seraphina, Adam, and Seraphina's band of feminist friends. I didn't think I'd enjoy an 18th Century romance set on the dramatic cliffs of Cornwall, but here we are.

Messenger of truth, by Jacqueline Winspear

The fourth of the “Maisie Dobbs” series finds our heroine involved with an artistic family whose painter son has fallen to his death from a scaffolding while preparing to exhibit his masterpiece in a gallery. His twin sister refuses to believe that her brother actually fell – she suspects foul play and employs Maisie to ferret out the truth. Again, the long reach of the effects on “The Great War” on families has a central place in the story. The controversial artist served in the war and afterwards retreated to an artists' camp consisting of repurposed railway carriages on the coast. This coast has an centuries-old connection to pirates, and Maisie stumbles upon suspicious activity while investigating. Another great outing. 337 pp.

Pardonable lies, by Jacqueline Winspear

Having inadvertently read one of the engaging “Maisie Dobbs” series out of order, I am now going back to fill in some blanks. My admiration for the series has grown over time as Maisie herself grows. In this third outing, Maisie is engaged by a recently widowed man to find out whether or not his son, Ralph, really died during World War I. Although the father is himself fairly convinced of his missing son’s death, his late wife had refused to believe it true and it was her dying wish that he continue the search for a definitive answer. Meanwhile, Maisie’s good friend Priscilla, who lost three brothers in the war, finds that the youngest of them had a connection to the missing Ralph. These two stories, and Maisie’s mentor, Maurice’s, connection to them will try Maisie’s faith in Maurice. 359 pp.

On earth we’re briefly gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong

This highly acclaimed book by Vietnamese-American writer Ocean Vuong, who was under thirty when it was published, is a mix of memoir, history, and literary fiction. That his first published work was poetry is evident in the rich, evocative language throughout. Ostensibly, the text is a letter written by the narrator, Little Dog, to his mother, who is an illiterate immigrant refugee from the Vietnam War. (The author, himself, didn’t learn to read until he was eleven.) Like his mother's, "Little Dog's" real name is concealed – no one will try to harm just a little dog. Growing up impoverished in Hartford, Connecticut, Little Dog is bullied at school but finds odd solace and an erotic relationship with the owner’s son Trevor, while working on a tobacco farm. Trevor, however, doesn’t value himself, or admit his own gayness, and falls victim to the opioid crisis sweeping the country. I can understand the rapturous reviews, many from authors I admire, but think I personally would enjoy his poetry more. 242 pp.

Infinite home, by Kathleen Alcott

Back before Brooklyn was trendy, landlady Edith still mourns her husband with whom she shared the brownstone apartment building. Her tenants are all a bit odd, but grateful for the shelter of their apartments, their kind landlady, and the many years in which the rent hasn’t been raised. All have been damaged one way or another, and Edith is increasingly showing signs of oncoming dementia. On the top floor lives an agoraphobic young woman who collects found objects and may be tending towards hoarding. Her across the hall neighbor was a successful artist but has suffered a stroke at a very young age and has put away his art materials. A stand-up comedian, who wrote a a treacly but now beloved holiday movie, despises his work and has become surly rather than funny. Despite this, he becomes close friends with the thirtyish man in the other second floor apartment who has Williams syndrome. Paulie’s sister is grateful to Edith that her brother is allowed to live almost independently there despite having the mind of a cheerful, loquacious eight-year old. Edith had two children. Her daughter disappeared around the time of the Summer of Love in San Francisco. Her son, a rigid and resentful professional, has decided it’s time to get his mother into care and sell the building. How this group of misfits rallies around their benefactor will lead to many surprises. Could have been depressing, but is actually uplifting, if a bit unbelievable. 336 pp.

Indelicacy, by Amina Cain

Having just read Edith Wharton’s The house of Mirth, in which a society woman, through bad decisions and for lack of a wealthy husband, spirals downward into poverty and ultimate death, it was an serendipitous contrast to read this new novel which seems to be set in approximately the same time period. And there are echoes of Wharton among other writers. Written in the first person, the main character is a cleaning woman in a renowned art museum who rises through marriage to an independent single life. What the narrator wants to be is a writer, in fact, she is driven to carry around a notebook at all times in which to write her reflections on the paintings in the museum. Her free time is also spent in writing constantly. When a well-to-do museum visitor woes and marries her, she is at first fairly content in her new life. However, the demands of entertaining guests become both burdensome and an interruption to her writing and her pursuit of more intellectual passions, such as the ballet and theater. An odd book, which is beautifully written and has a satisfyingly hopeful end for the narrator. We finally learn her name, Vitoria (conqueror), towards the very end of the short novel. 161 pp.

The house of mirth, by Edith Wharton

An interesting classic novel to have picked up to read during a pandemic lockdown. In many ways, beautiful Lily Bart is as constricted and confined by society as those of us hunkered down in our homes are today. Published in 1905, this is a devastating portrait of the lives of the wealthy and influential at the turn of the twentieth century. The star of her debutant year in New York, as the book opens, Lily is still unmarried at 29 and knows that she must soon commit to a union with some wealthy man in order to maintain her position in society, or, in fact, to have a life at all. Her parents are deceased and left her with very little money. She lives from day to day and year to year by trading on her beauty and wit, moving from one country estate to another in the warmer months, and returning to her aunt’s house in the winter for the glittering New York season. But a series of ill-advised decisions, missed opportunities, and just bad luck set her on a downward spiral. Although I thoroughly enjoyed it, I was disturbed by the author’s underlying anti-Semitism which figures in the characterization of one of the main characters in the novel. 401 pp.

Long Bright River

Long Bright River by Liz Moore, 482 pages.

An excellent novel that inhabits a space between a police procedural and  the tale of a dysfunctional family.  Mickey is a police officer in Philadelphia, patrolling in the area near where she and her sister grew up, where the remnants of her family still live. Mickey becomes obsessed with a series of murders; the victims are young women, most of them addicts or prostitutes. Part of Mickey's obsession has to do with her concurrent search for her younger sister, Kacey whom she knows to be both an addict and a prostitute. Mickey tries to keep the remnants of her family safe as she searches for her sister, tries to protect her job, and reconcile what she remembers of her past with her possible futures.
An excellent book with unexpected turns on what can sometimes appear to be a well-worn path.

Lost Autumn

Lost Autumn by Mary-Rose MacColl, 404 pages

When the Prince of Wales embarked on his 1918 tour of Australia, young Maddie Bright had no idea that she'd be part of the tour. But so she did, rapidly moving from her job as a waitress to an undersecretary in charge of drafting the Prince's replies to the hordes of letters he receives, and getting to know the Prince and his staff quite well along the way. Seventy years later, her story resurfaces when a journalist is summoned from London to meet the reclusive Maddie.

Told through chapters alternating between time periods and chapters of a book published in 1922, this story is a bit confusing at times, but also an interesting look at public perceptions of the British royals, their public personas, and their relationship with the press. A fun escape to faraway lands in a long-ago time.

Providence

Providence by Max Barry, 306 pages

Several years after first contact with aliens, humans are now in an interminable war with the hive-like species they've dubbed "salamanders." Thankfully, humankind has some very high-tech interstellar warships, run by artificial intelligence so good that a crew of just four can run a successful mission against thousands of salamander ships. But despite (or perhaps because of) the light workload, the human crew members have a difficult time dealing with the long hours in space, punctuated by short battles in which they merely monitor the ship's systems. It gives them too much time to think about what they're doing, why they're doing it, and whether the ship is really their "friend" in this war.

Barry's written quite the pageturner here, with plenty of action-packed battle sequences and a suitably creepy alien villain. But it's also a fascinating look at the psychology of war and space travel, as well as thought-provoking in regard to what is or isn't a person. It's a lot packed into a thrilling read. Highly recommended.

What Would Wimsey Do?

What Would Wimsey Do? by Guy Fraser-Sampson, 300 pages

After 18 months of trying to track down a serial killer, the London detectives are still stymied. When a fifth body turns up, the lead detective is taken off the task force, and a young up-and-comer is brought on to stir things up. And stir he does, bringing in a psychologist to create a profile of the murderer, and taking odd new angles on the case. But will it work?

This book was a bit of a slog. The stuff that only comes up after a year and a half of investigating seems obvious to someone who has watched just a couple episodes of any detective TV show, and the Golden Age throwback (the theoretical hook for the story) doesn't happen until more than halfway through the book. I was more than a bit disappointed.

These Ghosts are Family

These Ghosts are Family by Maisy Card, 271 pages.
Abel Paisley was a young man, married with children, working on the docks in England, when a container fell on his friend and fellow Jamaican, Solomon. All of the white men working with them, none of whom could tell the two Jamaicans apart believe that it was Abel that they saw crushed to death. Abel decides to take advantage of the situation and leave his responsibilities behind. Citing this as the one time racism worked in his favor, Abel becomes Solomon, leaves his family and moves to New York to begin again.
The story moves back and forth through time, from Jamaica in the early 1800s to present-day New York, following the story of Abel's ancestors, his contemporaries, and his children.

Where Reason Ends: A Novel

Where Reason Ends: A Novel by Yiyun Li, 170 pages.

Li's slim 2019 novel, her sixth book, takes the form of conversations between a writer and her child; the son who is no longer there. The book was written in the months after Li's own son committed suicide. Sad, but not maudlin, a reminiscence and an exploration of the thoughts and feelings we keep hidden. The fictional son says, "to live you have to propagate delusions. . . One is not enough.  A few are not."

A burglar's guide to the city

A burglar's guide to the city / Geoff Manaugh, 296 pages

This book is a fantastic look at how to rob places, the skills you need, the planning required.  I loved every word of it but now I'm also never going to feel safe in my house again.  Certainly I don't have the guts for a career change but I have been thinking about how house burglars must be hurting during this lock down or maybe they have just moved over to offices.  Either way, if you are interested in spacial reasoning, architecture or problem solving, this could be the book for you.

Little Girl Blue: The Life of Karen Carpenter

Little Girl Blue: The Life of Karen Carpenter by Randy L. Schmidt (2010) 351 pages

Karen Carpenter, the lead singer and drummer of the musical group The Carpenters, is the subject of this long-researched biography by Randy L. Schmidt. Karen's beloved brother Richard led and arranged the music for the popular group, but The Carpenters were best known for Karen's amazing voice. Her death at age 32, due to heart failure brought on by anorexia, stunned the musical world in 1983. Schmidt gives a detailed look at Karen's life and music, including family relationships. Her mother's obvious preference for Richard is much-noted, as are the concerns friends have with the man that Karen marries after a whirlwind romance. Anorexia becomes a much-discussed topic as well.

Numerous friends and colleagues in the music business contributed memories of Karen. A forward by Dionne Warwick, a discography list, a list of television appearances, notes, bibliography and a thorough index all add to a more complete picture of Karen's life.

This town sleeps

This town sleeps / Dennis E. Staples, read by Kaipo Schwab, 211 pgs.

Marion is a twenty-something Ojibwa Indian who returns to his hometown after breaking up with his boyfriend in the twin cities.  He is looking for love an ends up in an affair with a former classmate who insists he is straight.  Marion has other things going on, he is visited by the ghost of a murdered man whose daughter Marion met on accident. This subplot is interesting as Marion doesn't really believe in spirits or anything like ghosts as he is told by an elder, those are white man beliefs.  However, he accepts the appearance of this spirit and helps to introduce him to his daughter.  The magical realism part of the book didn't put me off.  The audio was slightly hard to follow as points of view changed and it was difficult to keep up at times.  Still, a nice job by Kaipo Schwab, a new narrator to me.

Indelicacy

Indelicacy by Amina Cain, 158 pages.

At the beginning of this short novel Cain's narrator works cleaning an unnamed museum, and struggles, as she does throughout the book, to find the balance in her life that will allow her to write. During her time as a cleaner the lack of money, frustration with her work, and the lack of time constrain her.  Later she finds that being a woman or a writer are both made difficult by those around her and that being both is doubly so.
She and her coworker at the museum, Antoinette, talk as they go about their day and sometimes after, Antoinette talks about wanting a better life, a husband, and pretty things. The narrator answers her, but seldom reveals much of anything about herself. When the narrator suddenly marries a wealthy man who has seen at the museum, she doesn't even say good bye to Antoinette. Marriage in this time (candles and carriages) and place (somewhere with a museum and ballet) brings about its own constraints, though, and the narrator hatches a strange plan to free herself from them.

Gotta Go Gotta Flow: Life, Love, and Lust On Chicago's South Side From the Seventies

Gotta Go Gotta Flow: Life, Love, and Lust On Chicago's South Side From the Seventies poems by
Patricia Smith, photographs by Michael Abramson, 191 pages.
Michael Abramson a photographer whose work appeared in Time, Newsweek and other publications, started documenting the visitors, regulars, drinkers, dancers, and musicians at several Southside Chicago night clubs in 1974.
Patricia Smith, renowned poet from Chicago wrote the poems that accompany the photos in this book.
It's unclear to me whether the poems were written when Abramson was alive. The book jacket lists them separately and indicates that the photographer died five years before the book was published. A bio of Smith on the Poetry Foundation website indicates that the two "collaborated" on the project. The essays in the book don't really clear that up, but it's not that important. Both the photographs and the poems along side them bring the places and the people to life. Sometimes you look at the photo and the poem explains the man, the woman, or the mood in a straightforward but beautiful way.  Other times you think you see the photo and understand it, but the poem shifts your focus to a frown or a smile on the person behind the person, and your perception shifts. A wonderful book.
I picked up this book because it stood out; a large format, coffee-table book among the slim volumes in 811.6.

O Josephine

O Josephine! by Jason, 174 pages.

The last book I remember reading by Jason was his 2017 effort On the Camino. At first, this work seems that it will continue in the same vein, with the author hiking another famous trail, this time the Wicklow Way, in Ireland. What was at first autobiographical (or at least I presumed) becomes altogether different with Jason's interpretation of the live of singer / songwriter Leonard Cohen. In this recounting of his live, Cohen has many adventures and several fights with the famous, punching George Harrison, Bob Dylan, and Morrissey. I don't know enough about Cohen to tell where this narrative might stray from the truth, so I'm willing to believe it all. I'm a little more skeptical of his account of Napoleon Bonaparte dating both Josephine and another Josephine, but that was a fun story. Jason's art is character-focused, with almost everyone portrayed as a dog, a bird, or a cat. Jason uses a minimum of scenery or background, but what is there is presented with clean lines and a comforting detail.

Dune

Dune by Frank Herbert, 883 pages.

Frank Herbert's classic tale of the desert planet Arrakis, the Fremen, the spice, and the sandworms was written more than fifty years ago. I read it for the first time in 1976 or 1977 and then read it several more times in the 70s and 80s. It has been a long time since I had read it and I was a little surprised, not that I remembered the story and the details, but that I could anticipate the coming words and phrases. So, this book, the last one I finished before the pandemic started, wasn't so much a literary journey as one of nostalgia. For me, a very comfortable read.

Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened

Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened by Allie Brosh, 369 pages.

An interesting 2013 book by former (inactive? retired?) blogger Allie Brosh. Brosh was one of the biggest people on the internet in 2013 and her book got great reviews. One of my coworkers (according to another coworker) raved about her. Somehow I missed all that and had no recollection of this book until I found it while looking for another book in the Graphic Lit section during the pandemic. So I had no expectations, but I am glad now that I found it.
Brosh tells amusing stories about her childhood, her "flawed coping mechanisms" and her dogs. Most of her drawings of other people have stick arms, basic facial features and hair. Many of her drawings are more rudimentary; my 8-year-old asked, "what is that fish doing?" of Brosh's  self-portrait. The book is dark at times, as when Bosh describes her bouts with depression, or delves into her own everyday pettiness, but the stories then veer back toward the gleefully absurd with descriptions of her childhood, letters written to her younger selves, and more descriptions of her dogs.

The story of more

The story of more: how we got to climate change and where we go from here / Hope Jahren, read by the author, 208 pgs.

What are the facts about climate change?  Is it even a thing?  No seriously, how do we know? Why don't you let Hope Jahren tell you all about it. The facts are here, the research is here and the writing is excellent.  Jahren tells the earths story as well as the story of her time on earth.  Wonderfully personal and an effective way to tell the story.  What are you doing to save the earth and save us all?

Homie

Homie / Danez Smith, read by the author, 98 pgs.

Wow, I'm not good with comprehending poetry but this has a lot of feeling.  I read more about the poet and this collection is influenced by the death of a close friend.  Honest and telling, we learn a lot by the deep feeling and language.  I'm so happy I listened to the author reading this because it reveals so much about the feelings of the words. Pretty fantastic.

Me & Patsy kickin' up dust

Me and Patsy kickin' up dust: my friendship with Patsy Cline / Loretta Lynn, read by Patsy Lynn Russell, 235 pgs.

Patsy took Loretta under her wing when they first met in Nashville.  They were young mothers and country singers.  Patsy was already at the top of her game, Loretta was still figuring it out.  Birds of a feather, they became best friends.  Here Lynn recounts her early marriage and meeting Patsy. They were fast friends until their relationship was cut short by Cline's death in an airplane crash.  Heart warming and tender, it was fun to hear stories of these two country singing greats causing a little trouble and making their way.

Acqua Alta

Acqua Alta (Commissario Brunetti Book 5) by Donna Leon  392 pp.

Commissario Guido Brunetti is called in to investigate the brutal beating of an American archaeologist who happens to be the partner of opera singer, Flavia Petrelli who was featured in Leon's first novel Death at La Fenice. Dottoressa Brett Lynch was beaten as a warning not to keep a meeting with a museum director who is later found dead. The motive of stolen antiquities threatens Dr. Lynch's life and career unless Brunetti can find the man in charge. All this happens during the seasonal Acqua Alta flooding in Venice which is another villain in this mystery.

The Hobbit

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien  322 pp.

I've been spending quarantine time doing a lot of re-reading of old favorites. This one doesn't take much description. The Hobbit of the title, Bilbo Baggins, has his quiet life interrupted by the arrival of Gandalf, the wizard, and a group of dwarfs. Soon he is enlisted in a quest to help the dwarfs retrieve their treasure which was stolen by the large, fearsome dragon, Smaug the Magnificent. It is on this quest that Bilbo acquires the magic ring from a creepy creature called Gollum. The ring allows him to assist the dwarfs in their successful adventure. The audiobook was read by Rob Inglis.

Poirot Investigates

Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie 268 pp.

I revisited this Poirot mystery because the audiobook was read by David Suchet, the consummate Poirot on screen. This is a set of fourteen short stories where Poirot uses his "little gray cells" to solve a variety of crimes frequently with his assistant Captain Hastings at his side. Suchet's narration is excellent and I believe he does the voice of Captain Hastings better than actor Hugh Fraser who narrated The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Fraser played the Hastings opposite Suchet in the popular PBS series "Poirot".

The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred . . .

The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant by Drew Hayes  300 pp.

Fred was born boring, lived boring, and died boring only to wake up again as a vampire. Now he's a vampire with self-esteem issues who is having a boring afterlife. That is, until he attends his high school reunion and hooks up with an old friend who investigates Parahumans (vampires, zombies, etc.) Soon Fred's life is not so boring and he ends up dealing with and occasionally befriending truck driving wereponies, chipper zombies, necromancers, and dragons. Amusing and enjoyable but not enough for me to continue with the rest of the series.

Death and Judgment

Death and Judgment aka A Venetian Reckoning by Donna Leon  302 pp.

A truck crashes in the mountains of northern Italy and its cargo, young women smuggled into the country for sex trafficking, are killed. In the meantime, a prominent businessman is found murdered. Commissario Guido Brunetti soon discovers some unsavory contacts of the businessman and uncovers a connection to the dead women. With the assistance of a prostitute working for one of the contacts, and putting himself in harm's way, Brunetti solves the case. This is my new favorite mystery series.

Disasterama!

Disasterama! Adventures in the Queer Underground 1977 -1997 by Alvin Orloff (2019) 232 pages

Disasterama! is a simultaneously entertaining and sobering look behind the curtain at the lives of gays in San Francisco in the era beginning just before the AIDS epidemic took off. Chapter 1 shows author Alvin Orloff, just 16, getting off the bus in a gay ghetto area, wandering about, watching young gays primp as older men eye them and choose them. Fast forward over the next 20 years: Orloff's adventures include his friendships, love interests, earning a living as a stripper, and much more. AIDS has a large part in the story: Orloff indicates that if one hadn't seen a friend around for a time, it was more likely that the person had died from AIDS than that he had simply moved away.

Being deficient in gay culture, I'm sure I missed a number of references that would have meaning for others, but I have no complaints. This memoir provided me with a captivating education.

The art of stillness

The art of stillness: adventures in going nowhere/ Pico Iyer, 78 pgs.

A good read for this time of quarantine and isolation. Why do people chose to tuck themselves away?  Here Iyer talks about his own "adventure" with a year off in semi-isolation and other people who have chosen to be mostly alone.  His point, I think, is that time with your own thoughts can be quite an adventure. This isn't about meditation per se but certainly encourages it as well us just being quiet.

Enter the Aardvark

Enter the Aardvark / Jessica Anthony read by Matt Amendt, 182 pgs.

Congressman Alexander Paine Wilson (R) is up for re-election but running against a strong contender and thinks maybe getting married will help his chances.  Unfortunately, he prefers spending time with men, one of whom has sent him a taxidermy aardvark after killing himself.  There is a parallel story of the taxidermist who stuffed the aardvark back in the 1800's and HIS preference for men.  In the end, the aardvark plays a large role in each man's life. Satire at its best. Well read with the right amount of snark by Matt Amendt.

Bilgewater

Bilgewater / Jane Gardam, 227 p.

Clearly I have made Jane Gardam my quarantine friend and comfort read, and this might be my favorite.  This is the hilarious and sweet coming-of-age story of Marigold Green, known to the boys in the boarding school where her father teaches as Bilgewater.  Motherless since birth, and wholly convinced that she is hideously ugly, Marigold nevertheless has a nearly idyllic sounding childhood with her loving father and their live-in helper Paula.  The narrative arc feels familiar but the story is filled with surprises.  Really lovely.

The Flight of the Maidens

The Flight of the Maidens / Jane Gardam, 278 p.

Hetty, Una and Liselotte leave school in 1946 in the north of England.  Will the postwar world open up for them as they hope?  Insightful and very funny.

A Bad Day for Sunshine

A Bad Day for Sunshine by Darynda Jones, 390 pages

Sunshine Vicram has just been elected sheriff of Del Sol, New Mexico, though she's not entirely sure how. All she knows is that her parents managed to get her on the ballot, she somehow won, and now she's in charge of the small crew of deputies in her kooky hometown. Of course, her tenure starts out rough, with some bad-omen muffins turning up, accusations of a stolen prize rooster, a mysteriously absent deputy, and the disappearance of a high school girl just before her 15th birthday, the last of which was prophesied by the missing teen when she was just 6. Throw in Sunshine's own teenage daughter and Sun's long-simmering crush on the town bad boy, and well, the new sheriff has more than enough on her plate.

The first in a planned series, this introduces some excellent characters and a humorous tone reminiscent of Janet Evanovich. I loved the setting (seriously wanting to visit New Mexico now!) and the various intertwined mysteries, though I had a bit of a bone to pick with the author's depiction of people on the autism spectrum. I may try the next book in the series when it comes out, as I really enjoyed the characters and am genuinely curious where this story will go next, though I really hope Jones gets herself educated about autism before then.

Check Please!

Check Please!: #Hockey and Check Please!: Sticks & Scones by Ngozi Ukazu, 288 pages and 352 pages, respectively

Eric Bittle is a former figure skater and was the captain of his co-ed high school hockey team, earning him a hockey scholarship to Samwell University. He's also a prodigious baker and compulsive vlogger, which makes him more than a bit nervous to join the jock world of Samwell men's hockey. However, he soon learns that there's more to the team than stinky locker rooms and bro culture, and he doesn't necessarily need to buy his way in with pies (though the team certainly appreciates them!).

Covering the four years of Bitty's college career, Check Please! is a love letter to the brotherhood of hockey teams, as well as an LGBT romance and a coming-of-age story. It's gorgeous, and funny, and wonderful. Ukazu has captured all of the things I love most about hockey in these two volumes, and thrown in enough baked goods to both make my mouth water and send me to my oven. I love it and can't recommend it enough!

The Mirror & the Light

The Mirror & the Light / Hilary Mantel, 757 p.

The third and mercifully final volume of the trilogy which begins with Wolf Hall followed by Bring up the Bodies.  After nearly 2,000 pages of the life of Thomas Cromwell, a commoner who rose to the heights of power during the reign of Henry VIII, I still can't understand why - why he was chosen as the subject for such an extraordinarily ambitious project, and why the books seem to have resonated with so many readers.  It's perfectly true that the writing is excellent and demonstrates a fantastic degree of research.  Cromwell was surrounded by sociopaths and backstabbers.  He was no sociopath, but he was rapacious for power and wealth, and he didn't hesitate to imprison and execute when he felt it beneficial, both to him and to the kingdom.  If he occasionally felt qualms about doing so only makes him more guilty.  Henry could (legitimately, I think) plead insanity; Cromwell has no such excuse.  I suppose he is the new European: capitalist, Calvinist, rational, and very cold. 

The Catalyst

The catalyst: how to change anyone's mind / Jonah Berger, read by Keith Nobb, 271 pgs.

Ha, if this were only a 5 or 6 page prescription that was guaranteed to work, we would be on our way to the biggest era of change in the history of the world.  Of course it doesn't work that way.  What motivates some people does not motivate them all.  The psychology behind the motivations of people and resistance are fascinating. Although everything seems pretty simple in the examples, real life is messier and implementing these suggestions won't be simple.  Of course it is always good to learn about new possibilities and methods to improve communication and hopefully bring people along when change is necessary. I listened to part of the audio book which was fine but got bogged down in some of the details so switched to the print version.

Joy at work

Joy at work: organizing your professional life / Marie Kondo and Scott Sonnenshein, 253 pgs.

Those of you familiar with the Konmari method of tidying will not find anything too new here.  The idea is that you don't need everything that you have and you should get rid of things you don't need.  The focus here is on the office and business including items, emails, personal contacts, and MEETINGS.  I am impressed with the partnership between these authors that help add a new dimension.  I also enjoyed reading about Kondo's own struggles as her business grew and she found herself over stretched and not finding much joy in her life.  She got herself back on track and made room for her job and her family.  I'm sure the authors are right about everything but I still need to actually make the move to clear things out.

Dept. of Speculation

Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill (2014) 177 pages

Jenny Offill's small book packs a wallop in its quiet way. The short chapters are not really composed of paragraphs, but what look like unrelated thoughts set near each other. Keep reading (it's impossible to stop, anyway) and a story grabs hold, pulling you into the lives of the wife, the husband, and the child (all unnamed). Pithy thoughts, some by famous philosophers, are sprinkled around the boundaries of the sketched-out story line.

Here's something that stuck with me (page 114): "... now it seems possible that the truth about getting older is that there are fewer and fewer things to make fun of until finally there is nothing you are sure you will never be."

Thoughtful and poignant.

The Family Fang

The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson (2011) 309 pages

Annie and Buster Fang spend their youth pulled into performance art created by their parents, Caleb and Camille Fang. It's clear that neither enjoys these episodes, where they are known as Child A and Child B. As adults, both of them find themselves adrift. Annie, an actress, and Buster, a novelist, each end up back at their parents' home in Tennessee. When their parents disappear, their bloody car found at a rest stop on the highway, Annie and Buster chalk it up to yet another performance art piece, in spite of the fact that the police think their parents are probably dead.

The story alternates between Annie and Buster's childhood experiences as props in their parents' performances‒usually at shopping malls‒and the present, where the two decide on a plan to find out whether their parents are really now dead.

Conjure Women

Conjure Women by Afia Atakora, 400 pages

During Slaverytime, Rue learned how to be a conjure woman and healer for the slaves at Marse Charles' cotton plantation. Rue's mother, May Belle, helped keep the older slaves healthy and helped usher many new babies into the world, while concocting several "hoodoo conjures" and "curses" for the slaves and masters alike. No matter that these conjures and curses pretty much amounted to satchels of herbs or funny sticks--what mattered is that the people who asked for them believed in their power.

Now that the Civil War has ended though, Rue is on her own trying to help the former slaves have babies and recover from all sorts of illnesses and injuries. But two people are making it mighty difficult for the former slaves to believe in Rue's ministrations: traveling preacher Bruh Abel and Bean, a light-skinned, black-eyed child that everyone believes is a familiar of the devil. Between these two, Rue has enough trouble, but throw in a few complicating secrets, and she has quite the task at hand.

Told in chapters that hop back and forth between Slaverytime, Freedomtime, and Wartime, this debut novel weaves a complex Civil War-era story in which the war itself serves only as a way to mark time and all the action focuses on the residents of a single former plantation. It's a fantastic look at the lives of African American women during the war, and I highly recommend it.

Mexican Gothic

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, 299 pages

It's 1950 when flighty socialite Noemi is summoned from her home in Mexico City to the home of her newlywed cousin, Catalina, who has suddenly become ill, withdrawn, and something of a hermit in her husband's family home. When Noemi arrives at the remote hilltop house, she senses that something is definitely not right with this strangely silent and rotting home. Is it haunted? Or is something even more nefarious going on with the family?

A callback to the works of Shirley Jackson, Daphne DuMaurier, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Mexican Gothic is creepy, atmospheric, and keeps the reader guessing as Noemi tries to save her cousin and herself. I wasn't too excited about reading this one before bed, but perhaps that's because so many things happen in this book that are possibly dreams...but probably not? A good read for fans of gothic horror.

This book will be published June 30, 2020.

Tightrope

Tightrope: Americans reaching for hope / Nicholas D. Kristof & Sheryl WuDunn, 304 pgs. Read by Jennifer Garner

The authors examine many of America's ills with data and definitions but also with personal stories from people.  Many of these people are personal friends who grew up in Yamhill, the town where Kristof lived as a child and where his mother still lives.  There is something jarring about these personal stories.  These are people were on high school sports teams with the author or rode the same bus.  This personal view is interesting for the reader.  This is the first time I've heard Jennifer Garner as a narrator.  She did a wonderful job.

Truly Madly Guilty

Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty (2016) 415 pages

Australian author Liane Moriarty, author of Big Little Lies, The Last Anniversary, Nine Perfect Strangers, and more, brings us three couples whose lives have changed because of an incident that occurred during a backyard barbecue. Clementine, a cellist preparing for an audition with the Sydney Royal Chamber Orchestra, is married to Sam, who has just gotten a new job marketing energy drinks. They have two small children. Erika and her husband Oliver are both accountants, enjoying the rigor of jobs that make up for the uncertainty they each experienced as children of dysfunctional parents. Vid and Tiffany love to entertain, and have plenty of money to do so with relish. The reader is kept in suspense about the barbecue for what seems like too long as Moriarty weaves the story, going back and forth through the past two months, with a few stops at the childhoods of Clementine and Erika, who've known each other for many years. But as the story unwinds, it turns out that all the details gleaned during the lead-up to the incident contribute strongly to the story's impact. Great multi-layered story incorporating marriages, friendships, children and secrets.

Hiding in plain sight

Hiding in plain sight: the invention of Donald Trump and the erosion of America / Sarah Kendzior, 273 pgs.

After reading this book, you may find yourself pondering...is democracy even a thing anymore? Crazy times is all you can really think as you marvel at how things have come to this.  The country isn't easy to live in anymore but there aren't any obvious other choices either.  What will it take to get the average person interested in the decline? It isn't that they aren't interested, there are limits to what any individual can do.  Kendzior spends a lot of time talking about these issues and warning people yet is still met with surprise when events she foretold come to pass. Not exactly uplifting but should be required reading.

Palaces for the people

Palaces for the people: how social infrastructure can help fight inequality, polarization, and the decline of civic life / Eric Klinenberg, 277 pgs.

This book doesn't focus exclusively on libraries but certainly gives a big shout out to the role a well funded library plays in the community by welcoming everyone. Libraries provide a place and the resources for gathering and self education.  There are other types of "social infrastructure" that are mentioned and that are important but this book returns to libraries over and over.  Of course it is nice to hear that libraries are important and read about some of the ways we improve communities.  It is not so nice to read about all the ways libraries are threatened. 

Lady Stuff

Lady Stuff: secrets to being a woman / Loryn Brantz, 128 pgs.

Revealing of all the things you need to be a woman.  If you haven't read this, you may not be doing it right. Ok, the secrets aren't really all that secret but still, a cute style and fun to read.

April totals!

Christa 12/3063
Jan  5/1212
Josh  1/342
Kara  14/4536
Karen  7/2906
Kathleen  7/1538
Linda  6/1538
Lindsay  8/1896
Ruthie  1/334

Total: 61/17419

The Sisters Grimm

The Sisters Grimm by Menna van Praag, 430 pages

Goldie, Scarlet, Bea, and Liyana will all turn 18 just as October turns into November. At that point, these strangers to each other will all enter a world they all thought was simply a childhood dream and be forced to make a decision: good or evil. This is the way of things for Sisters Grimm, particularly for these four, the favorite daughters of demonic Wilhelm Grimm. Unfortunately for them, they are almost completely unaware of what's coming on their birthday night, though they are increasingly noticing strange things happening, from mysterious strangers suddenly appearing to literal sparks flying from their fingertips.

Told in short vignettes focusing on each of the sisters and on Leo, a star soldier sent to hunt Goldie, the interwoven tales brought to life four very different (but also remarkably similar?) teenage girls. I'll admit that the way this book was structured was definitely a challenge to reading it -- van Praag uses first-, second-, and third-person narration, as well as flashback sections, throughout the book -- and it may have benefited from a heavier editing hand. This was our emergency online book for Orcs & Aliens, so I'm interested to see what the group makes of this somewhat confusing book.

Stateway's Garden

Stateway's Garden: stories / Jasmon Drain, read by Guy Lockard, Shayna Small and Sullivan Jones, 288 pgs.

A coming of age story set in the projects in Chicago.  Stateway's Garden is a real place that was eventually torn down.  Most of these stories revolve around two brothers, Tracy and Jacob.  They are dealing with the ravages of poverty, a mom who is always working and the absent fathers, each mostly unknown to their sons.  The dialog is realistic and relatable.  The situations are not always relatable but that is the point, I think.  The audio is well done by a small cast.