The Nation That Never Was

 
The Nation That Never Was by Kermit Roosevelt III (2022) 250pp 

Sorry, this is not a legal thriller, but a testament to legal scholarship. Roosevelt (yes, that family) is a professor of law and the rigor that comes with that profession permeates the book.  The simple contention of the work is that the ideal of the U.S. Constitution, originally penned by the “founding fathers”, was only completed upon the addition of post civil war modifications, specifically the addition of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments (the 19th amendment fits in this category as well).  

Roosevelt walks us through the background of the compromises and limitations of the 18th century version; not placing blame, but simply showing the context of power and economics at play at that time. A fragile confederation of states had failed and the modifications needed to maintain the republic were a compromise.  Delineating the numerous intractable legal and societal changes that led to the Civil War, he even argues that the infamous Dred Scott Supreme Court case was decided correctly as per the law of the day.

The conclusion of the Civil War and the assassination of President Lincoln forced the Union into executive and legislative turmoil threatening the legal end of slavery.  The Reconstruction Congress commences to not just frame a series of statutes toward the goal of emancipation, but completes a “radical” modification of the Constitution.  

Roosevelt walks us through the problems and trauma of the decades from the end of Reconstruction to the “second reconstruction” culminating in passage of the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s. He then emphasizes the contemporary back-sliding and touches on solutions, including a clear explanation why reparations are needed, justified, and economically sound.

His conclusion is simple — that the Constitution is a “living document” and that the process to make “a more perfect union” is a continuous and sacred duty. 

Jaws

 Jaws by Peter Benchley (1974, 278 pages)

This review contains book and movie spoilers!

I was so excited to read this book because of course, I love the 1975 movie. Perhaps it's unfair to compare them. In my mind Chief Brody is Roy Scheider! But in the book, he's a completely different character. He's more aggressive, mean, and impatient. Perhaps most of it stems from the shark terrorizing the water, though. He has the same care for the general good of the townspeople as in the movie, but his interpersonal relationships are a mess.

I wish I were joking when I say. That sixty pages. SIXTY. Were not about the shark. Or even the effects of the shark on the town. It is about Chief Brody's wife cheating on him. With, of all people, the scientist Matt Hooper. It was cringey and boring. It's also pretty clear that Mr. Benchley had some misogynist views.

The action though? Incredible. It was only the final 30-40 pages, but the build up and suspense (minus the whole cheating subplot) was great. It was genuinely pretty scary and I couldn't put it down. The fear from something so unforgiving, so unrelatable, so unrelentless, attacking you just to attack is terrifying. I think what I was looking for was a novel version of the movie and while the plots are pretty much the same, this isn't it.

What Feasts at Night

What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher, 160 pages

In this follow-up to the mushroom-horror novella What Moves the Dead, Lt. Alex Easton is returning to a hunting lodge they inherited many years before before hosting a traveling mycologist for a visit. When they arrive, Easton discovers that the caretaker has died of mysterious causes — though when pressed, the locals say that it was the moroi, a dark creature that causes nightmares as it sits on your chest and sucks out your breath while you sleep.

I love just about everything T. Kingfisher writes, and this is no exception. She creates a very realistic fictitious country, with local legends that are truly horrifying to consider — who among us hasn't woken up breathless from a nightmare at some point? While it doesn't hurt to read What Moves the Dead first, it's certainly not required. Either way, this one's well worth a read.

*This book will be published Feb. 13, 2024.

Pride and Joy

Pride and Joy by Louisa Onomé, 336 pages

Joy is in the midst of setting up for her mother Mary's 70th birthday party when the birthday girl suddenly dies while napping. Already stressed about the party preparations and onslaught of pushy relatives and party guests, Joy's frustrations skyrocket when her aunt declares that a cow has prophesized Mary's resurrection two days hence (on Easter, as it happens). Before Joy knows what's happening, a public access religious program is sending a reporter to interview the family and livestream the resurrection, while hordes of strangers crowd the driveway of the rented home to hold a vigil in anticipation of Mary's return. Throw in a slew of self-centered relatives, an ex-husband Joy still cares for, and a pile of revelations, and it's no wonder Joy is ready to scream.

There's something that I love about dysfunctional family stories, and hoo-boy is this family dysfunctional! The mix of Nigerian culture, religious zeal, and Joy's control-freak nature is a perfect storm of nuttiness, which made the book feel a bit frantic and out of control at times (though, as that could also describe the characters, it's appropriate). If I could change anything, I'd give it a few extra pages of setup at the beginning before the craziness sets in. Otherwise, this was an excellent depiction of grief's many stages in the form of Joy and her relatives.

*This book will be published March 12, 2024.

The Witch's Heart

The Witch's Heart by Genevieve Gornichec, 361 pages

This was my second reading of this feminist retelling of Ragnarok, and I stand by everything I wrote in my original blog post — it's compelling, fascinating, and absolutely heartbreaking in the best possible way. I can't wait to see what the Orcs & Aliens book club makes of it on Feb. 12!

The Daughters' War

The Daughters' War by Christopher Buehlman, 416 pages

In this prequel to The Blacktongue Thief, former soldier Galva tells the tale of her war days, fighting off the goblins as they ravaged humankind. The only daughter of a duke, Galva could have avoided war (or at least ended up in a cushier position), but instead she signed up for a new type of unit, one that is paired with corvids, huge mutant birds that have been trained to fight on the side of humans. It's not a particularly pretty story (it is set in the midst of a particularly brutal and long war) but it does seem to be pretty true to soldiering, with long spells of boredom, wet socks, and hunger punctuated by brief terrifying battles. It's also quite a switch from The Blacktongue Thief — which was quite a bit more fun, with heists and odd pairings — and I can't say I enjoyed the change in tone, despite the excellent writing. I hope that any further books in this world are closer to the original story in style.

*This book will be published June 25, 2024.

What You Are Looking For Is in the Library

 What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama (trans. Alison Watts), 304 pgs

These five stories all orbit one small community library in Tokyo. Each of the protagonists feels stuck in their own lives; until, by some circumstance or another, they end up in the community center library and meet it's enigmatic reference librarian. She gives each of them the books they are looking for, as well as one book that seems strange and random, and one small felted toy. Each protagonist soon begins to feel like fate is pushing them in the direction they want to go, and begin feeling like their lives are changing for the better.

This is a phenomenal book. I feel like it's especially resonant in January, but it would be great at any time. Each of the protagonists is very different, but their problems are all very mundane and common. It feels very comforting that the steps between the life that was draining their spirits and a much more fulfilling life are often small, nearly insignificant changes. It makes fulfillment feel very attainable. It was also very interesting to see each of the protagonists occasionally weave into each other's stories. Realistically these stories take place in a very small area, but it is still very interesting to see the ways in which lives are connected to other lives, and to get little peeks at how previous protagonists are doing. It also helps emphasize the aspects of community building that are a major theme that runs through the novel. I would recommend this book to pretty much anyone, and I'm planning on buying a copy for myself to reread.

Pretty Boys Are Poisonous

 Pretty Boys Are Poisonous by Megan Fox, 176 pages.

I picked this poetry book up mostly as a curiosity, because until it came across my desk at the library I didn't realize that Megan Fox was writing a poetry book. The poems inside deal are at least semi-autobiographical, dealing mostly with her history of abusive relationships. Overall the very short and punchy poems in this book felt like they were designed to be sharable on Instagram, but I found them compelling nonetheless. I especially found that listing the titles in a different color at the end of a poem was a very strong choice. It often re-contextualized the poems after I was done reading them, and the titles themselves often felt as meaningful as the rest of the poem. There are also quite a lot of illustrations by Audrey Kawasaki throughout, which I thought were neat but not all that compelling. I wasn't extremely impressed by this collection, but I do think it was very interesting to flip through.

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody by Will Cuppy  240 pp.

This work was a bestseller in 1950 and a favorite of General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Cuppy researched verifiable facts about many famous figures of history and combined them with his hilarious snarky comments to produce an historical and laugh-out-loud funny version of times past. Where else can you read about what a delightful companion Montezuma was while beheading ten slaves a day. Or that the first white child born in America was not Virginia Dare, as we were taught in school, but Snorri, a nephew of Leif Ericsson. I am guilty of passing over footnotes in many books. But if you ignore them in this one you miss out on half the fun and lots of the author's snark. I laughed out loud at many parts of book. It's a shame it isn't longer. The simple illustrations by William Steig, creator of Shrek, add to the enjoyment.  

The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot

The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin  326 pp.

This is the story of an unlikely but wonderful friendship. Lenni Pettersson is seventeen years old and living in the terminal ward of a Scottish hospital. She is still full of life and mischief even though she is dying, essentially alone, having been left by both of her parents. When art classes begin at the hospital, she is dissatisfied with the class for her own age group and instead joins the senior citizen class. There she becomes friends with the purple pajama wearing Margot. Together they realize that their ages added together make one hundred years. They hatch a plan of making one hundred paintings to commemorate each year. There are stories that go with the paintings which tell the lives of Lenni and Margot over the years. Of course, Margot has many more stories than Lenni but Lenni's in hospital antics make up for her lack of stories. I listened to the audiobook version, read in two voices that bring to life both women. Even though it is ultimately about death, there is a lot of life being lived in the story. It wasn't quite what I expected but I enjoyed it.

Unto Us a Son is Given

Unto Us a Son is Given by Donna Leon  259 pp.

Book 28 in the Commissario Brunetti series. Guido Brunetti is approached by his father-in-law, Count Falier, in an attempt to stop the man from adopting an heir. Because of the intricacies of Italian law, the estate of a person without offspring will be divided among the closest family members whether that person desires it or not. However, it is possible to adopt an heir at any age. This is what Gonzalo Rodriguez de Tejada plans to do - adopt the latest of his young lovers who would then be entitled to Gonzalo's entire fortune. When Gonzalo suddenly drops dead, a new objection to the adoption arises which results in the death of a seemingly innocent woman and old friend. Brunetti investigates and uncovers more than he expected. No spoilers.

How to Solve Your Own Murder

How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin, 368 pages

In 1965, Frances sat for a reading with a fortune teller, and the doom-filled fortune ended up changing the course of her life — for the next several decades, she tried her best to figure out who would murder her as the fortune foretold, becoming the eccentric, paranoid old woman who lived in the sprawling estate outside the sleepy town of Castle Knoll. 

Nearly 60 years later, her great niece Annie is called to a meeting with Frances (who she has never met) at her grand home. But when Annie and the others called to the meeting arrive, they find Frances dead — and whoever solves the murder will inherit Frances' fortune. The trouble is, since Frances dedicated her life to investigating everyone she knew, there are more than a few suspects to focus on, and there's a ticking clock to get it figured out.

This book had a bit of a slow start (the sleuthing didn't start until more than 100 pages in), but it ended up being a fun puzzle mystery. It's supposed to be a series starter, and assuming that most of the background legwork was done in this book, I can only imagine how delightful subsequent books will be. Recommended for fans of Anthony Horowitz and Knives Out.

*This book will be published March 26, 2024.

Pride and Preston Lin

Pride and Preston Lin by Christina Hwang Dudley, 288 pages

Snarky English major Lissie is the middle of three sisters who were taken in by their aunt and uncle after Lissie's parents died. While Lissie's younger sister focuses on being a tween and improving her times on the swim team, Lissie and their eldest sister help out by waiting tables at their relatives' Chinese restaurant. Or a least they do until Lissie accidentally serves a dish that triggers an allergic reaction in a customer and another member of the party, the haughty Preston Lin, writes a scathing article about the restaurant in the local student newspaper. Suddenly, Lissie finds herself unemployed, but still trying to defend the restaurant online while helping shepherd her younger sister to swim practice.

As can be assumed from the title, this is a modern, Chinese American twist on Jane Austen's classic Pride & Prejudice. While I'm all for retellings of classics, I feel like so many of the romance novels I've read recently focus specifically on P&P, and this one doesn't really have anything to lift it above any of the others. Perhaps that's because the play Lissie's writing is ALSO a P&P retelling, which feels a bit too on-the-nose. OK, but not great.

*This book will be published March 19, 2024.

Something Wilder

Something Wilder by Christina Lauren (2022) 361 pages

I've been wanting to read something by the Christina Lauren duo (Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings) for a while, and Something Wilder jumped at me. Lily Wilder, along with her best friend Nicole, are just scraping by while giving pretend treasure-hunt tours in Utah. It has been 10 years since Lily's one true love, Leo, had left, and her only wish now is to get enough money to buy back the ranch that her late father, Duke, had sold in Wyoming. When she learns that the ranch is up for sale again, she wishes that the stories her dad had told about Butch Cassidy hiding his loot from a bank robbery long ago were true. Her dad spent a lot of time in Utah, searching the canyons for the treasure, and when he sold the ranch in Wyoming, that's where they lived until he died.

Meanwhile, Leo is New York, still pining because Lily never contacted him again after he left her because his mother was injured. His mother died and he stayed in New York to raise his younger sister. He writes computer code to thwart hackers and is a whiz at solving puzzles. One of his friends plans a trip for four of them to go on one of Lily's treasure hunt tours, and Leo is blindsided when he sees Lily. Likewise for her. They eventually have "the talk," the one where they discover that their separation was not wanted by either of them, but Lily can't break down her wall, not wanting to be so hurt again.

The group sets out on horseback, with minimal provisions. The guys are suffering from the rigor of the trip while the women easily handle the horses, heat, and meals. When one of the guys, Terry, goes rogue, all bets are off. Especially when it seems that the notebook filled with Duke's old maps and notes might actually show that finding a real treasure is possible after all. But danger awaits!

Sphere

 Sphere by Michael Crichton (1987, 385 pages)

I picked this book up because I had just finished Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea  by Jules Verne and heard Sphere pulls heavily from it. In this sci-fi mystery, a group of scientists is pulled together to investigate an airplane crash in the middle of the ocean. The list comes by the recommendation of psychologist Dr. Norman Johnson when the U.S. Navy asked him for a report on human responses to potential alien contact.

The story becomes claustrophobic as the scientists and Navy personnel live solely in a cramped underwater habitat. They have to don diving suits to access the underwater crash-- which they identify as American-made, but nothing they recognize. It becomes a little thriller-y when the human psyche is pushed to the limits of underwater living. Mysterious creatures show and events start happening after the discovery of a large polished sphere on board the crash site. A lot less dense than Jules Verne books, and a lot more mystery, but it does incorporate a few Vernian ideas.

I tend to love Michael Crichton books, and this one was interesting but left a lot to be desired. In my opinion, this book is for those who enjoy the fiction part more than the science part of science fiction. It has the mystery thriller part of Crichton's Andromeda Strain but fewer explanations and more focus on human interaction.

The Book of Delights

 The Book of Delights by Ross Gay, 288 pages.

This book of essays was born out of a challenge. Every day for a year, birthday to birthday, the author (a poet) wrote by hand a short essay about one of the day's delights. The essays meander through a variety of topics, but are consistently filled with a joy that's uplifting to read. This is especially impressive considering how often he also thinks of heavy topics, such as racism and grief. Overall the reading experience of this book is (if you'll excuse me for being obvious) delightful, and I think I would recommend it to pretty much anyone. 

Bonus: the audiobook (which I listened to) is read by the author, which adds a lot of personality to the essays.

The Island Between Us

 The Island Between Us by Wendy Hudson (2021, 320 pages)

Love and adventure on a remote Scottish island. Survival skills and drama. Storm surges, lack of food, and finding shelter. New year's day 20 years before.

Georgia hosts excursions on a Scottish island for people looking for outdoor skills, bonding time, and just a space to get away. She teaches her group how to build shelter; find, hunt, and prep food; and take care of themselves and others. Kelsey is a successful actor in LA looking for some privacy and a connection to a familiar name. While their romance blossoms, a cast of characters causing trouble and creating comedy end up stranded on the island. Trying to keep the group calm, Georgia tries to lead the group she's responsible for to safety.
Highly recommend the audiobook purely for the narrator's adorable Scottish accent.

 

Immortal Longings

Immortal Longings by Chloe Gong, 369 pages

The twin cities of San-Er host an annual competition where the victor wins a king's ransom (literally — King Kasa shells out a boatload of money to the winner), but the other 87 contestants end up dead, killed by the victor on the way to the top. Calla, a princess who has been on the run since murdering her family five years earlier, has finally landed in the competition, and is determined to win so that she can kill Kasa when he shakes her hand. But she's facing fierce competition from Anton, a former noble who has been cast out and wants to win to pay off the medical bills of his childhood love, who has been laying in a coma for seven years. Complicating the whole competition and the world of San-Er is the ability of most people to jump from body to body, making it difficult to tell who is a competitor, who's an ally, and who is a mere bystander.

This is loosely based on the titular characters of Shakespeare's Antony & Cleopatra, with their toxic co-dependent relationship forming the basis of Calla and Anton's violent and sexually charged relationship. Jumping bodies is a bit hard to wrap one's mind around, and there were several things about this world that were more than a bit confusing. Still, it was a compelling read, and I'm curious to see where the rest of this trilogy goes.

(BTW, I **love** the cover of this book.)

Tyranny of the Minority

Tyranny of the Minority by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, © 2023, 368 pgs. 

On February 6, 1934, far-right leaning groups stormed the French National Assembly building. The tension in France had been building since the end of World War I, but with the Great Depression, political instability and general unrest, a dam finally broke. Fascist groups organized and stormed the facility, throwing rocks, setting buses on fire, breaking windows, firing guns, slashing the legs of police horses, crying "Hang the deputies!" Some were killed and hundreds were injured. 

Though France was able to beat back the rioters, there was an investigation that wasn't taken seriously by all of parliament. "Mainstream conservatives' sympathy for the anti-democratic extremists was a major factor in the attack." They downplayed and justified the rioters. As a result, French democracy was hobbled and their democracy would be dead within a few years. Sound familiar? 

In their previous book, How Democracies Die, Levitsky and Ziblatt, two Harvard professors of government, highlight how democracies backslide and how elected leaders subvert the constitution to enable more power for their party. Here, the authors take a different spin on tyranny, focusing on "counter-majoritarian" mechanisms and institutions that thwart progressive, majority-backed legislation and work to undermine democracy itself from within. 

Lots of illuminating information to be had here. The electoral college was originally conceived to undermine poorer classes of people deciding who would run the country--America is the only country that continues to use this system--every other major democratic country has removed it. Know who the most democratic country is? Not us by a long shot. America is very much like a ship; you can't turn it on a dime. It takes decades and generations and social movements to make the kinds of change a majority of us all agree on. But counter-majority institutions and the people elected who promote them threaten to derail our democracy into something we can't even imagine. There's kind of an eerie sense of history repeating itself in this book, but highly recommended for understanding where we are now and where we might end up by next year. 

Contact

 Contact by Carl Sagan (1985, 432 pages)

 In his only full length fiction book, beloved astronomer and original Cosmos host Carl Sagan speculates on how aliens might first make contact with us mere Earthlings.

Ellie is a smart, driven, and creative astronomer who studies radio waves whose interest in aliens leads her to work for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). She spends years pointing her radio telescopes at different points in the sky, looking for any sign of intelligent life, when one day she picks up on signals in repeating prime numbers. Ellie works with her team to unfold the message, fight the government wanting to shut it down, and collaborate beyond national borders in the name of humanity.

It's clear the aliens want communication, but the message received spark worldwide backlash, conspiracies, and religious bursts both for and against alien life. This is a heartwarming story about one woman's passion for extraterrestrials and views on the world around her, and her journey as one of the first humans to initiate contact. Anyone with a love of science, especially astronomy, is sure to enjoy this book!

Timeline

Timeline by Michael Crichton (1999, 464 pages)

One thing Michael Crichton is really good at is faking science. To the average reader, he'll have you believing that we can clone dinosaurs and travel back in time. He cites "scientific papers" with a bibliography. He often has characters explaining to others the actual "science" so that even non-STEM-inclined readers get a rough idea.

In the middle of the Arizona desert, a man mysteriously appears, injured, with an odd map in his pocket. There's an eerie connection to an archaeology team working in France, who are funded by a big tech company, ITC. An irregular find in the 14th century castle ruins combined with the lead researcher on the team going missing lead a group of archaeologists and historians to the ITC headquarters basement. The company's been working on a secret project for years, but it might not be as safe or reliable as the PR team makes it out to be.

This is easily one of my favorite Crichton books; it has meaningful and complex characters, mystery, suspense, and of course, science baloney.

Rogues

 Rogues Edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, 806 pages.

Thieves, tricksters, and all-purpose morally gray protagonists abound in this short story collection. And I, who tend to enjoy that sort of thing, had a great time. Like any anthology, some stories were stronger than others, but that's to be expected. This collection in particular also has a lot of short stories that are part of larger series, which makes them less interesting if you haven't read anything in the worlds that they are set in. I did manage to find a few short stories I liked so much I'm inspired to find books by their authors (Tough Times All Over by Joe Abercrombie in particular has convinced me I really need to pick up one of his novels, and Scott Lynch's short story was also exceptional). Overall, I think this is a very good collection to get from the library and pick through whatever seems interesting.

8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster

 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster by Mirinae Lee, 304 pages.

An old woman at the end of her life tells her life story to an obituary writer in a South Korean nursing home; a story so astonishing that the writer has a hard time knowing what about it is true. The woman, who has had many names, was born in a small town in North Korea near the demilitarized zone, in a time before that zone existed. She lived through an extremely tumultuous century of Korean history and experienced much of it directly, living as a war refuge, a slave to the Japanese military, a North Korean spy, and many more identities besides. 

This book, in addition to being extremely informative, is very well written from a literary standpoint. We follow our protagonist through many tragedies, but the book doesn't seem to delight or wallow in them. We also follow her through many joys and triumphs, and that balance makes it much easier to keep reading this excellent story. I was very impressed overall, and would definitely read another book by the author if she published one. I would recommend this in particular for people with an interest in Korean history, fans of historical fiction in general, and people who appreciate a powerful and resilient female protagonist.

Five Days in November

Five Days in November by Clint Hill & Lisa McCubbin  243 pp.

Clint Hill is the Secret Service agent know as the man who jumped on the back of President Kennedy's limousine after Kennedy was shot. Hill's reason for his actions were to protect the First Lady who was his charge. He already knew the President was fatally injured from his vantagepoint in the Secret Service car following the limo. In this book he recounts that fated trip to Texas almost minute by minute. He also explains what made this trip a nightmare for the Secret Service even before the shooting. Kennedy's insistence on riding in an open car in multiple motorcades through thousands of onlookers essentially made the President a sitting duck target for anyone wanting to do him harm. Frequent stops to allow the crowd to shake hands with JFK and Jackie added to the hazards. Hill doesn't gloss over the the gory details including his viewing of the President's head wound. As he was trained, Hill's account is factual and mostly unemotional (except where the emotions are wholly appropriate). I appreciate Agent Hill's account of an event that occurred when I was in kindergarten but was unforgettable even for a five year old.  

Love, Theoretically

 Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood (2023, 400 pages)

If you are looking for a spicy, sciencey romance, look no further. Ali Hazelwood creates adorable, funny characters in a classic enemies to lovers scenario full of physics jokes and puns.

Elsie is an up and coming theoretical physicist, always trying to please everyone. She's also a girlfriend-for-hire, supplementing her horrible academia pay with pretending to be whoever her fake date of the night needs. Jack is an established tenure professor of experimental physics with a grudge for theorists. And also her favorite fake-boyfriend's brother. He's obnoxious, pompous, protective, and oh so handsome. She doesn't even like blonds. But the way those heterochromatic eyes look at her...

Their worlds intertwine when Elsie applies for a tenure-track position at MIT, where Jack runs the physics institute. He can't stop looking at her, and she can't stop hating him. Right?

These Things Linger

These Things Linger by Dan Franklin, 264 pages

When he was a teenager, Alex and his then-girlfriend Lacey started (but never finished) a ritual to bring back her older brother, who had died in the army. Years later, when Alex's estranged Uncle Matty dies, Alex does the ritual again, in the hopes of asking his late uncle a few questions he'd never asked. This time, the ritual works, and Alex brings back Matty... as well as something else.

The premise and the characters of this story are sound (poor kid escaping home, complicated feelings of grief, good intentions go super bad) but the execution and plot are all over the place. Every time I thought I got a handle on what was going on, the story swerved — but not in a good way. Meh.

This book will be published Feb. 1, 2024.

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett, 317 pages

Emily Wilde is one of the world's most knowledgeable experts on fairies in 1901, and she's nearly finished with her encyclopedia, which she hopes will become an essential reference source for her colleagues (and also secure her tenure, that most elusive of goals for professors). To finish up, she travels to a cold northerly land to learn about the wintry fae that live there. But after her arrival, she becomes a bit more involved with the people of the rural town where she's based, and also with the local fae community, to a disturbing degree.

This was an interesting take on fairy stories, though I had trouble suspending disbelief over a few things (namely that Emily would have any doubts about the presence of a fairy noble — she's too well versed in the lore and too smart to doubt herself). I loved her dog though, and if he's around in the sequel, it may make it worth picking up when it comes out in a few months. We shall see.

Molly

Molly by Blake Butler (2023) 316 pages

I confess that I didn't know about the writer Blake Butler, who has published 9 full-length books, until I heard a bit of controversy over whether he should have "told all" in his memoir about his late wife, Molly Brodak, who took her own life in 2020. 

Molly was a college teacher and a poet who had been published widely, and may have been best known for her memoir "Bandit," in which she went into the effects her father‒a bank robber‒had on his family. Molly was a perfectionist in both writing and baking, but never seemed to trust that she was good enough or worthy enough. Blake has a strong work ethic, too, and is a devoted son to his parents, but he admits to having a temper and to drinking to a blackout state regularly.

Blake lets us into his relationship with Molly, starting on the day she kills herself, and then details how they met and gives the often-bumpy, but not fully chronological trajectory of their 10-year relationship, as well as the time after she has died, when he finds out things about Molly that he never would have suspected. Blake's writing is engaging, in spite of the difficult topic. Sections are separated by lots of white space, which makes it more readable. He quotes Molly's work frequently, and includes many photos.

 

The Navigating Fox

 The Navigating Fox by Christopher Rowe, 160 pages.

Quintus Shu'al is the world's only knowledgeable fox, and he alone has the power to navigate people through the silver roads. But his reputation is in shambles after the total loss of his last expedition party, so when the chance to redeem himself is presented (and to get the answers about himself that he so desperately craves) he has to take it, even if it means navigating a party of knowledgeable beasts and humans to the literal gates of hell. 

This was a really cool little book. I especially liked the worldbuilding that sat comfortably between fantasy and an alternate history where Rome never fell. Unfortunately, I feel like this cool worldbuilding might have contributed a bit to the structural confusion of this book. The bones of The Navigating Fox feel like it wants to be a fable, especially with the talking animals on a quest. However, the novella isn't really structured like a fable (for example, a strong emphasis on setting and complex characters is good for a story, but not very important for a fable), and this conflict of identity feels like it held the story back a little. That being said, it was still very fun to read! It was exciting and engaging, and I'm definitely still glad I read it, even if the ending leaves something to be desired.

We Could Be...Bowie and his Heroes

We Could Be...Bowie and his Heroes, by Tom Hagler, consultant edited by Tony Visconti, 2021, 400 pgs. 

To kick-off our new, music-centered book discussion group, Rhythm and Books, we're starting with this fairly recent book about the thin white duke himself, David Bowie. But this isn't a traditional biography--it's kind of hard to pigeon-hole exactly what kind of book this is. The author worked with legendary producer Tony Visconti to collect stories from celebrities, rock starts, and artists about their interaction with the famous glam star. Chrissie Hyde, Slash, Dave Grohl, and so many more--all describe meeting the star as their "Bowie moment"--the moment they realized they were talking to a living legend. Each encounter is dedicated only a few pages at most, with brief, hilarious and sometimes illuminating vignettes about how Bowie got his start, how he maneuvered drugs and shifting music trends, all the way up to his final days, as he knew he was dying but was able to keep it a secret from virtually everyone. One of my favorites was Bowie inadvertently giving Grace Jones the idea for her Christmas song during the Pee-Wee Herman Christmas Special (we just watched that for the holiday so it was fresh in my mind). Seriously fun, quick ready, recommended for adults and music enthusiasts. 

The Country of the Blind

The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight by Andrew Leland, 339 pages

When he was a teenager, Andrew Leland was diagnosed with a degenerative retinal disorder that would slowly reduce his vision over time, eventually leaving him blind. In this fascinating book, Leland muses on his experience of becoming blind and the way it changes his relationships with loved ones, strangers, and the world around him. At the same time, he also offers up plenty of information about the history of governmental and private programs for the blind, technological innovations for blind people, and the larger blind community. This was a great book, and I can't recommend it enough. (Also, I listened to the audiobook, which was read by the author, and it was fantastic.)

South of Sepharad

South of Sepharad by Eric Z. Weintraub, 334 pages

Vidal ha-Rofeh is a Jewish doctor in 1492 Granada when the Spanish conquerors sign the Alhambra Decree, giving all Jews within the city three months to either convert to Catholicism or leave Spain. If they don't do one or the other by the time this "grace period" is over, the penalty is death. Vidal's oldest daughter has already converted (she married a Catholic man that Vidal healed) and Vidal's wife wants to convert to stay with her and the home that's been in their family for generations. But Vidal thinks leaving is safer, and his family soon joins a caravan of 200 Grenadian Jews traveling to Fez, Morocco to resettle. The book follows both Vidal as he tries to balance his family life and work as a physician, as well as his daughter Catalina, who comes under the scrutiny of Inquisitors in Grenada.

There hasn't been a ton of fiction written about the Jewish expulsion from Spain, and I commend Weintraub for choosing the topic for his debut novel. It's interesting, and inspires me to learn more about this chapter of history. The characters are a bit two-dimensional, and the plot isn't quite believable at times, but I generally liked it.

This book will be published Feb. 20.

Death in a White Tie

 

Death in a White Tie by Ngaio Marsh 336 pp.

This is the seventh book in the Inspector Roderick Alleyn series. What starts out as a investigation of blackmail among the elite circles that Alleyn was born to, soon expands to include murder. It's debutante season and the young women are in the midst of the whirl of balls and social events designed to display them to the "marriage market." Lord Robert "Bunchy" Gospell is assisting Alleyn in the search for the blackmailer. During one of the balls Bunchy finds the blackmailer and calls Scotland Yard to meet with Alleyn after the ball. But Bunchy is delivered to the Yard in the form of a corpse. It's obvious that the perpetrator was present at the ball. Alleyn and his assistant, Inspector Fox, have to interview a large number of possible suspects before finally fingering the culprit. In a side story, Alleyn's romance with the artist, Agatha Troy, is heating up much to the pleasure of his mother, Lady Alleyn. This is a complicated and ultimately satisfying mystery.

The Sunlit Man

 The Sunlit Man by Brandon Sanderson, 447 pages.

Nomad has been running from planet to planet for decades, fleeing the extremely persistent forces that want to use him to find the universe-altering power he gave away. He arrives on the latest planet, almost completely drained of the energy that powers his magic, and it is more terrible than average. Every day the sun melts anything in it's path, including the landscape. So the people here live in hovering island cities cobbled together out of ships, desperately fleeing both the sun and the planet's burgeoning tyrant. Nomad has made it his policy not to care, for his own safety and theirs, but the longer he spends here the more he remembers the oaths he once swore, and the less he can stand non-involvement. 

This is the last of Sanderson's year of secret projects, and he describes this book as being dedicated to the dedicated fans of his Cosmere universe, and it definitely reads as a love letter to those fans. The book is technically a stand alone, but get deeper and more nuanced the more of his other books you have read. I wouldn't necessarily recommend this book for everyone, but for Cosmere fans it's a must read. I would especially recommend it for fans of the Stormlight Archives, because it feels very thematically linked. This is a dark and action-packed book that is also absolutely full of lore for how the universe works. Overall, a very neat book. 

Outrage

 

Outrage by Arnaldur Indridason 281 pp.

This is one of the Inspector Erlandur Icelandic mystery series but Erlandur is not really in this book. Detective Elinborg ends up in charge of strange murder case while Erlandur is away on a leave of absence. A rapist is murdered but there are too many possible culprits. Was it the rape victim who was given a date rape drug and has no memory of what happened? Was it the young woman's father who came to her rescue after she regained consciousness? Was it the rapist's former roommate who is a rather creepy character? And how is this crime connected with a young woman who went missing years before? This is an intense and interesting story with many layers. However, I prefer the books where Erlandur is the one leading the investigations. I listened to the audiobook version read by the master, George Guidall.

Kiss Her Once for Me

 Kiss Her Once for Me by Allison Cochrun, 351 pages.

Ellie is broke, anxious, about to be evicted, and still secretly pining for the woman she had a magical day with last Christmas. Given these circumstances, it doesn't seem like the worst idea to go along with it when the handsome man who owns her job's building suggests they get fake married for a year to get around a nonsense clause on his inheritance. The 10% he promises Ellie would be enough to completely change her life, and she really needs to get out more anyway. The one catch is that she has to spend Christmas week in a house with his family. Then his sister turns out to be the girl from last year. And Christmas with his family is making her long for the kinds of things she never got from her own neglectful mother, and this arrangement is feeling more precarious by the day.

This is a reread (you can see my original review here), and I liked this delightful fake-dating rom-com at least as much a year later. I was even more struck the second time by how much I like the supporting cast. There is a very literal sort of found family at play here, and it makes for a very cozy Christmas read. This is in fact pretty much an ideal Christmas book for me I think, so I can see myself reading it again in the future.

Hopscotch

Hopscotch by Brian Garfield  272 pp.

Many years ago I saw a great movie starring Walter Matthau and Ned Beatty. That movie was "Hopscotch" based on this novel. It's the story of Miles Kendig, a former high level CIA agent, who writes a tell-all book about his career. He sends the book chapter by chapter to his CIA bosses while on the run as they try to stop the book from being published. The plan to stop the book includes but is not limited to "eliminating" Kendig (it is the CIA after all). But he manages to outsmart the agents on his trail with one potentially disastrous slip-up. The film added more humorous moments than in the book. In spite of being an Edgar Award winner, I didn't think it was a stellar novel and, in this case, the movie is better than the book.

Urn Burial

 Urn Burial by Kerry Greenwood (1996) 187 pages

In this murder mystery set in the late 1920s, Phryne Fisher and her entourage (her maid/companion Dot, her Chinese lover, Lin Chung, and his manservant, Li Pen) have almost arrived at a houseparty at a Victorian mansion on a foggy night, when they hear a gunshot. They stop the car and end up saving a parlourmaid who works there. The traumatized young woman won't say what has happened.

Others in attendance are a Major who mistreats his wife, two young men, a woman trying to match up her athletic daughter with one of the men, a woman who is a romance writer, a poet, and two old women. There are a number of servants and employees, as well as an eccentric old guy named Dingo Harry, who likes to travel freely on others' properties, including the massive caves underneath.

Suspicious things continue to occur: Phryne, riding a horse on a path her host usually took, getting thrown when the horse runs into a trip wire; warning letters to the host; small urns being left in the some of the guests' rooms; and then a servant strangled to death (but the body removed before anyone but Phryne had seen it). What is going on? Phryne teams up with Lin Chung this time, with the added intrigue of the house being cut off by floodwaters, and a large group trip into the nearby caves.

The Mysteries

The Mysteries by Bill Watterson and John Kascht, 72 pages

In this fable for adults, Watterson and Kascht create an enigmatic story of people being scared by "the mysteries," and eventually overcoming that fear. The quirky illustrations are fantastic, and the whole book takes about 15 minutes to read — and that's if you're really giving the illustrations a thorough examination. It's not what I expected from Watterson (creator of Calvin and Hobbes), but it's absolutely delightful.

The Love Interest

The Love Interest by Victoria Walters, 328 pages

Liv is a part-time librarian who really just wants to write a romance novel. But she can't figure out how to write the leading man in her book. Enter her brother's best friend, Aiden, who has long been Liv's nemesis, but whose good looks and sexy accent make him a good starting place for a fictional love interest. I'm sure you can guess where this is going.

Enemies-to-lovers is one of my favorite romance tropes, but this book falls flat. The writing is meh, and the book-within-the-book's writing is bad enough that happy ending with the publishing deal is less believable than anything romantic in this book. And that's saying something, as the romance is a bit blah as well. I could go on, but I'll suffice it to say that I don't recommend this one. 

Jade City

Jade City by Fonda Lee, 495 pages

The Kaul siblings have a lot to live up to. Their grandfather helped liberate their home country from foreigners who wanted to exploit Kekon's powerful jade resources, and then set up the No Peak clan that today rules much of the city of Janloon. Kaul Lan is now the Pillar of the clan, but even though he's the leader, he's still fighting to get the respect and influence his grandfather had (many No Peaks are still loyal to the elder Kaul). Kaul Hilo is Horn, head of the street enforcement portion of the clan and a bit of a loose cannon. Their sister, Kaul Shae, has washed her hands of clan business, refusing to wear the jade that gives her supernatural powers, but can't seem to make a full break. And then there's Anden, the Kauls' adopted sibling, who is a star at the No Peak academy where he's learning to harness jade's magical properties to become a superpowered fighter. Amidst all of this, No Peak is on the precipice of war with the Mountain, a rival clan that's doing its best to take over Janloon and the jade trade of Kekon.

Marsha described this book to me as "The Godfather but instead of cocaine, they have jade," and honestly, I can't think of a more apt description. I'm not usually a mafia fan, but I like the way that Lee subverted the gender roles (though it takes a while to get there), as well as the way she wove the magic into the otherwise mundane world. There are two more books in this series (and apparently a couple of prequel novellas), so I'm probably going to have to throw those on my TBR.

December totals

Please note that this was posted
exactly 1 week into 2024.

Byron: 6 books, 1248 pages

Jan: 5 books, 1375 pages

John: 1 book, 301 pages

Kara: 13 books, 4036 pages

Karen: 6 books, 2138 pages

Kathleen: 5 books, 2218 pages

Kevin: 3 books, 859 pages

Regan: 8 books, 2247 pages

TOTAL: 47 books, 14,422 pages

Saint Death's Daughter

Saint Death's Daughter by C.S.E. Cooney, 477 pages

Miscellaneous Stones (Lanie) is the youngest member of the Stones family, which has long served Liriat's ruling family as executioners and assassins. Lanie, however, has an allergy to any sort of unnatural physical harm, as sympathy wounds appear on her any time she's near someone getting stabbed, poisoned, beaten senseless with fists, etc. Makes it a bit hard for her to spend any time with her family (which makes Wednesday Adams seem like a cuddly lovable puppy), and to her psychopathic sister Nita, Lanie is an excellent target for bullying. Thankfully, Lanie is also a necromancer, so she's able to spend her time instead with ghosts, revenants (like the Stones family's longtime servant, Goody), and all the skeleton creatures she can animate. But when Nita comes home from schooling abroad with a shapeshifting man in her thrall and a royal assignment to murder the wizards of a rival country, Lanie finds herself spending more time than she'd like with Nita, Nita's now-husband Mak, and her niece Datura, constantly fearful that Nita's work and violent inclinations will bring on Lanie's demise and the destruction of everything their family built.

This was an enjoyable read, though my summary above only really hits on a small bit of the plot. A blurb on the back notes "every time I thought I knew what kind of book it was, it changed," and really, I couldn't agree more. Cooney obviously had a lot of really excellent ideas for worldbuilding and characters, but at times, I felt like this could have been expanded into a few books that gave more insight into those characters and places instead of cramming them all into one place. It's particularly perplexing, as this is intended to be a series, so some of those elements certainly could have waited until later on. That said, I loved the idea of a gentle, bookish, vegetarian necromancer, as well as so many of the other characters. Unsure about whether I'll read more though, given Cooney's love of footnotes (which slowed down the reading a LOT).

(P.S. Just learned that this won the 2023 World Fantasy Award for best novel. Clearly, my misgivings are my own.)

The Last Devil to Die

The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman (2023) 353 pages

As one might do with a dessert that one wants to savor, I held off on reading this fourth book in the "Thursday Murder Club" series until I couldn't wait any longer. The four main characters in the series, Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim, all in their seventies and eighties, learn that a friend of theirs, Kuldesh, a dealer in antiques, has been murdered. Elizabeth, who was formerly in the MI-5 or MI-6 in her younger days, is especially incensed because the murdered man was a good friend of her husband, who is now suffering from dementia. When the group learns that Kuldesh had taken possession of an old box filled with heroin in his shop, which he was then supposed to resell the next day, they wonder why did Kuldesh get involved in this deal? Why didn't he inform the authorities? Instead, Kuldesh made some phone calls and hid the drugs, and then he was murdered for it. The hunt is on for the murderer, which means the group needs to follow the heroin. A number of suspects in the heroin industry emerge along with a married couple who deal in art forgeries, and some of these characters are fairly well-developed and humanized. The Murder Club invites a number of them to a meal in the private dining room at their community, and they actually show up. These gutsy old people don't seem afraid of much!

The point of view switches with each chapter. The entries from Joyce's point of view are often the most entertaining, and we see the often over-chatty retired nurse fill in capably for Elizabeth when Elizabeth is absent for a time. We continue to learn more about all of the original four retirees, and see them continue to add friends and lovers to their ranks, which makes them seem more real somehow. The story is laced with humor, action, and a share of poignancy.

Razzmatazz

 

Razzmatazz by Christopher Moore  390 pp.

This is kind of a sequel to Moore's Noir, revisiting the characters Sammy "Two Toes" Tiffin and his girlfriend Stilton (aka The Cheese). The story is a convoluted tale of Chinese immigrants, prostitutes, Lesbians, drag queens, an overambitious anti-gay head of the vice squad, an alien (space type), and dragons of the mythological type all inhabiting post-WWII San Francisco. I can't really explain the connections between all the different elements but Moore makes it work. I admit to some confusion during the story but it all works out in the end. This is far from Moore's best work and doesn't come close to his Shakespeare satires but I enjoyed it. The theory of what caused the 1906 earthquake makes it worth reading.

The Temptation of Forgiveness

The Temptation of Forgiveness by Donna Leon  300 pp.

Book 27 in the Commissario Brunetti series. A worried mother consults Brunetti about the possibility of her teenage son using drugs sold at his school. There isn't much Brunetti can do for her because she has no proof but since she is a colleague of his wife Paola he does his best to appease her. Shortly after her visit, her husband suffers a Traumatic Brain Injury in a fall on a bridge late at night. Brunetti investigates the incident to discover if it was an accident or an assault. While the man lies comatose in the hospital Brunetti's investigations uncover a long running pharmaceutical fraud victimizing the elderly, specifically ones with Parkinson's or Alzheimer's. This fraud was also uncovered by the victim, an accountant. While he is busy with inquiries, Brunetti also manages to disarm suspicions that Signorina Elettra is the source of information leaks at the Questura.