My Friends

My Friends by Fredrik Backman (2025), 434 pgs. 

Louisa wasn't looking for trouble when she got thrown out of the auction. She just wanted to see the painting, up close and in person, once before starting her new life. In the moments before she was kicked out, though, Louisa saw more of the painting than she ever had in the small postcard version of it she'd kept with her in the foster home. She had always focused on the three friends in the picture, somewhat hidden from most viewers, but now she could see the tiny, intricate details of it all in full display. Somehow, getting thrown out ends up setting Louisa on a journey across the country where she learns about the summer portrayed in the famous painting, and the group of friends whose love made it possible.

This is a story about believing in people, even when you don't much believe in yourself. It is about friendship and love sustaining against all odds. It is about art, and it is about grief, and it is about connecting with others. It is a funny, sad, hopeful tale of the summer that created a painting and the friendship which formed twenty five years later because of that painting. Fredrik Backman does a great job of balancing deep, introspective, heavy moments with light-hearted, silly jokes. He writes a beautiful story which paints a beautiful picture.

My Friends

My Friends by Fredrik Backman, 448 pages

Twenty-five years ago, a teenage artist created a painting that would go on to become a priceless work of art, making the artist famous around the world. It's a painting that's ostensibly of the sea, but to troubled orphan Louisa, it's obviously a painting of the three friends sitting at the end of a pier, laughing uncontrollably, even though those three figures are barely noticeable to most people who view the painting. When the painting unexpectedly comes into Louisa's possession, she learns from the artist's close friend Ted the truth about those figures, and the deep transcendent power of friendship and art.

Given that this is a story about an orphan who has just aged out of foster care and just lost her only friend, and a group of teens whose friendship was the only refuge from their poverty-stricken and abusive homes, this book is incredibly uplifting and funny. The way that Louisa and Ted bond over sharing their stories, the way that they see something in each other that most people would overlook... something about it is magical. And I really really wish the painting described in this book was real, because I'd love to see it and connect it to these characters. What a wonderful story from Backman. Highly recommended.

A Trick of the Light

A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny (2011), 339 pgs.

Do people really change? When Lillian Dyson, an old friend-turned-foe, turns up murdered in Three Pines, that is the question on everyone's mind. As Chief Inspector Armand Gamache investigates Lillian's connections to artists and alcoholics, he wonders not only about the murderer, but also the victim. He observes many changes in the people around him, but are they really different, or is it just a facade? And if people can change, who is to say that it's always for the better?

With this seventh book in the Three Pines series, Louise Penny returns to what she does best--writing a character-driven, thought-provoking, thrilling-yet-cozy mystery. Where previous books included many overlapping story lines, this one is more simple and focused on the question above. The relationship between Gamache and his second-in-command, Inspector Beauvoir, is a highlight of this whole series, and it really shines through here--without taking away from the main mystery. Overall, this is one of the strongest books in the series thus far. 

Scattershot

Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton & Me by Bernie Taupin (2023)  400 pages

Bernie Taupin grew up in a rural area in northern England, but found his way to London where he met Reg Dwight (later known as Elton John) at age 17. Eventually, after their music takes off, they live in Los Angeles, but also spend time in New York City, Paris, and the Caribbean. I love the way Taupin describes the cities in the 1970s and indicates how so much has changed ‒ he remembers the restaurants and bars and music venues, along with the people who owned them, who played music there, and those who frequented them. 

His knowledge of music keeps one Googling the names of old time musicians from the blues, country western, and pop, and the songs that they wrote and/or sang. Taupin shows reverence for those whose music helped define the various genres, and he is thrilled when he has a chance to meet some of those great old musicians. Taupin is also a voracious reader and collector of books, and describes a chance meeting with one of his most-beloved authors. He is also floored by Frank Sinatra when he meets him, finding himself unexpectedly in awe of the man.

So many names, people ‒ besides Elton John ‒ that Taupin counted as his close friends: Alice Cooper, Rod Stewart, Robin Williams, John Lennon, to name a few. So many stories about the songs that he and Elton wrote. There are also a few digs at musicians that Taupin didn't like, but it's rare.

Drugs and alcohol are prevalent throughout, and Taupin touches on how he and Elton (and others) were affected by their use of these substances. 

Taupin's experiences put him into contact with countless musicians, actors, authors, and artists. This book would be even better with an index. However, an index for the density of people and places mentioned would probably double the length the book!

The Art Thief

The Art Thief by Michael Finkel, 221 pages

Kevin, Regan, and Karen have all previously blogged about this fascinating nonfiction tale of the most prolific art thief in history, so I won't rewrite what they so wonderfully summed up. Suffice it to say that readers of this book will be awestruck at the audacity of Stephane Breitweiser, and impressed by Finkel's research. (Also, I listened to the audiobook, which was excellent.) If you enjoy this one (which you probably will), I highly recommend Finkel's previous book, The Stranger in the Woods, which profiles a very different but equally fascinating man.

The Art Thief

 The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, by Michael Finkel, 221 pgs. 

Most heist films start off with a big plan, a cadre of ruffians who each bring their A-game along with the latest technology for subterfuge. The Art Thief is the opposite of all that. Starting in the late 90s, Stephane Breitwieser, alongside his girlfriend and accomplice Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus, strolled into a museum in Belgium wielding only a swiss army knife and stole a 17-century, ivory-carved statue of Adam and Eve. No trip wires. No midnight rappel from a rooftop window. He walked right in during the guards lunch hour, put the statue in his waistband, and went home. And so began his insane spiral into stealing art all across Europe.

Breitweiser spent the next decade filling his tiny apartment above his mother's house with artifacts, oil paintings, engravings, statues--anything that caught his aesthetic eye. Most of the work he nabbed was from that similar time period, and to hear his side of the story as told by the author, he was a lover of art--not a thief. To wit, he never threatened violence against anyone, never damaged museum property, and--here's the kicker--never tried to sell any of the art. Investigators believe that's what made him so hard to catch. To Stephane, there is a long history of people stealing art from other cultures and he saw himself as carrying on that legacy. Not to make money but to enjoy and become closer to the work. However, even the best criminals get sloppy.

This is an unbelievable ride of  book where you find yourself shouting at Stephane saying "how is he going to get away with this?!" And then he does, time and time again. For adults and teen art students. Highly recommended (reading the book, not stealing art). 

How to Do Nothing

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell, 232 pages

It's really hard to summarize this book, as the title is not really an accurate indication of the contents. I picked it up (well, checked out the downloadable audiobook anyway) in the hopes that Odell would offer some tips for, or at least a treatise on, avoiding the anxiety-inducing vacuum of social media. And I *think* that's what she set out to do. But the book didn't feel very cohesive, in that it meandered from her musings on noticing birds in her urban environment to David Hockney's photo collages to the earliest versions of social media (a couple of publicly accessible computers networked in the Bay Area) to the need to pay attention to inequalities and keep fighting the good fight. With a more accurate title and a more cohesive throughline, this could've been an enjoyable book. But as it was, it was just meh.

The Graphic Canon, Volumes 1-3

 

The Graphic Canon, Vol. 1-3 edited by Russ Kick, adapted from works by various authors, with art by various artists (2012) 1600 pages

There are some works included in this literary canon by people of Afro, Latino, and Asian descent. Some graphic adaptations of classic works are more successful than others. I'll try to keep this blog entry short by offering only a few highlights or critiques for each volume.

Volume 1

I had previously read three excerpts from Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey's graphic Action Philosophers!. It was a pleasure to revisit these entries. I especially liked the adaptation of Lucretius's "On the Nature of Things." There was also a great adaptation of a Noh play by Hagoromo. The adaptation of the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West was fun. And I enjoyed the satire of Swift's Gulliver's Travels and "A Modest Proposal." 

Volume 2

There were too few actual graphics for adaptations of three Grimm fairy tales, three Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales, and five Edgar Allan Poe short stories/poems. There was an intriguing adaptation of The Mortal Immortal, something Mary Shelley wrote other than Frankenstein. This volume of 19th century literature has a mix of very short and very long works. Many were visualized too minimally. Edgar Allan Poe and Lewis Carroll are perhaps over-represented. Still I loved the visuals merged with the rhyme for Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky.

Volume 3

I caught two outright errors presented in the biographical introductions to two author's works in this volume. What others might the editor have missed? It is amusing mixing Kafka's The Metamorphosis with Charles Schulz's Peanuts. The poem "Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wildred Owen is given haunting graphics of the horror of WWI. There are excerpts of two graphic adaptations of James Joyce's Ulysses, yet it still remains difficult to fully understand. Hemingway's article "Living on $1,000 a Year in Paris" nicely illustrates the 1920s. "Letters to a Young Poet" by Rainer Maria Rilke offers radical graphic design of text with no images, but is still touching. A Robert Crumb adaptation of Sartre is frustratingly left in French with only a summary of the plot translated in the intro. "The Voice of the Hamster" by a teenaged Thomas Pynchon was very funny. I counted a full fifteen entries that gave a single page to convey a work. This is too minimal. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but not tens of thousands of specific words contained in most novels. These minimalist entries did not draw me into wanting to read the original works.

Illuminations

Illuminations by T. Kingfisher, 272 pages

Rosa is the youngest member of the Mandolini family, who are known throughout town as being one of the best studios of magical painters around. All Rosa can do, however, is draw radishes with fangs, which she does ad nauseum. But when a bored day takes Rosa into the Mandolini basement, she manages to unleash a mischievous creature called the Scarling, who is bent on destroying the Mandolinis and their magical paintings.

I'll be honest: this isn't my favorite T. Kingfisher novel, as it's fairly similar to the better Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking. But it's still a boatload of fun, particularly when you consider the wacky characters that make up the Mandolini family (they kind of remind me of Encanto's Family Madrigal), and the wonderfully flawed talking crow Payne. And, let's face it, I'll read and enjoy anything Kingfisher (AKA Ursula Vernon) publishes.

The Girl in the Painting

The Girl in the Painting by Tea Cooper, 375 pages

Orphan Jane Piper has lived with siblings Michael and Elizabeth Quinn since she was a young girl and they learned of her advanced math capabilities. They arrived in Australia some 50 years earlier, penniless and with only their intelligence to get by, so they felt the need to help those in similar situations. Everything seems to be going swimmingly until Jane and Elizabeth visit a traveling exhibition that causes Elizabeth to suffer a panic attack. As Jane begins to search for clues to what triggered the attack, Elizabeth begins to suspect that she doesn't know herself nearly as well as she thought she did.

This was an excellent, well-woven mystery that sheds light on the immigration situation at the turn of the 19th Century, as well as the Australian gold rush and other elements. I particularly enjoyed seeing strong female characters fighting against the status quo in everyday ways. A fun, propulsive story.

Cats of the Louvre

 

Cats of the Louvre, story and art by Taiyo Matsumoto, translated by Michael Arias, 428 pgs.

So many of my favorite things all in one gorgeous graphic novel. The setting is the Louvre where we find an interesting night watchman, a guide looking for something more, a collection of cats, and a bit of a mystery. What goes on outside of the public view?  Lots!  The night watchman grew up in the museum and lost his sister there. The cats have come from different places but have made a life hiding away from the public.  Cecile is now a tour guide at the museum but started out as a gifted student of art restoration.  This job doesn't really hold her interest but when the mystery of a missing girl comes to light, she looks to the paintings to find an answer.  A beautifully done work by Matsumoto.

Tomoko Fuse's Origami Art

Tomoko Fuse's Origami Art: works by a modern master / David brill & Tomoko Fuse, 192 pgs.

This book documents the amazing work by Tomoko Fuse.  Origami that isn't just a large collection of cranes!  Not making light of it, the work here is something I can barely comprehend.  Gorgeous.

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.

California Pottery: from Missions to Modernism

California Pottery: From Missions to Modernism / Bill Stern w/ photos by Peter Brenner, 119 pgs.

While doing some research on a set of dishes my aunt passed down, I came across this book that tells the history of California pottery, an industry that soared in the early to mid 20th century.  The number of companies producing pottery was ever growing with many using skilled people to paint their creations.  Hand work that made pieces very distinct and special even though they were basically mass produced.  As production headed overseas, many of the companies folded in the late 50's and 60's.  An interesting tale and the photos are divine.

Saving Face

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

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

The New Girl

The New Girl by Daniel Silva  479 pp.

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

Washington Black

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan, 333 pages

When he was young, George Washington Black was a field slave on a sugar plantation in Barbados. He was plucked from that misery (though still officially a slave) by Christopher "Titch" Wilde, a man of science and the brother of Wash's owner, who enlisted Wash to be his assistant. But an unexpected event causes Wash and Titch to flee Barbados to the frozen tundra of Canada, starting Wash on a new life dedicated to scientific observation and illustration. Along his journey, Wash slowly learns to look at the people in his life with the same critical eye that he uses when he draws mollusks and flowers. It's a wonderful journey of discovery, beautifully told. Edugyan shows masterful skill in weaving together the story of an escaped slave and the story of groundbreaking scientific history and invention. This is a great book, and it's no wonder it has received so many accolades. More are sure to come.

Jane, Unlimited

Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore, 463 pages

Jane is a young woman adrift: her closest relative, Aunt Magnolia, died a few months back, and Jane dropped out of college, yet still works at the campus bookstore when she's not building artistic umbrellas in her tiny bedroom. That's Jane's life when the ridiculously wealthy Kiran Thrash stops by and invites Jane out to Tu Reviens, the Thrash family mansion that sits on its own private island, and turns Jane's world... well, not upside-down, but perhaps on a roller coaster that spins and makes breakneck turns at random. Cobbled together from seemingly random architectural styles, Tu Reviens is more than it seems, and one decision makes all the difference for Jane's future.

This book is more than a little odd, and I'm still mulling it over. I love Jane's umbrella artistry, and Jasper, the resident basset hound at Tu Reviens, but I felt like the multiple, non-intersecting storylines were a disservice to the secondary characters, all of whom had the potential to be fully formed and three-dimensional, but instead were little more than fancy window-dressing. Same goes for the house itself. I loved Cashore's earlier Graceling trilogy, so I had high hopes for this one. Sadly, it didn't quite measure up.

Draw you weapons

Draw your weapons / Sarah Sentilles, 320 pgs.

A meditation on war, suffering, objecting and art.  This book primarily focuses on the story of two people, a World War II conscientious objector and an Iraq War veteran who was stationed at Abu Ghraib prison.  Yet somehow, so much more is covered.  Sentilles moves from one part to the next at a clip but somehow it all comes together to make an impressive whole.  The language is wonderful and the purpose of the words is obvious.  At times it so dark you feel like you can't continue reading but then something wonderful is folded in.  I'm doing a terrible job of selling this book but it may be the first one I've read in awhile that changed me.  There is so much to this, it also rate a re-read in a not distant future.

Wonderings

Wonderings by Kenneth Patchen, 84 pages.
Since it's "one-word title" year for our blogging competition, I decided to read this Kenneth Patchen title that has been sitting on my bookshelve for (literally) decades. Each page is a watercolor illustration done in Patchen's distinctive style (all in black and white in this book), each with an accompanying poem, also in Patchen's distinctive style. I like Patchen's poems generally, especially his longer works. The poems here are brief, lonesome, and elliptic.