The Obake Code

The Obake Code by Makana Yamamoto, 352 pages

Three years after her "last heist," hacker Malia is getting bored with fixing cyber fights and living off the spoils. Convenient, then, that gangsters catch her redhanded and force her to help take down a crooked politician by stealing and decrypting some incriminating documents. However, after getting her crew together, Malia gains the attention of Maddox, a man who performed illegal experiments on her as a child. Yes, those experiments made her the best hacker around, but they also caused a world of mental, physical, and emotional trauma. So Maddox's arrival as right-hand man to the politician astronomically complicates the heist.

This was billed as a standalone novel in the world of Hammajang Luck (Yamamoto's first novel), and while you can read it without reading that first book, I don't really think you should. There are lots of references to the first book, and since I hadn't read it, I was left feeling like I was missing something. The vibes of the criminal crew skew toward The Fast & the Furious (especially with the prevalence of cruising and car thefts going on in the story), and honestly, the drama with Maddox overwhelmed the plot to the point where I forgot what they were meant to be stealing by the time they got there. So cool vibes and a decent found family, but maybe not the best heist novel out there.

The best cook in the world

The best cook in the world: tales from my Momma's table / Rick Bragg, read by the author, 390 pgs.

Rick Bragg's mom doesn't own a cookbook but she was taught how to cook the old fashioned way, she watched her mother and other wonderful cooks because she was interested even as a young girl.  She is confident and a natural but unfortunately gave birth to three boys, none of whom can reliably prepare toast.  Rick realized nobody was learning about his mother's cooking and that her abilities were like few others.  He started interviewing her about her food and the stories came out about where the recipe originated or stories related to the food.  Turns out those stories were as priceless as the recipe itself.  This is one long audiobook but once I started, I didn't want to stop.  Many great characters and much great food.  If you want to cook it, you may need the print version but the stories in Bragg's voice are priceless.

Valdez is Coming

Valdez is Coming by Elmore Leonard, 232 pages.

Bob Valdez worked as the shotgun rider on a Hatch and Hodges stagecoach. He also worked as the town constable in Lanoria, Arizona. He was an accommodating man, willing to go along, to get along. But, after Valdez was tortured and almost killed by the gunmen employed by a local cattle rancher, as he was seeking justice for a widowed mother, he reverts to the man he was when he served as a scout for the during the war against the Apaches.
Leonard did violence very well. No one is taking anything lightly, but people continually mistake the everyday for the extraordinary. Maybe the first book I have read because it was mentioned in the review of a novel, two characters in the forthcoming George Pelecanos novel discuss this book.

The Clarence Principle

The Clarence Principle by Fahed Said and Shari Chankhamma, 224 pages

A graphic novel with beautiful art that explores a young man's suicide. I picked up this book at the library when I realized that I had come to the Library for a children's activity without a book to read and without my earbuds. I was upset at first and then realized that since it was a library, I could easily find something else to read. I went to the graphic lit section and found a couple of books, including this one. I thought that he art by Shari Chankhamma was extraordinary and very moving. I found the story that went along with the art a little muddled and sort of self-indulgent, but not bad. Clarence kills himself, apparently over a love affair gone wrong (not sure if Elissa left him, disappointed him or killed herself), and then enters an odd sort of afterlife.

Magritte: this is not a biography

Magritte: this is not a biography / Vincent Zabus, art and colors by Thomas Campi, 72 pgs.

A man buys a bowler hat unaware that it was once owned by surrealist painter Rene Magritte.  When he dons the hat, he is transported into a surreal world where he is required to solve the mystery of Magritte before he will be allowed to remove the hat.  Through various interactions with guides and biographers, he learns about Magritte and his wife, their lives and influences.  In the end, he is confronted by Magritte himself who claims there are no answers before sending our protagonist back to reality.  A lovely little book that mimics Magritte's style and tells a bit about the artist in an"unbiography" fashion.

I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer

I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara, 328 pages.

Michelle McNamara, who died in 2016, had spent several years trying to track down the man that she had dubbed the Golden State killer. He had been known at one time as the East Area Rapist, but it had become apparent long ago that this rapist operating in the Sacramento area had not only expanded his territory, but had also started killing his victims. McNamara and her readers on the True Crime Diary website helped link other victims throughout California to the same killer. She worked doggedly to try and find the killer, but at the time of her death, the crimes remained unsolved (update on 4/26/2018, maybe not so unsolved).
 A compelling read.

Binti and Binti: Home

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor, 90 pages.
Binti Home by Nnedi Okorafor, 164 pages.

Binti, of the Himba people on Earth, is a master harmonizer, and a maker of astrolabes. Her family believes that she will take over for her father in both these roles. She is also the first of her people to be offered a place at Oomza University. Her accepting this place and leaving her world will severely damage her relationship with her family and damage her standing among her people. No one will marry a girl who has run away. The first book opens as she decides to travel across the galaxy on a Khoush ship anyway. Her longing for the knowledge she will gain at Oomza outweighs her fear of To make matters worse, on the long journey to Oomza Binti's ship is attacked by the Meduse, sworn enemy of the Khoush. Binti must use what she has learned from her father (and from a strange artifact that she has found) to keep herself alive.
In the second volume, Binti returns to Earth, bringing along her Meduse friend, Okwu, and tries to repair her relationship with her family. The changes she has endured, and secrets her father has kept from her, ensure that the path she takes will not be the one she imagined. Binti won a Hugo award last year, and Binti: Home is nominated for a Hugo this year. Excellent stories.

The Ballad of Black Tom

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle, 151 pages
Charles Thomas Tester, living in  1930s Harlem,  recounts his journey from a hustler who is acquainted with the magic in and around the city, to a vengeful man at the nexus of the supernatural in New Yourk. As Tester grows closer to the center of the magic in New York, and closer to the Sleeping King, he adopts the title name, a name originally offered in insult. Along the way, as he learns more about the worlds around him, Tom fights with other New Yorkers seeking  power and with corrupt police. I really enjoyed this book and I'm looking forward to reading the author's much-acclaimed The Changling.

The Odyssey

The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson, 582 pages.
Wilson's new translation of this epic poem is eminently readable and enjoyable. Her introduction explains the poem, its history, its inconsistencies, and the probable history of Homer; not necessarily one poet from one time but a mixture of poets and transcribers over the years and centuries. She says of The Odyssey and The Iliad that, "[t]hese are written texts that display the legacy of a long oral tradition. In important ways the poems are a patchwork."

A great version of a timeless work, one that shows how people's ideas of hospitality, warfare, marriage, and faith have changed and stayed the same. Okay, mostly changed, raiding, the sacking of cities, killing, and raping, aren't considered heroic anymore, but even in the time of Odysseus it was considered somewhat rude to murder all of your guests.
Wilson's Iliad is still years away, but I can't wait. Meanwhile, it's time to go and reread Fagles and Lombardo and maybe explore an older translation or two.

Stay with Me

Stay with Me by Ayobami Adebayo, 260 pages.

Yejide and Akin met in college. They're leading a modern sort of life in Ilesa, Nigeria, and are as in love as they can be. But as the years go by and the couple has difficulty having children, secrets, betrayal and the ideas held by Akin's family drive some significant wedges between the two. As the couple eventually welcome children into their lives, tragic events, and some of Akin's family members, conspire to drive them further apart.
Beautifully drawn characters and an excellent sense of place make this a riveting novel.
The audio is narrated by the always excellent Adjoa Andoh.

Less: A Novel

Less: A Novel by Andrew Sean Greer, 263 pages.

Arthur Less, fifty-something semi-successful novelist, accepts every invitation to literary events and honors, no matter where in the world they are, all in an attempt to avoid the wedding of the love of his live, his former boyfriend. Arthur becomes a better and better character as the novel moves along, we really come to cherish him and his writitng.

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage / Haruki Murakami, trans.. Philip Gabriel, read by Bruce Locke,  386 p.

Tsukuru leads a placid life in Tokyo designing railway stations.  But his present life is marred by an incident from his past, in which he was cast out from his group of intimate friends.  The novel tells the story of his coming to terms with that long-ago incident.

I wanted to like this, my first Murakami, but I found it dreary and depressing.  I suspect that my feelings would be different if I had read the print version; next time I will try that.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn / Mark Twain, read by Robin Field,  336 p.

We all know the story of Huck, Jim, Tom, et al., and that great big brown river that rolls them south.  I was surprised at how engaging and funny the story remained.  It's great road trip material, and ably read by Robin Field.

LaRose

LaRose: a Novel / Louise Erdrich,  read (gorgeously) by the author, 373 p.

A beautiful 'wow' of a novel from a writer fully in command of her craft.  LaRose is a 5 year old boy when a terrible accident occurs, linking two families straddling the border of the Ojibwe reservation and rural North Dakota. In an attempt to heal the rift created by the accident, a plan emerges: LaRose will become son to both families involved in the tragedy.  This seemingly impossible solution, rooted in old Ojibwe ways, plays out across several years and touches many lives: LaRose's two sets of parents, his many siblings, and their extended families.  Great storytelling and especially noteworthy for the pitch-perfect detail.  While listening I felt like I could smell the meat stews, see LaRose's sisters applying nail polish, and hear the thwack of the volleyball as his sisters play in a high-stakes tournament.  The author presents characters who are deeply flawed but never judged.

The misfortune of Marion Palm

The misfortune of Marion Palm / Emily Culliton, 283 pgs.

Marion Palm lives a pretty good life with her husband Nathan and their two daughters.  What isn't known to anyone but her is that she is financing this life by embezzling from the school where she works.  This also happens to be the school that her children attend.  When word comes down of an audit, Marion goes on the lam.  She leaves her husband and kids but doesn't go far...she ends up renting a room from a Russian woman who employs her to clean apartments.  Pretty soon, she is stealing again.  Meanwhile, life at her old home is kind of falling apart.  How are things going to turn out for this odd family?  An interesting debut novel.

Kristin Lavransdatter 1, The Bridal Wreath

The Bridal Wreath / Sigrid Undset, trans. Charles Archer and J.S. Scott, 283 p.

The first novel in a trilogy by the 1928 winner of the Nobel Prize, in which the life of a medieval Norwegian woman is traced from birth to death.  The Bridal Wreath tells the story of Kristin's childhood to her marriage.  The novel is rich with detail of daily life on a Norwegian farm in the 14th century, and the landscape described is spectacular.  Readers who enjoy medieval historical fiction will almost certainly enjoy this; Undset's knowledge of the period seems so thorough that through descriptions of clothing, food, cooking, social events, and religious ritual, the reader is fully immersed.  But make no mistake: the Bridal Wreath is first and foremost a novel about sex.  Greed, hunger, fear, and faith drive the plots of many novels, but the arc of Kristin's adolescent life is directed by sexual drive, both her own and that of those around her.  The prose style as translated by Archer and Scott was a bit tough going; I'd really like to take a look at the new translation by Tiina Nunnally, translator of Camilla Lackberg, Mari Jungstedt, and other Scandinavian thriller writers.

The Netanyahu Years

The Netanyahu Years by Ben Kaspit, 506 pages.
Benjamin Netanyahu's grandfather, Nathan Milekowsky, was born in Lithuania in the 1880s. At first an admirer of Herzl, Milekowsky later joined the Jewish Revisionist Movement and spoke to Jews throughout Europe about reclaiming Israel. He also changed his last name.His son, Benzion, became a something of an academic and something of a right-wing political activist. Living in Israel, New York, Philadelphia, and then back in Israel, Benzion and his wife Cela had three sons, their oldest, Yoni; their youngest, Iddo; and their middle child, the subject of this strange book, Benjamin Netanyahu. Okay, it's an interesting book, with lots of interesting "facts," and comments. There's an engaging arc presented, Bibi's stint as a soldier, his time in New York, and then his complicated political career. It's just when you check the back of the book there's not a lot in the way of sources, so it seems possible that it's just a big gossip fest. I didn't like what the author had to say about Obama, anyway, so I was okay dismissing the book overall.

Norma: a Novel

Norma: a Novel / Sofi Oksanen, trans. Owen F. Witesman, 306 p.

I was excited to see this novel after being fascinated by Finnish-Estonian Oksanen's earlier novels Purge and When the Doves Disappeared.  In Norma the author ventures into the slightly supernatural, one of those odd stories where things are just a tick off the norm.  Norma's mother, Anita, has just been killed by jumping onto the tracks at a Helsinki subway station, but Norma knows she was not suicidal - she'd just returned from a great vacation to Thailand and was full of plans.  Norma's hair, which grows several feet per day and can sense others' moods and health, signals that something menacing is happening.  When Anita's former business associates show up and begin asking strange questions, Norma launches a quest for the truth about her mother's death.

Norma is part-mystery, part meditation on the ways in which women's bodies are used: hair, eggs, and uteruses are all commodities to be exploited by networks as vicious as drug cartels. As a novel it doesn't quite work - there is a flatness to the narrative, and the suspense just isn't there - but Oksanen is an unusual thinker and I was still intrigued throughout. 

Frankenstein

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley, 324 pages

Rereading Frankenstein this month really drove home the fact that many stories I love owe large parts of their plots to Mary Shelley’s monster story.  Lilo and Stitch?  Not only is it one of my favorite Disney movies, but it’s totally a Frankenstein retelling (with a happier ending).  Ex Machina?  Yep.  Frankenstein.  I’d argue that almost any movie/story where an intelligent non-human creation ends up at odds with its cold, egotistical, human creator can be traced back to Frankenstein.  

For those who have only experienced the cinematic/pop-culture version of Frankenstein's monster*, Shelley's book will be a bit of a shock.  Even though I'd read the book before, I was struck by how graceful, intelligent, and sympathetic the monster is (despite his hideous outward appearance).  It's amazing how all those images of a shambling, non-speaking beast stick in your mind's eye.  For my modern YA-reading sensibilities, the book's 200 year-old plot is not exactly fast moving but was engaging nonetheless. 

*But he really doesn't mind if you just call him Frankenstein:

Thanks, Obama

Thanks, Obama: My hopey, changey White House years / David Litt, read by the author, 310 pgs.

David Litt started out as a volunteer on the campaign trail for Obama and ended up a speech writer for him.  This book starts on the campaign trail and tells it all, the embarrassing stories, the political triumphs and the losses. Litt has many great stories of being young an foolish at the White House.  He enters hoping to become best friends with the president and leaves feeling like something got accomplished.  Litt wrote speeches for many in the administration but was often the go-to guy for the funny stuff.  He admits to an occasional game addiction and also gives you the straight info on the best bathrooms and lunches at the White House.  This is information you can really use to rate a work place.  Wonder if much has changed there?

Litt does a great job reading this book.  Listen to the audio version if you get the chance.