The Big Over Easy

The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde, 383 pages

Head of the Nursery Crime Division of the Reading police force, Detective Inspector Jack Spratt is chronically overworked and underfunded, living in the shadow of the golden boy detective Friedland Chymes and — with cases like charging the three little pigs with premeditated murder for boiling the big bad wolf alive — serving as the laughingstock around town. But then two things happen: he gets a new assistant in inspector Mary Mary (who is from Basingstoke, which is nothing to be ashamed of) and notorious ladies man Humpty Dumpty is murdered. Suddenly, Jack has a high profile case on his hands, and the future of the NCD rests on his ability to solve it, and quickly.

Much like Fforde's excellent Thursday Next series, this is an old favorite of mine. I picked it up this time because, well, The Tale of Genji is just too darn heavy (in both the literary and physical sense) to read at bedtime. I still love this book, and every time I read it, I pick up another clever reference or literary joke. If you haven't read anything by Fforde, this is a good gateway drug.

Happy-Go-Lucky

Happy-Go-Lucky by David Sedaris, 259 pages

In this 2022 collection of essays, Sedaris covers a wide variety of topics, including his father's death, the destruction of his beach home (The Sea Section) during a hurricane, his experience with orthodontia, and, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic. As always, these essays are filled with Sedaris' trademark dry, dark humor, and as always, made me laugh way more than these topics otherwise would. I listened to the audiobook, which is read by the author and features some live recordings, making it particularly wonderful. Another solid offering from one of my humor staples.

The Poet X

 

The Poet X: A Novel by Elizabeth Acevedo  361 pp.

This is one of those books I planned to read back when it first came out. But I didn't get around to it, until it became one of the selections for the Great Stories Club Grant. Now I'm sorry I waited so long. The novel is written as a series of poems written by the main character, Xiamara called Mara, a teen from the Dominican Republic living in New York. Her mother, who once planned to be a nun, is extremely strict with Mara bordering on abuse. Mara is a teen with typical teen wants and needs who is being stifled at home. She faces her first "forbidden" love, wants to be a part of a school poetry club, and participate in an upcoming poetry slam but all of that goes against her mother's permissions. The emotions expressed in the poetry ring true as Mara learns to express herself, not just on the page, but to her family and the world. Heart-wrenching at times and gloriously composed, this is the winner of the National Book Award, the Pura Belpré Award, and the Michael Printz Award.

The Maidens

 

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides (2021) 337 Pages

The mysterious ritualistic murder of a college woman piques the interest of Greek widow Mariana. Her surrogate daughter, who is actually her niece was good friends with the woman who died. Mariana travels to Cambridge to make sure her niece is okay, and begins take an interest in the mysterious death. As more murders of the same style begin to pile up, Mariana becomes more embroiled in finding out who is committing them. Her focal point is on Edward Fosca, an American professor at the University who specializes in Greek Tragedy. Mariana thinks he is the murderer because the women who are being murdered are in his special study group- The Maidens. Mariana keeps finding postcards of either ancient Greek or baroque style paintings with ancient Greek passages written on the back. Throughout her findings, she is running from her own tragic story, the sudden loss of her husband, who turns out to not be the man she thought he was. 

Overall I enjoyed this story, with the psychoanalysis expertise throughout in addition to the Greek classics, such as the story of Demeter and Persephone. Solid 3 out of 5 stars.

The Family Remains

The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell (2022) 371 pages

Human bones are found in a bag in the Thames River, and are eventually linked to the deaths of three people in a mansion in Chelsea thirty years ago. Meanwhile, a woman‒Lucy‒is reunited with Libby, a daughter she had in her teens, while she and her two younger children are living with Henry, her very odd brother. When Lucy and Henry were young, they lived in that mansion in Chelsea, and fled, and are now using different names. Meanwhile, Libby's boyfriend is a journalist who has tracked down Phineas, the man who is Libby's father, and Henry (who sometimes calls himself Phineas) is obsessed with wanting to see him again. In yet another related side story, a woman named Rachel falls for a man named Michael, who had been married to Lucy at one time.

The setting moves between England and Chicago and France. The time shifts between 2017 and 2019. The well-drawn characters include the very odd, the very sweet, the very bad, a young computer sleuth, a motorcycle tour guide, and more. The detective on the case is Samuel Owusu, and he tallies up all the lies that keep coming. But what has really happened? I found this a compelling read, with lots of surprises.

Georgie, All Along

Georgie, All Along by Kate Clayborn (2023) 331 pages

Georgie Mulcahy loses her job as a personal assistant to a famed screenwriter and director in the movie industry when her boss decides to dial it back and live a quieter life. Georgie moves back temporarily to her parents' home in small town Virginia, where her best friend Bel has moved with her husband as they await the birth of their first child. Georgie's parents are out of town, so Georgie will stay at their rather disorganized home and take care of their plants until their return. But her parents forgot that they had already found someone to watch the house before they knew Georgie was coming, so when Levi shows up, it makes for an awkward situation.

Levi is a gruff guy, a few years older than Georgie, a well-known troublemaker in the town in his teen years, who is estranged from his family. It's clear that Georgie and Levi are attracted to each other, but their attempts to communicate are often misunderstood, usually due to Levi's tumultuous past. It seems that they might eventually get together, but there is a lot to work through. Meanwhile, Georgie is still trying to find herself, and is using a "friend fic" book that she and Bel had written together just before they started high school, as a template for how to go back and redo the past.

After a bit of a slow intro, I found this to be a fast book filled with relationship nuances, while some of the characters attempt to answer the question of how to fill the blank spaces inside ourselves.

Don't Believe It

 Don't Believe It by Charlie Donlea (2018) 342 Pages

A thrilling Who Dunnit. I don't usually like true crime-esque works, but I had a hard time putting this one down. It was written thoughtfully. 

Grace Sebold has been convicted of killing her boyfriend in St. Lucia among many of their close friends from high school. Julian, the deceased was about to propose. 10 years go by and Grace remains in prison in another country. Her last ditch effort to claim innocence is a documentarian who has had experience in 3 previous exonnerations. Sidney Ryan, the documentary filmmaker takes her case. Throughout the story, she uncovers gross negligence in the St Lucian police force who most likely wanted a nice and tidy conviction and trial to save the tourism sector of the island. But that's not all Sidney uncovers. If it wasn't Grace who killed Julian, who did? Her jealous best friend who is supposedly in love with her? Another jealous brief lover, who was getting married at the same St Lucian vacation? Or was it Grace's disabled brother who has a deep attachment to her? The documentary turns out to be the most-watched true crime show in the world. Sidney's unfortunate demise for attempting to uncover the truth is a testament to "no good deed goes unpunished".

June totals, at long last

Yeah, they're a bit late, but here are the reading stats from June:

Byron: 2 books/649 pages

Jan: 4 books/994 pages

Kara: 7 books/2592 pages

Karen: 12 books/3102 pages

Kathleen: 5 books/1870 pages

Regan: 10 books/3349 pages

Total: 40 books, 12,556 pages

Lolly Willowes

Lolly Willowes, or, The Loving Huntsman by Sylvia Townsend Warner  222 pp.

Set in the early twentieth century in England, spinster Laura Willowes, nicknamed Lolly within her close and controlling family, is taken into her brother's household after the death of her beloved father. Lolly lives a quiet, genteel existence assisting her sister-in-law with the children and household tasks. Once the children are grown, she realizes the need to get away from her stifling family and moves off to a tiny village of Great Mop where she rents rooms from a widow and begins a life of rambling the countryside and doing as she pleases. She eventually decides she is a witch and embarks on a supernatural journey with other townsfolk. When her nephew Titus comes to stay and she is once again stifled by family, she uses witchcraft to send him on his way. This somewhat odd little book is considered to be an early feminist classic and its author is known for her feminist writing.

The Devil's Advocate

The Devil's Advocate by Morris L. West (1959) 351 pages

Blaise Meredith is an English priest based in Rome, who has been diagnosed with cancer. In the limited time he has left, he is given the task to investigate a request to declare a man named Giacomo Nerone to be a saint. Nerone's past has many gaps in it, which makes it harder to investigate, and some of the activities that are not in question include the fact that he lived with a woman he didn't marry and they had a child together before Nerone was killed by Communist partisans.

Blaise Meredith, a somber man, accepts the task to be the Devil's Advocate, which involves digging through the evidence and subjecting it to the severest scrutiny. We learn that there is also a Postulator who builds the case for sainthood. Meredith travels to the poor town in southern Italy where Nerone lived the last year or so of his life, and he meets with the local priest (who has his own ethical lapses), the local doctor (who is a Jew who has never been fully accepted by the community), a rich Countess (who seems quite unhappy), as well as with the woman who had a child (who is now an adolescent) with Nerone. Time is ticking away: Meredith's symptoms worsen, but he experiences some of the greatest friendship in his life during this process.

I found this to be a compelling drama with many distinct personalities and intrigues, along with narrations of how the Fascists, as well as bands of Communists, affected the lives of these very poor people during the war.