Makeup Man

Makeup Man: From Rocky to Star Trek The Amazing Creations of Hollywood's Michael Westmore by Michael Westmore with Jake Page (2017) 320 pages

I added this to my collection because of the Star Trek connection. Only about 60 pages deal with his time designing aliens for Roddenberry's franchise. I loved the early part of the book covering his family's history in hair and makeup. His apprenticeship with John Chambers of Planet of the Apes makeup fame was interesting. And establishing his special effects makeup cred by working on both Rocky and later Raging Bull was significant. There are stories of his work experience on many other lesser known projects too. He's made a lot of Neanderthal character makeups. Each story is pretty short, maybe too short, and draws on his memory. There are some cases where my film history knowledge makes me doubt that his memories are totally accurate. Hollywood's history of sexism is also revealed in some of his narrative. This wasn't quite all that I was hoping it would be.
 

Travels With Charley

Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck (1962) 275 pages

Reading this book was an experience similar to opening a time capsule from around the time I was born. John Steinbeck was 58 when he decided in 1960 that he needed to travel across the U.S. to take the pulse of America. He'd grown up in the Monterey, California area, and lived in many other places, but had been in New York for many years. It was time to take a trip. He ordered a truck and had it outfitted as a camper (which wasn't common at that time) and took off with his dog, Charley, for three months. He headed up north into Maine, then drove across the northern States and then south along the West Coast and back home through the South. He loaded his camper with whiskey and other libations, along with about 4 times more stuff than he needed, per his estimate. When he found someone to talk to, which he often did, he'd invite them into his camper home and serve up some coffee or whiskey (or both) and try to get them to talk. He says that no one recognized him as the author he was.

Topics that interested him were the Presidential race of 1960 (although he had trouble trying to get anyone to talk about politics with him), as well as race relations in the South. A number of the topics he mused about were everyday sorts of topics, like mobile homes, people's roots, giant redwood trees, and local accents. He speaks most to Charley, a large "blue" poodle who was starting to get a bit elderly, but who was a great companion for the trip. I was riveted by this thoughtful book, and now I need to read (and in a few cases, re-read) Steinbeck's novels.

The Guncle

 The Guncle by Steven Rowley, 326 pages.

I was introduced to this book by Kara, whose review you can read here.  After his long-term best friend and sister-in-law dies after a long battle with illness Patrick O'Hara is devastated. The last thing he wants is to take in his niece and nephew for the summer while their father is in rehab. But, short of other choices, he does it nonetheless, taking the kids into his large, empty home in Palm Springs. They spend the summer bonding and learning to handle all of their grief, as Patrick tries to move on from both this death and the death of his partner years ago.

This is a good book, although I had a hard time getting into it. Objectively it's perfectly fine, and I'm sure many people would quite like it, but I personally found myself sort of bored. It is very sweet.

Sword of Destiny

 Sword of Destiny by Andrzej Sapkowski (1992) 375 pages

 Part of the Witcher series, this book exists as a prequel to the main story line. Geralt of Rivia, a Witcher, who is a mutant who fights monsters for hire, is traveling the countryside. Sword of Destiny consists of short stories detailing the monster hunting and the people or various creatures he meets along the way.We get an introduction to the main characters who make an appearance in the following novels. I think my favorite character in the series so far is Roach, Geralt's trusty mare.

Nothing But the Truth

Nothing But the Truth by Holy James (2022) 294 pages

We meet Lucy Green just before her thirtieth birthday. She's hoping to land a new client for her publicity agency, while vying for a promotion, and also hoping her boyfriend of two years will propose. Instead, her boyfriend stands her up at a bar the evening before her birthday, which leads to Lucy talking to Adam, the bartender. He fixes her a special birthday drink before she leaves. The next morning, she finds that she cannot tell a lie, which leads to panic. Her job depends on her massaging the truth in order to work with her bosses and to save the careers of her clients. Not to mention getting along with her mother.

Was the drink magical? Maybe?? Most of the book flies past in the course of this one day – her birthday – and shows what happens when Lucy tells only the truth. This includes allowing her body to show its own truths by not subjecting herself to uncomfortable clothes and too much makeup in order to fit some ideal of how a person in her position should look (despite the social discomfort it causes).

I had to bat away my disbelief a few times, but once I decided to accept a bit of magic, I found the story to be a fast, fun trip.

The Golden Egg

The Golden Egg by Donna Leon  276 pp.

This is the 22nd book in the Commissario Guido Brunetti series. An apparently deaf and mentally disabled man in Brunetti's own neighborhood of Venice dies from an apparent accidental overdose. Both Guido and and his wife Paola knew him only as the man who did menial work at the local dry cleaners. After the rudimentary investigation into the death, questions arise after the autopsy. Although there is no official investigation into the accidental death, Brunetti discovers that there are no records of the man having ever existed. This prompts his own inquiries into the unusual and awful circumstances of the man's birth, life, and death. Meanwhile Brunetti's unpleasant boss, Vice-Questore Patta, orders him to take care of the matter of illegal land use by a relative of the Mayor. This is handled quickly leaving Brunetti to solve a couple internal problems within the Questura (police headquarters). Patta wants to move his favorite minion, Lt. Scarpa into the office of Signorina Elettra Zorzi, his secretary and displace her to another location in the building, much to her dislike. And there's the matter of Commissario Claudia Grifoni who is finding it difficult to settle into her position as a female officer and a Neopolitan transplanted to Venice. Signorina Elettra is not fond of Grifoni and Brunetti wants them to have a better working relationship. Of course, Brunetti manages to wrap it all up in under 300 pages. 

Unbreakable

 Unbreakable by Mira Grant, 114 pages.

Magical Protectors have been protecting Earth from the forces of the Outside for as long as humanity has existed. Teams across the world are prepared to fight to the death to serve that purpose, but none of them expected they would all die at once. After one horrible night all but two are dead, and for those two life is forever changed. After the massacre the governments of the world decide that no more children should be allowed to die for the sake of others, and the world does it's best to pretend that they were never heroes. Piper and Yuina were members of Unbreakable Starlight, and now they haven't spoken in years. Piper has become an alcoholic shut-in, unwilling to deal with the pain of losing all of her friends and even more unwilling to play the role of repentant magical girl for the United States government. Yuina is playing exactly that role, helping to sell the narrative that they were all misled children so that she is still allowed to talk about it at all. But they never really understood what happened that night so many years ago, and time is running out to figure it out. 

This is a super cool novella! It was fast paced and exciting while still having a pretty solid emotional core. Mira Grant is one of Seanan McGuire's pen names, and I definitely recognize her style in this. The handling of heavy emotions that come after a classic childhood adventure remind me quite a lot of her Wayward Children books, and this novella lives up to the expectation that creates. 

Also: I would definitely recommend this book to fans of the show Puella Magi Madoka Magica in particular, it feels like one of it's major inspirations.

Ms. Demeanor

 

Ms. Demeanor by Elinor Lipman (2023) 288 pages

Jane Morgan was a relatively new resident of her apartment building when she and a junior attorney from her firm decided one moonlit night to have sex on the rooftop of her building. A binoculars-wearing video-taping neighbor from a different building filmed them and called the police. The result: Jane's license to practice law is suspended and she is on home confinement for six months.

Jane's twin sister, a dermatologist, sends groceries. Jane loves to cook, and gets a couple of very old, late 1800s-era cookbooks that she is trying out. Her sister wants her to make cooking videos for TikTok. Meanwhile, the doorman to her building indicates that there is another person in the building who also has an ankle-monitor, as Jane does. Thus starts an interesting relationship – even though Perry is somewhat reserved, he and Jane find a kinship of sorts. He misses good meals and wants to pay her to cook for him a few nights per week.

Meanwhile, Jane learns that the woman who called the police on her has died, and there is a weird story behind her life and her death.

Elinor Lipman never disappoints me. Her characters are quirky and fun, in an understated way.

Charlotte Illes Is Not a Detective

Charlotte Illes Is Not a Detective by Katie Siegel (2023) 367 pages

Charlotte Illes was renowned as a child for the mysteries that she solved. As a teenager, she chose to leave behind her detective career and try something else. However, that "something else" didn't really thrill her, and at the beginning of this story, she's 25, out of work, living with her mother, and trying to find suitable women to date. Her success in the dating world is stymied by Google: each potential date she meets just wants to talk about her fame as a child detective, which she finds extremely off-putting.

Her brother and her best friend try to get her interested in detective work again since she was so good at it, and after resisting the impulse, Charlotte finally starts to look into a case for them: her brother's girlfriend works for a company that has some of its employees trying to join a union. One of the people has just disappeared. Not long ago, another was found dead. Charlotte works in conjunction with her brother's girlfriend, along with Charlotte's own childhood friends who had helped her solve mysteries years ago.

The camaraderie and banter of Charlotte and her friends is entertaining, as is watching Charlotte get back into her detective work – she's a bit rusty at it since it's been a while. She makes a few really cringey mistakes, but once she gets past them, it's smooth sailing. Or is it?!

The Fourth Bear

The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde, 378 pages

In the second (and sadly last) of Fforde's Nursery Crime books, Inspector Jack Spratt and his colleague Mary Mary are riding high off the success of their Humpty Dumpty murder investigation (detailed in The Big Over Easy) when a reporter who was investigating an exploded championship cucumber goes missing. Since that reporter is named Goldilocks and was last seen at the forest home of a bear family, the case falls squarely within the purview of the Nursery Crime Division, and Jack and Mary are on the case. Throw in a misguided theme park based on the Battle of the Somme, a powerful multinational company that has its fingers in EVERYTHING, Punch & Judy living next door, and a self-healing automobile, and you've got a classic Fforde story.

Like with The Big Over Easy, this is a gajillionth-time reread, and I still love it. I'd forgotten how meta this book gets — Mary and Jack make lots of references to plot devices and the author, all of which go over the heads of the other characters — but it makes perfect sense if you've read Fforde's Thursday Next series. This is just  smart, silly fun in book form, and it's perfect for breaks from The Tale of Genji.