Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman (2015)

Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances.
Short stories by Neil Gaiman. Liked most of them, but short story books are the hardest to capture, especially if you don't write them up right away. Suffice it to say I read or rather listened to this book.

At the Water's Edge by Sara Gruen (2015)

Wonderful story of  Scotland during World War II.  Madeline Hyde is dragged from Philadelphia in the middle of the war by her high society husband, who avoided the service, only to prove that his father really did see the Loch Ness Monster.  They land in a small Scottish village, and while her husband and his friend go off chasing the monster, Maddie opens her eyes to the horrors and strains of war around her, starts helping out, befriends some of the local villagers and awakens to her own strength and possibilities beyond what she has known. If the author Sara Gruen sounded familiar, I did read her best selling Water for Elephants.

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant (2014)

Read this much earlier this year and I even think I wrote it up, but a quick mention will have to do. This was an interesting look into young Jewish woman's life in Boston from 1915 to the 1930's - as she tells her story to her granddaughter. I've already forgotten much of the details. I do remember being fascinated by these girl's clubs that helped bright young women to see they could be more if they get an education. Sorry to cheat, but here's the description from Google Books:

"Addie Baum was a Boston Girl, born in 1900 to immigrant Jewish parents who lived a very modest life. But Addie's intelligence and curiosity propelled her to a more modern path. Addie wanted to finish high school and to go to college. She wanted a career, to find true love. She wanted to escape the confines of her family. And she did.
Told against the backdrop of World War I, and written with the same immense emotional impact that has made Diamant's previous novels bestsellers, The Boston Girl is a moving portrait of one woman's complicated life in the early 20th Century, and a window into the lives of all women seeking to understand the world around them."

Memory Man by David Baldacci (2015)

Looks like we have a new Baldacci character - Amos Decker. This is his back story. Amos was a football player that got one play in the pro's when he was hit so hard, he died twice on that field. When he woke up he was a savant and had acquired a perfect memory - remembering every detail of what he saw and experienced, plus seeing things and numbers in colors. He met his wife while he was recuperating, and she always kept him sane. But with his wife and daughter murdered, he can't keep it together and for a while becomes homeless. He is pulled back into detective work when someone confesses to the murders months later, but he then goes on to solve a complex school shooting.

Kennedy's Brain by Henning Mankell (2007)

I've liked some of Mankell's other work, so when I saw this in a street-side little library by a friend's house, I borrowed it. For some reason it took a long time to get through this one. This was a differently paced mystery, where Louise Cantor, an archaeologist digging in Greece returns home to Sweden for a conference and visits her son Henrik, only to find him dead. It is ruled a suicide, but she feels it was not and is determined to find out what happened to her son. She follows his footsteps, finding an apartment of his in Spain, briefly connecting with his father in Australia, following the path to Mozambique, where there is an AIDS facility that Henrik had visited. The reference to Kennedy's brain was very oblique - stories about the brain going missing had fascinated Henrik, representing high level secrets. I think my favorite part of the book was the look into life in Africa. I actually marked the passage: "She (Louise) was travelling to a continent that was for her as blank and unexplained as it had been for the Europeans who ventured there hundreds of years previously." I feel it is so with me too.

The True Message of Jesus bu A.B. Philips (2007)

 After conversations around the Christmas table about Jesus being in the Quran, this was offered as an explanation on how he is depicted in the Bible vs. the Quran, so today I read the book. First there was a description on how each of the holy books came about. The Bible having many authors over centuries, many unknown, certain texts having been chosen over others by church leaders, and having been rewritten and translated so many times, that scholars have been working for years trying to figure out what is and is not authentic in the Bible. The Quaran was written down during the life of the prophet Mohammad, and people have been memorizing the whole thing ever since, so if anything, I have to credit Muslims for being consistent. And yes, Jesus is mentioned as an important prophet who came before Mohammad. 

I have been meaning to reread the Gospels, mostly so I can again see the differences between them, and here many of the main points were compared. The book also looked at Jesus as a person, coming to a conclusion that Jesus was not divine, but a messenger of God, and this author thinks that Christians have misinterpreted what Jesus himself said. Another chapter talks of his message, mainly to follow the laws set down by Moses. There was an interesting section that explained various Muslim religious practices - circumcision, not eating pork or meat not drained of blood properly, alcohol, prayer, veiling women, greeting with "peace be upon you," fasting, no interest on loans, and polygamy (4 wives allowed, why does it only have to go in that direction, what if 4 husbands were allowed?) After a while the book got too detailed on parsing texts. I consider both books written down by humans divinely inspired with good guidelines on how to live ethically, but written during certain historical times and cultures, so I cannot take either literally. But I believe this took me a few steps closer to understanding Islam.

Just a minor point coming from an academic environment: I was surprised how many times standard encyclopedias and popular magazines were cited. Not that this was an academic work, just that I am used to seeing more scholarly sources cited.

Flying Too High by Kerry Greenwood (1990)

In Phryne Fisher's second adventure,where she has already established herself as a mystery solver in the high society of 20's Australia, she is asked to prevent a hot tempered son from killing his father. The father actually does get killed, and now she tries to prove the son was innocent. Meanwhile a young girl is kidnapped, so Phryne promises to help find the child and does so in the wildest way imaginable. While doing all this sleuthing and problem solving, she shows off her skills as a pilot and dare devil, gaining her new respect, though scaring her poor assistant Dot half to death. The planes end up playing a role in her solution. In the first book we learned how she came to Australia. In this one she buys a house and gets established with Dot and Mr. & Mrs. Butler - cook and maintainer of house and garden. Her one request is that her private life remain private, as she does enjoy her men. Just love her.

These are just scrumptious little books. I hope to get through a bunch of them. Only a few are available in audio, will have to check out the public library.

Drama by Raina Telgemeier (2012)

This was a graphic novel one of our students was reading for a class. This was a pretty complex story written about middle schoolers working to put on a play. The main character is their set designer and she has a best friend, a crush on a boy, a set of twins she befriends, annoying little brother. Complexities and drama, as was often the case in school, but with some important issues raised. The whole school play setting was much more than I ever realized happened. What I have seen of middle school plays in our town is more teacher and parent work, but it was quite cool to have kids responsible for costumes, lighting, set design, etc.

I know graphic novels are important, and it was a quick and satisfying read, but all those illustrations! What a lot of work. Are our middle schoolers no longer reading real books?

Jan Brett's Christmas Treasury (2001)

I found this when cleaning out a friend's house. Jan Brett was/is one of my favorite children's book authors and to find seven of her books in one is truly a treasure. But as I no longer have a little one in my life, I thought of someone who would appreciate it. Just needed to read these all before I gave it away. A couple I hadn't seen. All beautifully illustrated in this Scandinavian, almost Latvian style with lots of reindeer, and trolls and natural ornaments, etc. This treasury includes: The Mitten, The Wild Christmas Reindeer, Trouble with Trolls, The Twelve Days of Christmas, The Hat, Christmas Trolls, and The Night Before Christmas.

The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen (2011)

A new Scandinavian detective series! This one is from a Danish author, and since I hope to spend a couple of days in Copenhagen next year, great to get a Danish feel for things, though it felt like any other detective story, except for the names, and maybe the pacing of the book. Kemper on Goodreads described it as "Imagine if the brooding detective Kurt Wallander from the Henning Mankell series accidentally wandered into the plot of a Stieg Larsson novel." 

We have another disaffected detective - Carl (pronounced Kaal) Morck, who lost his two partners while working on a case, so he doesn't much care for anything. He has become unbearable at work, but still a very good and intuitive detective, so they create a new Department Q for him - down in the basement, and he asks for an assistant and gets a quirky Syrian - Assad. (Very relevant today, but the book originally came out in 2007, so before our current Syrian refugee crisis.) Their relationship is one of the delights of the book. Department Q is to look into important unsolved cases. Their first case is a missing female government official, presumed drowned off a ferry, but actually kidnapped. It is her back story that goes into the bizarre. There is a rich cast of characters - those in the precinct, Carl's roommates, his estranged wife, government workers, and of course the evil kidnappers.

Cress by Marrissa Meyer (2014)

I couldn't wait for the next Lunar Chronicles book in audio, so just borrowed it from the library. I like that these various fairy-tale characters are being intertwined in each other's stories. I am glad that we continue to follow Cinder's saga, who is actually a princess of Luna. But this is Cress' story or Rapunzel's. She is kept not in a tower, but in a satellite where she keeps Lunar ships hidden from Earthans - so, a brilliant computer geek. She really has very long hair that she has never cut while in the satellite for years. She is kept there by one of the Lunar Queen's thaumaturges Sybil Mira. As Cress monitors Cinder and her crew, she falls for Captain Thorne - who is mostly a pretty boy, but he has thrown his lot in with Cinder. Cress researches him and thinks there is something good behind the pomp. Cinder, Wolf and Thorne rescue Cress, but lose Scarlett in the process and Thorne goes blind. He and Cress end up free falling to Earth, but make it through.  Not knowing where else to turn, Cinder and Wolf head to Africa, where they meet up with Dr. Erland. Cinder's robot with a personality Iko gets a new body. Prince Kai is getting ready to marry Queen Levana. Can't wait for the next book.

Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood (2006)

I think I've found another mystery series I want to pursue. Phryne Fisher is an interesting character that I would not mind spending some more time with. She grew up poor in Australia, but through the English bloodlines system, her father inherited great wealth that has left her more than comfortable, elegantly dressed (I did like the descriptions of her 20's clothing) and bored. When asked to check out why a daughter was looking so ill whenever she visited England, Phyryne takes on investigating this mystery and runs across a cocaine ring in Melbourne, Australia. I liked how she picked up Dot, recently unemployed maid, as her personal maid. I get the sense they will keep working together. Then she involves two cab drivers - Bert and Cec to help her out. Liked the Russian dancer Sasha and Dr. Elizabeth MacMillan, who work in a women's hospital, as she is not allowed to practice in the regular one. Phryne can dress up to fit into the most elegant society, and dress down to fit in among low-lives. Very enjoyable, plus a glimpse into the 1920's, and the current reoccurring theme of British expats worldwide.

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer (2013)

What fun with the second of the Lunar Chronicles. We have Scarlet - our Red Riding Hood with her red hoodie, who works on a farm (woods?) with her grandmother, who is missing. She delivers their fresh produce to a restaurant in the town and who does she come across - a street fighter Wolf. I think there was a Hunter in the story too, but not a good guy. After that I can't find too many connections with the original story, but we are in Cinder's post WW4 world with Queen Levana from the Moon threatening to take over the world. I was glad that we continued to follow Cinder too, as we left her in jail, but with some tools that can help her break out. She lands in the cell of Captain/Cadet Thorne (not sure if he has any symbolic importance), but he has a ship that Cinder needs to escape. He's not the brightest, but he gives Cinder an amusing side-kick. Young Emporer Kai is still in the mix, as is Iko, Cinder's android friend/personality. We see Cinder start to learn to use her lunar abilities. Got to remember this is a young adult book, but lots of interesting concepts.

The Liar by Nora Roberts (2015)

This is one of the mystery stories by Roberts. Shelby has lost her husband Richard in a boating accident and finds out that the wealth he surrounded her with was all a lie - everything bought on credit with payments overdue. She is left with an enormous debt. The only good thing out of that relationship is Callie, their three year old daughter. Unlike some of Roberts' books, where the woman meets the man within the first chapter if not first page, the author takes her time and we spend time watching Shelby fighting despair and debtors, getting organized and selling off things, before heading back to Tennessee and her family. There she is doted on by parents, brothers and grandparents and we see she comes from a line of strong women. My biggest discomfort was the huge focus on the beauty salon/spa that is owned by her grandmother, where her mother works, and where Shelby ends up working too. I know it is an important part of many women's lives, it just isn't for me, and the constant focus on the outward appearance troubles me. I'm all for enjoying a new dress, or getting your hair done for a special occasion, but that you can't walk out of the house without putting on your lipstick just bums me out. Plus there was inordinate fuss over an engagement party that also was unpleasant.

I have mentioned in the past that sometimes the characters in Roberts' books seem to disconnected from family and friends made over the years. This one was rich with family, and included an old high school rival and the best friend, who was mad at her for being so distant while married to Richard and not coming back for important events. Of course Shelby makes up with her friend, and through her meets Griff,  a construction business. As in many of her male characters, he is too good to be true, but I did enjoy the fact that he connected so well with Shelby's daughter Callie. I also liked that he was restoring an old country house.

The mystery was based on a plot twist that was quite obvious from the beginning, but it still caused enough excitement and gave Griff an opportunity to worry and support Shelby. The debt angle was quite implausible - that she could sell so much off for such substantial sums, and that she could keep paying off the huge debt with income from her salon job. But I liked that we see Shelby regaining her confidence in herself, that she lost through the mentally abusive relationship with Richard.

Circling the Sun by Paula McLain (2015)

Wonderful, wonderful book about Beryl Markham by the same author who wrote Paris Wife about Hemingway's wife Hadley. I read Markham's autobiography West with the Night many years ago and remembered really enjoying it. Now McLain has taken her story and fictionally revealed even more of the life of this amazing woman. Kenya is portrayed beautifully, and I ran up against my old complaint of the British - who the hell did they think they were claiming the rest of the world as theirs. Markham was partially raised by the native Kikuyu people, but I was still left with the feeling, what happened to them? I think I need to read up on Kenyan history.

Markham was the first woman to cross the Atlantic in a plane east to west and the book starts and ends with this event. Beryl was born in England, but soon her family moved to Kenya, where her father started a farm and raised horses, but her mother soon returned to England, leaving young Beryl behind. The Kikuyu stepped in and raised her. Her best friend in childhood was the chief's son, with which she learned the ways of the Kenyan woods and grasslands, including hunting. Her father taught her to work with horses, and she at one point became one of the first women trainers. When drought and debts overwhelmed the farm, Beryl felt she was forced to marry to stay in Kenya, but she was unprepared and the marriage soon fell apart. Her big love was Denys Finch Hatten, but he was more Karen Blixen's than anyone else's. I recognized the name immediately, but took a while to remember she is the author of Out of Africa - a book I read before the movie came out. After her second marriage to Markham dissolves, she turns to flying. As an independent woman, she kept running up against society's expectations in many ways. Amazing woman, who's story was very well told. I'd like to reread West with the Night again.

Lavender Morning by Jude Deveraux (2009)

Second Deveraux book this year, rummage sale choice. I like the stories where a younger person (usually woman) befriends an older person and ends up unearthing past family secrets, and this seems to be a Deveraux way of telling a story. Jocelyn (Joce) lost her elegant mother, and her father remarried and returned to a more basic lifestyle. She is saved by an elderly neighbor Miss Edi, who shows her culture, helps her get an education. When Edi dies, she leaves Jocelyn all her positions, including a large old house in a small town in Virginia. The house comes with a couple of interesting women as renters. There are also a couple of interesting men waiting for her - Ramsey, a lawyer, the other, and Luke, a gardner. As she unravels the story of Miss Edi, she finds herself and the right guy for her - of course.

The Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz (2015)

I know I wasn't the only one that was disappointed that we were not going to see anymore Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist books, as author Stieg Larsson had died. So I was thrilled when another Swedish author had gotten the rights to continue their adventures in this book and that the new author is also a journalist, a crime reporter, so he could continue making the fictional journalist realistic. I rarely pick up a new book in hardcover, but I did this one, and read it in a weekend. The story is complex, with many characters and locations around the globe. I appreciated the author giving the main characters from the previous books, just as a reminder, as they play roles in this story or at least get mentioned.

Blomkvist's magazine Millenium is in danger, as I can imagine many a magazine is struggling in these days of everything being on the Web. So how does journalism keep surviving, who can pay investigative journalists? But that has little to do with this book, just came up as a question. Blomkvist is restless, some are calling him washed up. He gets a call from Frans Balder in the middle of the night, and goes to see what he wants, and from then it is non stop.

Frans Balder is a genius mathematician, with autistic son August, fading actress ex-wife Hanna, her no good current live-in Lasse Westman. He has done some amazing work with AI that others want. He has returned to Sweden to take his son under his own wing and realized the kid is also brilliant with numbers and can draw amazingly - a savant. The kid becomes a key figure in this thriller.

Lisbeth Salander is working on finding the remnants of her late father's band of evil-doers, which have been called Spiders. I liked the way the comic characters were brought into the story. Brilliant techies, but social misfits often turn to comic books (as in Big Bang Theory) - and understanding these was a clue to those thrying to figure things out. Salander does stir up a wasp's (not hornet's) nest in America, so we have a complex story that includes Swedish police, Swedish Security Police, American National Security Agency, an investigative magazine, bad guys, some with a bit of a conscience, and more.

And now I know there can be more Blomkvist Salander books. Yeah!!

Forgotten by David Baldacci (2012)

One more exciting, escapist Baldacci story, the second I've read with John Puller as the lead character. He goes down to Paradise, Florida, because his father received a cryptic note from his sister, Puller's aunt. Of course when he gets down there, she is dead, seemingly drowned in a shallow pool in her back yard. All of Paradise doesn't quite seem to live up to it's name, as he runs into the shadier side near the hotel he can afford. He keeps running into the local police, though hits it off with a competent police woman. At one point he asks his boss and friend, General Julie Carlson, to join him and back him up. She has a desk job and enjoys spending her vacation being shot at - in Puller's company. To each his own.

Then we have Mecho, who is even larger and more lethal than Puller with his own agenda. He gets taken by slave traders in Mexico, who use abandoned oil rigs out in the Gulf of Mexico as stations, but escapes them and also lands in Paradise, gets a job with a landscape company, and works on a rich guy's property that requires tending every day. Here he is approached by a gorgeous woman who has also been having sex with the rich guy.

Of course they all come together in a series of action packed adventures to stop the slave traders. It is scary to think that the slave trade is alive and well in the U.S. I am sure the novel reflected realities, like the different categories of slaves - sex slaves, mules, and basic laborers. There was also a category I hadn't thought of - children used to create "families", so the adults will not be scrutinized in airports and elsewhere. And they are all kept in place with the threat that their families will be killed if they don't comply. Horrible. I wish our governmental institutions would spend less energy harassing immigrants and on the war on drugs and concentrate on preventing the slave trade.

Villa by Nora Roberts (2001)

As a child I had a subscription to Reader's Digest condensed books and I read at least a couple from each edition, getting a nice eclectic reading background, including some things that I could refer to later in life, like The Scarlet Pimpernel. I usually don't like condensed books anymore, but for some authors, it doesn't matter. I felt like a quick read, and picked this up at a rummage sale. It felt like one of those I had read before, but it had to be before 2005, when I started recording what I read.

Villa is set in California wine country with a few connections to the vineyards in Italy. Two families have neighboring vineyards and the patriarch and matriarch of the two have lost their spouses, have married and are bringing the companies together into one. We actually get two romantic couples in this one - Sophia, the granddaughter of Giambelli's is the marketing specialist, Tyler MacMillan is the wine specialist - pruning vines, making the wine. They are forced to work together and learn each other's jobs - and of course they end up falling in love. Sophia's mom Pilar has not been lucky in love with meandering Tony, but she finds her match in David Cutter, who has been hired as chief operations officer. There are a few deaths, dramas, etc. - the usual excitement generated by Roberts. I like the details of wine making, and I have spent one February in my life pruning grape vines, so could appreciate that part.

A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler (2015)

I picked this up on our popular reading shelf, but it moved too slowly, so I got it in audio, as it still seemed worth reading. This was a family story - four generations of Whitshanks - as the first couple arrives in Baltimore in the 1920's from a small town in the mountains. He starts a building business, builds his ideal home for a rich couple, and ends up buying it from them. They have a son Red, who inherits the business and home. Red and Abby raise four kids - each with his own travails, and then some of them have kids. We get most of the story from Red and Abby's family in the last few years with a few flashbacks here and there. Then towards the end of Abby's life, we finally get her story on how she fell in love with Red and a glimpse into grandma. Then it end's with grandpa's story - with an interesting male viewpoint - that he never was really interested in grandma (I don't have the book, read it a while ago and have already forgotten names), except originally for the obvious - and how wily she was to get him to marry her, though I am not sure they ever actually got married, just said they were. Makes me think that women over the ages must have done a lot of this to get those independent, gruff men to settle down. I know this is a very minor part of what was a well and kindly written book about a quirky, but average family. I haven't read anything by Tyler, at least not in the last 10 years, but I get a sense this is her style, and when I want something laid back, I may try something else by her.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman (2015)

Original in Swedish came out in 2012. A Man Called Ove was heartwarming - took a while to warm to the curmudgeon, but ended really caring for him, even if I wouldn't want to live on his street. Not quite as funny and great as the 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window, but some similar Scandinavian humor. 

Ove is a grumpy old man who lives by himself in a neighborhood that he patrols daily and expects things to be just so. Then a lively family moves in next door and starts by knocking over his mailbox. I won't say more - and let others have the book unfold as they read it. But it really made me think - when someone is grumpy and bitter, do I remember to ask why? There may well be a very good reason.

Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox (1985)

I remember Mem Fox being one of the authors we looked at in my children's lit class at KVCC many moons ago. Maybe even this one. I picked it up, because it caught my eye, as I was just looking for a kids book to balance my day.

Wilfrid is a kid that lives next door to an old folk's home and he spends time with these old folks and likes them. One of them is losing her memory, so he asks all the others what a memory is like. He gathers items based on what he is told, brings them to Miss Nancy and she remembers all sorts of things about her past. 

I loved the story, the illustrations, and on top of that, I had just finished Still Alice, which is about losing one's memory, so this just felt so apropos.

The Fifth Gospel by Ian Caldwell (2015)

An interesting book written by a history major, who took 10 years to write it. One of the first things I found fascinating was that this took place in the state of Vatican. Never thought about it as a country that needs workers to keep it running, and that there would be families living there, raising kids, that run around and explore these ancient buildings and sites. One of my favorite stories was that as teens they snuck into the papal garage and drove the Popemobile.

I never thought much about the schism between the Catholics and Orthodox. Still not quite sure how that came about, but then I found out that there is another sect - Eastern or Greek Catholics, that in many ways appear more like the Orthodox, but still follow the Pope. They are allowed to marry before they take their vows, so our main character Father Alex Andreou has a five-year-old son though his wife disappeared when Peter was very young. Father Alex is so human and wonderful around his son, that this alone makes the book compelling.

The curator of an exhibit on the Shroud of Turin is murdered right before the exhibit opens, and since Father Alex and his brother both helped the murdered man, he is drawn into the investigation, but becomes a target himself. Complex, full of history, well told story.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (2014)

Another amazing historical novel about World War II, from the viewpoint of a couple of fascinating young people, but touching on a few important aspects of how people were affected by the war. I have my parents' story, but here are the stories of some of the French and Germans.

Marie-Laure grows up in Paris, blind, but with a devoted father who works in the natural history museum, who teaches her the world through her fingers. He builds her an accurate model of their neighborhood, so she can get around on her own.When the war forces them to flee to Saint-Malo on the coast of France, in Brittany, he again builds her a model of that town. She is a curious and brave soul who manages quite well by using her other senses, so we get her story full of sounds and smells and tactile experiences.

Werner grows up in a German mining town, in an orphanage with his sister. As he scrounges around for food, he finds a broken radio, is fascinated by it, fixes it, and listens to broadcasts - including one from France that is about science for children. He knows French from the French born caretaker of the orphanage. His skills are noted and he is pulled out and trained in a special camp to be an exemplary soldier for the German army.

Don't have time to finish this review, but Marie-Laure and Werner show us the war from their point of view and meet at the end. We see the resistance regular people put up, and we see the difficult jobs the regular German soldiers had to do, the brainwashing they were subjected to.

No wonder this book got the Pulitzer Prize.

The Rembrandt Affair by Daniel Silva (2010)

Another wonderful book by Silva with the great character Gabriel Allon, who is an Israeli spy and assassin, but also a highly skilled art restorer. We always get a piece of Jewish history and world politics in these books, and this time, the (fictious) Rembrandt portrait of his mistress takes us through the way the wealthy Jews were robbed of their belongings by Nazi Germany and of their fates through this well told story. We also get a glimpse into the economics of art sales and thieves.

Another art restorer is found dead and Gabriel is pulled out of a well earned retirement to look into this. Turns out the painting that was being restored was a lost Rembrandt, which was owned by a Jewish family before WWII. It was taken from the family, but the bill of sale was kept by a girl that survived the Holocaust. Allon follows leads around the world including South America, where the son of one of the Nazi officials contributes information.

Breaking Vegas by Ben Mezrich (2006)

I chose this book, since I had been to Vegas and was mildly intrigued by having MIT brains crack the system and win at Black Jack. I didn't mind seeing a group of students get the best of Vegas, a place with no attraction to me. But I could not understand the stupidity of betting outrageously high on just the sure hands, being so noticeable, so that they fairly quickly got blacklisted around the globe. Instead of using the technique subtly a bit at a time, which could provide a long term income, just going wild for a short time period didn't make sense. 

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins (2015)

This is a psychological murder mystery suggested by someone for me. I am not sure why this type of book doesn't appeal to me as much as it could. I almost stopped reading it, as it made me so uncomfortable, but I am glad I made it to the end, as it really was well put together.

Rachel takes the train into London every day, though she has been fired from her job for being drunk and insulting and doesn't want to tell her roommate. She looks out the window and pays special attention to her old house, where her ex-husband lives with Anna and their daughter Evie. A few doors down she see what she thinks of as the perfect couple - she gives them names, but we later find out they are Megan and Scott. We hear the story through the voices of the three women - day by day. Mostly chronological, but hear the past of one, when we need to. Megan disappears and Rachel thinks she saw something that could be useful. She keeps bothering her ex-husband Tom and his wife Anna.

I did not like being in the mind of alcoholic Rachel, especially in the beginning. I drank a lot in my youth, but it was always for fun, with people, never to get away from myself or my problems. Well, maybe we did drown our sorrows once in a while, but it didn't feel like this. So I am not sure what makes it so disconcerting. Watching a Harvard professor lose her memory in Still Alice was difficult, but did not make me feel this uncomfortable. Megan was also struggling with various mental issues, and she too made me uncomfortable, though as an undergraduate psych major I used to be interested in what made people tick. I wrote the above paragraph while I was in the beginning of the book. We do get an explanation and that circumstances and life had made Rachel and Megan that way, which somehow mitigated my discomfort by the end of the book. 

Midway I looked up The Girl on the Train online - I tend to go with Amazon for its official and unofficial reviews. When they compared it with Gone Girl, my discomfort made sense. Gone Girl is one of the few audio books I never finished, because I did not like that feeling of not knowing what is true, I never grew to care for any of the characters. But since I ran out of books to listen to, I did finish The Girl on the Train  and was glad I did. The book is well structured. I went back to the beginning and it was not that I didn't know what was true, but I did not have the complete story. Like an impressionist painting, it gives a dab of info here and there and only in the end we see the whole picture.

Dark Witch by Nora Roberts (2013)

Roberts takes us back to Ireland, the one foreign country she has ties to, and gets back to full force magic. I usually like a touch of magic; not so much this intense fight against evil that was set in motion centuries ago. But after being "good" and reading some historical novels or ones that teach me something, I was ready for a ride with Roberts' formulaic improbable three couple romance with strong women. Since I was listening to this, I was distracted by the overly dramatic reading, especially in the beginning, but got used to it.

Iona gives up everything she has in America and moves to Ireland, as suggested by her grandmother. Actually, other than her grandmother, there is not much keeping her in the U.S. as she never felt she fit in. Her only real love was horses; she was good with them and successful in competitions. Luckily there are horses in Ireland.

She spends her first week in a hotel in an old castle, but then moves in with her cousins Branna and Conner O'Dweyer. Turns out the three of them are witches descending from a strong witch from the past, who divided her power among three children instead of surrendering it to the evil guy. Looks like it is time to battle again, the three descendants reunited, but Iona doesn't really know how to control or work with her power, so Branna and Conner teach her.

I liked Iona's relationship with horses. She gets a job in the local stable where she meets Boyle - and their connection is intense - you know the routine. Finn, the owner of the stables (an a man with power in his own right) brings in a new horse - Alistair, who ends up being Iona's familiar spirit and partner in magic.

To fill out the trilogy couples, looks like Finn is connected to Branna, but they have some old wounds to heal, and Conner probably will be connecting with Maura, an amazon horsewoman. The closed world Roberts creates around this six-some seems limiting and the magic too spectacular. I think there really is something other than what we see, but it is much more subtle, as is evil. But the book was still decent entertainment for a long drive.

The Adventures of Beekle by Dan Santat (2014)

This Caldecott Medal winner has a subtitle of "The Unimaginary Friend." It is cute, colorful and full of imagination and reality. Beekle lives on an island with other imaginary creatures, waiting for a child to choose him. When no one does, he goes looking for his friend and finds a lonely little girl.

The Kingmaker's Daughter by Philippa Gregory (2013)

It has been a while since I have read one of Philippa Gregory's intricate historical novels, so I tried this. I had to pull out my most trusted reference on Britain's kings and queens - meant for children, but gives me the grounding on where this fits in their long history and gives me the simple, at times funny explanation of these royal machinations, which can get lost in the details of the story. I am just glad we live in a time with term limits and that the outgoing ruler does not need to be killed or imprisoned to change governments. I also realized that Queen Elizabeth II has been ruling (well, presiding) my whole life - and I am no spring chicken.

The main character is Anne, the kingmaker's daughter. Her father raised the royal York boys Edward, George and Richard, and when he didn't like the way Henry (the sleeping king, as Anne calls him) ruled, he placed Edward on the throne, imprisoning Henry. When he didn't like the fact that Edward's wife and her family had too much influence on him, he tried to put the second son George in his place, but lost that bid. 

Anne's sister is married to George, at 15 Anne gets married off to old King Henry's son, her father thinking he can get one of his daughters on the throne and be grandfather to a king. Then Anne's young husband and her father get killed in battle. She ends up marrying Richard, the third York son. Her nemesis - real or imagined is King Edward;s wife Elizabeth Woodville, who is not only beautiful and fertile with 10 children, but skillful in getting her family into positions of power.

Oh, the constant machinations and bids for power, trying to disprove the rights of one or the other to be king or queen, calling marriages illegal, children bastards, praying for a male child, trying to rule through children, accusing people of bewitching them. And this struggle for power, at least through Anne's eyes, doesn't mention how one or the other could be a better ruler for the country, but who can hold the most elaborate Christmas feast or wear the most elegant dresses with silks, gold, and furs.

At times this all sounded so petty, but then we have our own ways of being petty, and I don't even want to start with the power plays in American politics. Even today we follow the lives British royalty - Princess Charlotte was just born to Prince William and Kate. I'm not clear who will be king after Queen Elizabeth, I've read that she will pass the throne on to Price William or maybe her son Prince Charles this year.

I think I have had enough of a dose of British royalty for a while, but it is an interesting read, especially the details of daily life.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman (2001)

A wonderful book. I liked Gaiman's premise, that all the different immigrants to the U.S. brought their own gods to the country, but that if they are not remembered or believed in, they start losing power. Shadow is released from prison early, because his wife has died. On the way home he meets Wednesday, who convinces him to work for him, and with nothing waiting at home, he goes on this strange adventure across the country.Wednesday is actually the old god Odin and is gathering the gods for a huge fight against the new gods of the Internet and technology. The old gods live among normal folks and affect those around them - I recognized some of them, but many I had never read about. I should have written this up right after I read it, as I had numerous insights, as Gaiman has things to say about various important issues, but...

Heartwishes by Jude Deveraux (2011)

I really like books set in an academic world, which is why the description intrigued me, but I forgot that Deveraux is basically a romance writer, and the academic part was just the setting. My favorite parts of the book were the beginning and end. We meet Gemma Ranford, a PhD student in history, who gets the amazing opportunity to go through untouched family papers going back to the 16th century, and as the owner says, she almost had an orgasm when she saw the extent of the papers. Gemma moves into the guest house on the Frazier estate in Virginia and starts work. I was a bit skeptical on how quickly she got through the first sort, and that the first piece of paper she picks up is a fragment of a letter that speaks to a family mystery, but hey, this is fiction. Her love interest is Colin Frazier, the eldest son in the family who is asked to watch over her by his mother. His dream was to become the sheriff of their small town of Edilene, which he has accomplished, but now he also falls in love. He is a very large man, but Gemma likes that, as she has been tutoring the football players and other athletes in her college. Another piece I really liked, was that she discovered that they would fall asleep during her tutoring after practice, so she practiced with them and taught while they exercised - getting her in great shape as a side benefit. The Heartwishes stone story was a bit much - a family heirloom lost over the years that granted Fraziers one heartfelt wish in their life. There's also an old girlfriend, mysterious thefts, and a cozy community. In the end, Gemma finds the hidden papers that explain the family mystery, which brought it full circle 

Artichoke Tales by Megan Kelso (2010)

I just grabbed this one day as I was passing the graphic novel section in the library. Maybe the fault lay in the fact that I didn't read this straight through, or I am getting old and don't know how to follow a story in images anymore, but I felt lost in this book, had a hard time keeping track of the characters. I liked the artichoke heads, but had to look very hard to differentiate them. It has been a while since I did read this, so I don't remember any details, but there was some romance, power hungry folks, war, some industrialized, some rural parts of this imaginary world, in conflict. 

The Tsunami Quilt by Anthony Fredericks (2007)

Subtitle: Grandfather's Story.

I love these real life stories for kids. I fantasized about writing my father's or mother's story in a kid book form for my child. But... 

In 1946 Hawaii was hit by a tsunami, and a whole school was wiped out on a peninsula. This boy's grandfather saved himself by climbing up high early, but lost a lot of his classmates. There now is a tsunami museum in Hawaii and a quilt for all those that were lost from this one area.

The Ship Who Searched by Anne McCaffrey & Mercedes Lackey (1992)

This was one of the books I found from my science fiction reading days and I

thought I would try rereading it. At some point I remembered what the final outcome was going to be, but it was still fun to get to that point. I ready quite a bit by McCaffrey and Lackey in my day, and I like these combined authorship books.

Seven-year old Tia lives with her archaeologist parents on a world that they are digging, when she feels ill with some virus that even the advanced medicine of the day cannot cure and leaves her paralyzed. She is considered too old to be transferred into a brainship to be its brain, but she is such a bright, flexible, adaptive child, that they do build her into a ship, and she becomes a brilliant, intuitive ship. She does need a human partner or brawn, and she finds a compatible partner in Alex. They supply archaeological digs and are especially adept at dealing with plague situations. A really intriguing and touching book. Remember liking it back when it came out and liked it again.

Christmas Train by David Baldacci (2001)

This was an intentional reread. I think it was the first Baldacci book I ever read/listened to, and it must have been before 2005, as it isn't even in this blog. I remember it being mellower than his thrillers, but still interesting, as an assortment of people with various issues gather together for an across the country trip on a train at Christmas time.

Tom Langdon is a journalist, who has retired from covering wars and other volatile situations around the world. He is taking the train to see his girlfriend in LA, because he has been banned from flying for losing it during a security check. He decides he will write about the train ride, as Mark Twain once planned to do. (I liked the Mark Twain references.) He runs into his old love Eleanor, so then I remembered the basic ending, but was still surprised at the turn of events. Baldacci writes a good story.

Gideon's Sword by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child (2011)

Not that I really needed another cloak and dagger book, but the most recent one of Gideon Crew books caught my eye and I though it best to start with the first one. It really helps to know how the characters end up doing these crazy things. Gideon's story is that he saw his father gunned down after he surrendered. He was falsely accused of being responsible for the loss of CIA operatives, though he was the one that warned of flaws in a new code. On her deathbed, Gideon's mother tasks him to seek revenge, so the first part of the book is about this revenge and we get to see the skill set he has. He is smart - works in Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. He has acting skills - he plays numerous characters to get information and access he wants. He has learned magic, so he is good at diverting attention and slight of hand. In the beginning it wasn't spelled out, but later we find out he is an accomplished art thief, can do more with computers than most, but need help on really geeky stuff, and can fight and use weapons. He has been so focused on his goal of revenge, that he has left out the people part, so has no real friends. So we have the lone wolf again.

The second half of the book has Gideon hired by an ultra-secret divison of the government to discover what a man from China is bringing into the country. Looking at some of the reviews in Amazon, most complained about too many unbelievable plot twists. It was a bit too much, but I understand that their other books are better, so I may try more.

Minding Frankie by Maeve Binchy (2010)

I remember Maeve Binchy being a feel good author from Ireland, and in this book she again brings together a group of people with unhappy lives of various sorts and weaves them together into a caring community. The main lost soul is Noel, who doesn't finish school, is in a boring, dead end job, has become an alcoholic, lives with his parents, and sees no purpose in life. His life is changed by two people. Emily, a middle aged cousin who appears on his doorstep from America and seems to take over the reorganizing of the whole family and neighborhood, but who has disappointments of her own. And Frankie - a baby born to a dying former hook-up of his. Emily helps involve a whole community in caring for Frankie and helping Noel get back on his feet. The only one that doesn't really resolve her issues, but gets a bit mellower by the end of the book is Moira, the overly strict social worker, who is just waiting for Noel to fail.

No! I Don't Want to Join a Book Club by Virginia Ironside (2007)

Wonderful, down to earth book about turning 60 - in my generation that led a pretty wild life in the 1960's & 70's. Of course everyone is different and I don't always feel like the character Marie (kept being pronounced as "marry") Sharp, who lives in Britain, retired art teacher, divorced a long time ago, one grown son. But she reflects accurately so many of my feelings about getting old. I want to actually buy this book and underline certain passages. HOpefully I can add to this reflection, as the book deserves it, but too many books haven't even made it into my blog, so I will stop here.

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion (2013)

What a delight! This was such a fun book, narrated by Don, a brilliant geneticist living in Australia, who is wired differently. He does not know how to act appropriately in social situations, needs to schedule everything to the minute, says what his mind perceives as scientifically correct, doesn't care how he dresses, does not feel emotions, and so forth. As he tells the story, he explains how he sees it and then what his thought process is to come up with what he actually says - often wildly inappropriate, but funny. I never felt I was laughing at him, but with him.  Though a friend asks Don to lecture on Asperger's, it seems he doesn't tie in the symptoms to himself, and I don't dare diagnose, but... 

Don decides he does want a partner in life, so for his Wife Project he writes up a questionnaire that would get at the traits he wants - no smoking or drinking (though he drinks himself), highly educated, understands numbers, organized, will eat strange things, etc. Of course very few women fit, and when one does, but is a advanced ballroom dancer, he teaches himself to dance all the ballroom dances - just without a live partner or music - you can see that just leads to a hilarious situation. He is used to being laughed at, as it has been going on all his life, so he seems not to mind, but is rescued by Rosie, a bar maid that has come to him wanting to find out who her real father is. It is someone her mother slept with at her graduation party, so the two of them create the Father Project and go off to gather DNA samples from dozens of men.

Heartwarming, as Don learns social skills - by applying his amazing brain to the task and make many people's lives better. Will read the sequel soon.

Zero Day by David Baldacci (2011)

I like Baldacci, so I thought I would try this series with John Puller. He is a bit younger than Will Robie and Oliver Stone and some of the other main characters I have liked, still coming out of a military background, a former combat vet, now a military investigator. He gets sent to rural WV to investigate a murder of a military man and his family. The book felt too military with focus on types of weapons, etc., but somehow Baldacci gets me to care for these hard core guys. Puller works with the local police chief Sam(antha) Cole, who never expected having to deal with multiple murders in her territory, but keeps up with Puller and backs him up on his complex investigation. There are all these characters in WV, that remind me of my days in southeastern Ohio. Puller helps out the old lady that owns the run down motel he is staying at, which felt a little too sweet, but then I liked him being straight forward with the nasty rich coal mine owner. Anyway, it looks like I will never catch up with all the books Baldacci has written.