Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin (2016)

I like Melanie Benjamin's historical novels and this is of a time and place close to my own history, though the first meeting of Truman Capote and Babe Paley and some of the other "Swans" of New York was the year I was born. 

I have to say that this one I had a harder time reading, as the goal of being beautiful and perfect by itself just sounded so empty. The energy that Babe Paley put into making herself and all her homes beautiful, and her husband Bill Paley's (founder of CBS) life go smoothly, would easily qualify her to run her own company or foundation or something. All the ladies in this circle of friends had their main goal to look fabulous, marry rich, send their kids off to boarding schools, maintain numerous abodes and attend lunches and galas. One sentence just got to me - that they elegantly pushed their fancy French meal around on their plates, because to fit in those designer clothes, they of course could not eat it. Ugh! What a waste. I grew up in the generation that rebelled against this. In high school, I would go with my parents to the City Opera at Lincoln Center. You could go in a sequined gown or torn jeans.

But somehow, the socialites were befriended by Truman Capote. He had a lousy childhood and obviously did not fit in Alabama as the precocious gay boy. His one friend from home, interestingly enough, was fellow writer Harper Lee (of To Kill a Mockingbird fame, which is about their home town and the two of them used to go to court hearings for entertainment.) Plus the courtroom provided material for stories that Truman told all his life - some true, some imagined. Capote ended up in New York and began to write stories and scripts. So by the time he met the socialites of New York, he was a known author with a flamboyant flair.

When he met Babe Paley, while tagging along with a friend on the Paley private plane, he and Babe connected. He would tell great stories, loved to gossip, but also really listened. Over the years he gained the trust of Babe and her socialite friends. He did also work on writing, and became obsessed with a murder of a family in Nebraska - going out there to interview the townspeople, the cops, the murderers, and wrote the whole story up in his most famous book In Cold Blood. (Maybe I should read it.) After the success of that book he threw his famous Black and White Party in 1966, where he invited his 540 closest friends -  a combination of writers, artists, socialites, politicians, movie folks and also invited a family from the Nebraska town. Unfortunately, it was downhill from there. Unable to write anything else, he ended up writing about his socialite friends, and Babe and Bill in particular, and was outcast from their society.

The Girls in the Picture by Melanie Benjamin (2018)

Fascinating look at the early years of movie making through the (fictional) eyes of two of the first women that were involved. Mary Pickford, who even I have heard of, and Frances Marion, a screenwriter of the times that won two academy awards. They were very close friends for quite a while, as Francis wrote parts for Mary where she could be a little girl that movie goers loved. Mary married Douglas Fairbanks, a swashbuckling hero, though neither did very well when silent movies went to talkies, but they were a beloved Hollywood couple around the globe. Melanie Benjamin takes all the facts she can find about historical characters and then weaves a tale of how these people might have felt and what they might have thought and said. I understand it is fiction, but it works for me.

I found it fascinating to hear about how the early movies were made, how the film companies evolved. Mary, Frances and Charlie Chaplain founded United Artists and were founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts. Though I am not a movie buff, I would really like to see how movies are made one day. If my son continues to live out in California, I just might get around to it.

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo (2016)

Thank goodness this is just a duology. I thought things ended pretty well for the good guys and not so well for the bad guys. but I did want to read it soon after the Six of Crows, as this was a complex world with a lot of characters and I was afraid to forget them, if I waited too long.

The gang, led by Caz, has returned from the Ice Palace, but were cheated out of their reward and now they are all being hunted by various factions. Things look desperate, but Caz Brekker again thinks up a most convoluted scheme with a lot of moving parts, all of which need to happen close to perfectly, for all of them to be safe and relatively undisturbed, with funds in their pockets to follow their dreams. And the bad guys, while still alive, having lost their reputations and empires, whether they be merchants or Barrel lords.

(Another abbreviated note, as I seem to not be finding the time to write these up, but at least I have a touch point to what I have read. This one was read in June, but I occasionally upload a draft as is.)

Drift by Rachel Maddow (2013)

(Written around 2014-15, so forgive the old references - but interesting to see how I thought.)

I like Rachel Maddow's news show on MSNBC, though there are times it just feels like too much, so I go back to Jon Stewart or Steven Colbert, that have a similar stance, just with more humor. I was not sure I wanted to listen to a book about our military, but I wanted to see what Maddow had to say, and was very glad that I did.

Maddow had done extensive research and then strung it together in a cohesive narrative taking us through the military history of the U.S. throughout the 20th century to today. I didn't realize that the constitution had set it up, so that the president could not declare war by himself, but this declaration had to be made by congress, so no one person could get us into war. This power has now been relinquished by slowly chipping away at the concept till today the congress is out of the loop.

Unfortunately I never finished my thoughts on this book, but since she has a new book out that I will be reading soon, thought I might as well get this up there. I will also note that I now prefer Rachel Maddow's show to the comedians, though I still watch them at times. Trevor Noah is now my favorite, as he has found a lighter touch on the disastrous news of the day.

The Cafe by the Sea by Jenny Colgan (2016)

I could live in these rural worlds that Colgan spins forever. No, I don't want to live there, just visit and hang out during her stories. This is about the fictional island of Mure off the northern coast of Scotland. Yes, there are plenty of islands out there and somebody lives on them and tourists go visit them.

Flora grew up in Mure, but went to live in London and works in a law firm, where she is in love with her workaholic boss Joel. But, they have a rich client Colton, who wants the law firm to help him win a case to move a wind turbine field away from the island, so it doesn't ruin the view from his new exclusive resort. 

Flora is sent up there to be a liaison with the town. She does not want to be there, as she left in less than ideal circumstances after her mother died. After failing to feed her father and brothers with fancy food from the city, she discovers her mother's cookbook and starts recreating her mom's wonderful recipes and healing herself.

When she meets Colton, he is nice enough, but he has totally ignored the town and its inhabitants and is not liked there. Flora starts mending the relationship and one example is that he owns a storefront that he has kept empty, while young islanders go off the island to find summer and permanent jobs. Flora is put in charge of opening up a cafe in the storefront, which becomes very successful with the locals and visitors. Anyway, a nice mix of people and lives. I also like that Colgan doesn't just rip her character out of the city life and plop her in the country, but she keeps contact with her city friends and keeps them involved in her life. Next book please...

Hello Lighthouse by Sophie Blackall (2018)

Had to check out the latest Caldecott Medalist. Wonderful story of a lighthouse keeper, who lives alone until his wife comes and they have a child and he is displaced by an electronic light that does not need to be maintained by a person. Gorgeous, creative illustrations - of the power of the sea, the cut away of the different floors of the lighthouse, how they all lived and worked there and obviously loved it. The inside back cover has the story of how the author became interested in light houses and all the facts she dug up to create this charming book for kids and the rest of us.

Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward (2018)

I bought this book after seeing Woodward talking to Stephen Colbert. I admired his work during Watergate, and remember reading All the President's Men and Final Days, but for some reason haven't read any of the many books he has written since. This is the only book I have read about the current president, as I feel we hear about him way too much already. Even during the election process, I kept thinking, can't the late night shows just take a break and not mention him for a week, or even just a night. But I did want to know how the insiders have been dealing with him, so I bought the book, I started it, and then it just ended up on the bottom of my pile of books to read. Then I just asked for it in audio, and taking it in bits, with other books listened to in between, I got through it.

It is pretty incredible how the staff of the White House have to work around this guy, who is not only uniformed, but not interested in learning anything - he already knows best about everything - and obviously he doesn't. There were voices of reason trying to educate, explain how the government works, smooth his ruffled feathers, and counting on him forgetting things - removing documents from his pile to sign, just to avoid some embarrassing or disastrous move. Woodward kept calling some of the meetings like Groundhog Day, where the same arguments would be made every month or so - on issues like tariffs and our presence in South Korea.

No reason to go into the range of issues Woodward covered, but I do realize this book came out in 2018, before a lot more s#&t has hit the fan, so I actually may read Woodward's next installment on this most dysfunctional of presidencies not only in my lifetime, but possibly in the history of this country.

The question I did not get an answered was - why did these people even promise to work for the guy? How did they deal with their own conscience? I get that working in the White House is one of the most prestigious positions one could have, but for him? Maybe some felt they were serving the country by trying to bring some sense and order to the White House, and true, many people resigned when they felt they could no longer work with him any more, where he was refusing to take their sound advice. But did they ever think he was a good president? I guess some of them did agree with some of his economic policies, but two phrases sent shivers down my back. One was being thankful that a wet blanket was removed from the economy. I hear that as all the deregulation that has happened that will now endanger the environment, workers, consumers and the world. The other phrase that the guy used a lot was something like - They don't understand anything, they are not business like. e.g. why don't we make the world pay for all its own protection. Well the government is not like a business. There are some business principles that are useful, but people have worked for decades to create a stable world in which all can prosper, and the richer countries have to shoulder a bit more. He also kept jeering at global thinkers - sorry bud, we live in a globally connected world, we can't disconnect. All in all, the book was not surprising, just disheartening and scary.

A Great Reckoning by Luise Penny (2016)

I think that inspector Armand Gamache has become the fictional character I would most like to meet and Three Pines the village I would most like to visit, stay at the B&B, eat at the cafe, visit the bookstore, meet cranky Ruth and her duck and all the other characters, and hang in the kindness of the place and Penny's world.

If I had the time, I would go through all the Louise Penny books I have read so far and see how she weaves the major plot line of the corruption of the Surete du Quebec throughout many books. In the ninth book How the Light Gets In, it all comes to a head and Armand gets injured. He spends a couple of books recuperating. One I read a while ago about a local boy finding a gun, but the last one I read - The Long Way Home was when he helps Clara look for her estranged husband Peter. But now he is ready to take on a new project - cleaning up the Academy for the Surete, as it has been producing cruel, uncaring agents in the last years. He starts by firing half the instructors, but keeps on the second in command, Leduc, hoping to gather evidence to put him away and prevent him from harming any more cadets.

We get to see the evolution of four cadets - two in their last year of classes and two first year students, one of them, Amelia, seemingly the least likely candidate to become a Surete officer with her piercings and tattoos, but she is bright and desperate to find her way in life. They are all standing around looking at an old, strange map of Three Pines - and Gamache assigns these four figuring out the map. This seems a random assignment, but becomes the second most important thread in the book and gives the cadets experience in investigation and teamwork.

Again, many plot lines interweave:

• Corruption in the academy
• How do you raise effective, caring and kind officers?
• Who is Amelia and why did Gamache approve her application to the Academy
• Gamache's relationship with childhood friend Michelle (not sure how spelled, but a guy), but who becomes one of Gamache's biggest enemies, but why does he ask him to come back to teach?
• Annie is pregnant and Jean Guy is just so wonderful to watch as doting husband.
• Mystery of the map found in the walls of the Bistro
• Who was Anthony Turcott, the great mapper of Quebec, but why did he keep Three Pines off the map
• The story of the village Roof Trusses
• Reine Marie working on the local archives, including the stuff found in the walls of the Bistro
• What tale does the stained glass window of young WWI soldiers tell?
• Clara is working on a self portrait - how will that turn out?
• How can the people of Three Pines help the four lost cadets from the Academy.
• Ruth - she is always a plot in and of herself.

I had to get used to the new reader, and though it was strange for a while, at some point I didn't even notice anymore.

Among the Mad by Jackquline Windspear (2009)

This must be my third Maisie Dobbs book, and for some reason I don't care if I read them in order. This one is set in 1931 and Maisie has her own investigative business with one assistant. It is at the end of December in 1931. She sees a man blow himself up on a London street. Then the Prime Minister receives a threatening letter promising loss of many lives if the soldiers of the Great War are not taken care of. The letter mentions Maisie, so she is called in to a special branch of Scotland Yard to help. She provides insights that help solve the case and stop the mad man from completing his plans.

The focus in this book is on PTSD or shell shock after the war. Not only are many of the men who served in the military affected, but almost everyone is affected, including Maisie herself. But the theme is woven through many people's stories, including her friend, who is financially sound, has a husband and kids, but still despairs at times. Her assistant's wife is unstable after the loss of one of her children, and through her experience we see some of the horrors of the way some mental patients were treated in those days. We also see the aftereffects of the chemical warfare experiments, where the researchers sometimes tested the substances on themselves and other workers. Again, more details fleshing out that time period and the continued growth of Maisie, as she forges ahead with her life.

Snow White: A Graphic Novel by Matt Phelan (2016)

I've been looking at this one for a few weeks now on our graphic novel shelf. Very interesting take on the Snow White story.  Set in the first half of the 20th Century New York City, Snow White's mother dies, her father is a rich businessman, who is dazzled by an evil actress, who survives the financial crash, but is convinced to send the girl off to boarding school. When the actress finds out not from a mirror but a ticker tape, that Snow White is more beautiful, she sets out to kill her. Nice take on the 7 dwarfs and her prince.  A joy.

The Moment of Lift by Melinda Gates (2019)

I have always admired the Gates Foundation, particularly for what they have done in Latvia, and I never have had the animosity towards Microsoft that I have seen in some of my friends. Bill Gates seems like a much more benevolent figure talking about solving world issues, though he also made a huge difference in the world by developing computer programs for us all and that I use every day.

Now I got to know Melinda Gates and fell into deep admiration for her. She shares her journey and growth throughout her life, but mostly in her work at the Gates Foundation. While trying to solve the world's health and poverty problems, they almost always returned to the issue of gender inequality and how improving the lives of women would improve the lives of everyone. This can be seen in fertility control, which makes for healthier children and fewer deaths at childbirth, in education, stopping the practice of child brides, agriculture, and unpaid work of care-giving, maintaining households, growing food and fetching water.

Melinda has visited many of the world's impoverished areas and really listened and slowly understood the issues and looked for sustainable solutions. The hardest seems to be making the cultural changes, especially where strong religious beliefs have made women second class citizens or even property. I was amazed that some men in these cultures were willing to play role reversal and see how hard their women worked and were will to start sharing household duties.

There were many heartbreaking stories, but also many hopeful ones. She not only pointed out the problems gender inequality raises in developing countries, but also our own. The "moment of lift" is when the forces pushing us up are greater than the force pushing us down. This phrase came from her childhood, as her father was an aerospace engineer and she was thrilled by the moment of liftoff at space launches. There are many moments of lift, especially when people lift each other up by sharing stories, giving others a chance to better themselves. Melinda has a thoughtful way of approaching the world, the diversity issues, by encouraging people to come stand besides her.  She is one of the few famous people I would like to meet.

The Man Who Spoke Snakish by Andrus Kivirähk and Christopher Moseley (2015)

I was interested in this as it was written by a fellow Balt - an Estonian and the book was recommended by a friend. I really liked the premise - set in the 12th century, when German crusaders came into northern Europe and brought Christianity and "progress" to the local tribes. (He has them call themselves Estonians, though they did not use that terms and probably felt more of a belonging to a smaller group or tribe.) What a fascinating theme to explore - how the locals felt about it, how they were drawn into the German culture, and in this case, how they went from living in the woods and eating by hunting, to an agricultural way of life, where the main staple food is bread.

But somehow I have imagined it differently, and my understanding of our Baltic ancestors is that they had a deep spiritual connection to all of nature, had names for various natural phenomenon, and held certain places - large trees, rocks, springs as sacred. In this story, our hero can speak Snakish, which allows him to speak to snakes and most other creatures and some of them can speak back to him, especially snakes. But he disavows any sprites or sacred places and cuts down a sacred grove of trees and goes on a huge killing spree.

Mark of the Golden Dragon by L.A. Meyer (2011)

One more Jackie Faber adventure that starts in the orient where she gets swept off her boat in a major storm, everyone presumes her dead, but of course she survives with Ravi, her Indian boy. They end up in Burma, save a village from some nasty men, head off to Rangoon, where she lands in the house of Chopstick Charlie - Chan-Le. He is very wealthy and Jackie convinces him to let her bring some of his riches to the British Museum, where she hopes to gain a pardon. Her Jamie loses it when he thinks her dead and goes on a rampage.

I would say I learned less of history from this book, but still enjoyed her adventures. Jackie always picks up new skills in each adventure, but the only new skill I think she adopted here was belly dancing - which came in handy. Maybe she learned some of the oriental instruments. I did not quite understand why she kept up the hair style from her Chinese adventure of a shorn head and just a pigtail. It was great for shock value, but once in England it made no sense to me. I have to admit I think I like Lord Richard Allen the best of all her beaus. As she prances around the world, her crowd of friends (and a few enemies) grows.

Ten Suns. A Chinese Legend retold by Eric A. Kimmel. (1998)

Just a quick pick-me-up during a hard day. Once I saw the illustration and the title I immediately thought about ten sons and ten suns, and for a brief moment was wondering if I had forgotten which way to spell which. (That constant fear of Alzheimer's)

One of the many tales I have not heard. Mother Xi drives one of her ten sons to the eastern horizon, and then the son/sun would walk across the sky to warm all the people and living things. Just one at a time, as too many of them together would be too hot. But the sons/suns got bored of doing this by themselves....

Not sure if this is a system of gods. We have the great emperor (not capitalized) step in, then Hu YI, the Archer of Heaven (capiatlized). Ah he had once been a man and invented the bow and arrow. The gods placed him in the heavens among the constellations. (Orion?)

Wonderful illustrations by Yongsheng Xuan.

Invisible City by Julia Dahl (2014)

Rebekah Roberts is a joung journalist working as a stringer for "The Trib", a tabloid nestpaper in New York City (I vaguely remember an actual solid NYC paper The New York Herald Tribune, but it turns out it ceased publication in 1966). She is sent out to cover a woman's body found in a scrap metal place.

Very interesting look into the Hasidic Jewish community in New York, with references to the Catskills, where I have seen them in the town near my childhood camp. I do understand the need to stick together, as they have been persecuted so much throughout history, but it is really hard to read about the roles women are forced to play. What happens when someone starts questioning the strict rules of the community. Well at least here there was a safe house to go to and Rebekkah is able to get some answers by talking to the people there. 

At the same time, Rebekah is fighting her own internal demons, as her mother was a Hasidic Jew who fell in love with her father, but could not deal with the internal conflicts and abandoned them when Rebekah was very young. She has not seen or heard from her mother since. During the course of this story paths open where there is a possibility to meet her mother again.

How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny (2013)

I had to read this soon after the last one, as I was so distraught on how things were left, that Jean-Guy Beauvoir turned away from Inspector Gamache and even hated him. But Whew! things were resolved in this book.

The murder to be solved in this book is of Myrna's friend Constance, who is supposed to spend Christmas in Three Pines, but is found dead in Montreal. Myrna calls on Gamache to find why she didn't shop up. He learns she is one of the quints - quintuplets that were born 80 or so years ago and were quite famous. They had disappeared from the spotlight after their late teens, had changed their last names, and lived isolated lives. Throughout the other major things happening in the book, Gamache keeps tracing their lives to figure out who killed Constance. It also gives him an excuse to be traveling back to Three Pines.

But the major part of the book has been brewing for a long time. I would have to go back to the first book to see if their were any traces of it there, but there were always some problems between the administrators and Gamache. Then at some point it came out that he had gotten Pierre Arnot(sp?), head of the Surete du Quebec, arrested for corruption. The biggest event we got to read about a few books ago, was when Gamache and his team stopped the blowing up of a dam, with loss of lives on his team and Gamache and Beauvoir getting shot and taking a long time to recover. That too was connected with corruption at high levels. In this book we find that all of Gamache's trusted homicide investigators have been transferred out of his unit and replaced by young, disrespectful and incompetent men and it is only a matter of time that he is forced to resign. He only has Isabelle Lacoste to depend on. For this adventure he also pulls Ivette Nichole (sp?) out of the basement where he put her with her brilliant but warped mind, as she could not function as an inspector with him.

We are in familiar territory in Three Pines with the usual cast of characters, but even those are evolving, as Clara misses Peter, Ruth shows a softer side, and the house from the very first book becomes a home base for Gamache. I liked that the village made some of the bad guys feel uncomfortable, and accepted the new good guys with open hearts."How the light gets in" refers to things needing cracks, not being perfect, to have light come in. And lines from Ruth's poem get repeated a lot - What has hurt you so... (shoot, got to look them up again.)

At the end of the recorded book there was a conversation between the author and Ralph Cosham, the narrator of the books, who met for the first time. I was surprised to find that he reads the books cold - he doesn't read them ahead of time, he just starts recording, so he is as surprised by the turn of events as we are. But he too commented on the comfort he has with Three Pines. I would want to live there, except that they keep having these murders.

The Jade Peony by Wayson Choy (1995)

When I travel, I like to read books about the area that I am in. I was just in Vancouver and there was a used bookstore under my hotel, so I bought two books by Vancouver authors. This was one of them and a wonderful one at that.

I have read about Chinese and Japanese in western U.S., but there is also a substantial population across the border in Canada. This is a book about the Chinese in Vancouver around the time of the beginnings of World War II. They lived in a section of the city that was right next to current day downtown, so it was fun to recognize Hastings St., as I walked along it every day I was visiting. They kept up ties with China and were very distressed at the news of Japan waging war against China. I hate to admit that I know the basic fact that China and Japan have historically been enemies, but realizing it is another part of world history to explore. This war was constantly in the background of this novel, and the story ended soon after Pearl Harbor, with the Chinese happy that Americans will be joining in the fight against the Japanese.

The story is told from the point of view of three children - and I think the author did a great job getting into their mind set. The family consists of Father, Stepmother (second wife, actual mother to last two children, but grandma made the decision that she was to be called Stepmother), the Old One (grandma), First Brother Kiam, Second Brother Jung-Sum, Only Sister Jook-Liang and Third Brother Sek-Lung. I think Third Uncle lived with them too.

Liang tells her story from when she was five in 1933. She was taken care of her grandmother who she called Poh-Poh. Wong Bak, an old stooped man that was a friend of Poj-Poh, comes for dinner and for some reason Liang and he become companions. They go to the movies and do other things together and she likes to dance for him. He becomes her only friend when Poh-Poh ends up being very busy with Sek-Lung, who is a very sickly baby. But then he returns to China.

Jung's story was how he became the adopted son in the family. We learn how he acquired a pet turtle. He find his salvation in boxing and interested in sports in general. 

The last half of the book is Sek-Lung's or Sekky's story. His attachment is to the Old One who patiently nurses him to health. One of the many things I learned from this book was about the many dialects of Chinese that I have never thought about. I had heard of Cantonese and Mandarin, but it is a huge country with many dialects and different ways of talking among different classes of people. So Sekky laments on how confusing it is, but that the Old One and her friend Mrs. Lim speak many different languages, depending on the conversation partner. It is touching on how hard it is for him to accept, when the Old One dies, and he still sees her for a long time afterwards, and yes, I do believe he actually was seeing her. Through his eyes we see the coming on of WWII and the growing hatred of the Japanese living in Canada. Great description of Mrs. Lim's house that was built on a rocky cliff with a swaying but sturdy set of stairs leading up.

Having grown up in my own ethnic community, though it was not a physically close as this one, there are similarities, but I always have to remember that we are European and blend in with the white population of North America. The Chinese were not eligible to become citizens of Canada, even if they were born there. The keeping of traditions weighing against learning English and becoming Canadian. The kids went to English and Chinese schools, when possible. 

A deeply moving book and from the acknowledgements, looks like it was well researched.

Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi (2012)

A randomly picked up book from the library young adult section. Not bad. But of course, only the first in a trilogy. We have an earth divided into those that live in Pods, protected from the dangerous Aether or electrical storms that could destroy all in their path. All their basic needs are taken care of and to prevent boredom, they wear a Smarteye, through which they communicate and spend most of their waking hours in worlds of their choosing. Others have been left on the outside to fend for themselves. They appear to live in villages that try to survive by farming and hunting.Aria is from a Pod, a Dweller a Mole, Perry an Outsider or Savage. They meet briefly, when Aria ventures into a forbidden Pod containing a forest and fruit trees and when Soren, a boy from her Pod, attacks her, Perry rescues her. Aria gets cast outside after the incident, left to die. Perry finds her and they start their arduous adventure together - mistrusting and not understanding each other - until they do. I could not begin to explain Perry's situation, but his too is precarious. His brother is the leader of their village and has a son Talon, that Perry loves very much, but who is ill and getting weaker. At one point, the Dwellers kidnap Talon, and Perry feels it his duty to go rescue him. Aria's goal is to find her mother. Before she was exiled, she had not heard from her mother for a while, but a message had appeared in her Smarteye from her mother that she was unable to retrieve before all fell apart. Their goal is a haven of sorts headed by Marron, who could fix her Smarteye and help them towards their goals. On the way they have to deal with hunger, fatigue, the electric storms, cannibals, wolves, a strange child Cinder, but they do run into Perry's old friend Roar, which helps to have another person on their team, plus Aria can speak to him much more easily than Perry. Like this well enough to go look for the next book.

The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny (2012)

This book was the winner of the 2013 Macavity Award for Best Mystery and I can see why. This is the first Armand Gamache book that has nothing to do with the small Quebec town of Three Pines. Instead all the action happens in a fictional monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, (St. Gilbert between the wolves) which is based on a real Benedictine monastery that was built to escape from anti-clerical laws in France in 1912. The fictional monastery was built by some of the first immigrants to Canada, hidden in the woods, but now discovered because of their chants.

One of the monks has been murdered, the abbot called the police and Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir come to solve it. This is an order of monks sworn to silence, but who sing exquisite Gregorian chants and have gotten substantial funds from a recording the slain monk had made of their singing and put out into the world.. The chants are an important part of this story and it was fascinating to find out how music notation evolved. The book lulled me into a contemplative calm, as Gamache and Beauvoir get to know the monks and interview them for the investigation. It seems so unlikely that a monk would kill another, but something riled one of them to murderous heights. They discover a division among the monks - those who would like to make another recording, maybe even travel and perform, while others do not want to lose what they have in their quiet contemplation. For a while, I thought the book might become boring. Hah!

Flying in obnoxiously over the monastery, Gamache's highly disliked boss appears and stirs things up. Then a monk from the Vatican shows up, from the office that used to be the Inquisition. More disturbance. And the relationship between Gamache and Beauvoir gets tested. Old story lines from previous books rear their ugly heads and disturbed the peace of this intriguing and potentially low key mystery.

I do want to comment on the self sufficiency of the monks. They have their chores maintaining the buildings, taking care of the animals and vegetable garden. They use wild blueberries from the forest and coat them with chocolate for a product to barter with other monasteries and maybe sell. Not quite sure how they made it before they got the funds from the sale of the recording for putting in a geo-thermal unit and other improvements to the building. There is a small part of me that envies this kind of devotion and simple lifestyle.

Tha Nancy Mitford Omnibus by Nancy Mitford (1956)

Since the Mitford Murders was based on this real person and family, I though I would read something of what Nancy Mitford wrote. I only started reading"the Pursuit of Love" the first of three pieces in this omnibus. I found it very similar to the recent Jessica Fellowes book - a similar household with many children, where the girls are looking at who they are going to marry and lie about going to sleep over a girlfriend's house, but go to a dance instead. Fellowes does add in the mystery element, which made that book more engaging. I don't have a problem not finishing a book and don't regret picking this one up and glad that it was in our library.

Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews (2013)

I had read about this and when my audio book guy recommended it as being Daniel Silva like, I went with it and thoroughly enjoyed it.

We have Nate Nash, CIA agent who is handling one of the greatest sources the U.S. has ever had in Russia - Marble. He is young, intuitive and working hard to keep from having to work with his father and brothers in the law business. Things go wrong in Moscow and he is reassigned to Helsinki.

Dominika Egorova is a unique woman, who sees music and people's emotions as colors. She became a dancer, but an injury cuts short her dance career and when her father dies at the same time, her KGB/SVR uncle Vanya pulls her into the Russian spy service. She goes through the training including Sparrow school, where she is taught to seduce and is sent off to seduce Nate. Her reading of people by the colors they emanate is useful for reading their intentions, often full of lies in the spy business. And then she meets Nate....

This is a reminder that the two super powers are back in a cold war state, though we don't talk of it in that way anymore. Latvia was mentioned briefly as a place to fly through or that the Baltics were a sore point for Putin. the book ends in Estonia.

At the end of each chapter there is a recipe from the story - whether they ate at a restaurant, or one of the characters cooked. I had to go get the print copy from the shelves in our library, so I can look through the recipes, as some sounded really good. They don't have quantities, but they have method, and some things I have already made. The range is wide from Russian dishes, to American, Greek, Thai, Italian and many more.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (1962)

I read this book when I was young, maybe high school, and really liked it. After I saw the movie, I wanted to reread the book, but it has taken me some time, so now I have to go see the movie again. I just remember Oprah being one of the trio of spirits or witches.

The book no longer seems so amazing, but realizing that it was written over 50 years ago, and all the fantasy books I have read since that built on the foundations that LĒngle established, yea it is pretty cool. 

Meg lives with her scientist mother and younger brother Charles Wallace. Their astrophysicist father has been missing for a few years and they don't know if he will be coming back. Charles Wallace discovers Mrs. Whatsit in the woods behind their house. Calvin, an older boy from school is drawn to join them, and with the help of Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs Who and Mrs. Which, they go off into other worlds to find and rescue their father. Calvin and Charles Wallace each have their strengths, but it is Meg that has to keep everyone together.

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo (2015)

I was just thinking I should get back to reading some fantasy books by women, as they often give new perspectives. And then one appears in my mail from the audio book store. Since I listened to it, I had very different spellings in my mind for all the characters, so I will offer the plot summary from Wikipedia:

"Kaz Brekker, an infamous thief known throughout the streets of Ketterdam as "Dirtyhands", is promised a very large sum of money to rescue Bo Yul-Bayur, a Shu scientist, from the Ice Court in Fjerda. Bo Yul-Bayur has discovered jurda parem, a lethally addictive drug that greatly enhances the powers of the Grisha, people with magical abilities. However, the Ice Court is the most highly protected place in all of Fjerda, and Kaz can't infiltrate it by himself; he needs a crew. He recruits several members of his street gang, the Dregs. Inej Ghafa is a nimble and stealthy Suli spy whom Kaz rescued from the Menagerie, a brothel. Jesper Fahey is a sharpshooter with a penchant for gambling. Nina Zenik is a Heartrender from the Ravkan Second Army with the ability to control the bodies of others. Matthias Helvar is a former Fjerdan drüskelle thrown into Kerch jail after being framed by Nina. Wylan Van Eck is a merchant's son with some skill at demolition. The task isn't easy, so in order to win, they'll need to work together and trust in each other."

We learn of each character's back story at some point in the book. What struck me the most was the seemingly constant throughout history hatred for someone different, sentiments we continue to hear to this day. Greed and revenge continue to be the greatest motivators. I did like the two strong women characters - Inej and Nina. I will have to read the second book in this series, as one of my questions was, if Kaz and his crew left Fjerda by destroying walls, bridges, stealing one of their greatest treasures, won't they have a whole army after them? And did they really think Van Eck would hand over huge sums of money if they completed their task? And where would they go with that kind of money? With so many people after them, they would need to move to parts unknown, but since I still don't have a handle on the scope of this world, the characters seemed to think they could just live peacefully as rich folks.

Guilty by David Baldacci (2015)

The fourth Will Robie story. When I started reading it I thought I had read it before, as I remember Robie taking his assassin's shot and also hitting a little girl behind the intended target. But it must have been one of those first chapter introductions at the end of a previous book to get you hooked, because the rest was new territory. 

This opening event throws Robie off his game and he is told to take some time off to get his shit together and oh yes, his father has been arrested for murder, so he might want to go down to Cantrell, Mississippi to check up on him, though he hasn't been home nor seen his father for over 20 years. Jessica Reel, who is often his partner, is out somewhere on assignment, so he doesn't have the one person that understands him around to talk to.

The plot thickens quickly, as it usually does in Baldacci stories and the body count piles up.Officially it is a young woman who was the first to be murdered, then the guy who supposedly killed her that the elder Robie is in jail for. But hen we have bad guys from casinos, and Jessica Reel shows up and it is like a combat zone. I am glad I didn't read the Amazon reviews before I read this, as I just let the plot twists and turns grab me and spit me out at the end, like in a giant water slide. Most people found them unbelievable and I have to admit I had a few places where it was a bit much. 

We do get Robie's back story - successful high school athlete with a strict military father who beat him and never thought to praise his son. I like that Robie visits his old teammate Billy, who is dying of cancer, though I didn't get how he recognized Billy's son, if he hasn't been back home at all. And then we find he had the love of his life in Laura, out of his league, but they were high school sweethearts and she was going to leave town with him, when he left. But she never showed up and he thought that she just changed her mind. He had written and called a lot afterwards, but never got to talk to her. This is the one that sounded off to me from the start. One does have to suspect that the letters and phone messages were never received. Robie persevere's in everything else, why not here. Anyway, a lot of characters from both his past and new ones. The usual sympathetic female cop in Taggert, the beautiful Victoria that has married his dad and her son Ty, the sleazy Clancy's etc. But one gets a glimpse in what poverty can bring people to (the three daughters of the preacher) or how important casino jobs are to an area like this. Still an engaging read for me.

Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland (1748)

I like to list the first time the book has been published, so I know that I have been reading a classic and at least what century or decade it has been from, though of course most of my reading is current. I read the 1963 Putnam edition with an introduction by Peter Quennell with the cover pictured here. I found this book in a collection I was processing and realized that I had heard of Fanny Hill, but had no real idea what that referred to, other than she was a spunky woman of the past. From the introduction: "Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure is the product of a luxurious and licentious, but not a commercially degraded era.... For all its abounding improprieties, his priapic novel is not a vulgar book."  There is also a note on the American history of the book, as it was one of the suppressed books of its time. I liked the aspect that names and dates of editions were not printed on the various versions printed in the U.S. and though many shabbily printed copies have been found, there were also nice limited or collectors editions printed for subscribers only, and were found in Ben Franklin's library and that of other well known men. The last thing I'd like to note from the introductions is that since Cleland lived in India for a while before he wrote this book (for 20 guineas), he would have learned that the Indian gods "would have stressed-the supreme delights of sex in all its forms."

I wanted to learn more about this books, so good old Wikipedia explains how well Cleland used euphemisms and that the book actually doesn't contain any dirty words or actual names of body parts. And then, it turns out I was reading the first official edition printed in the U.S. (In the book it claims all rights reserved, but the text is so old, it is in the public domain, so....) The book was banned in Massachusetts, but the publisher took it to the courts and the Supreme Court ruled that "Fanny Hill did not meet the Roth standard for obscenity." Wow.

The story itself is as if written by Fanny herself to some Madam in the form of two long letters, where she will explain her early scandalous life. She grows up in the country, but heads to London at 14, after losing both her parents. She is pulled into a brothel, but Charles helps her escape and loses her virginity to him instead of some highest bidder. But then Charles gets sent off to sea. She becomes the mistress of Mr. H. and when that falls apart, takes on high end clients, finally ending up with an elder gentleman. when he dies, she is left with his fortune and ends up living a respectable life as wife and mother. But before that she has plenty of adventures that are described in a witty way that was fun to read, even if at times the long winded older form of the language did bog down a bit. I enjoyed the descriptions of the times, customs and fashions.

It has been fund to do minor research on this and I might look up Erica Jong's version of this story too.

A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny (2011)

Clara Morrow - one of the first characters I remember meeting in the first book of the Armand Gamache series - is finally having a major exhibit of her work in Montreal, but the joy of it is dampened by the discovery of a childhood friend murdered in Clara's garden during the party after the opening. Clara feels that the former friend has again taken the spotlight away from her. Her husband Peter is feeling great pangs of envy. There are art dealers waiting around like vultures to sign Clara as their artist. Complex sets of emotions that Gamache has to wade through to get to the truth in the deceptively quiet setting of Three Pines. Read a few months ago, so details have already faded, but glad that there are plenty more books in this series to enjoy.

44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith (2004)

I read some of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series by McCall Smith and thoroughly enjoyed them, but wasn't as thrilled by the couple of other books I picked up by him. A colleague suggested this series and it looks like it will be fun.

This book was written as a daily serial in a Scottish newspaper, so the chapters are nice and short. The characters start out with some of the people living at the address in the title and then branch out to the people at their jobs, their friends and family. All the places in the book are real, and even some of the characters are actual people that gave the author the right to portray them in this series. I realize I know squat about the Scots, as none of the writers or artists mentioned ring a bell. So at least I will learn something about Scotland, Edinburgh and the Scots. In this book our fictional characters go to meet Ian Rankin, a real life famous Scottish crime writer.

Pat is a young woman in her second gap year, still finding herself, who rents a room in 44 Scotland Street in an apartment inhabited by narcissistic Bruce, who works as a building inspector. Pat lands a part time job in an art gallery run by rich and feckless Matthew. Much of the story-line centers around a possibly valuable painting. Dominica is an eccentric widow, who lives at 44 S. St. and is one of the more colorful characters and has interesting friends. Six year old Bertie lives in the building with his mom Irene, who is out to make him super child. Looking at the titles in the series, looks like we will be following Bertie's development. We also meet Bruce's bosses and the boss' daughter.

The Mitford Murders by Jessica Fellowes (2018)

Recommended by my audio bookstore owner, I didn't really get what I was reading until the end, when there was an explanatory note and an interview with the author. First of all, Jessica Fellowes, who worked with, I want to say uncle, Julian Fellowes and wrote companion books to the Downton Abbey series about life in those times. This is her first try at fiction, though it is based on the actual murder of  WWI nurse Florence Nightingale Shore that was never solved. It turns out that the Mitford family too is real and that the Mitford sisters were well known in the between war years and that Nancy Mitford (1904-1973) became a well know writer. Here in this book she is still a girl, just about to turn 18. I did try to figure out if Florence Nightingale Shore (I kept hearing it as Shaw) was real, as I had only heard of her famous aunt - but Florence Nightingale developed nursing in earlier wars and died in 1910. This book happens in 1920-21.

Our two main characters are Louise Cannon and Guy Sullivan, both from the working class. She is the daughter of a washerwoman whose father has died and a nasty uncle has moved in to their apartment. When he tries to use her to pay off his debts, she jumps off a train and is helped by one of the young railway security people - Gus, who regrets not having been to war because of his poor eyesight. He helps her get to an important interview. Right after that Florence Nightingale Shore, a highly respected nurse during the war, is found battered on a train and she dies a day later. Gus becomes obsessed with the murder and spends the rest of the book looking for the possible murderer., even when the case gets officially closed. He feels that if he could solve this, he could move up to a more responsible job.

Louise gets the position as helper to the nanny of the five Mitford daughters. Nancy, being the oldest, considers her a friend at times, though the difference in their status does not make that always easy. Nancy is an energetic girl who wants adventure, so when she reads about the murder, she is intrigued, pulling Louise into her musings about what could have happened.  Nancy also wants to be grown up, so she convinces Louise to accompany her to a ball that she is too young to attend. There they meet Roland, who has come back from the war and Nancy becomes quite besotted with him. Nancy and Louise find a few clues that they pass on to Gus, who likes Louise. The mystery keeps giving them excuses to write or talk and meet, though Louise can't even imagine that she could have a future with him.

We get to meet a lot of characters from all walks of life and see their joys and sorrows, but for all the times are changing. England is recovering from the war, where it lost so many of its men, but the changes in technology allow the lower classes to hope for lives better than that of their parents, and as we saw in Downton Abbey, the lives of the upper classes change too, Fellowes said in her interview that she has based her novel on a lot of real facts, for instance, she read all the descriptions of the inquiry into the murder, as reported in the papers. The Mitford sisters also wrote a lot to each other, which has provided her with enough details to intersperse with her own imagination. The servants are fictitious, but based on people in similar roles.

Turns out this is going to be a series of murder mysteries, and I see that another one has already come out, so we should be seeing the Mitfords, Louise and Gus again in the future.

First Snow by Nora Roberts (2018)

It was time to read some of Roberts' oldies, just for fun:

A Will and a Way (1986)
Pandora is a jewelry artist who loved her eccentric Uncle Jolley up in the Catskills, but his last wishes are that she spend six months in his huge house with distant cousin Michael, before the two of them can inherit his millions. Michael writes TV scripts, so both can work from the Catskill house, but neither is thrilled with the idea, as they don't get along. Of course there are the outraged relatives who were left things that Jolley hoped would move them out of their  entrenched life styles. Of course Pandora and Michael do move in, enjoy Jolley's house and learn to enjoy each other, as the relatives connive to get them to break the agreement. I love the Catskills, as I spent a lot of summers there as a kid and have been returning for a week every summer for the last ten or so years.

Local Hero (1987)
Hester moves into a Manhattan apartment with her son Radley and starts a new job at a bank. She has difficulty finding a sitter, and when the neighbor Mitch offers to help watch him, she is thankful, but has a hard time understanding that he writes comic books - which Radley things is the greatest thing. Mitch falls in love with both of them and finally wins over Hester, who is reluctant to love again after a painful experience with her ex-husband.

The Fallen by David Baldacci (2018)

Here's a recent Amos Decker thriller with his side-kick Alex Jamison. They are supposed to be on vacation in Baronville, a small western Pennsylvania town visiting her sister, whose daughter will be having a birthday. Out on the back deck Amos sees some flickering lights and then smoke, which starts their involvement in a multi-level mystery. First of all there are six dead people, seemingly unrelated - actually more by the time the book is done. Then there is John Baron, after whose family the town is named and his grandfather made a lot of money with mines and mills building up the town, but ended up leaving his family quite poor and the town poorer. John still lives in the falling down mansion, but is disliked by almost everyone in the town except Cindy, the barkeep and owner. There is a rumor of a treasure hidden by the original Baron. There is an opioid crisis in town, which I understand is prevalent in small towns like these - but it was the first time I've run across it as part of a plot. The town seems to be slowly recovering with some large insurance pay-outs on some of these opioid deaths. The other saving grace is a large fulfillment center, like Amazon distribution centers, that is providing jobs, but again, what kind of jobs and what do people have to do to get them and keep them?

Amos gets a bit more human in this one, as he gets clobbered on his head during an explosion and stops seeing blue when people die, has some gaps in his perfect memory, and actually shows some empathy, especially towards Alex's little niece. Somehow he remembers how to be a father and connects with her.

I always like these intricately constructed plots from Baldacci that keeps me wondering how he is going to fit this or that piece into the puzzle. I also liked the realistic view of small town America. I lived in a small town in SE Ohio for a few years - long enough to get a sense of its problems. We do have to find solutions as states and a nation, and I am afraid you can only build so many fulfillment centers, and those are not a great solution. 

Moscow Rules by Daniel Silva (2008)

#8. Never a dull moment with Gabriel Alon. I keep reading these out of order and there has often been a reference to Russia, so I imagine this is the one. Russia is post Soviet Union, as journalism is being restricted and some Russians are becoming very rich. Two journalists who try to warn Gabriel about something get killed and a third - Olga - is almost killed. Ivan Kharkov, a former KGB colonel who built a global investment empire on the rubble of the Soviet Union is also dealing in weapons that will be used against Israel, and it is important for Gabriel to stop him. Ivan's wife Elena is willing to help, but she is watched closely, so there have to be intricate situations set up to solve this. Of course there is art involved - this time a Mary Cassatt. Gabriel forges a copy for Elena, to get access to her. Most of the action takes place in Russia, France (French Riviera again, just like Belmond's Rather books) and Britain. Many of our well known characters are here, like Chiara (who is not happy when Gabriel interrupts their honeymoon for this caper) and Sarah Bancroft, who is borrowed from the CIA (oh yes, make sure all these operations include multiple foreign governments and their spy agencies) to sell the painting to Elena.

Dashing Through the Snow by Debbie Macomber (2015)

I asked for a random Christmas book and this was it. The usual planes get cancelled travel woes, where two people end up driving up together in the last rental car from San Francisco to Seattle. Ashley want to see her family for the holidays and Dash has to make an important job interview. Of course they don't get along in the beginning, but through all the adventures along the way they fall in love. She picks up a dog at a rest stop, where someone found a whole litter abandoned in the parking lot. And then there is the crazy cop who has made it his life's goal to capture a major criminal. All in all a fun read.

Beardream by Will Hobbs (1997)

Just picked up a random kids book from our shelves and it turned out to be an Ute story that I hadn't heard. Actually, I recognize quite a lot of the European based tales,but less of those coming from the Native Americans. This is one of those dreaming stories - and I know that dreams were/are very important in this culture. But somehow this was such a likable tale, where a little boy - Short Tail goes up the mountain to wake up the Great Bear, as he has overslept though spring had arrived. Short Tail falls asleep and dreams that he wakes the big old bear who takes him to a gathering of the bears dancing to celebrate the end of winter. Short Tail goes back and teaches his people how to do the dance, so they too can celebrate the end of winter and the awakening of the bears. Just so moving.

The Northwoods Reader by Cully Gage (1977)

Professor Van Riper here at Western Michigan University wrote a series of books as Cully Gage about northern Michigan or the Upper Peninsula, where he grew up. I checked out the book from the library with the cover you see here, and as far as I can tell, this 1977 edition is the first edition. I was hoping to put these stories into our institutional repository, but it turns out that new editions of this and his other volumes are still selling today.

Though fictionalized, you can tell this characters were based on real people he met in his childhood and is such a wonderful storyteller. He treats all with respect, be it an enthusiastic young English teacher that tries to bring culture to the town or the town drunk. You see the hard life led by people who had to contend with long winters. You see the variety of settlers - Finns, Danes, Irish, French, Native Americans, etc. The introduction of one of his stories explains a lot:

"It always seemed that our town had more than its share of assorted nuts, eccentrics and madmen, but perhaps the impression stemmed only from their greater visibility. In our little village, everyone knew everyone else and everything about everyone else and about everything that had ever happened to them back through at least three generations."

Just so I don't forget, the stories were about:

• Big Finn farmer Jaako who falls in love and courts French store clerk Josette, who dreams of something more than hard work on a farm
• Chivaree - a custom of people greeting a newlywed couple's first night with a lot of noise and the man has to pay to make it stop - this is what they did to an older couple that got together.
• Flame Symphony - Quiet Elly and bright Carl both did not fit in, but found each other. He created flame symphonies out of different types of wood
• Whitewater Pete - an old logger that befriended our author as a kid
• Reformation of Billy Bones - the town drunk that stayed sober for a while
• Bats - this was funny, as I read this about a day after we found a bat in our office and it scared a few of my colleagues enough to have them huddle in a closed office. All the myths about bats came out in this story.
• Mrs. Murphy Gets a Bath - another crazy inhabitant never bathed and lived with her livestock. Cully's dad is a doctor and gets her to a hospital to be washed up while the town fixes and cleans her house.
• U.P. Bakkaball - a winter game with no rules
• Civilization Comes to Our Town - this it the story about the schoolteacher who tried to bring culture to the town
• Redhanded - no one local ever stole, but an outsider did start stealing from them and how they dealt with him
• Old Napoleon - this is about a huge buck that Cully's dad promises to get every hunting season. This is the only story that comes out of Cully's childhood and has him bring his own son out to hunt and has his dad get to 94 years
• The Paddygog - the blacksmith who celebrated St. Patrick's Day
• The Prophet - Pierre was French Canadian and huge, so that some called him Paul Bunyan. He was good at predicting weather and other things. One year he promised a long hard winter into June. It started hard, then got nice ane everybody planted their gardens just to have them killed in the June snows.
• King of the Poachers - Laf poached animals way beyond the allotted limits, but he provided a lot of people with food too
• Valentine's Day- how Cully gets two shy people together
• Grampa - Grampa was Cully's friend and taught him a lot of things, especially to enjoy life - he just turned meek when back with the family where mean Grandma bossed him around
• Old Blue Balls - There were two sides of town and the kids always fought. Old Man Donegal was a strict superintendent that seemed to always be able to get the best of the kids, but one time they got him, but also ended the feud between the uptown and downtown kids
• Ominum Aurem - great story about a hermit miner that would come to town a couple of times a year. He got along with Cully's dad, as they both loved Latin.