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...