Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr (2021)

 

My book club of library colleagues chose this to read over the holidays, since it is quite thick, but there are plenty of empty pages separating the different parts. This is a hard book to describe. Our rare books colleague put it best, though I can't remember her exact words, but it is about the history of a manuscript through time, pausing at certain critical times of its history. But it is all told in a series of intertwined stories that I was not sure would come together in the end, but did. I will touch on each story chronologically, though we get pieces of each throughout the book.

First of all there is the 24 leaves of a manuscript in Greek, supposedly reccently found. (My colleages researched this and said that there is no such manuscript per se, though the author is real and old manuscripts are uncovered all the time.) This is a fanciful tale of a shepherd with a hard life that dreams of something more, but ends up being turned into a donkey and has more adventures. 

Then there are two stories around the Fall of Constantinople (15th cent). One is of Anna, who is an orphan that works in a sewing factory in Constantinople, but learns to read and is the one that finds the old manuscript. Wonderful character with gumption. The other story is of Omeir, a hare-lipped boy from Bulgaria, who gets swept up by the Ottoman army to work his oxen on behalf of the war machine. My favorite character,

Zeno grows up in Idaho. His mother dies young, his father goes off and gets killed in WWII and he ends up a POW in the Korean war. He learns Greek from a fellow soldier and ends up translating the manuscript in understandable language, when it is found, and works with kids on a play based on the story in current times.

Seymour is a troubled teen in current Idaho, who is hyper sensitive to sound and gets involved with some strange thinking folks online, and tries to blow up the library.

Konstance is a child in the future. The world has gone to pieces and she is travelling to some distant hospitable planet with ther family and others. They have all the knowlege of the world in a virtual library and Sybil is the future Siri or Alexa.

This is a book for librarians. There is an old library in Constantinople, there is one in Idaho, and then the huge wealth of knowledge in the virtual library of the future, but it is experienced as a real library through a futuristic VR set-up. And librarians are still great helpers. Loved the book.

Note on restarting this blog

 I do not know why, but I pretty much stopped posting books I have read during the pandemic, though I kept reading and listening to plenty of books. I even became part of a book club and I have read most of the once a month books we have been discussing. I doubt I will ever catch up, but when faced with an overwhelming task, I like to start from where I am and just go forward. So lets see if I can at least record what I have read this year.

The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes (2019)

I chose this book because it was about librarians in Kentucky carrying books to their readers in the mountains on horseback. This actually did happen 1935-1943. Alice is a rebellious young woman in England when Benett, a visiting Kentucky mine owner's son, falls for her and marries her. She is happy to escape all the criticism she gets at home, but is a bit taken aback when she gets taken to a small town in eastern Kentucky, where her father-in-law owns the area mines and rules over the town and his son and daughter-in-law. She is not allowed to do anything at the house, so when a packhorse library is formed, she takes on being one of the librarians that rides out every day to bring books to people. Through this she becomes part of the community. She befriends Marge, a stong willed woman, who also does not like to follow society's rules, but who cares deeply about the people around her. She sees the injustices done to the miners and that the mines plan to take over peoples lands, so she fights Alice's father-in-law, who fights back. She has a great guy Sven who backs her. Then there is Fred, who owns the building and horses the librarians use - a sweet guy whose wife disappeared. Izzy is one of the librarians, who has some disabilities from polio, but can ride a horse and has a great singing voice. Kathleen joins them later, after her husband dies, but she appreciates the respite Alice gave nim by reading to him while he was ill. There is a lot of controversy about what ideas the librarians are brining to people - as there is today. 
 

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter (2012)

 

Beautiful book manages to intertwine the lives of  WWII soldiers, residents of small fishing village in Italy and Hollywood actors, directors and others. The various characters tell their story jumping around  three time periods: post WWII Italy, the time of the filming of Cleopatra in the early 1960s in Italy and current day Hollywood.

One of the main characters dreams of running a hotel in this small village that is only accessible by boat. He wants to build a tennis court out on a somewhat flat outcropping. But he has never seen tennis played and didn't realize that the balls fly out of the court all the time and for his court they would land in the sea. He falls in love with an American actress comes to stay at his hotel, possibly by mistake. Later he tries to find out what has happened to her. We get cameo appearances by Liz Taylor & Richard Burton. Just a touching book.

Educated by Tara Westover (2018)

I have not read a book I could not put down in long time - I started it one evening and found I had to finish it the following day. This is not a novel, but a true story of the author growing up in a family in Idaho that did not believe in public education, medicine or the government. She worked in her father's junk yard, was abused by an older brother helped her mother with her herbal medicines, but longed to go to school and learn. She learned to read from the Bible and religios books, found ways to sneak in other types of learning, sang in the church, participated in local musical theater, and slowly with the help of an older brother and some friends found a way out. It is not exactly a spoiler to say she made it out and got a PhD from Cambridge.

One of the things that amazed me was the way she could remember the way she felt and thought as a little girl, before she was educated in the wider world. How she could get back into the mindspace where everything her father said was absolute truth. Then the courage to stand up to him and start finding her own voice, realizing she could think for herself. Never mind going to college without ever setting foot in a classroom of any kind. Just wow!

One of the themes is family and how far should family loyalty go. She even wrote her doctoral dissertation on family in American thinking  in the 19th century - from various religious perspetivs. Families are complicated.

And now she writes this, her first book. Thankfully the author wrote in journals as a child, and I believe that helped her confirm memories and get a sense of how she felt. She also states that she interviewed those siblings that were willing to be part of this exploration. In the beginning she states that for certain people she used pseudonyms. I referred back to that list more than once, and it included her parents and her other siblings.

I am cleaning out boxes of papers I and my parents have saved, and there is always the question of how much to save. These things remind me of my life at various stages and as I am writing my own life story for my son, they help validate my memories. 
 

All the Devils Are Here by Louise Penny (2020)

 

Another winner by Louise Penny and set in one of my favorite cities - Paris. I am going to try to restart writing in my blog, but need help to start out, so am using an Amazon review for the storyline. I listened to this on my trip out west for the holidays. Loved being in Paris, loved being with Gamache and his family and was happy to learn the backstories of some of the characters that helped resolve some of the ongoing conflicts between them.

"If earlier Gamache books showed the detective’s preternatural kindness and steadfastness in the face of evil, All the Devils are Here sheds light on the tragedy out of which his steadfastness came, and the second family who taught him kindliness, empathy, and patience. The Gamache family—including Armand’s godfather: wealthy industrialist Stephen Horowitz—gather in Paris to await the birth of Annie’s and Jean-Guy’s daughter. But walking home from dinner that night, Stephen is mowed down by a passing van and it’s immediately clear to Gamache that this is no accident. To catch a would-be killer in the City of Light without the resources of the Sûreté at his back? Tough. But he has an old colleague he can call on to help, and a family that has his back, though some old tensions float to the surface. Despite this fascinating glimpse into the workings of the Gamache family, there will be those thinking: A Gamache book in which we don’t visit Three Pines until near the very end? Mais, non! Rest assured, Penny takes with one hand and gives with the other. The sixteenth entry in the series is essentially an origin story fans will love, one which sets up a complex whodunit which is also a whydunit, all of it buttressed by a Penny trademark: a canny mix of empathy, psychology, and suspense." —Vannessa Cronin, Amazon Book Review

Stardust by Neil Gaiman (1999)

I read this book 10 years ago and enjoyed it as much the second time around. I remembered some of the main elements, but was still captivated. I was going to just edit the old entry, but felt I still needed to recall what I am reading now, so I am leaving the description of Stardust to the old entry. Over these years I have more an more respect for Gaiman, a great supporter of libraries. I also loved the recent Good Omens series - just a delightful good vs. evil over the centuries tale. This book too is so full of good vs. evil and adventure. I can so relate to the main character Tristran Thorn, who would rather continue on adventures than settle down to ruling a state. I also liked that Gaiman went a bit beyond the "living happily ever after" as he gave what happened decades into the future.

In the talk with the author after the book, he says that readers will sometimes point something out that really needs fixing and that he will then fix it future editions of a book. I have now lost the details in my mind, but I thought I had found an inconsistency. There is a character that is supposedly kidnapped as a baby and then enslaved for many years. But then she remembers things from her birth country, and that she was treated like royalty. How did she even know who she really was? No, I will not write Gaiman about this.

Days of Gold by Jude Deveraux (2009)

I have now gotten hooked on Deveraux's Edilean series and chronologically, this is the first one. It really does set the scene for all the other books as the current day characters mostly come from these Scottish and English ancestors. I learned in the previous books that the town was named after the wife of the founder, so we get to meet Edilean and Angus.

We start in Scotland around 1770. Angus McTern is trying to hold his clan together, after his father lost the castle (more like just a tower) and the lands in a card game to a nasty Englishman. The Englishman realizes Angus works hard and maintains the place, so he leaves him alone. Angus is too busy to have a personal life until the Englishman's niece Edilean shows up and he is struck dumb. He avoids her, but then finds out that she is to be married off to one of her uncle's buddies, and he will get all the gold she has inherited from her father. Then we start the wild ride of Angus helping her out inadvertently, though she loves James, but James is just using her, and one way or another, Angus and Edilean end up on a ship to America, though Angus is now wanted for kidnapping. You know the story - they try to stay away from each other, but fall in love.

They land in Boston, she sets up house with James' sister Harriet. Through misunderstandings and Angus not wanting to ruin her life, they mostly do their own thing in the New World. Angus works an an inn for while, later with the army and learns the ways of the woods and natives. He dreams of getting land outside Williamsburg, VA and building a town with Edilean. She in frustration wants to prove she is not a helpless and useless woman, starts a company Bond Girls, where she buys farms of widows and provides them with help. She gets the bonds of women brought over from England for various crimes, usually out of desperation - and gives them jobs working on the farms and producing high quality fruits and vegetables.

I always like historic context. I guess I have seen some of the desolate castles of Scotland in films, and have read some novels set in current day Scotland, but this helps round out the picture in my mind. This book shows a few other routes that immigrants to America have taken. I somehow did not realize criminals were exiled here. Just started reading a bio of Hamilton and in the first few paragraphs learned that the Caribbean was another place to send criminals. Maybe a topic to research - cheaper to exile than keep in prisons? And many made a good life - or at least their children did. Again, early America - Boston (that I've learned about from the Jackie Faber series) and Virginia.

My other joy is learning about a rich set of characters. I will have to go back to the book and pull out the names I know appear in other books.

A House on the Heights by Truman Capote (2002)

With an introduction by George Plimpton. Originally published in 1959 as "Brooklyn Heights: A Personal Memoir."

After reading Swans of Fifth Avenue, I felt I needed to read something by Truman Capote. This was a nice short book, actually one of his short stories and it gave me enough of a flavor of Capote's writing. He was very observant and he did love gossip, and you can see this in this rambling essay on Brooklyn Heights. I actaully have a new found interest in Brooklyn, as a few good friends live there and tell me something about their neighborhoods. While I was growing up in New Jersey, we too went to events at some hall off of Flatbush Avenue, and some of my parents' friends lived there. The density of life in New York City has never appealed to me, but I am fascinated by this concept of neighborhoods, and Capote nicely describes his neighborhood, its history, its people, its architecture, parks, and the energy of the place that enticed Capote to make it his home for a while. If I have time in my travels, I would like to drive around Brooklyn Heights, where Brooklyn Bridge forms the northern border of the neighborhood, and look over to Manhattan, just across the river. 

George Plimpton's introduction continues giving me a sense of Capote and his ability to draw people within his magical circle, including Plimpton.

Scarlet Nights by Jude Deveraux (2010)

Just a fun read. Mike is a super duper undercover detective, who often has to go undercover for long periods of time while he gets close to the women involved with the criminals, to get them arrested. This time he gets an assignment in the small town of Edilean where his grandmother used to live and his sister still lives. Since dangerous and unscrupulous criminals are involved, he has her go out of the country on a honeymoon, while he gets close to Sara, who is engaged to Greg, one of the criminals. The other criminal lives in the area, but no one knows what she looks like. They lure Greg out of town, and Mike shows up as the brother that has to stay in his sister's apartment, while on a case.

The town is full of delightful characters, but the plot gets a bit overwhelming in the end. The town liked Brian, Sara's first boyfriend, but he dumped her. They are not fond of Greg. Mike seems to fit in. There is a historical large house involved, that Mike inherits through his grandmother some way. There is a crazy old coot that lives out in the large house and has set traps all around it. There is the Frazier family of large brothers that are the town's royalty. Sara's mother is the mayor. the plot all comes together at an annual fair, for which Sara has sewn many of the costumes. There are tarot cards involved - painted by a local artist, an impromptu wedding that borrows flowers from a wedding the next day, and Scarlet Nights refers to a perfume Sara's mother has concocted for special occasions.

I knew I had read something by Deveraux, as when I chose this from the library shelf, my hand first went to Heartwishes, and starting to read the cover I knew I had read it. Thank goodness for this blog, as I did not realize that that book was part of the Edilean series, where Collin Frazier is involved. The second book about this small town that I read was Lavender Morning, which I had totally forgotten about. That was about Joce and Luke, who are landlords to Sara and are expecting a baby.

Leadership: In Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin (2018)

What a great book to read in these crazy times. Historian Goodwin takes a look at Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson. She looks at how each of them grew up, what their influences were, how they were educated, then she takes us through some of their early ventures into politics and leadership roles. Each of them faces some personal tragedy that he has to overcome. Lincoln lost an election and went back to practice law. Teddy Roosevelt lost both his mother and wife at the same time. We all know how Franklin Roosevelt was stricken with Polio, but I did not know how he formed a community with other polio patients and created a rehabilitation center in Georgia that not only looked for ways to improve physical health, but also mental and social health. LBJ had a heart attack. Each took time off and learned from their losses, gained skills in working with people.

Goodwin takes us through the rest of their political careers, culminating in them becoming president. Teddy and LBJ became unexpected presidents from a vice-president's role, when their presidents get assassinated. Both of them had their own agendas that they could now put into place. All four took the country through some very difficult times. Lincoln managed to hold the country together through the Civil War. I did not realize that the Emancipation Proclamation was a presidential executive order changing the legal status of millions of slaves to be free. Wow! And then to come out of it with one country. Not an easy task. I probably should read up on the South and why they continued being part of the union. Teddy Roosevelt faced a major coal miner strike and though the president was not supposed to interfere in conflicts between labor and business owners, he did step in to negotiate an end to the strike, as people around the country were beginning to freeze without the coal supplies. Franklin Roosevelt took over as the country fell into the greatest depression in its history. He had to come up with the "New Deal" to get people working (and develop our national parks in the process) and prepared for war. LBJ is best know for his ability to pass major legislation insuring civil rights, voting rights and much more in his plan for a "Great Society." Unfortunately he did not understand foreign policy as well as he did domestic policies, and was responsible for getting us deeply involved in Vietnam. I was in 4th grade when Kennedy was shot, so I am sure I was mostly oblivious to Johnson's reign, but I have a much higher respect for him. He got amazing amounts of legislation passed in the first year and a half of his presidency, because he knew how to work with congress. It just makes me sad to see how dysfunctional our congress is today. People with different opinions were able to work out practical legislation for the good of the country. And it took strong leadership, that took into account everyone's needs.

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.