I know I won’t be around today. The WiFi in our hotel is terrible. And, I’m spending the day and rest of the week with the family. I hope the rest of you take time to “talk” and discuss the books you’re reading. And, what have you been doing? I’ll try to catch up this weekend when Wifi is better.
Sending hugs!
i know you are enjoying this time with your family, Lesa. And we will be here when you return. ❤
After several days of vacation and not doing much reading, but enjoying the pristine and completely heart stopping beauty and magic of Alaska, I am now, thanks to NetGalley, happily savoring FRAMED IN DEATH by J. D. Robb.
Description from NetGalley –
“¹Death imitates art in the brand-new crime thriller starring homicide cop Eve Dallas from the #1 New York Times-bestselling author J.D. Robb.
Manhattan is filled with galleries and deep-pocketed collectors who can make an artist’s career with a wave of a hand. But one man toils in obscurity, his brilliance unrecognized while lesser talents bask in the glory he believes should be his. Come tomorrow, he vows, the city will be buzzing about his work.
Indeed, before dawn, Lt. Eve Dallas is speeding toward the home of the two gallery owners whose doorway has been turned into a horrifying crime scene overnight. A lifeless young woman has been elaborately costumed and precisely posed to resemble the model of a long-ago Dutch master, and Dallas plunges into her investigation.”
How wonderful to go to Alaska, Kaye – that’s one place I would really love to see (all thanks to Dana Stabenow and her Kate Shugak thrillers…)
I saw on Facebook that Annabelle also had a great holiday!
Thank you, Kaye! My family loves it that everyone just pitches in to keep it going for “Thursdays with Lesa”.
I’m so glad you had a wonderful Alaska trip. And, I’m looking forward to the next J.D. Robb.
Love you, my friend!
I hope you have a wonderful week Lesa!
It’s been a quiet week over here; going for walks, visiting with a couple of friends from where we lived before, and deciding whether or not to rearrange the furniture in our living room. I like to change things up every once in a while because it all feels fresh and new afterwards, but David is considerably less keen. Probably because he has to do most of the actual moving of the furniture and also because he’s always happy with things as they are and sees no reason to change anything. I suspect we’ll end up leaving it the way it is.
Two books this week:
MURDER RUNS IN THE FAMILY by Tamara Berry
A fun premise to this cozy mystery is what made me choose this book, although it didn’t quite live up to its potential.
Amber works for her PI boyfriend. Even though she has great ideas and does all the actual research work for their cases, Bones doesn’t take her or her dream of becoming a fully trained PI seriously, and treats her more like a secretary. Finally fed up, she uses her smarts to find out where her Grandma Jade lives, packs a few clothes and heads off to visit her at the retirement community where she lives. Amber has never met her grandmother because of some major family drama from years ago, and is so happy to be welcomed with open arms and invited to stay awhile.
Very soon after Amber’s arrival, ‘the Admiral’, one of the other residents, is found murdered and Grandma is accused of the crime. Having just found her and definitely wanting to continue getting to know her, Amber is on the case immediately so she can prove her grandmother’s innocence. The suspect list is long though – it seems all her grandmother’s best friends in the retirement community have a motive and could have murdered the Admiral.
Add in the re-appearance of Bones the ex-boyfriend, some decidedly dodgy staff members, the Admiral’s missing tortoise, family issues, and a missing $3 million ring, it’s hard for Amber to know where to even begin. But she’s smart and steadily works her way through the case.
I didn’t much care for, or about, most of the characters (Amber herself was kind of annoying), so I found myself not really caring about anything else either.
I did like the tortoise though! Patient, stoically put up with whatever happened to him, and just quietly went about his tortoise life. Even though he obviously didn’t say a word and didn’t do much of anything, he was more interesting than the human characters.
MAINE CHARACTERS by Hannah Orenstein
Vivian spent every August with her dad Hank at the summer house on the lake in Maine. When he dies unexpectedly, she heads back to Maine to spread his ashes and get the house ready to put up for sale. When she arrives there’s another woman already there called Lucy, who says she’s Hank’s daughter (which means she’s also Vivian’s half-sister) and she’s at the house because she always spends the month of July at this house with him, and she’s waiting for him to arrive as he does every year. But Lucy doesn’t know their father has died. And so begins the unraveling of a family tale full of long-buried secrets. The story is centered around the two sisters and their respective mothers working their way through the consequences of thirty years of family lies and coming to terms with, and maybe learning to accept, past hurts and wrongdoing.
Neither sister is very likeable at the outset and they are downright snarky and unkind to each other, acting more like awful children than adults. They certainly bring out the worst in each other. With very few exceptions none of the characters seem to be very nice people and they often behave in self-sabotaging ways, making questionable choices time and time again, which started to annoy me.
In the end they get over themselves and begin to act like grown-ups, but by then I didn’t care all that much anymore. Beautiful cover illustration though – very pretty.
I seem to be very critical of the books I’ve read lately; not sure why.
Lindy, I LOVE that a tortoise was the best character in a book!
I don’t think it’s you, I think there’s an awful lot of mediocre fiction around. I don’t quite know why so much of it is published, but I suppose it sells in supermarkets and airports, and publishers like to go with what they think they know. A whole book of unlikeable characters never works for me either, and I’m reading one of those at the moment – hard going.
Lindy, in my relationship I like the furniture where it is but I’ll go out and when I come home I’ll find that Roger has rearranged things.
Oh dear! I don’t know if I could handle that Sandy. I would certainly want to at least be consulted beforehand. Yikes.
Lindy, I like the idea of the tortoise in MURDER RUNS IN THE FAMILY also, but I don’t know if that alone would make the book worth reading.
The tortoise probably wouldn’t make the book worth reading Tracy, even though I thought he was the best character. Definitely made me stick with the book, although other people liked the book far more than I did.
Hi Lindy, I’m sorry there were no good characters in your books this week, but I loved your summary of the tortoise. I read that paragraph to my sister, and said that’s a sad commentary when the tortoise is the highlight of the book.
Have a great trip! I’m off to St. Louis in the morning myself. (To get together with other fans of the Trixie Belden mystery series.)
And my companion on the plane tomorrow will be Mistaken Identity Crisis by James J. Cudney. I haven’t made it too far into the book yet, so it’s a little hard to see where the story is going, but this is book four in the series, so I’m looking forward to seeing what is next for the characters.
Mark, is it St Louis where they have that huge arch? I remember seeing that somewhere when I was crossing the US by Greyhoud bus as a student.
I hope you have a great trip a book-themed holiday sounds perfect!
Rosemary, yes, St. Louis is the site of the Arch.
We had a wonderful trip, Mark. I hope you enjoy your gathering with other Trixie Belden fans. My youngest sister liked your post. She said she read all the Trixie Belden books when she was a kid, and loved them.
Have a great time in Amish Country. Don’t eat too much. Nah, ignore that – enjoy!
Books. First, Jackie is reading Kelley Armstrong’s MURDER AT HAVEN’S ROCK. This is the first in her spinoff series from the Rockton books, which she already read. She said these series are “100 times better” than the Rip Through Time time travel books.
This week I read: Anne Hillerman, Shadow Of the Solstice, the tenth book since she took over her late father’s Southwest series. The only thing I object to is advertising the book as “a Leaphorn, Chee and Manueltio” book. Joe Leaphorn has nothing to do with it. He is referred to in passing three or four times, and makes a (very) brief appearance in the final chapter only. As a matter of fact, Bernie Manuelito’s screw-up sister Darleen, who is growing and improving lately, and one of her clients, the tough-minded Mrs. Raymond, have nearly as big roles as Chee and Manuelito. A hush hush possible visit from a Secretary from Washington is a main ingredient, and what does that have to do with the dead body discovered near an old uranium mine? Meanwhile, the new Captain has a heart attack, and Lt. Jim Chee is temporarily taking his place. Mrs. Raymond is accompanying her grandson to what is clearly a scam drug rehab that takes them from Shiprock to Phoenix. Hillerman does a nice job juggling all these elements, and everything is tied together nicely in the end. There is also a sketchy cult in there. Bernie, as usual, gets hit on the head and put in jeopardy, but for once it is totally not her fault, and Chee also gets knocked out and tied up. Good book.
A Century Of Fiction in The New Yorker, 1925-2025 has 78 stories in a very big book. Fortunately, I read the Kindle edition, as it is (I think) about 1200 pages. It covers everything from the Johns (O’Hara, Updike, Cheever) to today, including Eudora Welty, Muriel Spark. Raymond Carver, Jorge Luis Borges, David Foster Wallace, Salman Rushdie, Dawn Powell, Jonathan Lethem, and many more.
Paul Doiron, Skin and Bones. Doiron has a long-running series about Maine Game Warden Mike Bowditch (whose father was a notorious poacher), and many of the stories here feature Bowditch, often when he was a much younger man getting pointers from his own mentor Charley Stevens. It’s a good series, and, as always, the short stories are a good way to see if it appeals to you.
Current reading: S. A. Cosby, King Of Ashes. I do not want to talk about this until I’ve read the rest of it – I’m a quarter of the way through it – but I can say it is tough, dark and very well written. He’s an outstanding writer.
Jeff, I’ve heard several book podcasters raving about King of Ashes so I’ll be interested to hear your verdict.
That New Yorker collection sounds very good (though 1200 pages!!) I seem to remember Muriel Spark lived in New York for a while? One of the book festival sessions I am toying with is about her – Professor Dan Gunn has just published THE LETTERS OF MURIEL SPARK and another author, Frances Wilson, has written a biography, ELECTRIC SPARK: THE ENIGMA OF MURIEL SPARK, which is described thus;
‘The word most commonly used to describe Muriel Spark is ‘puzzling’. Spark was a puzzle, and so too are her books. She dealt in word games, tricks, and ciphers; her life was composed of weird accidents, strange coincidences and spooky events. Evelyn Waugh thought she was a saint, Bernard Levin said she was a witch, and she described herself as ‘Muriel the Marvel with her X-ray eyes’. Following the clues, riddles, and instructions Spark planted for posterity in her biographies, fiction, autobiography and archives, Frances Wilson aims to crack her code.
Electric Spark explores not the celebrated Dame Muriel but the apprentice mage discovering her powers. We return to her early years when everything was piled on: divorce, madness, murder, espionage, poverty, skulduggery, blackmail, love affairs, revenge, and a major religious conversion. If this sounds like a novel by Muriel Spark it is because the experiences of the 1940s and 1950s became, alchemically reduced, the material of her art.’
I think she did live in New York, Rosemary. I’ve read several of her books, starting – of course – with The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie, which I read after seeing the Maggie Smith movie. The Abbess Of Crewe was supposed to be a Watergate parody. I remember seeing the movie adaptation – NASTY HABITS – in London in the 1970s. I’ve read a couple of others – at least one set during WWII and one in the ’50s – plus her collected short stories.
Latest British TV adaptation we’ve added: I, JACK WRIGHT. Very different role for John Simm than his usual.
I’ve read some of her other books Jeff – A Far Cry From Kensington and The Ballad of Peckham Rye, and of course Miss Jean Brodie, but I’ve not read The Abbess of Crewe.
I’d never even heard of I, Jack Wright, so I looked it up, and I like the sound of it. I’ll have to find out if it’s on a streaming service that we actually have, there are so many of them now. Thanks for the heads-up.
I also like that it is only 6 episodes. The British do that better than we do, as we tend to drag shows out endlessly, sometimes.
We’re on the 10th and final series of SPOOKS (MI-5 here), only series 14 (I think) of 28 (so far!) of SILENT WITNESS, on PRIME SUSPECT 3, as well as the fun DEATH VALLEY, with Timothy Spall as the star of a TV crime drama who “helps” the local (Welsh) cops solve real murders.
Good morning all from sunny Aberdeenshire, where the temperature is currently 60F – quite warm enough for me, but I think it’s set to rise for the weekend.
I have started doing my litter-picking walks early, while the air is still fresh and few people are about (not that my walks are ever crowded), and I am enjoying this. It reminds me of seaside holidays of my childhood, when all the men of holidaying families would be up and walking along the seafront at the crack of dawn to buy their newspapers. There was no reason for them to do this so early – I imagine it gave them a handy reason to escape the childcare that they usually avoided by being at work!
Last week I went to the theatre to see the opera THE MERRY WIDOW, but I wasn’t that taken with it. I think I probably just approached it in the wrong frame of mind, as it seemed very silly to me, but I think it was actually supposed to be. The action had been moved from Paris to a gangster’s home in ? New York ? Chicago? It was OK but I was glad when it ended.
On Friday I went to the North East Scotland College’s graduate fashion show, which was really good fun. The Seven Incorporated Trades’ hall, which was the venue for the evening, was magnificent. It has beautiful modern stained glass windows, a spectacular foyer and fabulous high-ceilinged rooms. The students’ mainly modelled their own creations, which I thought was admirable – my friend who is the art department’s curriculum manager said that many schools ‘model scout’ and only choose the tall, thin, beautiful students to show the clothes, but NESCOL encourages anyone who wants to to get onto the catwalk.
We also had a preview day for new exhibitions at our art gallery. The first was of a collection of modern pottery accumulated by a farmer from Elgin, who had purchased pieces from any potter whose work he liked, so there is a huge variety – some of the makers are now very famous, some not. When he died, the family donated the collection to the gallery on the condition that the public must be allowed to handle everything. This seems to be a new policy for many museums now anyway, which is great, though I do wonder what happens if/when someone drops something.
Another exhibition was of photos from the Aberdeen Harbour Board, mainly dating from the late 1800s. These show not only the harbour and the boats (highlighting the changes in the city’s skyline over the years) but also the domestic life of the Harbourmaster’s family – such as their annual holidays out on Deeside, for which they took horses and carts all the way to Ballater and Braemar, carrying what looked like all their worldly goods. I suppose they stayed away for most of the summer.
David is away this week, walking part of the North Yorkshire Coastal Path with one of our friends. They are staying in Whitby, setting of many novels, most famously Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
In the meantime I am trying to catch up (as usual) on reviews, but I’m also caught up in sorting out my schedule for the Edinburgh Festivals. I have completed my first run through of the immensely long Fringe programme – I now have to get my list into a practical and achievable state, which will mean culling many of the shows I’ve marked off as potentially interesting. I also have to timetable my book festival choices, but I have found this year’s offerings quite disappointing – the main draws for me will, I think, be Marina Warner, Julian Clary, Nicola Sturgeon and James Kelman.
The book festival funding has been decimated by their decision to refuse the backing of a major financial services firm, on which they have relied for many, many years. I can never quite decide the rights and wrongs of these things; EIBF was pressurised to refuse the funding because Baillie Gifford invest in some questionable funds, and I understand that that is a problem, but where else is the money going to come from? Very few funders with money have squeaky clean records. The wonderful Edinburgh author Ian Rankin has stepped in to help with a large injection of his own cash (and he isn’t even appearing this year, so this was a really selfless move), but I imagine that anything he can offer will still be far, far less than the funds available from corporate sponsors.
Last night I had a meeting with the regional representative for the British Association of Friends of Museums, of which our Friends group is a member. It was very interesting to hear his plans for connecting as many as possible of the numerous groups across the area and indeed the country. He also gave me some great tips about how to deal with some (technical) challenges in our own group. And we both lamented the huge challenge of trying to attract younger members – but as my daughters often tell me ‘we just don’t join things like you did.’
BOOKS!
I’m afraid I’m still working my way through Andy Davidson’s IN THE VALLEY OF THE SUN – I’m determined to finish it, but oh my goodness it’s hard work. The writing is very good, I really can’t fault Davidson for his style, but for me the subject matter (vampires in a very bleak part of Texas, back stories that are all deprivation, depravity, violence and woe) is just too hard. And as Lindy said about her books this week, there is not a single character with whom I can empathise. Also, because I am so unfamiliar with this genre I miss all the tropes and hints (he writes in a very elliptical way) and have to spend time trying to work out what is happening in most scenes. Usually I enjoy books whose authors leave us to draw our own conclusions, and much prefer this to over-explanation, but here I am struggling.
So I decided the only way to cope was to read some other books alongside this one.
I am so enjoying Robin Ince’s BIBLIOMANIAC, the author’s account of his tour of 100 bookshops. He and his co-podcaster and sometime co-author Professor Brian Cox were supposed to be undertaking a major speaking tour of the UK when the Covid lockdowns began – so, once shops could open again, Ince decided to visit mainly small independent bookshops by himself, and to give talks (unpaid) about his own books. He is such a good writer, so funny and self-deprecating, but he also tells us all about these wonderful shops, often run by people who don’t expect to make much money at all, and who work so hard to create welcoming community spaces.
Ince is also an incurable book buyer – the weirder the book, the better so far as he’s concerned. He trudges around the country, mostly travelling alone and by train or bus – he starts off with one suitcase, and ends up with that PLUS a rucksack and several carrier bags of books, which he’ll then have to try to hide before his wife finds out how many more tomes he’s forcing into their modest home.
My third book is Julia Cameron’s THE ARTIST’S WAY. I’m not too far into this yet, but I’ve read the chapter about ‘morning pages’ and ‘artist’s dates.’ I don’t quite know what to make of Cameron – some of her ideas are very convincing, especially (for me) her view that ‘blocked’ artists (of all kinds) are blocked by their ‘core negative beliefs’, but she is also extremely didactic – it really is her way or the highway – and her approach is far more religious than I had expected.
Many of the reasons she suggests for why someone fears fulfilling their wish to paint, write, etc now sound very outdated (eg ‘I am gay and good work is only made by straight artists’) – I thought the book must’ve been written in the 1970s, but in fact it was first published in 1993.
I will press on because I am interested, but I also googled ‘does morning writing work?’ and found the blog of a woman who said that, for her, morning writing just fed her propensity to depression. This lady had also found her late mother’s morning pages and was horrified to see how unhappy, frustrated and angry her mother had been (for many years) – this has always been a worry of mine, as Cameron instructs us to ‘hide’ our morning pages, but how do we know someone else won’t find them and be terribly upset by their contents?
I am really keen to get through my 20 Books of Summer this year, so I am trying to watch less TV and read not only first thing in the morning but also after dinner – so my television viewing has been scant. I’m still watching the last series of THE GREAT POTTERY THROWDOWN, but I know I am watching it with very limited attention, as by then I am falling asleep. The series that many people seem to be watching here is DEPT. Q, which is set in Edinburgh – I haven’t started it as I know it will require concentration, but I do want to see it. Another popular series here just now, but again one I haven’t seen. is WHAT IT FEELS LIKE FOR A GIRL.
Next week our youngest daughter, Madeleine, is coming for a short (and rare!) stay, so I don’t know if I’ll have time to write on Thursday. I wish everyone a good week!
Rosemary – I’ve often wondered if you would volunteer to be Lesa’s guest blogger when she’s unavailable? You always have so many interesting things going on and unique books.
That’s so nice of you MM, thank you.
Gosh Rosemary, you do cram a lot into your weeks! Where do you find the stamina I wonder. It all sounds so interesting though! Thank you for telling us all about the things you do and see. So much fun!
I read BIBLIOMANIAC a year or two ago and found it well worth the time spent.
Glad to be back – I missed last week still trying to recover from COVID. It turned into a sinus infection and its been pretty miserable. Onward!
While not really feeling up to reading, I managed to read one book and listen to two:
Story of My Life by Lucy Score. Lucy Score books are always feel good entertainment. In this story, Hazel is a romance novelist who isn’t feeling inspired to write her next novel. Divorced from her husband and at the end of the lease on her apartment, she decides to move to Story Lake to start over. She purchases a rather large home that needs renovations, and the three hunky, gorgeous Bishop brother’s contractors come to her rescue. Most of the story goes back and forth between Hazel and Campbell Bishop falling in love with each other with the usual come close/go away syndrome of those who have been previously burned in a relationship. Lots of high jinx along with great supporting character townspeople.
The Burglar in the Library (#8 Bernie Rhodenbarr) by Lawrence Block. My “go to” audiobook series on Hoopla when I can’t find anything else to listen to. Not the best in the series. But always enjoy the characters. Too much Bernie being the guy who solves a murder as opposed to be a burglar.
Desperate Woman Seeking Friends by Kristen Strong. This was an ARC audiobook from NetGalley. An uplifting book that I would suggest reading, rather than listening to, so that you can dog ear all of the useful advice to go back to in times when encouragement is needed. Useful advice on how to love yourself, love others, and be strong in your faith. Anecdotes are shared, bible references are used to bolster her recommendations, and guidance is given on navigating friendships. Highly recommend.
Happy Summer to all!
Oh sinus infections are the worst Mary, I do hope you’re feeling much better now. All of your books sound interesting to me. The podcasters on CURRENTLY READING were discussing ‘books to read when you’re sick’ just the other day – it’s allways good to have old favourites, or books in a favourite series, to fall back on, isn’t it?
Vacation! Always a good idea Lesa – hope you’re having a wonderful time.
“never let facts get in the way of a good story”
Paul Doiron reminds us in the acknowledgements to SKIN AND BONES. He adds to the fifteen books in the Mike Bowditch, Maine Game Warden series with this collection of short stories. In the introduction, he explains that writing these short stories gave him a creative boost and a chance to play. Certainly wonderful reasons. I’ve only read a handful of the books in this series and think this collection could also be enjoyed as a stand-alone.
I listened to the audio of The PENFORD MANOR MURDERS by Fiona Veitch Smith. The fourth book in the Miss Clara Vale mystery series features blackmail and murder. And what do the cornflowers which keep popping up everywhere mean?
At Penford Manor, the guests are arriving to celebrate the start of the grouse-hunting season: barons and baronesses, a Member of Parliament – and chemistry graduate turned detective, Miss Clara Vale. But Clara is no ordinary guest: she’s secretly investigating a blackmail plot against Lady Penford herself. Great fun, well researched historical fiction with a cohesive plot.
They truly are!! Thank you for your concern.
Goodness Mary. You’ve been sick for quite a while now! How exhausting. I hope you feel better very soon.
Thank you!
You’re welcome.
It’s been too rainy here to do much this week. I read an ARC of SHADOW PLAY by Sara Driscoll. Although I usually like her books this one was a miss for me. It was about a stalker who invaded his targets Twitch channel to deliver his threats. Too much of the book was about Twitch and online chatting for me to relate to it.
A MOST CONTAGIOUS GAME by Catherine Aird. It’s an older British mystery that Lesa reviewed recently and I enjoyed it.
My family came this weekend to see the Savannah Bananas play at the Great American Ball Park. My son-in-law won the lottery but oddly enough could only buy 5 tickets. With tickets on the secondary market going upwards of $1000, my husband and I opted to stay home.
Only one book for me this week because of company. WELCOME TO MURDER WEEK by Karen Dukess was a fun little mystery. Cath has been estranged from her mother pretty much her whole life. When her mother dies and she receives her effects, she discovers her mother booked them for a week in the dales in England to participate in the small village’s murder week event. She is persuaded to go and teams up with a soon to be divorced romance author and bird shop owner. While on the hunt to uncover the mystery, she uncovers her mother’s past. Bring a fan of British mysteries on TV, I enjoyed it.
Hope you are having fun, Lesa.
Happy Reading!
Sharon, I can’t believe a sports team is called the Bananas!! What with that and Lindy’s tortoise this is turning out to be an interesting week!
I like the sound of Welcome to Murder Week, I will have a look for it at the library. Thank you for telling us about it.
Rosemary, The Savannah Bananas are more of an entertainment baseball team like The Harlem Globetrotters for basketball. They sell out everywhere they play and there are lotteries you have to enter just to get a chance to buy tickets.
Sharon, I’ve heard of the Harlem Globetrotters but I have no idea what they do or how they do it. The only sport that had famous teams and players over here is football (and I know next to nothing about that…) – what is the difference between an entertainment team and an ordinary one?
We have a lottery for tickets to Glastonbury, but I don’t *think* they have them for sporting events over here – but I may well be wrong. (Actually there might be a lottery of some sort for Wimbledon tennis tickets, but I’m not sure.)
Rosemary,
The Harlem Globetrotters are a world famous basketball team that engages in comedy and various tricks. I’m sure some of the movies and cartoons based on the Globetrotters are available on yahoo, or whatever.
The Savannah Bananas are similar, but they play baseball. Their fame is relatively recent, while the Globetrotters are almost 100 years old.
Enjoy Amish country! My husband is determined not to buy a new used car until our care is twenty years old. So that means no travel until I am 81, if then. We need great transportation in Texas but oil is king here so we are car dependent.
Enjoying A Big Mess in Texas by David Fleming! It is humorous and shocking. A millionaire middle son, Giles Miller, tries to bring the NFL to Texas. He is spoiled kid. I can’t believe that his parents gave him so much over and over again. The decision does not make a lot of sense.
The team has two black players and Dallas in the 1950s is a scary place for blacks. There are still house bombings, segregation in all parts of life. The area was cotton country and that area had a tremendous amount of slaves. I wish I could have read this book before we moved to the area. No wonder we had to sell our house, it got to the point where I thought that they might burn a cross on our lawn because we were a couple, Asian and white and the culture is that races do not marry.
This book definitely has a dark side to it, the hurt and pain that black players and their families went through was tremendous. Thank goodness, there is comic relief in this book, it be hard to get through it without it.
It had a cameo appearance of H.B. Wells, the 11th president of I. U. at Bloomington, my parents went there and loved him. Anyway, a black man went to him and said I have a $1.25 in my pocket and I can’t eat anywhere. That was because, Bloomington culture was whites only. H. B. Wells went to a restaurant where the man was refuses service and told him that he wanted to eat with his friend (the black man). They refused. Then H.B. said then none of I.U. will eat here! Then the restaurant started to serve blacks. I wish my parents were alive today so I could share that with them. Anyway, the black man was inspired by that he went on to desegregate a movie theatre there by removing the wooden barrier that separated the races there,. That had special meaning for me because it was the same place where our family stood in a long line and saw Star Wars!
Oh my goodness Carol, I am truly shocked that these attitudes still exist today. How terrible to have to sell your house. There is still a lot of racism in the UK; these days it is aimed almost exclusively at Muslims and asylum seekers. People are so polarised and vicious, always blaming any minority for everything and believing everything they read in our generally very right wing press
When we were in Glasgow recently we passed an Orange march. I always forget how sectarian Glasgow is – the Orange marches in particular are deliberately routed to be as incendiary as possible. The one we saw was relatively small, but our daughter told us there had been a massive one quite recently. Football in Glasgow is extremely sectarian – Celtic are the Catholic team and Rangers the Protestant one. We don’t see any of this in Edinburgh or Aberdeen, it is a West coast thing, presumably owing to Glasgow’s proximity to Northern Ireland and the frequent interchange between the two countries.
Carol, I despair of the things that went on – and are still going on – in the world. I will never understand how people can treat each other so badly. The book you’re reading must be so upsetting; I don’t think I could read it.
Oh, and our car is 25 years old. Still going strong although definitely showing its age in lots of ways!
Good morning! Lesa, have a wonderful, relaxing time with your family. It was an uneventful week for me–three mornings in a row playing games with like-minded women (Rummikub, Progressive Hand & Foot, and Samba), which I always enjoy. Working on the August issue of the newsletter I edit for Sisters in Crime NorCal. And catching up on everything else. Here’s my reading week:
Jo Nichols’ THE MARIGOLD COTTAGES MURDER COLLECTIVE focuses on a group of tenants who live in Santa Barbara cottages owned by Mrs. B, their elderly landlady. Rotating chapters are written from the POV of each of the characters, familiarizing us with their personality, occupation, and background. But later the residents come together to solve the murder of a man found in the bushes outside–who is he, and could the murderer be Anthony, a tattooed ex-con who just moved into one of the apartments? Mrs. B refuses to believe Anthony is the perpetrator, and there is no real evidence. But when law enforcement detains him for too long, she decides to confess to the crime to get Anthony off the hook. Although I thought the book started too slowly and there was too much repetition, I was interested in some of the characters. Sophie, an aspiring playwright and director, is still freaked out by a stalker who caused her to have a breakdown, and now she drinks too much. In her chapters, she captures some of the group conversations in the style of a play she would like to write. Proposal writer Lily-Ann is dealing with an almost-ex who wants to control her. Hamilton is an agoraphobe who never leaves his cottage, and artist Ocean is a divorcee with two children. Nicholas is a city employee keeping a big secret from his fellow tenants.The story is wrapped up in an unexpected way, which was fun, but I would have liked a little more depth to the characters. (August)
As a Lin-Manuel Miranda superfan who first experienced his brilliance in In the Heights, newly on Broadway in April 2008, I couldn’t be more thrilled with Daniel Pollack-Pelzner’s authorized biography, LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA: THE EDUCATION OF AN ARTIST. Filled with glorious detail about the many aspects of Lin’s career and personal life, it is well researched and based on multiple interviews with Lin himself, his family members, teachers, mentors, friends, and collaborators. Although I have read extensively and watched documentaries about Lin-Manuel, I learned much more from this book. It’s easy to see how his education contributed to the artist he became. Both the Hunter College Elementary School and High School were pressure cookers for intellectually gifted students and provided a foundation for Lin to learn to compete, create, and collaborate. It was after he took several roles in the 6th grade play (a pastiche of the school’s last 6 musicals), including Bernardo, Captain Hook, and Conrad Birdie, that he told his teacher that was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. Composing and writing also became his passions, and in 8th grade his English teacher was the first person outside his family to tell him he was a writer. At Wesleyan University he met some of those who would remain his long-term collaborators when he wrote the first draft of In the Heights as a sophomore. The author’s accounts of how that show was transformed into a Tony Award winner for Best Musical years later with only five syllables of the original still existing, and how Lin’s second Broadway show, a phenomenon named Hamilton, broke the box office phones, are mesmerizing. Songs are analyzed and overhauled, themes and stories evolve, Latin rhythms and hip hop reflect NYC communities, Sondheim and other greats willingly mentor Lin, and he goes on to try other things. One of my favorite stories is how the Sondheim song “Sunday” is so beautifully and emotionally portrayed in the Lin-Manuel-directed movie “Tick, Tick . . . Boom,” A panoply of Broadway stars appear to sing together in the scene, when small groups of them were actually singing at a six-foot distance from each other because the pandemic was in full swing. I also loved reading about Lin’s parents–a child psychologist and a political activist, his older sister who handles financial affairs for the family businesses, and his scientist/lawyer wife who has grounded him and supported him. There is so much more to say about this book and so much more this ebullient, sensitive, empathetic man has accomplished that it is difficult to do it justice:. the awards he has won, the roles he has played, the songs he has written for others’ shows, and his current project (a total surprise to me). I can’t recommend it highly enough. (October)
Recently I enjoyed the first in the Mrs. Pargeter series, and now wealthy widow Mrs. Melita Pargeter is back with book #10 in the series, which was revived in recent years after eight Mrs. Pargeter Mysteries were published from 1986 to 1998. Mrs. Pargeter’s beloved husband left her a wealthy woman, but she was never interested in knowing exactly what he did for a living (we readers have our strong suspicions). Not only does she live in style, but whenever she needs some help with a sticky problem, she need only look into the little black notebook willed to her by her husband, and she is sure to find an expert with the particular skills she is seeking. Some of them have questionable pasts, it’s true, but all claim to be aboveboard in their current occupations. In MRS. PARGETER’S PAST, It is one of these problems that leads her to try to rescue her husband’s former accountant, Short Head Shimmings, who has significant gambling debts. Although Mrs. P offers to pay off his debts, the real issue is that the loan shark brothers cannot tolerate a challenge to their reputation, and one of them would be thrilled to make a deadly example of the hapless Shorthead. Nothing less than a dismantling of the criminal brothers’ extensive empire will solve the problem. And while Mrs. P feels confident she can achieve that goal, she suddenly has reason to wonder if the brothers, under assumed names, might have had something to do with a dangerous situation she found herself in years ago. In this book, we get a glimpse of Mrs. Pargeter’s life when her husband was alive. As always, it is a quick read, with an interesting cozy mystery and very little violence, sparkling dialogue, and a lot of whimsy. (October)
Margie. all those books sound good- I had never even heard of Lin-Manuel Miranda but you’ve made me want to read about him! And I’m so glad there are more Mrs Pargeter books – I’m looking forward to finding out more about her ;ife pre-widowhood.
I must ask you though, what on earth is Progressive Hand and Foot?
Hi, Rosemary. Hand and Foot is a form of canasta, a partner card game which is a form of rummy. Playing it “progressive” in this case means that after every hand, either the losing team or the winning team moves to a different table and switches partners so we get to play with a lot of different people. The number of tables is typically 3 or 4, with two teams of two playing at each table. Hand and foot refers to the fact that you play with 13 cards (hand) until you are able to meld all of them, and then you pick up the second pile (foot) of cards dealt to you and continue the game until you and your partner have played everything that is required and can discard the rest of your cards. It’s not as complicated as it sounds!
Haha – thanks Margie! Sounds far too complicated for me, but I’m sure it’s fun if you know what you’re doing!
Margie, David and I play two different versions of canasta ourselves. Great card game.
And I love how passionate you are about Lin-Manuel Miranda! It’s how excited you are that makes me want to read the book.
I tried to get caught up with work last week. I may well be further behind now, but I got a few things done.
Saw a BeeGee tribute concert at Hard Rock Sacramento, which is actually in Wheatland. They call it Fire Mountain, even though there isn’t even a hill in that location. The concert was pretty good. Lots of pictures of John Travolta. I’m too young to really remember the 70’s, but I think I was in Burt Reynolds country.
This week I read:
Tough to Tackle by Matt Christopher; For the book clubs. A guy joins the football team. He wants to be quarterback, but the coach puts him on the line. It was written in the 60’s, so of course, Vietnam comes into it. Not bad, but the kid should have at least been able to try out for QB. He coulda been Ben Rothlesberger.
The Sinister Pig by Tony Hillerman; Bernie keeps taking over more and more of the series. Was Anne taking over even then?
Tear it Down by Nick Petrie; Peter Ash goes to Memphis, which has become a regular hellhole. It’s woke Men’s Adventure, but somehow, everyone except the people living in Memphis are to blame for its deterioration.
Dead to the Last Drop by Cleo Coyle; Clare Cosi goes to Washington DC to be with her supercop paramour. She’s trying to open a coffee shop, but it’s struggling, until the President’s daughter drops in. She wants to be a jazz singer, and marry her band member, but the pressure of the office…Then after she gives a concert at the coffee shop, she disappears, there’s a murder, and we get spy-jinks. I think the authors wanted to stretch some different muscles than usual. A fun departure for the series.
Glen, I would LOVE to see a Bee Gees tribute band – I frequently lament never having seen them live (I have the same regrets about many stars, from David Bowie to Amy Winehouse) Was there dancing?
There was dancing in the aisles.
Some lady fell down the steps, dancing too hard.
Oh no – that’s always a fear of mine when dancing, especially when the space in front of the seats is so narrow and we are high up in the balcony. In Donna Leon’s first Inspector Brunetti novel the murder is an apparently accidental fall from the balcony of La Fenice in Venice!
Are tribute bands not a thing in Britain? In America, almost every act of any note seems to have at least one tribute band. The Beatles, The Bee Gees and The Rolling Stones have legion. And I’m not even counting Elvis impersonators.
Oh yes Glen, we do have lots of tribute bands and some of them are excellent, I’ve just never seen a Bee Gees one (yet.) We saw a very good Talking Heads tribute a couple of years ago in Edinburgh, and a friend and I also went to see a terrific George Michael tribute act in Dundee.
Never seen an Elvis impersonator, but not sure i’d rush to buy tickets for that one!
British Pop Culture is a bit different than American Pop Culture.
Are there tributes for, say, The Hollies? Mud? Billy Fury? Matt Monroe? T Rex? Acts that never really made it across the pond for better or worse, is what I mean. Those might interesting for an American to see.
We just got back from doing some shopping and it is nearly 1:00 pm here so nearly 4:00 pm in Ohio. So this will be brief. Lesa, I am sure you are having a good time in Shipshewana , Indiana. It is pretty cool here, weatherwise. The high is supposed to be 65 today.
Glen is reading ORBITAL by Samantha Harvey, which won the Booker Prize for 2024, and he is liking it a lot. I just finished reading EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE by Benjamin Stevenson, and I mostly enjoyed it but I am not sure exactly what I think about it. A very original mystery novel.
Happy reading to everyone.
Gosh Tracy our high today was 60F and I thought that was perfect/too hot!
I haven’t tried Orbital, it looks like such hard work, but maybe I should give it a go.
Hope you are having fun, Lesa.
Checking in late as we spent a good chunk of the day at the Subaru in Plano. What was supposed to be a simple oil change escalated thanks to their system that allowed people to overbook in the scheduling deal AND the battery in the car tested bad and had to be replaced.
Currently reading KING OF ASHES which has all the usual themes in Cosby’s work. Just new names and slightly different situations. It is good and all, but he is telling the usual story themes.
Went looking at FRAMED IN DEATH at NetGalley and it is only audio right now. Bummed about that as I don’t fool with audio books. My mind drifts on an audio book and soon I have no idea what was going on as I started thinking about things and tuned out.
Yes, I am weird. That isn’t changing.
How annoying that you had to wait so long at Subaru because of an issue that was entirely their fault Kevin. I feel your pain. But it’s a good thing the bad battery was discovered – it would likely have been even more inconvenient if it had stopped working when you were heading to some important appointment or something. I like Subarus, and wish I had one.
We have had it suddenly just stop. They kept telling me I would have a warning with a sluggish start and I kept saying that was BS as when it died the last time it did not even click.
Back in January 2017 when my Mom was passing, I was coming home in my PT Cruiser and got t-boned. Air bags never deployed. When Sandi (my late wife) was up to it, we went car looking. She kept insisting that she wanted something safe and wanted a Subaru. We were at the dealership when she said something about how she wanted her husband to be okay if it happened again and the cancer had finally won and taken her away. She liked the car and wanted it.
Impossible to say no to that. Withing days she was too sick to drive it and spent weeks and weeks in the hospital as they tried various things to no avail. She came home for hospice the Friday before Thanksgiving and they thought she had two months. She had two weeks.
So, the car she wanted is here and after a little over eight years, has just under 17K as I pretty much stay home. A Subaru Outback, it has been a good set of wheels.
And now you know far more about us than you ever wanted to know.
Oh Kevin. How terribly sad. I am so very sorry. You must have felt so helpless. I don’t know how long you were married and I’m sure it was much too short a time, but I’m glad you and Sandi had each other for a while. It sounds like she was a loving and caring person.
No matter how many repairs it will ever need over the years, every one of them will be worth it to keep that car.
Thank you. I wish you didn’t have so many troubles; and you bear them all so bravely. Big hugs from me here on the west coast of Canada on their way to you in Dallas.
I am so sorry Kevin, and I completely see the emotional importance that this car must have for you. How selfless of Sandi to think about your future safety.
Garages can be *so* annoying – the one that services my husband’s Peugeot told us every day for almost a week recently that it would definitely be ‘ready the next morning. ‘. Five days later….
I am on my second Subaru – this one is an XV, which is super easy to drive, but nowhere near as much fun as my old PT Cruiser, which became too expensive to keep fixing. We can no longer get PT Cruisers here. I also miss my old Landrover Defender.
Shortly after I bought this Subaru, I went out one morning, clicked the key fob to open the doors – and nothing happened. There is an ‘emergency’ key inside the fob, but I found it absolutely impossible to turn in the lock. The car battery had failed, the AA had to come and replace it, and it was shockingly expensive (to us anyway.). But since then, though I don’t want to jinx it, it’s been a good car.
That is more than enough about my car problems, sorry. I join Lindy – and, I’m sure, everyone else – in sending you virtual hugs, this time from me here in Aberdeenshire..