How are you this week? Don’t hesitate to let us know how you’re doing. I’m visiting my mother for a couple more days, so I won’t be checking in with all of you quite as often as I usually do. But, I do care to know how you’re doing, and I’ll check in several times.
This was my last trip home this year, and I won’t be back until at least the spring. So, it was good to see my mom. That also means I haven’t finished a book in the last week since I arrived here last Friday. But, what about you? What are you reading this week?
Glad you are enjoying your visit, Lesa. We're fine here, same old, same old.
This is what happens sometimes (at least it does to me) when you are reading several books at once. I finished three books in one day.
FUNERAL IN THE FOG was the collection of stories about Simon Ark by Edward D. Hoch. While it has some of Hoch's signature "impossible crime" setups, the character of Ark, a man who claims to have been seeking The Devil for 2,000 years, remains amorphous for me. So the situations are often ingenious but the solutions sometimes fall flat.
MORE BETTER DEALS is a non series effort by Joe R. Lansdale, this one set in the early 1960s in Texas, with a used car salesman (who is a light skinned black man passing for white) getting involved in a POSTMAN DOESN'T RING TWICE plot with a sexy but troubled woman. You know he won't come to a happy end, but it's enjoyable getting there.
BORGES AND ME: AN ENCOUNTER by Jay Parini was a fun, entertaining memoir. Parini (who went on to a career as a poet and novelist) was a graduate student in St. Andrews (Scotland), avoiding the draft and trying to find himself, when his friend and mentor (Alastair Reid) asked him to look after bling Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges for a few days while he was away. Parini knew nothing of Borges (as he always called himself), had never read him, but their picaresque road trip (Borges makes frequent comparisons to Don Quixote and Sancho) to Inverness, Orkney and back clearly did a lot to shape Parini's life. I really enjoyed this one.
Current reading? I'm back to the F. Scott Fitzgerald collected stories. Reading a fun science fiction "space opera" by Rebecca Coffindaffer, CROWNCHASERS. The Emperor of the Federation dies and a half dozen of the ruling families each chose one person to compete for the Crown in a quest around the universe. Our heroine and narrator (who doesn't want her uncle's crown, but is trying to help a friend win it) is Alyssa Farshot (nee Faroshti). Apparently there will be a book two in this mini-series and I will be reading it when it comes out.
Hilary Mantel is the two time Booker Prize winning author of WOLF HALL and BRINGING UP THE BODIES. Her MANTEL PIECES is, as the title suggests, a collection of her reviews and other pieces from the London Review of Books. Even if you don't know the books and authors she reviews (as I often don't), it is worth a try.
We watched the very good documentary THE WAY I SEE IT a couple of weeks ago. It is about Pete Souza, The Chief Official White House Photographer under Obama (he first worked for Reagan in the late years of his second term). Souza now wrote SHADE: A TALE OF TWO PRESIDENTS, partly as his protest of what he sees Trump doing to dismantle Obama's legacy. The book juxtaposes Trump's statements and outrageous claims with pictures from Obama's White House. Fun.
I have to watch The Way I See It. I DVRed it so I could watch it when I could sit down and enjoy it.
I like the sound of CROWNCHASERS, Jeff. That one sounds fun. You're right. I can finish a few books at a time when I read them like that.
That's what Jackie said too. She is going to read it after the J. D. Robb (which she just read), J. R. Ward, and THURSDAY MURDER CLUB.
I managed to finally finish THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB which I enjoyed very much. I hope there are more.
Now I am reading A LADY'S GUIDE TO MISCHIEF AND MURDER by Dianne Freeman. I am having a hard time getting into the rhythm of this one. It is a rainy day today so perhaps I will be able to read a big chunk.
Enjoy your visit with your Mom and safe travels home.
Happy Reading!
Enjoy your visit.
I read two cozies, both of which were OK
WINNER CAKE ALL by Denise Swanson
MISTLETOE, MOUSSAKA AND MURDER by Tina Kashian
I just finished Lowcountry Bordello by Susan M Boyer, which I really enjoyed. This series is set in Charleston and the barrier islands. Good characters, some humor and a helpful ghost make for enjoyable reading. The first in the series is Lowcountry Boil.
I survived my grandkids' first sleepover last Saturday and am looking forward to having them over for a few hours on Halloween, when their parents will be assembling a trampoline for Henry's 4th birthday, the following day. Here's what I read this week:
THE INVISIBLE LIFE OF ADDIE LARUE by V.E. Schwab is one of my favorites of 2020. Adeline LaRue loves to draw but doesn't love her life in France in the late 1600s, when girls and women lived restricted lives. Rather than be forced to marry a widower, she prays to the gods to change her life. But the god who responds turns out to be the devil and makes a deal with Addie in 1714 to grant her freedom and eternal life, but there's a catch, of course. She will be forgotten by all who meet her, every time–every day–they part. What follows is the story of Addie's life as she adapts to the agreement. She finds it easy to steal, to travel and meet new people, but nothing she tries to create is lasting. Even photographs of Addie are a blur. It's a lonely life, punctuated by the devil's periodic visits, for 300 years until she meets the first and only person (other than the devil) to remember her from day to day. The characters are well developed and evolve (yes, even the devil) as the story progresses over two timelines. The author's prose is elegant and accessible. To say more would be to spoil the story, which kept me fully engrossed and committed until the end. I can't recommend it highly enough.
In Barbara Ross's JANE DARROWFIELD, PROFESSIONAL BUSYBODY, Jane is looking for something to keep herself busy during retirement. She finds she has a talent for solving others' minor personal problems when they are reluctant to do it themselves–such as telling a friend's hair stylist she wants to switch to another stylist in the same salon. But she never expects to become involved in a murder investigation. The administrator of an upscale retirement community has called her in to help sort out an environment that feels more like a high school, complete with cliques and even food fights. But the situation quickly evolves into something much more deadly. I loved the protagonist and look forward to seeing her in future adventures.
The third in the Special Tracking Unit series by Spencer Kope, SHADOWS OF THE DEAD, is as excellent a police procedural as the first two. "Steps" Craig is part of an elite 3-man FBI unit and the only one with a special gift. After a near-death experience as an 8-year-old, he is able to see the "shine" of each person as a particular bright color, showing where that person has been and what he or she has touched. That comes in handy in cases such as this one, where an anonymous madman has directed his mentally disturbed henchman to kidnap and "fix" eight women, only one of whom seems to have survived. The team has to identify the mastermind and find the ninth victim, who may still be alive. Great series!
NEXT TO LAST STAND by Craig Johnson in hardback via the library and CODE FOUR by Frank Zafiro and Colin Conway in eBook.
Congrats again on making The Rap Sheet's Revue of Reviewers deal. Excellent work.
I'm doing okay. Not too much new to report on my end.
Today, I'm working on SPY SCHOOL REVOLUTION by Stuart Gibbs. I LOVE his middle grade mysteries so much. Always so much fun.
I second Margie's enthusiasm regarding Addie LaRue. I loved it!
I've read two books this past week and they were both excellent.
Tana French"s newest, The Searchers, was not her normal sort of book. It was a step away from her Dublin series, and focused on a group of vividly written characters surrounding an American who recently arrived in a small Irish community. I liked it. Liked it way more than her last book, The Witch Elm.
I also like Jake Brigance, the lawyer we met in A Time to Kill many, many years ago in John Grisham's A Time to Kill. JAke, his family, and his extended family in small town Mississipi are all back and are all brilliant in A Time for Mercy. Loved it.
Hugs!!!
Hi Lesa
I am reading Elizabeth Taylor's 'At Mrs Lippincote's', which was her first novel, published in 1945, and is about an air force officer's wife who is obliged to move into a rented house when her husband Roddy is posted to a provincial town (Mrs Lippincote is the owner of the house but – as in Mapp & Lucia in fact! – she has moved out to a private hotel because she has come down in the world and needs the rental money.) The war has just ended and most of the military men in the town will soon be demobbed, though a few are 'regulars'. Julia, the wife, is frustrated and bored, but determined to be faithful to the very traditional Roddy and fulfill the role of an officer's wife. In her imagination, however. she lives in a world populated by the Brontes, Jane Austen and their like. She has one schoolboy son, Oliver, also a manic reader – she makes more of an ally of him than she knows she should, as they share a love of reading and a vivid inner life. The household is completed by Eleanor, Roddy's cousin, who is single and a teacher at a local Montessori school. She is in love with Roddy but, in an effort to be different, becomes involved with the local Communist party via a male teacher at the school. Roddy, of course, hates 'commies'. Taylor has a wonderful understated style and it's easy to forget this was her debut. The book is also full of little period details, unobtrusively placed of course.
I've also just finished listening to 'Ethan Frome' by Edith Wharton, read for the radio by Joseph Ayres. I had never read any Wharton before and had always felt she would be too 'difficult' – The Age of Innocence has been languishing on my shelves for more years than it should've – but I loved this. What a writer Wharton was, her descriptions in particular are exceptional, you really get the feel of a remote, dilapidated farm in bleak wintertime in Massachusetts. Wharton can bring so much meaning into a simple scene – Ethan and Mattie (his wife's young cousin, come to live with them to help this grumpy invalid wife) alone in the kitchen in the evening, the lamp lit, the cat beside the stove – Mattie is sewing and Ethan reaches out and touches not her hand, but the material she is working. Tiny details reveal so much. There are no cliches here. The weather is also a major player, as I suppose it would've been, and still is, for farmers. I'm still not sure what I think about the characters, I will take some time to consider.
Margie, I like the sound of that Jane Darrowfield book! I must look out for that.
And Jeff I really do want to read the Hilary Mantel collection. She is such an interesting woman.
Pouring here this afternoon. I had a long walk this morning – hardly anyone about, the air was so still and wintery. I have a weird liking for these quiet, dark days.
Doing okay. Wondering what Thanksgiving is going to be like now that Newsom has gone full fascist on the holiday.
I read SEAL Team Alpha, one of the Rogue Warrior series. These were pretty popular in the 1990's, almost forgotten today.
The Uncommon Thread; A kid who doesn't work at his father's tailor shop finds that the shop is a front for a worldwide espionage agency. Someone's been watching Man From UNCLE.
Too Many Tom Cats; More cat stories from the Collins couple.
Finished DEATH OF A BUSYBODY by George Bellairs (1943) this morning, and wrote up something for it on the blog. Now I'll launch into some short stories as I have many thick anthologies and collections on hand, three-quarters of them SF or fantasy.
Glad you were able to visit your mom. I'm okay. Have kept working so that's a blessing. I am currently reading One for the Books by Jen McKinlay and Checked Out for Murder by Allison Brook. On audio I am listening to Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey (he narrates the audio also).
Thank you, everyone. I apologize that I didn't spend more time with you today, but I checked on everyone, especially you, Mark, and it's good to know you're all okay & that Margie survived the sleepover with her grandkids. I'm looking forward to the Addie LaRue book eventually.
I don't have the normal responses to what you're reading, but I've skimmed it.
This was my last trip this year. I just wanted to see my Mom one more time in 2020. That means, though, that I'll be around to read and discuss books with you. I'm driving home on Saturday.
Thank you, all, for keeping us posted.