What are you reading the week of April 22, 2023?

I read Maigret Defends Himself and Maigret's Patience. These two books are really part of the same story. In Maigret Defends Himself, while the inspector is investigating a series of jewel robberies, he accidentally stumbles upon a completely different crime. After being set up by a clever criminal who mistakenly believes that he is the subject of Maigret's investigation, the inspector returns in Maigret's Patience to his jewelry heist investigation, only to have his prime suspect murdered practically under his nose.

Knocked off Broken Arrow: How the U.S. Navy Lost a Nuclear Bomb. Now working on Ming China and Its Allies. Spear will come after that.

Due to a power outage over the weekend I got a lot of reading done, I've thus started The Goddess and the Bull.

I'm still reading Nic Blake and the Remarkables: The Manifestor Prophecy by Angie Thomas. I'm about halfway through and I love it.

Currently reading:
SF/F
House of Gold by C. T. Rwizi
The Race by Nina Allan
Other
A Fugue in Time by Rumer Godden

I'm having a reading slump, very unpleasant! I have found a thriller that's holding my attention: The Beautiful Dead by Belinda Bauer.

Listening to Anthony Doerr's Cloud Cuckoo Land, which is gorgeous.

The Heart Goes Last – Margaret Atwood
Digital audiobook performed by Cassandra Campbell and Mark Deakins.
4****

In a country facing economic and social collapse, Stan and Charmaine struggle to hold onto their love and their marriage. Having lost their jobs, they wind up living in their car, where they are preyed upon by gangs of roving thugs. Stan’s about to turn to his brother Conor, who’s some sort of underworld criminal, when Charmaine happens to see an ad on the TV at the bar where she’s a parttime cocktail waitress. The Positron Project promises jobs, clean living conditions, and an idyllic environment. Oh, what she wouldn’t give to have a neat little house again, clean clothes, good food, a job where she could actually contribute! The catch? The couples who sign up live in the tidy bungalows only half the year; the other half they switch with another couple who have been in prison. It’s a win-win situation, the ad promises. But, of course, promises are cheap, reality costly.

Damn but Atwood is a fine writer! I love how she shows us this young couple , their dreams and ambitions revealed through their actions. They make mistakes, as we all do, and they become desperate to change their circumstances. Can they find the strength to pull together? They trusted the Positron promise, and look where THAT got them? Dare they trust that there is a way out? Will their love survive?

And what IS love? Is it passion and excitement? Is it devotion and sacrifice without thought to self? Can we choose whom and how to love, or is it an emotion so powerful that we are helpless in its grasp, destined to follow the path laid out before us?

At times the scenarios are quite humorous (the Last Vegas Elvis impersonators are a hoot), and other times I cringed with embarrassment at Charmaine’s naivete or wanted to warn Stan that “No! that’s not a good idea!” I was as unsure about whom to trust as they were.

Two very talented voice artists perform the audio version. The change in narrator helps to clearly show the changes in point of view.

Finding Me
Viola Davis
4/5 stars
Davis, who is an actress, relates her life of poverty as a child and how she got out of it and became an award winning actress who won awards in all the major entertainment categories. This was a fascinating read!

DNF for A Fugue in Time by Rumer Godden. Lost interest.

Finished The Race by Nina Allen. Liked it well enough.

Added A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon to my rotation.

OK, a bit of catch-up from my recent vacation in San Francisco and Houston:

I've recently completed Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones, Hunting Badger by Tony Hillerman and Spring Sowing by Liam O'Flaherty. Reviews for all three are available for perusal on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

I'm now reading Natchez Burning, the fourth book in Greg Iles' Penn Cage crime series.

Enjoying this audio via Libby ~

The White Lady: A Novel
by Jacqueline Winspear

I finished What's Bred in the Bone. I'm not sure what others might have gotten from this book but to me it an insightful exploration of the making of a person in the depths of their being. What's inherent and what's a function of life experience.

Re-read from the library: A Corruption of Blood by Ambrose Parry
Historical mystery series set in Edinburgh.

The new and #4 installment Voices of the Dead releases in June for UK and Sept. for US.

I started reading out loud to myself to keep my voice working well. For this I have chosen Beyond Black. This book can be a bit unsettling but the writing is so fascinating and amazing I am enjoying it very much.

I think one's reading comprehension goes up when one is reading to one's self out loud. I just have that feeling.

The Coyotes of Carthage – Steven Wright
Book on CD performed by Glenn Davis
4****

Andre Ross has made a mistake. And it may end his career as a hotshot political consultant. But, his mentor agrees to give him one more chance. Sent to a backwater community in South Carolina, he’s tasked with passing an initiative that no one has even considered. He has an assistant (who is the partner’s grandson, and completely green) and a limited budget. But he KNOWS how to do this.

Dre is something of an enigma. He’s clearly intelligent and well-informed. He is a professional whose middle name may as well be “cutthroat,” and will take whichever side is paying his salary. He’s also deeply troubled. The fact that he’s a black man in a blue-collar white community in the deep south doesn’t deter him, though that does pose some challenges. As the novel progresses the reader begins to see signs that Dre isn’t so sure this is the right path for him. He seems to be falling apart. Will his conscience, long silenced, win out? Will he win this election? Will he keep his job? Does he want to?

I found this riveting and informative. I could not help but think of our current political climate and the way the populace is manipulated by the message. A tweak here, a slightly different phrasing there, a negative connotation “accidentally” floated onto the local gossip mill, a charismatic young woman whom everyone knows is a “good person” … and you have everyone ready to vote against their own best interest and in favor of the candidate or position least likely to actually benefit them.

Glenn Davis does a marvelous job of narrating the audiobook. He sets a good pace and differentiated the characters sufficiently that it was always clear who was speaking.

Started Becoming by Michelle Obama. I am enjoying it!

The new thread is up over here.