What are you reading the week of October 28, 2023?

I've started Isaac Asimov's The Robots of Dawn. It's the third novel in the Robot series of mystery novels. Last year, I spent a lot of my reading time on the history of Ukraine. This year has been a retreat into pure escapism.

About halfway done with Infinity Gate. Next up will be Days of Steel Rain, The Strange, and Unsung Hero of Gettysburg.

I'm about 3/4 of the way through the enjoyable and interesting Proud Beggars by Egyptian writer Albert Cossery.

I'm still splitting my time between Bitch: On the Female of the Species by Lucy Cooke and Just After Sunset: Stories by Stephen King. What a treat to have 2 good books to read at the same time.

*ETA: I also read Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier this week. It only took me about an hour and, wow, it packed a powerful punch.

Hangman: A Decker/Lazarus Novel (Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus Book 19)
Faye Kellerman
4/5 stars
This is the 19th book in the Decker/Lazarus series which I have been reading for years and I still enjoy them. In this book Decker is asked to look after a young man, Gabe while his mother Terry is gone and then goes missing. Among other things, Decker is also on the case of a nurse who left work and later found hung. Compelling!

I'm starting a series in the cozy-mystery-set-in-a-knit-shop series, Double Knit Murders by Maggie Sefton. It is a good break from The Word for the World is Forest that I intend to finish this week.

With much displeasure I managed to finish the Hemingway novel, To Have and Not Have. It is a very disjointed tale of several unrelated folk in the Keys, all blustering macho and violent,

Just finished reading Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange. Stanley Kubric's movie of the same name was the driving factor for me to read the book and it has been an amazing read. Also, constantly looking the internet to understand the unique vocabulary of the book was a great experience.

Better Nate Than Ever – Tim Federle
Book on CD read by the author
3.5***

Thirteen-year-old Nate Foster doesn’t seem to fit into his family. His big brother is a star athlete and gets all the attention from his parents. While Nate just wants to sing and dance and be a Broadway star. Thank heavens for his best friend, Libby. And it’s Libby who notices that there will be auditions for a brand-new musical adaptation of E.T. and helps Nate concoct a scheme so that he can go to New York for the audition.

This was a wonderful coming-of-age story with a great big heart. Nate is a great kid – funny, intelligent, resourceful, brave. He has a chance at his dream, and he is going to go after it with all he’s got. Of course, he also gets a little help from his Aunt Heidi, his mother’s estranged sister, who happens to live in Manhattan, and her roommate “Freckles” who also works in the same restaurant as she does. They know a thing or two about dreams, and about acting.

Nate’s road to stardom is not without roadblocks, starting with the downpour that drenches the only clothes he has. He’s pretty naïve and spends what little money he has on the wrong things; he has no way to call anyone as his cell phone battery has died; more than one kid (and his/her parent) also vying for a role are quite mean to Nate, cutting what little confidence he has. But he has dealt with bullies before and he will not to be denied his chance. He might not have a headshot, or have attended special dance classes, but he’s here, isn’t he?

The scenes are sometimes tender and sometimes a bit frightening, but there is also plenty of humor, and a sense of hope. Nate is so easy to cheer for. The book ends on a cliffhanger, setting up a sequel. Normally, I hate this device, but it was really the perfect ending for the book.

Tim Federle narrates the audiobook himself. I can’t imagine anyone doing a better job of it.

All Aboard the Schooltrain – Glenda Armand
Illustrated by Keisha Morris
4****

Subtitle: A Little Story From the Great Migration

This picture book tells an important story of America’s 20th century history, when many Black families left the Southern states in response to restrictions imposed by Jim Crow laws and sought greater opportunity in the North, Midwest or West.

Thelma lives with her parents and twin little sisters in a small town in Louisiana. Each weekend, she “gets onboard the schooltrain” when her cousin Chris, best friend, Ann Marie, and their neighbor, Michael, walk together to school. They make the trek, rain or shine, because the importance of an education is emphasized to the children. So, while the White children ride a bus and go to a new school with new desks and new books, the Black children walk and make do with a dilapidated one-room schoolhouse, old desks and books that are falling apart. But they notice when friends and relatives begin to leave Louisiana for Minnesota or California.

Armand took inspiration from her mother’s own experiences growing up in, and later leaving, Louisiana. While her mother didn’t head for California until she was an adult, Armand’s main character, Thelma, is a child. Thelma notices the trains headed west and likes to imagine where the people are going and what they will do there. She asks questions of her parents and teacher and gets reliable straightforward answers, which help her understand the historic use of the Jim Crow Laws, unfair though they are. But she also learns about Black leaders through history, including Frederick Douglas, Harriet Tubman, and most importantly she learns how vital it is to “keep boarding that schooltrain.”

At the end of the story, the book includes some historical notes, and photographs, about the author’s family, and the history of Jim Crow laws as well as the Great Migration. Definitely worth reading this supplemental information.

Keisha Morris illustrated the work. She uses vibrant colors. I loved the facial expressions; there was such joy and obvious love in this family!

Started this audio via Libby ~

The Giver of Stars (A Novel)
by Jojo Moyes

I’ve nearly finished Sarah Winman’s Still Life and I’m going to hate to have it end. So good!

I finished Proud Beggars by Albert Cossery (translated from the French by Thomas W. Cushing). Proud Beggars, first published in 1955, brings us the tale of three men living in a poor section of Cairo. The narrative revolves around three friends who have more or less chosen their impoverished status, their sarcastic views of the "bastards and thieves" who control societies power structure and the joy they find in the small details of humanity and urban life. When a young prostitute is murdered in nearby brothel in what appears to be a motiveless crime, into the picture comes police inspector Nour El Dine who feels in the solving of such crimes and punishment of their perpetrators not any compassion for the victims but instead a maintenance of order, a defense of the status quo. Our three heroes take him on gleefully as a worthy if not particularly threatening adversary. And Nour El Dine has his own dissatisfactions and doubts. I found some flaws in the narrative perspective Cossery offers, but overall found this novel entertaining and rewarding. My longer review is viewable on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

I've now begun The Good Fight, the campaign memoir of Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives who ran for president in 1972.

Finding Nouf – Zoë Ferraris
4****

From the book jacket: Wen sixteen-year-old Nouf goes missing, along with a truck and her favorite camel, her prominent family calls on Nayir ash-Sharqi, a desert guide, to lead a search party. Ten days later, her body is discovered by anonymous desert travelers. But when the coroner’s office determines that Nouf died from drowning, and her family seems suspiciously uninterested in getting at the truth, Nayir takes it upon himself to find out what really happened to her.

My reaction
This was a wonderful debut psychological thriller. I particularly appreciated the setting in Saudi Arabia, and the use of a female lab technician who has some decidedly “modern” sensibilities. Katya Hijazi chafes at the rigid segregation of men and women in this ultra-conservative society. Her widowed father indulges her – to a point; she still must have a driver and escort wherever she goes.

Contrast this strong woman, determined to be as modern as possible within the confines of societal rules, with Nayir. He’s a Palestinian orphan who was raised by a bachelor uncle. He is devoutly Muslim, praying five times a day, refraining from contact with women, and rather rigid in his daily life. He is appalled at this brazen woman, and yet intrigued by, even drawn to her. Theirs is a partnership neither sought, but which both ultimately appreciate.

I’m fascinated by this glimpse into modern-day Saudi Arabia, a country that lives by an ancient code that mystifies this Westerner. I’m interested to see where Ferraris takes this series.

Published in the UK as Night Of the Mi’raj

From the library: Voices of the Dead by Ambrose Parry
New and 4th installment in the Raven and Fisher series.

Finished: Imperiled Young Widows series by Melanie Dickerson
Christian historical romance set in Regency England. This series for adults was self-published by the author.

The Checklist Manifesto – Atul Gawande
Book on CD read by John Bedford Lloyd
4****

Subtitle: How to Get Things Right

Gawande became well-known for his original book of essays Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science, in which he outlined some of the difficulties faced by modern-day surgeons despite the very best training and equipment. He wrote it while still a resident in training, and followed it up a few years later with Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance where he described more of his observations and shared his thoughts and questions for continued improvement. THIS book is his third.

He explains how a tool used in many industries to ensure that complex procedures are carried out in a “best practices” way consistently might be (and has been) applied to the complexities of modern medicine. What is this tool? A checklist.

I loved his earlier books partly because I am a total geek about medicine. So this book was slow to get my attention because he wrote about pilots and construction managers in some detail before getting around to applying that checklist tool to medicine. But when he began to relate the world-wide study undertaken under the auspices of the World Health Organization, I began to feel his enthusiasm for the subject, and his (and others’) excitement over the early results.

Still, for me at least, it seemed to be missing some of the “special sauce” that his earlier works (and his later work: Being Mortal”) had. I expect that this is partly due to the fact that this book is much more clearly aimed at the medical professional, and was, therefore, less personal to me. Still, you can bet I’ll be asking my surgeon / anesthetist / nurse about their use of a checklist the next time I have to have any surgical procedure!

John Bedford Lloyd did a fine job of narrating the audiobook, although I think the book might be best appreciated in text format.

The new thread is up over here.