Aunt Marge and the kids read in 2019

I'm back with various nieces and nephews for 2019. As the year begins we range in age from 18 to 70 and have been doing Club Read together since 2010, when the youngest was 9. Even with the kids now busy with college, marriages and careers, there's still an interest among them in keeping up the list, which delights me.

Margaret
1. Housekeeping by Marilynn Robinson ****
2. Saints for All Occasions by J. Courtney Sullivan ****½
3. The Birdwatcher by William Shaw ****
4. The Witch Elm by Tana French ***
5. Incarnations: A History of India in Fifty Lives by Sunil Khilnani ****
6. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay ****½
7. Can Democracy Work?: A Short History of a Radical Idea, from Ancient Athens to Our World by James Miller ****
8. The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell ****
9. The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma ***
10. Holy Ghost by John Sandford ***
11. Skellig by David Almond ****
12. The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas *****
13. The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley ****
14. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie *****
15. The Red Badge of Courage by Steven Crane ***½
16. The Inner Life of Animals: Love, Grief, and Compassion by Peter Wohlleben **½
17. Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather ****½
18. Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?: A Memoir by Roz Chast ***½
19. The Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge ****
20. Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss **½
21. Out of the Ice by Ann Turner ***½
22. The Importance of Being Earnest ****½
23. Lincoln's Dreams by Connie Willis ****
24. The Birds by Tarjei Vesaas *****
25. The River by Peter Heller ****
26. The Lost Man by Jane Harper *****
27. The Wall by John Lanchester ***
28. The Other Wife by Michael Robotham ****
29. Foe by Iain Reid *****
30. The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts ****
31. The Walls Came Tumbling Down by Henriette Roosenburg ****
32. She Lies in Wait by Gytha Lodge ****
33. The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life by David Quammen *****
34. The Island by Peter Watts ****
35. The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton ***
36. Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande ****
37. I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid ***
38. 1222 by Anne Holt ****
39. The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells *****
40. Second Person Singular by Sayed Kashua ***½
41. The Book of Flora by Meg Elison ****
42. A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute ****
43. The American Museum of Natural History and How It Got That Way by Colin Davey ***
44. The Sacrament by Olaf Olafsson ***½
45. Denslow's Humpty Dumpty by W. Denslow ****
46. Disaster's Children by Emma Sloley **½
47. The Invention of Yesterday by Tamim Ansary ****½
48. All Systems Red by Martha Wells ****
49. Three Remain by R. A. Andrade ***½
50. The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America by Matt Kracht ½
51. From Savagery to Civilization: The Power of Greek Mythology by Vincent Hannity ***½
52. Artificial Condition by Martha Wells ****
53. Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells ****
54. Exit Strategy by Martha Wells ****
55. The Nail House by Gregory Baines ****
56. Atlantic Winds by William Prendiville ***½
57. Neon Prey by John Sandford ****½
58. The Comet Seekers by Helen Sedgwick ****½
59. All This I Will Give to You by Dolores Redondo ****½
60. The Snakes by Sadie Jones *****
61. The Therapist by Nial Giacomelli ***½
62. The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh ****
63. Speak No Evil by Uzodinma Iweala ****
64. The Odyssey by Homer *****
65. Why Don't You Write My Eulogy Now So I Can Correct It? by Patricia Marx ***½
66. Dark Age by Pierce Brown *****
67. Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips ***½
68. The Golden State by Ben H. Winters ***½
69. Good Girl, Bad Girl by Michael Robotham ****
70. His Favorites by Jane Walbert ***½
71. The Churchgoer by Patrick Coleman ****½
72. Small Silent Things by Robin Page ***½
73. The Hills Reply by Tarjei Vesaas ****
74. Phantoms by Christian Kiefer *****
75. Gods of the Upper Air by Charles King *****
76. Infinite Tides by Christian Kiefer ****
77. The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld ****
78. The All of It by Jeannette Haien ****
79. Lost Boy, Lost Girl by Peter Straub ****
80. Blue Moon by Lee Child ****
81. The Butterfly Girl by Rene Denfield ***½
82. The Drowned World by Peter Ballard **½
83. The Night Fire by Michael Connelly ****½
84. Not on Fire, But Burning: A Novel by Greg Hrbek ****½
85. A Dream in Polar Fog by Juri Rytcheu ****
86. Hild by Nicola Griffith *****
87. The Body in Question by Jill Ciment **

Caitlin
1. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling *****
2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling *****
3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling *****
4. Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book ***
5. Bleed for Me by Michael Robotham ***
6. The Jungle by Sinclair Lewis ***
7. Lost by Michael Robotham ***
8. Shatter by Michael Robotham *****
9. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien ****
10. At the Water's Edge by Sara Gruen *****
11. Two by Two by Nicholas Sparks ****
12. The Other Wife by Michael Robotham *****
13. The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware ***
14. Close Your Eyes by Michael Robotham ****
15. Ma Polinski's Pockets by Sara Sheridan ***
16. Good Girl, Bad Girl by Michael Robotham ***
17. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen ****
18. Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James ***
19. Fifty Shades Darker by E. L. James ***
20. Fifty Shades Freed by E. L. James ***

Tyler
1. Halo: The Cole Protocol by Tobias S. Buckell ****
2. The Fall of Reach by Eric Nylund *****
3. The Ghosts of Onyx by Eric Nylund *****
4. A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe by Alex White ****½
5. Halo: Glasslands by Karen Traviss *****
6. Halo: New Blood by Matt Forbeck ****½
7. Halo: The Thursday War by Karen Traviss *****
8. Halo: Mortale Dictata by Karen Traviss *****
9. HALO: Contact Harvest by Joseph Staten ****
10. Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin *****

Kristen
1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee *****
2. Fierce by Aly Raismen 4 1/2 stars
3. Home by Joanna Gaines 4 stars
4. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie ****½
5. Angels and Demons by Dan Brown *****

Ian
1. Thrawn by Timothy Zahn ****

Amy
1. Raising the Bar by Nile Wilson ****
2. Next Level Basic by Stassi Schroeder ****
3. Life Will Be the Death of Me by Chelsea Handler *****
4. Greatest Love Story Ever Told by Megan Mullally ****

Margaret's 2019 Reading by Original Year of Publication

c800 BC
The Odyssey by Homer *****

c600 BC - c570 BC
The Complete Poems of Sappho *****

1863
The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley ****

1895
The Red Badge of Courage by Steven Crane ***½
The Importance of Being Earnest ****½

1903
Denslow's Humpty Dumpty by W. Denslow ****

1931
Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather ****½

1950
A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute ****

1957
The Birds by Tarjei Vesaas *****
The Walls Came Tumbling Down by Henriette Roosenburg ****

1962
The Drowned World by J. G. Ballard **½

1963
The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas *****

1969
The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton ***

1980
Housekeeping by Marilynn Robinson ****

1986
The All of It by Jeannette Haien ****

1987
Lincoln's Dreams by Connie Willis ****

1991
The Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge ****

1998
Skellig by David Almond ****

2003
Lost Boy, Lost Girl by Peter Straub ****

2004
The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh ****

2005
A Dream in Polar Fog by Yuri Rytkheu ****

2007
Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay ****½
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie *****
1222 by Anne Holt ****

2010
Second Person Singular by Sayed Kashua ***½

2011
The All of It by Jeannette Haien ****

2013
Infinite Tides by Christian Kiefer ****

2014
Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?: A Memoir by Roz Chast ***½
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande ****

2015
The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma ***

2016
The Inner Life of Animals: Love, Grief, and Compassion by Peter Wohlleben **½
Out of the Ice by Ann Turner ***
I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid ***
The Comet Seekers by Helen Sedgwick ****½
All This I Will Give to You by Dolores Redondo ****½
Not on Fire But Burning ****½

2017
Saints for All Occasions by J. Courtney Sullivan ****½
The Birdwatcher by William Shaw ****
Incarnations: A History of India in Fifty Lives by Sunil Khilnani ***
The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell ****
All Systems Red by Martha Wells ****

2018
The Witch Elm by Tana French ***
Can Democracy Work?: A Short History of a Radical Idea, from Ancient Athens to Our World by James Miller ****
Holy Ghost by John Sandford ***
Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss **½
The Other Wife by Michael Robotham ****
Foe by Iain Reid *****
The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts ****
The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life by David Quammen *****
Artificial Condition by Martha Wells ****
Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells ****
Exit Strategy by Martha Wells ****
His Favorites by Jane Walbert ***½
The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld ****

2019
The River by Peter Heller ****
The Lost Man by Jane Harper *****
The Wall by John Lanchester ***
She Lies in Wait by Gytha Lodge ****
The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells *****
The Book of Flora by Meg Elison ****
The American Museum of Natural History and How It Got That Way by Colin Davey ***
The Sacrament by Olaf Olafsson ***½
Disaster's Children by Emma Sloley **½
Three Remain by R. A. Andrade ***½
The Invention of Yesterday by Tamim Ansary ****½
The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America by Matt Kracht ½
From Savagery to Civilization: The Power of Greek Mythology by Vincent Hannity ***½
The Nail House by Gregory Baines ****
Atlantic Winds by William Prendiville ***½
Neon Prey by John Sandford ****½
The Snakes by Sadie Jones *****
The Therapist by Nial Giacomelli ***½
Speak No Evil by Uzodinma Iweala ****
Why Don't You Write My Eulogy Now So I Can Correct It? by Patricia Marx ***½
Dark Age by Pierce Brown *****
Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips ***½
The Golden State by Ben H. Winters ***½
Good Girl, Bad Girl by Michael Robotham ****
The Churchgoer by Patrick Coleman ****½
Small Silent Things by Robin Page ***½
The Hills Reply by Tarjei Vesaas ****
Phantoms by Christian Kiefer *****
Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century by Charles King ****
Blue Moon by Lee Child ****
The Butterfly Girl by Rene Denfeld ***½
The Night Fire by Michael Connelly ****½

Happy New Year, auntmarge64! You have been starred!

Hi, Margaret. I got your pm. I have tried to respond twice, and it doesn’t seem to be posting. We are neighbors. What a lovely surprise! I will try again later or tomorrow to see if it posts.

>4 brodiew2: - Brodie, come over to Club Read..... :) Just kidding - you know where you want to be. Starred you too, over in 75 Books. Have a great reading year!

>5 NanaCC: - Yup, got three messages. I didn't realize there were other LTers around here!

Happy New Year, Margaret! I'll be following your reading with interest and a pencil so I can make a note of the books that you're forcing me to read.

>7 RidgewayGirl: I'll do my best to add to your list, heh, heh, heh. And vice versa, of course!

A challenge for my new year:



1000 Books to Read Before You Die by James Mustich

I just purchased this lovely tome, a quite different set of essays and recommendations than 1001 Books to Read Before You Die. Mustich seems to have pulled more from his own experiences than from a must-read list of the world's great literature. It's arranged by author, with the first section including:

Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness by Edward Abbey
Flatland by Edwin A, Abbott
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
My Dog Tulip by J. R. Ackerly
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams
Watership Down by Richard Adams
Half a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Oresteia by Aeschylus
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee

and so on for the "A"s.

-------------------

I loved his inclusion of three of my favorite books, titles which have meant a great deal to me:

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes
Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta by Doris Lessing
The Glass Bead Game (or Magister Ludi) by Hermann Hesse

An LT author, David Abrams, who is also on FB, has begun to read the book one entry at a time and to give a summary (of the summary!) each day on FB. I do like that idea, of reading one (or maybe a couple) of entries a day. I've already read just over 100 of the titles, and I know I won't want to read them all (tried My Dog Tulip and Hitchhiker's Guide and didn't like either), but I think I may just find some great additions for my TBR.

Has anyone else got this book? It's available for Kindle, but the hardcover has beautiful color illustrations.

I'm fascinated by this list, while also trying to carefully avoid the bottomless pit it could send me to. In 2009 I read a book on 50 books I should read, and I'm still chasing those 50 books. But, still, great fun. Do you follow ELiz_M? She is past the halfway mark on this list or one like it.

Hi Dan, I think Eliz_M is reading the more well-known list, 1001 Books to Read Before You Die. I have that one, too, and have read some of the titles, but this new one (1000, not 1001, oy!) has snagged my interest right now. I'm sure some day someone will do an actual comparison of the two, and I'd like to read that!

But these kinds of books really are bottomless pits - especially with more new titles being reviewed on LT every year. Too many choices!!!

Housekeeping by Marilynn Robinson **** 1/2/19

Atmospheric, full of dreamy descriptions, and a finalist for the Pulitzer.

As young girls, Ruth and her sister are abandoned at their grandmother's house by their mother, Helen, who then drives her car off a cliff into the local lake. This is the same lake that took the life of Helen's father, who was aboard a train that drove off a local bridge into the water years earlier. The grandmother takes care of the sisters in a rather distant but caring way until she dies, and then two elderly great-aunts arrive and pick up where she left off. They don't quite know what to do with the girls either, and eventually they track down Helen's sister, Sylvie, to see if she will come and live with the girls. Sylvie is a tramp (of the train-hitching type), and while she does her best, she is very strange and brings the eyes of local officials on to their little family. Ruth is very much like Sylvie, ill at ease with the regular world, although sister Lucille makes every effort to be "normal".

Not as engaging as Robinson's Gilead, which I adored, but so well-written that the extensive descriptions and day-dreaming still pull the reader along to the, to me, surprising and satisfying conclusion. Highly recommended.

(In the film, Christine Lahti plays Sylvie - sounds like a perfect casting decision.)

>12 auntmarge64: I have wondered about this book ever since I read Gilead. Glad to have your description. Some day, maybe...

Happy New Year, Margaret. I look forward to following your reading again this year. Your first one looks like a winner. I also loved Gilead.

>12 auntmarge64: I haven’t read anything by Robinson, but I have Gilead waiting in the wings. I’ll try to get to that one this year.

>13 dchaikin:, >14 BLBera:

I'll be interested in your reviews when you do read it. Wasn't Gilead superb? Until I wrote the review I hadn't realized how long ago Housekeeping was written (published in 1980), and it was her first novel!

>15 NanaCC:

Oh, I hope you do get to Gilead. It's one of the most beautiful books I've ever read.

Hello Marge! Happy New Year!

How were your holidays?

I'll be completing my 1st audio book today, a holdover from the end last year. None the less, a good start.

>Hi Brodie, I had very nice holidays with my brother and his family, who live 5 minutes away. All their kids were home, including those who keep their books on here with me. You?

Yes, it was nice. My mom usually gives me books at Christmas, but she has a huge collection offloads a few to me throughout the year. Sadly, many of them are books I don't usually read. However, this year she provided me with a Flavia De Luce mystery that I might just read.

Presently, I'm working on my second Charlie Chan mystery, The Chinese Parrot, the title of which, given the time, could have been a riff on The Maltese Falcon. I really enjoyed The House Without a Key.

Hi Margaret, found and starred. I look forward to seeing what you read this year.

>10 dchaikin:, >11 auntmarge64: ~waves hello~

You're both right? I am more than 1/2 through the composite 1316 titles on the various editions of the more well-known 1001 Books to Read Before You Die. :)

>12 auntmarge64: there's a movie?

>22 ELiz_M: Yup, a film: https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B07KSYJDM5/ref=atv_wtlp_wtl_1

And I have to say I'm suitably impressed by you being 1/2-way through the 1001 list. That's a lot of SERIOUS reading!

>9 auntmarge64: I have an ARC of the book, which means only black-and-white illustrations... I bet they're gorgeous in color. Is anyone here familiar with Jim Mustich's former mail order company, A Common Reader? It was a wonderful eclectic bookseller that predated the Internet and lasted until 2006, with an amazing selection and great little blurbs—kind of a predecessor of literary social media. Anyway, I have a Top Secret Project that has to do with all of the above that I'll write more about as it happens. But isn't that a cool book? And I love what David Abrams is doing with it on FB. He's a nut.

>24 lisapeet: could you post a link to David Abrams? I'm curious.

>25 dchaikin: David's FB page is here—the posts about 1,000 Books to Read are public. He's an old friend from my Readerville.com days and a great writer/reviewer/blogger.

>26 lisapeet: Thanks. I'm following now.

>24 lisapeet: Yup, the illustrations in color are beautiful, and it's one of the reasons I bought the hardcover instead of the Kindle version. I wasn't familiar with either Jim Mustich or David Abrams before this, but I'm greatly enjoying David's commentary and Jim's input to David's FB page.

>3 auntmarge64: Question: What does noting the year of a book's publication mean to you? Are you tracking it for a reason? Just curious.

Saints for All Occasions by J. Courtney Sullivan ****½ 1/8/19

An immersive story of three generations of an Irish-American family, centered on the fate of two sisters who immigrate to Boston in the late 1950s. Nora, the eldest, hasn't seen her fiancé in a year and is apprehensive about a future with a man she barely remembers. She dreams of having a different future than marriage to him. Younger sister Theresa is pretty, young, and willful. It's not giving much away (and is revealed in chapter 1) that Theresa gets pregnant and Nora, convinced she has a duty, marries her fiancé and raises the child. Theresa finds her own niche at a cloistered convent, and the two fall out. The first chapter ends with Nora calling the convent to tell Theresa that her 50-year old son, Patrick, has died. The rest of the book goes back and forth in clearly-dated chapters to fill in the stories of their lives and those of Nora's now-grown family. But hanging over it all is the specter of Theresa's arrival at the funeral, an event Nora hadn't expected from a cloistered nun, and the response from her family as she must now explain that she has a sister of whom they're unaware. So cleverly is the story woven that the reader wants to follow all the individual lives and the family drama and, especially, the hope for a reconciliation. Beautifully done.

Nice review.

>30 auntmarge64: Nice comments, Margaret. Did you read Maine? I was disappointed by that one and haven't picked up another book by her again.

Hello auntmarge64! I hope all is well with you.

Did you miss me in >19 brodiew2:?

>30 auntmarge64: You have piqued my interest with your review. I’m going to add this one to my list.

>31 dchaikin: Thanks, Dan!

>32 BLBera: Hi Beth, This was the first title I've read by Sullivan. Maine seems to have gotten little enthusiasm from readers on either LT or Amazon, two places I routinely check, so I don't know if I'll try it or not. With Saints for All Occasions I was especially intrigued by her description of the the girls' first experiences in Boston and of the nun's life. I don't know how it compares, but what the hey, read a chapter or two and see what you think! I'll be interested in your thoughts if you do.

>33 brodiew2: Hi, Brodie, I've never read a Charlie Chan novel. What are they like?

>34 NanaCC: I'm always glad to add to other TBR piles, Colleen (evil grin).

The Birdwatcher by William Shaw **** 1/9/19

This is a rather unusual mystery, with interesting characters and a violent sub-plot from the past that colors the main character's life.

William South is an Irish-born police sergeant stationed in Kent, England, where he and his mother moved when he was 13. Although considered a smart and dedicated officer, he's never before worked a murder inquiry, always managing to avoid them because of his own guilt in a death from his childhood. Now he's forced to be involved in two murder investigations. One victim is a neighbor and fellow-birdwatcher, the other someone he'd known in Ireland. He has a new partner, transferred from Scotland Yard and arriving just that week with a teenage daughter in tow. As the cases progress, and even as William helps his partner with her lonely daughter, introducing the fascinated kid to birdwatching, her mother becomes less and less friendly towards William and he wonders if she's discovered his childhood secret.

There is a sequel, but for only one of the main characters, which will be strange. But I'd still like to read it.

Nice review of Housekeeping. I haven’t read anything by Marilynne Robinson, though I’ve been meaning to for a while; you must pushed her a few notches up my wishlist.

>37 rachbxl: Thanks! My suggestion would be to read Gilead for your first taste of Robinson. It's just superb.

The Birdwatcher sounds good. Another one for the never-ending WL!

>39 BLBera: Always glad to help! :)

The Witch Elm by Tana French *** 1/14/19

What a disappointment after all her previous titles. I read to the end, expecting some reward, but even the final dramatic moments were dulled by that time by the book's unnecessary length (by at least a third) and the main character's endless musings. Where or where was her editor? - or is she such a big name now no one will correct her? Very average.

Hello auntmarge64! I hope your day is going well.

>35 auntmarge64: I am having great fun with them. they feel like you are watching a film from the 30s. the first books is really good, but Charlie is an secondary character, or part of the ensemble. In this second one, Charlie shares the spotlight with a young man about town, which is similar, but more fleshed out than in the first one. this element does not take away from Charlie. His stilted English works very well as he is an educated man, but he is underestimated from time to time. To bottom line it for you, I find the writing crisp, engaging, and fun.

>42 brodiew2: I was surprised to see that there are only 6 Charlie Chan books. These days we expect our series to go on, and on, and on..... I'll have to think about whether I want to give them a try.

Incarnations: A History of India in Fifty Lives by Sunil Khilnani **** 1/16/19

An engrossing look at 50 people whose lives exemplified major trends in the last 2500 years of Indian history, politics and culture. This is not a history book, per se, and it would help the reader to have a little grounding in the country's past. The personalities portrayed here include some who are well-known and some who will be completely unknown to most readers, and there are some expected names deliberately left out. So we have Mahatma Gandhi, Jinnah, and Indira Gandhi, but not Indira's father, Nehru. Vivekanada is in here but not his guru, Ramakrishna. There are political, economic, spiritual and industrial leaders, artists, filmmakers, and authors. Together their lives and accomplishments limn the directions taken in Indian history.

A very rewarding read for anyone interested in the Indian past or present.

>44 auntmarge64: I was really interested in this and picked up a library copy a while ago - but it’s no small commitment. Cool that you read it and glad to see you comments.

>45 dchaikin: Hi Dan, the chapters are all pretty short, so you can read a couple a day if that works. I read it over a three-week span, but, of course, I'm retired and you're not. I think you'd enjoy it if you ever have time.

>46 auntmarge64: I need a short India primer. : ) I have a history of India lying around somewhere, collecting dust. (It’s not even that big)

>44 auntmarge64: This sounds fascinating, Margaret. What a great idea as an approach to history. Another one for the WL.
And I will get to Tana French this year.

>44 auntmarge64: You’ve piqued my interest with this one. Nice review.

>47 dchaikin:, >48 BLBera:, >49 NanaCC: I'll be watching for your reviews :) I'd be interested to see if others like it.

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay ****½ 1/18/19

This was recommended by my 18-year old niece. She thought I'd like it because we both liked The Book Thief and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

Two stories are told told in short, alternating chapters. The first takes place during the two-day Vel' d' Hiv', a Nazi-directed roundup of Jews by French police, surely one of the most shameful moments in French history. Over 13,000 Jews, including 4000 children, were arrested in July, 1942, and kept for days with little food or water and no sanitation, about 7500 of them in an enclosed stadium, before first the men, then the women, were taken to Auschwitz. The children, children of all ages, were kept for some days more and then transported to Auschwitz for immediate gassing. One child's story is told, that of Sarah, a 10-year old girl whose 4-year old brother locks himself in their apartment's hidden closet when the police break in. Sarah takes the key with her and promises to return for him.

The second story is of a modern-day American journalist, long settled in Paris, who discovers her in-laws' apartment was taken over by her husband's family only weeks after the arrests. She becomes obsessed with finding out who the family was and if anyone survived. Her discoveries result in dreadful memories unburied and family histories revealed, and they change the lives around her forever.

I had several strong reactions to this story. First, the descriptions of the stadium, of the agony of the families being separated and the children being torn from their parents with no explanation or any promise of resolution, was heartbreaking and immediate because of what's been going on at the southern border in the U.S. The details bring alive the monstrous situation certain of our political leaders seem to think is business as usual and with which they are little concerned. No, hopefully the kids our government have arrested will not be executed, but spiritually and mentally the damage is horrifying and likely to come back to haunt us. I hesitate to compare our current leaders with the Nazis (wannabes, maybe), but in this instance the similarity is pretty clear.

The other thing that bothered me was the author's descriptions of the French character. If she is correct, it's rather shocking to American sensibilities. If not, it's quite a gross exaggeration. If someone who has read the book and knows France ever comments on this I'd be very interested.

The book sort of winds down too long before the final page, but the first three-quarters make for a stunning page-turner.

>51 auntmarge64:. I think my feelings about this book were much the same as yours. Although I read it before I joined LT, so not entirely sure. I think I read a book about the Kinder Transport around the same time, and I may be confusing the two.

>52 NanaCC: I'm afraid my approach to the Holocaust is indirect - usually fiction. It's such an overwhelmingly awful "event" it hurts too much to read actual history. Cowardly, I think, but there you have it. And I need no convincing that the Nazis, and those who helped them, were beyond monstrous. I'm definitely hoping to be gone before something like that happens here.

>51 auntmarge64: May I ask what you found shocking about the French character as described? I read this in 2011 and didn't keep notes back then, but some of what I recall is about how Jews were treated by the French (which I had previously been unaware of). The other thing I recall is how the modern-day French wanted to ignore or sweep under the carpet what had been done.

>54 rhian_of_oz: Unwillingness to acknowledge, or teach the young, about French complicity with the Nazis was part of it, but I knew that had happened, although not specifically of the Vel' d' Hiv'. And, of course, this was not all of the French.

But here's an example of the author's description of the French character (here concerning Parisians):
It took me twenty-five years to blend, but I did it. I learned to put up with the impatient waiters and rude taxi drivers. I learned to drive around the Place de l"Etoile, impervious to the insults yelled at my by irate bus drivers, and - more surprisingly - by elegant, highlighted blonds in shiny black Minis. I learned how to tame arrogant concierges, snotty saleswomen, blasé telephone operators, and pompous doctors. I learned how Parisians consider themselves to be superior to the rest of the world, and specifically to all other French civilians living from Nice to Nancy, with a particular disdain toward the inhabitants of the City of Light's suburbs.... No one was half so arrogant, so haughty, so conceited, and quite so irresistible {as a Parisian}.

These themes are repeated numerous times, and the modern-day main character repeatedly talks of how her in-laws and many of their acquaintances make her life miserable by constantly criticizing or making fun of her American ways. I ended up unsure why she enjoyed living there at all.

I think it was the author's constant harping on the defects she saw in the French that bothered me more than anything. It felt like she had her own personal grudge there somewhere.

I'm still working my way through threads and have enjoyed catching up with yours. Starred now in an attempt to avoid falling ever further behind!

>51 auntmarge64: Sarah's Key sounds very good, though I don't think I'm in the frame of mind to read something like that right now. I'm definitely noting it to look into later.

>55 auntmarge64: Thanks for explaining.

>41 auntmarge64: I couldn't agree more. Way too much meandering inside the main character's head. I think that may be the last of hers I attempt. I could not stand the last Dublin Murder Squad installment and didn't bother to finish it. She lost me with Broken Harbor.

Hell auntmarge64! I hope all is well with you.

Hi Margaret - Great comments on Sarah's Key. It's been a while since I read it, but I think I felt as you did. And, I haven't felt the need to read others by the author, so I guess that says a lot about my reaction.

>60 BLBera: And, I haven't felt the need to read others by the author, so I guess that says a lot about my reaction.

I think that's been my reaction, too. I liked the impact of the story, but those shortcomings kind of turned me off to reading more by her.

Can Democracy Work?: A Short History of a Radical Idea, from Ancient Athens to Our World by James Miller **** 1/27/19 (I've left off the touchstone for the author, because I'm not sure which link works for him.)

If you thought the definition of "democracy" was cut and dried, think again. This history of the philosophy and practice of democracy, first in ancient Greece and then in France, the U.S., England, Europe and Russia, is bound to make you despair of ever settling on a definition, let alone a satisfactory political system that everyone would agree is democratic.

Does pure democracy demand that each opinion be allowed equal voice, and each vote be directly counted? No major entity has that today. Is representative democracy, as in the U.S., still a democracy? Just how many steps removed are we from a real democracy by using the Electoral College? On the other hand, is pure democracy even workable in a complicated world with such large populations? How would each person's voice ever be heard without the situation descending into either anarchy or a dictatorship with a few strongmen (women?) maneuvering to speak for the group? Do we even care if we live in a real democracy, or are we so busy with our lives, and so easily manipulated by catch phrases and people who seem to think like we do, that we are happy to let them speak and act for us?

This book made my head hurt. I'm really glad I read it, but I despair now of there ever being a government that can adequately serve all it's people and their needs.

We need the Vulcans to come and teach us to be logical, but even they argued.

The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell **** 1/27/19

The owner of a used book store in rural Scotland kept a diary for a year, recording his daily sales, battles with online selling sites such as Amazon and AbeBooks, encounters with variously delightful and troublesome customers, book-buying visits to people selling collections, and interactions with an opinionated and idiosyncratic staff. The store has an active presence on Facebook and is heavily involved with the annual book fair and other events in its town and with visits from authors passing through, many of whom stay overnight with the store owner. He seems to have a wide personal acquaintance with numerous people and an appreciation for individuality.

It's a delightful book to read, although I'm not sure it's always comfortable being one of the author's customers. He's very funny and very, very sarcastic, and he seems to put up with employee foibles much more leniently (for all his complaining about them) than he does customers whose questions irritate him.

Anyway, all you LTers will probably love the book and this guy's adventures and attitudes. Highly recommended to this group.

>63 auntmarge64: This sounds like fun.

>63 auntmarge64: That does sound neat, thanks for the heads up.

>63 auntmarge64: I found this in the shop at the Barbican Centre in London a couple of months ago, and I think your review is pretty spot-on. I've been to Wigtown where Bythell's shop is, and I probably went there but I don't remember his shop specifically. But then all the shops in Wigtown are like Bythell's description! I loved Wigtown.

>63 auntmarge64: This book is on my expansive TBR: wishlist, and looking at my notes it appears my public library has a copy. I'll have to just bump it higher on my mental list of things to check out.

>64 NanaCC:, >65 lisapeet:, >67 shadrach_anki: I hope you like it! The author is certainly a character. Here's a link to the bookshop's FB page: https://www.facebook.com/thebookshopwigtown/

>66 haydninvienna: Wigtown sounds like a great place to visit. I loved the aerial video Shaun took of the town
https://www.facebook.com/thebookshopwigtown/videos/225266688375159/
and the video of him commenting on Marie Kondo's book on tidying https://www.facebook.com/thebookshopwigtown/videos/793274647738524/

>63 auntmarge64: This sounds great, Margaret. Onto the WL it goes.

>63 auntmarge64: Anyway, all you LTers will probably love the book

Well, I'm sold! Onto the wishlist it goes for me, too.

>69 BLBera:, >70 bragan: Yay, I'm getting back for all the books you folks have added to my TBR list for the last few years!!!!!!

The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma *** 1/31/19

Now here's one I can't recommend, I'm sorry to say. The story is very interesting, and I would have liked to find out how things end for this family, but at somewhat over 50% done I've given up. Just way too much realism for me: feces, body parts, secretions, all described in vivid detail every few pages, and sometimes for pages at a time. The story itself, about a Nigerian family horribly affected by superstition and prophecy in their village, kept my interest. I just didn't want to read those particular details any more.

>71 auntmarge64: That probably is fair. :)

Holy Ghost by John Sandford **** 2/1/19

I have three suspense series I consider must-read guilty pleasures: Lee Child's Jack Reacher series, and John Sandford's two series: Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers. Fast reads, lots of fun. This is number 11 for Virgil Flowers (although he often appeared in the Davenport books, too).

>74 auntmarge64: I also love the Jack Reacher series and think your description is spot on. Another series I enjoy in the same category is the J. D. Robb Eve Dallas books.

>75 rhian_of_oz: Oh, thanks, I'll take a look at that!

>74 auntmarge64: Lucas Davenport is one of the only suspense series I read as well, Margaret. I stopped reading the Virgil Flowers -- not sure why. They are always page turners.

>74 auntmarge64: I haven’t read either series, Margaret. I’ve had them both on my radar for a while. One of these days. So many books....

>78 NanaCC: That's so true. And we get ideas for the TBR from so many places these days. It's pretty overwhelming.

Skellig by David Almond **** 2/2/19

A lovely short novel, variously considered children's and young adult, about a boy who meets a magical creature in a time of crisis in his family.

10-year old Michael's family has just moved across town to a derelict house his father is renovating. He can still attend his old school, but it's harder to get together with old friends. Michael's baby sister is very ill and, he suspects, she may die. One day he disobeys his parents' instructions and goes looking around the falling-down garage at the new house and discovers a strange humanoid, himself almost dead. Michael and a creatively-minded home-schooled girl in his new neighborhood begin visiting and bringing food and medicine to the creature, Skellig, who turns out to be not at all who, or what, they thought. As Michael's sister gets sicker and sicker, Skellig begins to change, and Michael learns to really listen to the sounds around him.

BB for Skellig - sounds interesting! Found the ebook in one of my local libraries (and found it in several others, but with multiple holds on it...).

>81 jjmcgaffey: The author has written a prequel about the girl Michael meets: My Name is Mina. I think I'm going to look for it. She's a really interesting character in her own right.

The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas ***** 2/5/19

This Norwegian novel, written in 1963, is a timeless, intense, beautiful little gem about friendship, obsession, and the call of the ice. I couldn't put it down. When I rate a book I start by assuming it will be 5 stars and then mark it down as it goes along, but all the way through this I kept thinking, "oh, wow, this really is a perfect little book". It's how I felt after reading The Color Purple years ago.

Two eleven-year old girls meet at their rural school and are immediately attracted towards friendship. Unn, who has recently moved here after her mother's death and been taken in by an elderly aunt, finally makes a move and invites Siss to visit her at home. Something Unn wants to reveal to Siss, but doesn't say out loud that first evening, scares Siss into leaving fairly quickly, but each girl plans that the next visit will bring them closer. Instead, Unn disappears after she leaves for school the next day.

The reader is quickly shown what has happened to her, but the townspeople struggle to find her in the cold and ice for days. For Siss, Unn's disappearance is a sea change. She can't let go of the immediate attachment she felt or accept that Unn may be dead, and she separates herself from her social group, among whom she had long been leader, in a promise she believes will see Unn return. The tensions of how much Siss and the town will discover about Unn's fate, and of whether Siss will be able to move on emotionally, provide the power of the book, along with the description of what has actually happened to Unn, which is an amazing chapter on it's own.

Highly, highly recommended. (Discovered through "Lilisin in 2019"'s thread).

>83 auntmarge64: So happy that you’ve read this book, way too few people do, in my opinion! I loved it too, thanks for the excellent review. If you want to read more by him, The Birds is even better, and one of my all time favorites.

>84 Simone2: Thanks for the recommendation. None of my libraries owns it, but there are several inexpensive copies for sale on eBay, and I'm going to pick one up.

>51 auntmarge64: Have you seen the French television series "The French Village"? It follows, in 6 or so seasons, a village during WWII under occupation by the Germans. It is a thoughtful show showing the difficult decisions people had to make and the consequences thereof. Hubby & I found it quite riveting. It—at least the DVDs—also have interviews with actual survivors. I mention this because there is an eventual round up of the Jews in town, the separation of parents & children...as you describe. It's very visceral....

>83 auntmarge64: May have to put Ice Palace on a list.... Rachbxl just recommended another Norwegian novel: Sixteen Trees of the Somme by Lars Mytting.

>86 avaland:. Those both look really interesting, thanks.. I'll have to search them out.

>83 auntmarge64: This sounds really good. Great review.

The Ice Palace sounds interesting. I've added it to the list.

And thank you for your recommendation of Ways to Hide in Winter. I really enjoyed that one.

>83 auntmarge64: Skellig and The Ice Palace both sound intriguing. Sorry you didn't like the latest French. While I agree it could have used some editing, I thought it was an interesting twist on a clueless white male in the me-too era.

>88 NanaCC: Let me know what you think if you read it, Colleen. I've never been a reader of YA fiction, but There several recommended in that book 1000 Books to Read Before You Die (see post 9, above) and I'm giving some of them a try. There's another one reviewed below.

>89 RidgewayGirl: Kay, so glad you like Ways to Hide in Winter! Will watch for your thoughts on The Ice Palace at some point. It's certainly different and very affecting.

>90 markon: Hi, Ardene. Well, you win some, you lose some. I'm sure French will write something else wonderful (to me).

The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley **** 2/8/19

Here's something that's been on my TBR shelf literally since before I was born. My mother kept her own copy, an award from a 1925 school essay contest in Ottawa, at the cabin we went to in Quebec every summer. I don't recall her ever reading it to me, but since her death it's been on my own shelves and I finally decided I couldn't let another 70 years go by without reading it.

10-year-old Tom, a poorly treated chimney sweep, completely uneducated and social untrained, loses himself in a complex chimney system and comes down in the bedroom of a family's young daughter. He's assumed to be a thief and is chased hither and yon by a crowd, finally escaping them only to drown not too far away. He's taken in hand by fairies and turned into a water baby, promptly forgetting his past and having numerous adventures with all sorts of real and (to us) unreal creatures. Along the way he's taught good behavior in ways some educators might find useful. Two of his teachers are Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid and her sister, Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby.

It's a charming book, with but a few phrases that are now politically incorrect. I was actually surprised it wasn't worse, to be honest. The content that I found most jarring was the occasional veiled reference to a holy child, which seemed completely out of place in the middle of a fairy tale. I went back and read the book's description in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, which pointed out that this was written only a couple of years after publication of On The Origin of Species and was very much concerned with evolutionary progression and regression.

At any rate, it's a charming tale and it was a pleasure to finally read it.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie ***** 2/9/19

What a marvelous example of fiction that can both entertain readers and pull them into an identification with characters whose experiences are different than their own. Based on the author's own childhood, the book tells of several years in the life of a reservation-raised Spokane Indian and his struggle to survive by transferring to an off-rez school, where he is the only Indian (except for the mascot). The kid has a lot going against him: he was born hydrocephalic and not expected to survive surgery, had seizures as a child, required serious glasses (the only choice offered by the health service came with heavily-rimmed black frames), and he both stuttered and lisped. A target for bullies throughout his schooling, he somehow makes friends who protect him to some extent and ends up a star basketball player for his new school. He wants to be a cartoonist.

These facts are, in fact, pretty much basically true of the author. This tale of his years just before and during high school is a page turner, and I was in love with him and his best friend from the rez by the time I was only a few chapters in. The book has become a classic coming-of-age story and is praised for it's portrayal of the shock of cultural displacement. It's widely used in schools, and it's also featured on various banned book lists. (It's not shy about mentioning masturbation and erections, and there are a few curse words.)

Winner of the National Book Award and included in 1000 Books to Read Before You Die, among many other honors. Be sure to read the 10th anniversary edition, which includes an epilogue filling in details on the futures of several characters.

>92 auntmarge64: I know I read my Mom's copy of this when I was younger, but all I can remember of it at this point is that it was bound upside down! I should see if she still has it in the home library so I can revisit it.

The Ice Palace goes on my list, Margaret. It sounds wonderful.

>92 auntmarge64: How fun to visit a book that you've had your entire life.

I've used the Alexie in the classroom and have admired his writing for a long time. I was a little disturbed by the sexual assault accusations and his admission of guilt. But, he isn't the only writer who writes well and is a horrible human being.

>94 shadrach_anki: I was just thinking that my Mom was 12 when she received her copy. I wish I knew what she thought of it. What about your Mom?

>95 BLBera: I hadn't heard about Alexie having had accusations made against him. That's depressing. The book is still great, but that takes some of the shine off it, doesn't it? Did you see the discussion about Alice Walker in the Club Read Interesting Articles Thread (https://www.librarything.com/topic/300800)? I was disgusted to learn she's a horrible person too!

Alexie was something of a hero for me when the #meto stuff came out, so I was really disappointed. I’m still bummed about it. I’ve loved the two books of his that I’ve read and they were both autobiographical (fictionalized in TATDoaPI). This (>93 auntmarge64:) is a great book, regardless.

>92 auntmarge64: fun to read these old books. I have a some from my grandparents, including novels that look terrible, but I’m curious. They must have kept them for a reason.

>97 dchaikin: Yeah, it's pretty disheartening, that's for sure.

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane ***½ 2/13/19

This short novel recounts a young farm boy's first battle as a Union soldier and his internal struggles with cowardice. Scholars believe the action is meant to take place at Chancellorsville.

Henry Fleming enlists against his mother's wishes. Like many naive youngsters, he thinks battle will be glorious, but instead his group is kept in camp for a lengthy period, bored and uninformed of what is planned for them. When they are finally called to action, he sees little purpose to what they do against a seemingly invincible enemy, and he runs away from the battle. Later in the day he makes his way back to try to find a way to feel good about himself.

I found the book generally unsatisfying. Henry's internal monologue taken as a whole is thought-provoking, but it's difficult to relate to his reasoning and actions. This may be because I have no experiences by which to judge his, but I think it goes deeper. Henry's not particularly likable (and apparently wasn't to Crane, either). There's something in his manner and speech (and in those of his fellow soldiers), that made me think of the three escaped prisoners in the movie "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" In other words, bumbling and not-too-bright fools. However, many people thought it was so spot-on that he must have been at war himself (he wasn't) so the book obviously resonated with many at the time it was published.

The Inner Life of Animals: Love, Grief, and Compassion by Peter Wohlleben **½ 2/16/19

Not nearly as interesting as the author's The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate, which I found really informative. This entry is pretty lightweight and seems composed of observations he's made of his own and some animal studies. I do agree with him that animals feel and think much more than we acknowledge, and he makes a valid point that the lack of publicity given to the intelligence of pigs, so as not to disturb those who like to eat their bacon and pork chops, is right on target. As he says, there's a reason we in the West don't eat dog, cat, or primate. If we thought pigs were that intelligent (and they are, and even more so), we wouldn't want to eat them, either.

Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather ****½ 2/17/19

A gentle, delightful tale of life in 17th century Kebec (Quebec City), told primarily from the perspective of the apothecary's daughter, 12-year old Cécile Auclair, who cares for her father following her mother's death. Cécile is fascinated by stories from the many visitors to their shop, and she spends much of her time with a little boy whose mother, a local prostitute, pays scant attention to him. Religion and the lives of the saints, especially those from Canada, are of great interest to the people of Kebec, and in the pages of the book the reader is introduced to many of their histories and to other real-life figures, several of whom feature in the story. This was a real pleasure to read, and it would be wonderful for a break from whatever heavy reading one may be doing.

Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?: A Memoir by Roz Chast ***½ 2/19/19

Anyone who has been around their parents as they aged and failed will relate to this, although those whose relationships were more on the positive side will find the author's comments about her parents a little off-putting. To anyone who has yet to face this time of life I'd say this graphic memoir will give them a realistic sense of what they're up against in both logistical and psychological challenges.

Chast and her mother had a difficult relationship, although she was somewhat closer to her father. She describes her childhood quite negatively. Still, when parents start failing, at least one child (in this case, the only child) will usually step up, whatever the toll. Chast's mother may have been a difficult one, but to an outsider she's a hoot, and she wrote very, very funny poetry. The relationship between the parents is also pretty humorous and typical of very long marriages. As Chast deals with the changes brought on by their age, she faces anger at her disrupted life, guilt, impatience (more guilt), and logistical nightmares. Her father develops dementia, the mother falls badly and is hospitalized for several weeks. They retreat from the world into their apartment so they can control their independence better. Both go downhill, and Chast with them, to some extent. They give her power of attorney, with all the headaches that entails. She has to clean out their apartment of 40 years. Yes, it's something we do for our loved ones, but that doesn't mean it's not heartbreaking and exhausting.

The cartoons themselves are rough and ugly, to my eye. The emotions, though, are spot on.

Enjoyed these last four

>99 auntmarge64: So, I know I’ve read Red Badge of Courage, the first war experience book I read, somewhere in high school. It had an influence on me - it was a primary teacher to me, at that age of some innocence, that war sucks. No clue what I would think now.

>101 auntmarge64: Apparently I have a copy of Shadows on the Rock around. I didn’t even know. Happy to read your review, the book sounds appealing. I’m actually reading Cather for the first time now - Death Comes to the Archbishop.

>102 auntmarge64: feeling guilty, and a neglectful son, reading your review. But Chast’s book sounds of interest. Noting.

>103 dchaikin: Dan, first, about the Chast book, don't feel guilty!!! Taking care of failing parents is definitely not something everyone can manage emotionally (or, in some cases, care to do). And everyone is in a different kind of relationship with their parents. I was extremely close to mine, especially my mother. I have two siblings, a younger brother and much younger sister. It's in my personality to "be there", and I was their executor, and I just naturally fell into helping when they started going downhill. And I really wanted to. My brother had as little to do with it as possible, and my sister, who had two small children, helped when she could. But in the end I was the eldest, the only single one, had training as a volunteer working with the terminally ill, and, as I said, it was in my personality. I'm very lucky that it didn't feel like a burden (most of the time!). For you it may be different, but I would say this to anyone whose parents are still alive: once they're gone, you'll never have a chance to do for them again. When in doubt, do as much as you can so you don't feel even worse after they die. (Good lord, am I preaching?)

I enjoyed Death Comes to the Archbishop, but Cather's most highly praised work is Oh, Pioneers. Shadows on the Rock was a pleasant surprise, because most of her works deal with U.S. history. But I really liked it.

Yup, war sucks. It's kind of amazing that all the video games young men play now reinforce the idea that it's a glorious game. I think most Americans have lived too long without suffering from war for it's reality to make much impact.

>104 auntmarge64: I'm kind of in the same situation - and the fact that I live nearest to our parents helps too (same town, a mile and a half away). But I really like spending time with them - it's always interesting. They're starting to have physical trouble - I'm now the strong one, who comes over to lift things neither Dad nor Mom can manage - but their minds are still sharp. That's something that really scares me, especially since my maternal grandmother deteriorated badly in her last years - she couldn't recognize anyone, or speak clearly, and had to go into care. I love talking to my parents, the conversations are always fascinating - I hope they won't outlive their minds.

But they have taken care of financial and legal stuff - their possessions are basically all in a trust, and they have wills. So they've dealt with what they can.

I've been in a similar situation—my mom's in a (very good) facility now, but ten years of making it possible for her to stay in her home as she gradually declined were increasingly fraught. So I loved Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? dearly. I thought she captured the dark humor that comes with that kind of hopeless/helpless—yet still full of love and daily wonder—situation so well... I'm of the opinion that black humor is sometimes the only thing that will get you through this stuff, and Chast is a master of it. But I'm a longtime fan of hers anyway, and love both her art and her voice.

>104 auntmarge64: Definitely not preaching, I think it's an important reminder. Last January my mum was due for surgery and I was debating whether to go and visit (she lives about 400 kms away). I ended up going for a few days and she was that unwell before and after that she doesn't really remember much but I'm certainly glad I went.

>105 jjmcgaffey: Jennifer, it's lovely that you have a close relationship like that! It'll make things harder in some ways "later on" (as my Dad would say), but the memories will hold you in good stead. My Dad was clear-headed until about 2 weeks before the end, when we had to put him on morphine. My Mum, though, did have dementia, as did her mother, and that was really tough. She forgot her kids one by one, with me the last because I saw her every day. But I still loved spending time with her. One thing I'll say is that the type of dementia she had never changed her personality. (That's something I dread happening to me.) I missed her so, so much, and then one night I had a dream that she called me up and, like always, started by saying, "Hi, Dear". When I responded that she was dead she replied, "I know, I just wanted to say hi." It really helped. She died on their 65th anniversary, and while I don't believe in the afterlife, I still feel that my father came for her. Talk about mixed emotions!

>106 lisapeet: Lisa, I think that's the real benefit of something like Chast's book: showing us we're perfectly normal in having radically conflicting ideas and feelings in that situation. I definitely agree about black humor. It seems rude and nasty when things are so awful, but it's a great coping mechanism. I remember with my Dad, especially, because he went downhill so fast, we were always cracking jokes around their house, and even while I felt bad about it, I couldn't help it. One thing I had drummed into me in my volunteer training was that no matter how a family or patient copes, it's completely natural, and there is no norm.

>107 rhian_of_oz: Yup, it's something we do because WE need to. It can be really, really hard (and a logistical nightmare for some), but if you know it will make you feel better, even if it's a drag and wrecks other plans and is emotionally painful, do it anyway. Of course, sometimes you have to do it because they need it, whether it feels good to you or not. That's the cost of having parents, right?

The Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge **** 2/21/19

This is a very interesting retelling of the 1911-1913 Terra Nova (South Pole) expedition led by Captain Robert Scott - five chapters, each told from the viewpoint of one of the five men who died on the trip to the Pole. They are known to us today primarily through their letters and journals and through the writings of others who knew them, including members of the Antarctic expedition who weren't part of the final push south.

It's fiction, of course, but Bainbridge has obviously read up on the subject. As a fan of Antarctic history and fiction, I found this a very thoughtful treatment. I do think some knowledge of the topic would make a big difference to how much the book can be appreciated and enjoyed.

>99 auntmarge64: Nice review of the Red Badge of Courage, something I read in school, I think, I remember almost nothing about it, so I enjoyed revisiting it through your review.

>99 auntmarge64: I read The Red Badge of Courage more years ago than I can count, nor can I remember my reaction to it. I’ve also seen the film. I appreciate your review.

>110 avaland:, >111 NanaCC: Thanks for your comments on my review. It's odd - I don't recall having to read it in school. I think it would be torture for kids these days.

>112 auntmarge64: I'm pretty sure I had to read it - but I remember having read it, not anything about it. I really should dig it out and read it, and see if any of it is familiar to me. And that would have been quite a few years ago, not "these days". Odd how some books just sort of fade away in memories...

Hello Marge! I am sorry it's taken me so long to get over here. I hope all is well with you. I am wanting to add some classics to my list this year and the red badge of courage seems like a good choice. I also have call of the wild and the three musketeers on tap.

>104 auntmarge64: appreciated all the comments after this post. My mother is in Philadelphia and I’m in Texas, so there isn’t much I can do day-to-day other than call. My sister lives close enough to see her once a week. That’s one problem. The other is I don’t know what to do for her. We had plan, a good one, but it fell through and we haven’t figured out what else to do. We’re stumped.

>109 auntmarge64: interesting idea - get to know several real historic characters in depth and recreate each.

>115 dchaikin: That's rough, Dan. Especially because elder care always involves such shifting sands--you think you have one kind of contingency plan and then everything changes. I spend most of every Sunday driving up to see my mom, which effectively annihilates half my weekend, but I'm glad that she's around and that I can. She turned 91 on Sunday... I was at a conference and wasn't able to be with her, though my sister was, but (here comes the black humor) I can celebrate it all over again with her this coming weekend and she'll be totally delighted all over again.

Hi Margaret: I haven't read this Cather; it does sound different from her usual work. But I am a fan and will look for this one.

The Chast also resonated with me. It's so hard to know what to do at times.

>109 auntmarge64: I've never read Bainbridge although I keep meaning to pick one up.

>113 jjmcgaffey: Jen, if you read it, I'll be interested to see what you think of it as an adult.

>114 brodiew2: Brodie, ditto to above, plus YES to Call of the Wild. Just superb. I haven't read Three Muskateers, just The Count of Monte Cristo, another 5 star read. Let me know what you think.

>116 lisapeet: Lisa, you're going to have lots of good memories to fall back on. And LOL, I had to laugh at she'll be totally delighted all over again. Yup, been there. It's kind of sweet, isn't it, and you don't have to feel like you missed the big day.

>117 BLBera: Beth, do give Shadows on the Rock a try. I'm a big fan, too, and I've read all the major and many of the minor works, and I was quite delighted with it. Let me know what you think. Re: Bainbridge, this is the first I've read, and I have no idea if it's typical, but I did like it.

>115 dchaikin: Dan, I think the biggest thing is just to "be there", and by that I don't mean physically. Frequent phone calls are a perfect way to support her from a distance and show her you're still present for her. I'm sorry to hear plans that seemed so good fell through, but you're doing what you can, and that's a kind of "being there" too. The difficulty of making suitable arrangements becomes part of the sacrifice we make for them. It can be very unrewarding, that's for sure, but the effort has its own satisfaction, perhaps felt more "later on" when there's some perspective. And sometimes there are no perfect choices to be made. It sounds to me like you're doing everything you can. I doesn't mean you won't feel guilty, but at least it gives your brain a few pointers for countering the guilt. Hell, I still feel guilty I couldn't find some way to stop my parents from dying - how's that for a kick in the pants? That's when my sister usually steps in and gives me a reality check.

Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss **½ 3/1/19

This book left a really bad taste. It was promoted as a story about a family that joins an archaeology class for a two week outing to "live like the ancient Britons". But the outing is really unnecessary to the primary focus: the terror Silvie and her mother experience around their abusive father/husband. The book is quite successful at depicting this. The mother is almost unable to function without direction, and both women are frequent targets for the father's rage and violence. Even Silvie, at age 17, still excuses his behavior, although she can't help pushing his buttons, so she's got a bit of spark in her still.

At any rate, I was really disappointed and put off at the story that emerged. The ending seemed highly unlikely and was very ugly, and I'm sorry I read it. The rating, such as it is, is for what is successful about the book, not for how much I appreciated it.

>120 auntmarge64: It’s funny how a book can resonate so differently with different people. This wound up on my wishlist not too long ago.

>120 auntmarge64: Great comments, Margaret, although I liked this one a lot more than you did. I think Moss does an excellent job with the atmosphere. It is deeply disturbing, but somehow, it worked for me.

As Colleen says, it is interesting how books hit us each differently.

>121 NanaCC:, >122 BLBera: It's true. I know others really liked it. Ah, well.....

Out of the Ice by Ann Turner *** 3/5/19

An interesting mystery that takes place almost entirely in the Antarctic treaty zone. A researcher is sent to evaluate a long-deserted whaling town which for many decades has been off limits to all humans because of the extraordinary breeding colonies thriving there. There is interest in opening the town to tourists, and Laura is meant to report back on her assessment of what that would do to local animal populations. She is to be based about 12 miles away at separate research facility, but on her arrival the community reacts to her suspiciously and threateningly, and her drink is spiked her first night there. With no idea what's going on, Laura proceeds to make daily trips to the whaling station, photographing and taking notes. What she finds both disturbs her (the animals' reactions to her presence are unusually aggressive) and intrigues her (many of the houses look like the inhabitants just left). And then even more strange things start happening, such as a young boy appearing behind a wall of ice when she explores an underwater cavern.

The descriptions of the ice are wonderful. The content about how whaling was done is not wonderful, but probably accurate. The secret of what's going on is nasty, and some of it highly unlikely (for Antarctica). But, definitely worth a look, especially if you like mysteries set in extreme environments.



The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde ****½ 3/5/19

A completely charming comedy of errors by the inimitable Wilde. I've seen the film (Rupert Murdoch, Colin Firth, Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, and Frances O'Connor), but that was years ago, and reading it was delightful.

Lincoln's Dreams by Connie Willis **** 3/6/19

A long-time research assistant for a man who writes Civil War fiction becomes entangled with a young woman who is apparently having Robert E. Lee's dreams (despite the title). Jeff thinks he can help her because he knows a LOT about the events, and, being in Virginia, they are surrounded by the battlefields. As the dreams get worse and Annie starts to have physical symptoms, Jeff races against time to find the reason for the dreams before they do her permanent damage.

I devoured this story, although there were one or two things I questioned. Most unconvincing was that Jeff seemed to do most of his research in small public libraries, often dragging along his own sources to use. There's no way he wouldn't have known about the major libraries in the area, including collections at the battlefield national parks. (The book was written in the 1980s, so the Internet isn't mentioned.) When Jeff meets Annie she's living with and under the care of an old college roommate of his who is theoretically treating her for the dreams. The man is completely unprofessional, and I really couldn't get a grip on why he did the things he did. Also, there are numerous excerpts from the novel Jeff's employer is writing, and I didn't get that at all. As far as I could tell, before I starting skipping them, they add nothing to the story.

Still, the book certainly kept my interest, and while the ending is not what I expected or hoped for, it made a lot of sense within the storyline.

>120 auntmarge64: hmm. I just bought a copy of Ghost Wall based on a the positive and thought provoking reviews here. Good to have a different perspective.

>126 dchaikin:. Dan, I'll be very interested to hear what you think.. I could be in a tiny minority here. But I admit I'm also trying to be tougher with my reviews.

The Birds by Tarjei Vesaas ***** 3/8/19

I was so taken by the author's The Ice Palace that I immediately ordered this title, and I'm so glad I did. Vesaas's writing is exquisitely observant, and while his characters can be difficult to love, he obviously cares for them a great deal, and the reader comes to too.

Mattis, a "developmentally disabled" man in his late 30s, is cared for by his older sister, Hege. The two live in a ramshackle cabin in rural Norway and survive on the little that Hege can earn from knitting sweaters for a local shop. Mattis spends his time alternately pondering the wondrous things he sees about him and worrying about his inability to verbalize his thoughts, and he is constantly frustrated by his own confusion over what others find important. His inability to stop his mind from wandering makes even day-employment impossible until Hege tells him he can be a ferryman, a job for which there is no need but which he sees as an opportunity to do something he knows he can do: rowing in a straight line from place to place without his thoughts interfering. The one time he inadvertently does get a customer, it changes his life with Hege forever.

I'm not sure whether "developmentally disabled" is the correct description. Mattis seems to have no problem with vocabulary, but his short attention span, and the difference between what he notices and finds important and what everyone else does makes communication all but impossible. People who know him refer to him as "Simple Simon", a nickname he hates but cannot overcome. The story is told entirely from Mattis's point of view. As a reader I felt trapped along with him in his reality, with the horrifying realization that he had no way out. The decisions he makes are perfectly rational by his thinking processes, but to everyone else they are incomprehensible, and he is powerless to explain himself. All he can feel is anger. The other characters are pretty much one-dimensional background figures to the reader, just as they are to him.

I can't recommend this book highly enough. Mattis is an unforgettable character because we end up in his head, being able to see how cut off from our world he is. I was astonished at how powerful the writing was, and how successfully the author put us in Mattis's place. Read this book!

>125 auntmarge64: I really like Connie Willis but didn't really know anything about this book. Sounds interesting.

The Complete Poems of Sappho ***** 3/11/19

Sappho lived c630BC - c570BC. She was an early lyric poet and revered by her contemporaries. I'm not a poetry buff, but this resonated deeply with me. Only one complete poem,"Ode to Aphrodite", is extant, with the rest of her work available only in parts or snippets, although more pieces are discovered every few years. The church fathers disapproved, and while her work was widely available and admired before Christianity took hold, it soon largely vanished, as individual copies were burned and collections that held her work, such as Alexandria, were destroyed by natural disaster or religious edict.

The translation I have is by Willis Barnstone. It includes a historical overview, comments by contemporary and near-contemporary writers, and lengthy notes on sources.

I loved this little part:

The Kypros-born once
blamed me

for praying
this word:
I want.

The River by Peter Heller **** 3/11/19

Heller, whose post-apocalyptic The Dog Stars was superb, offers a completely different sort of tale here. It's quite affecting but may be boring to anyone not interested in wilderness experiences or canoeing.

Jack and Wynn, two incoming college seniors and the very best of friends, have put aside several weeks for a canoe trip which will end in Hudson Bay. They are both experienced with this sort of outing and share a love for the outdoors, for fishing, and for literature. About halfway through the trip they realize there's a massive forest fire bearing down on them, and while they think they have time to make a dash for the end of the river, they decide to double back to warn a couple they had passed. The couple had been arguing, and the next time they see the man he's alone, claiming his wife is missing and seemingly frantic. The boys return to the couple's campsite to try to find the woman, setting off a chain of events that puts them right in the face of the fire and a probable ambush.

There's a LOT here about canoeing and camping, maybe too much for some, but the suspense portions are gripping. I desperately wanted to find out what happened to them and read this in one day. The ending was unexpected and, to be honest, I didn't think completely necessary for a successful finale, buy I can't deny I was spellbound till the last page.

>131 auntmarge64: Oooh, that's a yes from me. Great review!

>132 RidgewayGirl: Yup, I think you'll like it. :)

>131 auntmarge64: Your review puts this on my wishlist. When I get to it is another story, but at least I’ll have a reminder.

>124 auntmarge64: I think your response to the Ann Turner is not far from my own. I loved "being in" Antarctica, getting to know it and how people live there, but I think the story would have been better as a mystery instead of a thriller, and with a less far-fetched horror. Thrillers always aim for the emotional kick, and I'm always looking for something a bit deeper.

Margaret: You've convinced me to try Vesaas. Any suggestions as to which I read first?

>136 BLBera:. Boy, that's a tough one. I'd say whichever of the stories sounds more interesting to you. Birds is possibly the better book, just because of the author's success in illuminating Mattis's inner world, but they are both really wonderful. And both got 5 stars from me.

The Lost Man by Jane Harper ***** 3/17/19

In her third book after The Dry and Force of Nature, Harper continues her string of enthralling suspense novels set in Australia. As with the other books, here Australian rural life and weather plays a primary role in both the death at the center of the drama and the everyday lives of the main characters.

Three adult brothers, raised on a ranching "station" just shy of the actual desert in a home ruled by a brutal father, live and ranch the family station and a neighboring one owned by Nathan, the eldest. The middle brother, Cam, is found dead near an isolated headstone on the outskirts of their enormous property. Cam has clearly died of heat and dehydration, and no one can make sense of why he would have left his vehicle, loaded with water, food, and other supplies, to walk 9 km to the grave. With temperatures over 40°C, Cam would have known that to leave his car and walk that far would mean death, and yet there is no indication of a struggle or of anyone else at the scene. Nathan, a local pariah for the last ten years, is the central character. He and his youngest brother, Bub, along with Nathan's teenage son Zander, nose around trying to figure out if their brother killed himself, and over several days, with the whole clan at the ranch for Christmas, deep family secrets are revealed and, in some cases, reconciliation is possible. And the facts of Cam's death are revealed, with a huge surprise.

Super suspense, wonderful characters, extraordinary setting. Harper's best so far.

I do believe I'll be getting swamped with new books this week. Last week I decided to bite the bullet and get copies of some of the books I've had trouble getting on Kindle, so between ILL, cheap eBay copies, and and just regular library borrowing, I've got the following coming:

The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells *****
The Wall by John Lanchester ***
A Change of Time by Ida Jessen Abandoned
Foe: A Novel by Iain Reid *****
The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts ****
A Terrible Country by Keith Gessen Abandoned
1222 by Anne Holt ****½
The Other Wife by Michael Robotham ****
Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie
The Whistling Season, Work Song, and Sweet Thunder by Ivan Doig
Shadowbahn by Steve Erickson
The Anubis Gatesby Tim Powers Abandoned
His Favorites by Kate Walbert ***½
Gloryland by Shelton Johnson
The Quiet Girl by Peter Høeg
People of the Whale by Linda Hogan
The Walls Came Tumbling Down by Henriette Roosenburg ****

Oh dear!

Oh dear indeed! At least some of them are owned (newly bought) books, with no time limit on reading them...

>140 jjmcgaffey: One good thing about them: I don't read long books in dead wood copies, so most of these will be no more than 350 pages. I picked up the first lot of 6 at the library today and started reading The Wall by Lanchester. I'll read the newest titles first in case I need to renew some. The purchased books should start arriving in a few days, and as you say, no time limit there. They're all coming from two eBay sellers who have low prices and free shipping. Mostly ex-library, I think, and since I doubt I'll keep any of them, getting used copies will work well for me.

Sounds great!

The Wall by John Lanchester *** 3/20/19

It's always a toss-up whether post-apocalyptic/dystopian novels will be successful at connecting with the reader's emotions. The best of them can do this, whatever the context. Unfortunately, The Wall misses the mark. It has an interesting premise, but the reader is never really engaged or given enough information about the general circumstances to feel much towards the main character or to judge his perspective.

Kavanagh has reached the age at which every male and female serves two years as a guard on the cement barrier built around an island nation inundated by rising oceans, trying to keep out everyone else (The Others). The island appears to be England, with the station Kavanagh serves at called Ilfracombe, which today is a town on the north Devonshire coast. Hundreds of thousands serve at any one time around the perimeter of the country. It's a lonely, desolate job, with 12-hour shifts and constant cold, boredom, and fear. "Others" who manage to get past the Wall are usually caught quickly because they aren't chipped and are easily identified. But for every Other who makes it and isn't caught, a guard is expelled in a boat to become an Other. Kavanagh makes friends with the guards in his unit, with whom he sometimes spends his holidays (one free week each month or so), and he begins a tentative romance with one of them. The parents of this generation are routinely despised, at best, for it was on their watch that the world fell apart, and yet they elected to bring children into this new world. On the other hand, Breeders, couples who decide to get pregnant, are given special privileges so that the country won't completely fail and the Wall will always have enough guards.

There are the makings here for a fantastic story, but it just doesn't gel. The focus is on 1) the misery of the job, 2) the fear that one will become an Other or die if there is an attack, and 3) the misery of the job (yup, the book dwells on it that much). Very little historical context is given. Kavanagh clearly knows how his country works, what's happening around the world, and what the actual apocalypse was. He just doesn't bring it up in telling his story. I would have liked an explanation of how the oceans could have risen an implied minimum of 15 or 20 feet in one generation. The older members of the society still watch TV and are addicted to movies and documentaries about how their lives were "before" (especially anything with scenes of beaches, which have been made impossible by the Wall). Transportation, weapons, clothing - all seems pretty much from our today. Food is limited by what currently grows in season. Innovation has largely stopped. In other ways, little has changed: the wealthy still find ways to live in luxury, paying for Help (captured Others who have chosen to become life-long servants rather than be sent back to the sea) and flying off to places around the world as they will. In other words, this is not civilization building.

So, give it a go if you enjoy this genre, but you've been warned: you might find it wanting.

>143 auntmarge64: Oh, too bad. I have read a lot of dystopias over the years, although a lot less the last couple of years, I think. Jean (nohrt4me2) started the dystopian group eons ago, and she & I keep it alive with occasional help until fairly recently. I do have a new dystopia on order, published by the Univ. of Alaska press, due out next month, so we'll see. I think it's called During the Event.

>144 avaland: Well, someone else might feel differently :) Want to give it a try?

I hadn't heard of "During-the-Event" (no touchstone, no entry yet in LT), but it is on Amazon. Says there it won the Permafrost Prize for Fiction. I thought for a minute it might be a prize for the genre, but it's named that because of the magazine of that name, the farthest north literary magazine. I'll be watching for your review. How did you hear about it?

>145 auntmarge64: I read the short reviews of forthcoming books in Publishers Weekly, a trade publication (although my subscription runs out soon, and as I am "retired" I will not be renewing it.

It took me half a day to remember John Lancaster as the author of The Debt to Pleasure. I remembered the unusual cover of the book long before the title, LOL.

>143 auntmarge64: I read a few pages in yesterday and it didn't grab me, so I put it back. One thing dystopia has to do for me is be really, really atmospheric out of the gate—otherwise I find myself not caring enough to sustain the story.

Hi Margaret:

>139 auntmarge64: What a lot of good books ahead.

Good comments on The Wall. There is so much good dystopian fiction that I think I'll pass on this one.

The Other Wife by Michael Robotham **** 3/22/19

Foe by Iain Reid ***** 3/23/19

It's rare that I pick up a book and keep reading till it's done, but this book is that mesmerizing.

If I had to categorize it, I'd say it's psychological horror. From the first page, the reader is unsure what's going on, but whatever it is, it's unsettling. The reader, however, can't help but be sucked right in. The time period is probably several decades in the future, and there are three characters, with the story told in the first person by Junior. Junior and his wife Hen live on an isolated and rundown farm, although they don't work the farm and have other jobs. It's a very quiet existence with few visitors. One evening a large black car pulls up and out steps a man who introduces himself as Terrance, a representative from a semi-governmental organization who has come to congratulate Junior that he's been drafted onto the long list of possible candidates to live for an extended time in an installation being used to study transporting humans off-planet. It will be several years before there's a decision on the short list. Terrance smoothly assures the couple that this is wonderful news, and he proceeds to take measurements of Junior and ask him many, many questions. Hen apparently knows more than Junior about what is going on, but Junior is unable to say no and goes along with Terrance's explanations, acquiescing to the monitors and blood work and telling Terrance what he wants to know. Terrance leaves and life goes back to normal, but two years later he returns, joyfully announcing that Junior is on the short list. He moves in uninvited to devote more time to questioning Junior in depth about his life, adding more and more sensors and medications to Junior's daily regimen and setting up multiple recording devices around the house.

At this point, both the reader and Junior are distinctly uncomfortable with what Terrance is planning, and I, for one, began to wonder if one of the three was an alien. It doesn't help that more and more frequently there's a siting in the house of a large rhinoceros beetle which seem to simply stare at the inhabitants. Hen has begun arguing with Terrance and telling Junior he should resist, but Junior can't seem to, for all that he now doubts Terrance's intentions.

I'm not going to say anything more about the plot except that it gets even more intense, with a wham of a finale, then a bit more, and then another finale which brings a smile to the reader's face. Not as strange as, say, Jeff Vandermeer, more like a Lucius Shepard novel, and just as wonderful. Brilliantly plotted. I dare you to start reading this and not finish it.

The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts **** 3/25/19

On a massive wormhole-building ship, a crew of 30,000 wakes up only infrequently over the epochs (an epoch being tens of millions of years), and only a few at a time. Most of the work is performed by an AI called the Chimp, but sometimes it needs human input to make decisions. The story begins about 65 million years after the ship was sent from Earth, and it centers on a woman bred to have somewhat of a friendship with the AI. But what happens when that woman starts to suspect that the Chimp is both more and less than she thinks, and that the crew is missing several thousands of crew members without explanation? Is it possible to have a revolution when you're awake only a couple of days every few millennia and when everything that happens is visible and audible to the AI?

I'd say this is hard SF, but it's laid out so that it can be read on several levels depending on one's knowledge of and interest in the science. I floundered through much of the science, getting just enough to follow the gist while I enjoyed the central question (for me) of identity, both human and AI. How does a human still feel attached to Earth, and an Earth-designed mission, when so much time has passed there? Are there even still humans around except on this ship? And how can one trust that the AI is who you think it is, and limited in ways you think it is, and with the mission parameters you've been told it has? Does it evolve? Because though the humans have biologically aged only a few decades since departure, the ship has been awake and functioning the entire 65 million years. How would you know?

Highly recommended.

>151 auntmarge64: As good as this story is, Watts's earlier "The Island," set in the same world, is better; it won the 2010 Hugo for novelette. It's set a billion or so years into the expedition. It's free at his website:
https://rifters.com/real/shorts/PeterWatts_TheIsland.pdf

>150 auntmarge64: Foe was fantastic, wasn't it? I was wondering if he could match the twist of I'm Thinking of Ending Things, especially since readers are now expecting the unexpected, and Reid really delivered. I'm eager to read his next book.

>150 auntmarge64: Hmmm, not on my radar but that sounds interesting.

>152 dukedom_enough: Thanks, will definitely read that and check out his other stories. LT shows four entries in this story line.

>153 RidgewayGirl: Kay, my library has his first book and I've just requested it on your recommendation :) I'd never heard of him before. What a great find!

>154 lisapeet: Definitely worth a look! I see you've added Mustich's 1000 Books to Read Before You Die. It's an intriguing group of books, although I've yet to get a grip on his criteria. I went through and added the book under awards and honors in Common Knowledge for each of the 1000 books, and while at it I kept a running list of books he included that had no other awards/honors. Out of 1000, there were 177 of them (give or take). That really surprised me, given how loosely "Awards and Honors" is used in Common Knowledge. Of the new books I've tried from his list, about 1/2 were winners and the others, meh, and even the winners wouldn't necessarily have gone on my "must read" list. Then again, I get caught up on why any book has to be read "before you die". I know, it's just a phrase, but I stumble over it all the time.

>155 auntmarge64: I listen to the What Should I Read Next podcast (Found here: https://modernmrsdarcy.com/what-should-i-read-next/ ) and episode 165 actually had Jim Mustich as the guest. He talked a bit about how his book came to be, and that actually inspired me to get a copy of the book myself.

>154 lisapeet: I just interviewed Jim Mustich for a piece I'm writing for Bloom, and he says it's a very subjective list—he compared it to stocking a bookstore that can only hold 1,000 books, and thinking about what he would put in there so it was something for everyone, rather than picking the 1,000 "best" books by some definition of a literary canon. That's what makes it such a fun book, I think—that it's not about awards or honors or anyone else's definition of what's best, and he invites other people's suggestions over at the book's website (https://www.1000bookstoread.com/). The Bloom piece will be up in another week, so I'll point to it when it's done.

>151 auntmarge64: and >152 dukedom_enough: We read Blindsight for bookclub and I thought it was excellent, though I wasn't as keen on the sequel Echopraxia.

I've added this series to my wishlist.

Great review of The Birds; I've added it to my wishlist and will be on the lookout for it.

I'm sorry that you didn't like The Fishermen. I moderately enjoyed the book, but I loved the play based on it that was shown at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe last summer.

Oh, interesting reading! (I'm closing my eyes and plugging my ears, repeating la-la-la-la....because I just bought two books at the bookstore and ordered all our literary wants which will be released in May and June (so yeah, a binge). And, as it turns out, I had another dystopia/post apocalyptic novel on the earlier list. The Amateurs by Liz Harmer. It awaits me at the store (because they always show up the day AFTER I've been there).

>156 shadrach_anki: - Thanks, I'll check out that podcast!

>157 lisapeet: - I did see his website. OK, I'm just being whiny, but I still think he should have called it something like, "1000 Books to Start the Conversation". But I will be very interested to read your article, so please do send the link when it's available!

>159 kidzdoc: - Hi, Darryl - I can see where a play might present "The Fishermen" more successfully than a novel. I hope you like "The Birds" as much as I did.

>160 avaland: - Oh dear, more post-apocalypse!!! Love it! Will watch for your review of "The Amateurs" with anticipation.

(For some reason, touchstones are apparently AWOL this evening.)

>161 auntmarge64: Heh, good point. But it was titled to fit in with others along that vein from the publisher, Workman—I think the preceding one was 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, which had done very well.

The Walls Came Tumbling Down by Henriette Roosenburg **** 3/28/19

The author was a Dutch resistance fighter during WWII, arrested in 1944 and sentenced to die as a "Night and Fog" (NN) prisoner. Such prisoners were in a special category set up by Hitler for those from occupied territories who tried to undermine the German war effort. They were, upon capture, to be brought to Germany "by night and fog" for trial by special courts, a process that circumvented conventions governing the treatment of prisoners. Transferred from prison to prison, they were the least desirable among non-concentration camp prisoners and were starved while being isolated and neglected in filthy cells. In May, 1945, Henriette's prison in Waldheim was liberated by Russians, and she and her small group of fellow Dutch NN prisoners started the 400 mile trip home, walking and pulling carts with their meager belongings, hitching when possible and using a boat to row down the Elbe. It took several more weeks, time in a displaced-persons camp, and some conniving, but they finally managed to get a lift from Brussels into northern Holland, which had been suffering from a war-time famine and into which no one was being sent home pending a fix for the food crisis.

This was a book recommended in 1000 Books to Read Before You Die by James Mustich, and I managed to get a copy via interlibrary loan. Published in 1957 while Henriette was working as a journalist in New York City, it details a side of the war rarely mentioned because of the emphases (rightly) on the Holocaust proper. The descriptions of the prisons, the treatment of political prisoners, and the conditions they found in the countryside during the first months after the war are a moving look at look at the physical and psychological damage of war and the camaraderie that can arise amidst the little joys of sudden freedom. And the struggles faced by Henriette and her friends highlight the difficulties in repatriating millions of survivors, especially in a broken world where communication, transportation, and supplies are limited. I admit it, I cried at the end.

>163 auntmarge64: This one sounds excellent. Great review.

She Lies in Wait by Gytha Lodge **** 4/1/19

Very satisfying suspense, in which a 30-year old missing persons case is reopened after the body is found. A second murder is suspected in a tangential accident. The four-person squad tasked to find the murderer is headed by a DCI with his own related secrets, which may or may not derail his career and/or the case, especially after a determined newcomer to the investigation begins to suspect the DCI is hiding something. The original case involved the disappearance of a 14-year old girl, out on an overnight camping trip with her sexy and outrageous older sister and her friends. A suspect teacher who passes by, the disappearance of 15 kilos of drugs buried by one of the kids, and tales of drug-fueled sex and rape add both motives and suspects. The kids are adults now, of course, with careers and relationships they don't want disturbed by suspicious cops.

So, a worthy addition to that pile of books you have sitting there for when you just want to relax with a well-written mystery with interesting characters, numerous suspects, and a case that keeps expanding into new crimes being uncovered.

The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life by David Quammen ***** 4/3/19

Superb popular science that brings the reader up-to-date on the latest research into genetics, a much, much different field than it was even a few years ago, when we all agreed on what the tree of life looked like and that all genetic manipulation occurred along our own branch of said tree. In fact, as Quammen shows, using a tree to illustrate the genetic history on our planet may no longer be meaningful at all.

The book begins with a background to genetic theory, up to and beyond Darwin and Wallace. But the author's primary emphasis is on two discoveries in the latter part of the 20th century that have turned traditional Darwinism on its head. One was the discovery by Carl Woese that there is a third major kingdom of life: that is, not just life without cellular nuclei (bacteria) and life with nuclei (everything else), but a third type of life that has characteristics of both. He named these one-celled creatures archaea, and many are found in extreme environments such as heat vents in the deepest parts of the oceans. The second major finding was that genes can move horizontally between living things, and between creatures in different kingdoms. This was a shocking idea: that, say, fungi DNA could find its way into a mammal's genetic code and be inheritable. And this kind of transfer (horizontal gene transfer) happened not only in the distant past but occurs today. This discovery began a massive effort to understand exactly how genetic changes have occurred over the several billion years of life on Earth and what the effect has been and will be for humans. Think about this: the number antibiotic-resistant bacteria is multiplying rapidly because of horizontal gene transfer. MRSA has been one result. So has the transfer from poultry to farm workers of antibiotic-resistant bacteria: bacteria that took one week to develop immunity in chickens and only a couple of months to horizontally transfer to the humans who work with the chickens.

It was also proven that various parts of Eukaryota cells (those with nuclei) were originally captured bacteria (cells without nuclei) that had survived and been retained as useful - well, if they didn't kill the host cell. This includes the mitochondria, an important organelle in our cells. And chloroplasts in plants. To put it very simply, our genetic structure is composed partially of DNA that moved in from bacteria and other creatures over millions of years: horizontal DNA transfer rather than vertical (passed down from parents and earlier forms in the human lineage).

I was blown away by these findings, most of which are accepted science now and being used as the basis for even deeper research. The next step, at least in the history of genetics, is to contemplate, as Woese did in his final years (d. 2012), where the three (or two, or five, depending on the scientist) kingdoms came from. What structure preceded them, and will we be able to tease out which kingdom came first? Did eukaryotic cells (including us) descend from archaea, a theory recently proposed? After the contemplation comes the experimentation, and I gather this is a major focus for many in the field today: that early morass of non-cellular "life" that gave birth to all else: what was it and how do we identify it?

Some have used the new genetic findings to discount Darwinism and to try to strengthen an intelligent design argument. The author addresses this, pointing out that what's really happening is that Darwinism has not been disproven but has now become only a part of the story, much like Newtonian physics: still useful but not a very deep explanation of what's happening. Oh, and this will disturb that last group: we now know that our cells contain DNA from both chimpanzees and Neanderthals (from matings, not from evolution of any type).

This is wonderful science writing: a very difficult subject made comprehensible and interesting to non-scientists. Very, very highly recommended.

The Island by Peter Watts **** 4/2/19

Many thanks to >152 dukedom_enough:, who gave me the lead on this.

A wonderful short addition to the tale told in "The Freeze-Frame Revolution", which should definitely be read first to put the characters in perspective. As of April 2019, available for free download at https://rifters.com/real/shorts/PeterWatts_TheIsland.pdf



The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton *** 4/5/19

Meh, did nothing for me. The biology (and there's a lot of it) is 50 years old and has dated terribly. The author apparently didn't think of longevity for the story, where less science might have kept it more believable as time went by. And while I was hoping for a dramatic and realistic ending (think On the Beach or Fail-Safe), it ended up being a sure-to-be-filmed thriller. Doubt I'll read anything else by Crichton.

>163 auntmarge64: This looks really good, Margaret.

So many good books! The Watts and She Lies in Wait also look tempting.

>167 auntmarge64: I agree on all points about The Andromeda Strain. I first read it back in the 70s and re-read recently, and found the science very shaky. It did get filmed, and I remember seeing the film not too long after I first read the book.

>167 auntmarge64: Glad you liked "The Island".

Excellent review of The Tangled Tree! Have you read The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee? It’s also superb, though very detailed, and I wonder how accessible it is someone without at least some basic knowledge of the biomedical sciences.

>171 kidzdoc: Hi Darryl, I've seen been tempted by Mukherjee's book but haven't read it yet. It's certainly gotten great reviews, though - 905 reviews on Amazon alone - so it must be readable. I'll put it on the list :)

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande **** 4/8/19

The author, a general surgeon, has spent his professional career trying to do what he was taught: fix his patients physically. Quantity of alternatives, not necessarily quality of life. It was assumed that longevity was worth any inconvenience and pain. A few years ago he began researching end-of-life care options with the goal of improving the lives of his elderly and end-stage patients. He consulted patients, geriatricians, pioneers in independent care programs, and hospice organizations, and provides the reader with a look at traditional nursing homes (and their history), home care and institutional alternatives, and trade-offs made by patients and families. His own father's illness and death provided him with a chance to put to use some of the techniques he'd learned.

The nursing home chapters describe typical (and nightmarish) conditions, and it was all I could do to continue. But once the book turned to the alternatives being developed, I found myself less traumatized thinking of my own future. While traditional medical care might stress the goal of prolonging lives, this often leads to situations that are the opposite of what patients really want, which is, typically: avoiding suffering, strengthening relationships with family and friends, being mentally aware, not being a burden on others, and achieving a sense that their life is complete. (These issues become priorities not only to old people but to younger people who find themselves facing illness and end-stage disease.) In nursing homes, where the emphasis is on keeping patients physically safe, patients can feel imprisoned, without privacy or the right to make decisions about how to spend their time and with whom.

Doctors are traditionally trained to offer fixes, including those which are more and more experimental or unlikely to help. They are not taught to suggest there might be more meaningful alternatives, and sometimes the end of treatment. The author learned to ask very ill patients several questions, which even he, with all his new knowledge and desire to improve matters, found extremely difficult to do:

At this moment in your life:
1. What do you understand your prognosis to be?
2. What are your concerns about what lies ahead?
3. What kinds of trade-offs are you willing to make? How much are you willing to go through to have a shot at being alive, and what level of being alive is tolerable to you?
4. How do you want to send your time if your health worsens?
5. Who do you want to make decisions if you can't?

I was profoundly moved by the range of these questions and the responses they elicited. Clearly, patients aren't always thinking about the same things as other patients, or their families, or their health care workers. One striking result was that that families and doctors, finding themselves at a crisis moment in the patient's life, didn't have to make the hard decisions - the patients had already said what they wanted.

An excellent overview of possibilities for anyone concerned with these issues.

>173 auntmarge64: I fortuitously read this before my mother's health began to go downhill and had my parents read it. The result was that we were at least clear on what the goals were - my parents wanted to stay in their own home, even if that meant sacrificing some security. That wasn't always easy for me, but it was so very helpful to know what the priorities were. I'm so grateful that I read Being Mortal when I did.

>174 RidgewayGirl: Kay, that's great, that you had the book then. I think it would have made working through my parents' deaths easier, too. We had their living wills, and we knew they wanted to die at home (they did), but other issues might perhaps have been handled better. Now my baby sister is failing, and I've been thinking of asking her those questions. We've talked about a lot of the issues, but I bet there are some thoughts she has that could be made clearer. I'm going to see her tomorrow and have been thinking about talking to her if she seems up to it.

I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid *** 4/10/19

Reed's newest novel, Foe (see post 150 above), was a delicately plotted novel of psychological fear, ratcheting up the suspense just a little every page, building and building to the climax. This work, an earlier effort, shows the promise that resulted in Foe.

A youngish couple are driving into farm country to visit his parents for the first time. All the while, the woman is observing her feelings for the man, whom she's known for just a few weeks, and trying to decide whether she should end the relationship. The drive and the conversation are pretty boring and go on for maybe a third of the book, and only the determined reader will keep going, thinking there's no earthly reason these two would be making this trip if their connection is this tenuous, so either the book gets much more interesting or the author's just awful at his trade. If it had been a different author I probably would have put the book aside, but I'd just read Foe, and Kay (RidgewayGirl) was impressed by the ending so I kept at it.

Things get much creepier once the couple reaches the farm, at which point the reader is thinking, what the hell is wrong with this woman? Why doesn't she run screaming for the nearest road, or grab the car keys? And what the hell is she doing wandering around the house on her own, anyway, overhearing cryptic snatches of conversations? It's sort of like watching a horror movie where the main character decides to step over the monster's prone body to get to the door. Anyway, the plot does keep getting stranger and stranger, with an ending that is telegraphed faintly throughout but never becomes clear until that end is closing in, and it's not disappointing.

Looked back on, the pacing and plotting make more sense than while the book's being read, and it's possible to see how it was designed to try to get the same visceral reaction from the reader as Foe does, but I think the subject matter doesn't lend itself as easily to the genre. Many readers will have put it down and gone on to something else before the horror really gets a grip on them. But I have to tell you, if Reid produces another book as good as Foe, I certainly want to read it.

Catching up, really enjoyed your comments on the nonfiction books. I’m really interested in The Tangled Tree.

>167 auntmarge64: interesting about The Andromeda Strain. I really liked Critchton at one point, which is an odd thing because when I think about the books I read...well, I really really dislike him now. I remember Andromeda Strain as essentially a cold war thriller - even if there were no Soviets. I wonder if that is part of why it dates so poorly. I don’t remember the science anymore.

>173 auntmarge64: Being Mortal is terrific. One thing he doesn’t address, iirc, is what to do when there is mental decline and you can’t really get a good answer of what the person (your parent, maybe) wants. Still, was a fantastic book for me.

>167 auntmarge64: I somehow missed this review. I remember really enjoying The Andromeda Strain which I read (I think) over 25 years ago. I'm not sure how dated the science was then, but it probably wouldn't have made any difference to me as I didn't study biology past Year 10.

>177 dchaikin: Dan, I didn't think of the issue of mental decline. Don't know why, because my mum and her mum both had dementia. It's a good point. I guess the answer is to talk about these things before things get too bad or you'll be guessing. But yes, he should have brought it up.

I think you'd like The Tangled Tree - you have a much better background for it, and since it's not your field it might be just the thing to fill you in on what's happening over in that one.

>178 rhian_of_oz: It's funny that the science bugged me so much with Andromeda Strain. Goodness knows I like science fiction from even before then, especially the work of John Wyndham Day of the Triffids, etc. I think it was just such a big part of the storyline that the whole story fell flat. It didn't help that I was irritated at how lame the ending was.

Noting - on The Tangled Tree. I would consider for my next audiobook, but Lisa kind of sold me on the Frederic Douglas biography. (That’s a couple weeks away, yet.)

>180 dchaikin: Oooh, I want to read that, too. His autobiography (the original) just blew me away.

1222 by Anne Holt **** 4/15/19

An excellent mystery featuring a wheelchair-bound (at least in this part of the series) ex-detective stranded at a mountaintop hotel following a train accident during a Norwegian blizzard. When a priest is murdered, she is reluctantly drawn in while they all await the end of the storm and arrival of the police. Meanwhile, a mystery train passenger is kept isolated by armed men.

The protagonist, Hanne Wilhelmsen, is one of the most enjoyable characters I've run across. Since being shot and paralyzed she's withdrawn from the world except for her nuclear family, and she's independent, bitter and very sarcastic, but she's very observant and smart. And a delightful storyteller.

I'd call this a mystery rather than suspense - a good yarn in which you know someone will die - but not the main character. And with a trainload of suspects, there'e lots of suspicion to throw around. I whipped right through this in a day. It's the first I've read in the series, but certainly not the last.

>181 auntmarge64: I read it a long time ago, but it had the same impact on me.

The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells ***** 4/16/19

This is one of the most valuable and thoughtful books I've run across. The first half runs through all the ways our planet and our species are being affected (and will be affected) by, let's face it, our own actions. Heat, hunger, drowning of cities and countries, fire, weather disasters, lack of freshwater and reduction of crop production, ocean death, unbreathable air, plagues, economic collapse, millions of climate refugees (tens, if not hundreds, of millions), wars - to name only some of the consequences. The second half of the book is a look at possible responses by both individuals and humanity as a whole. This gets quite philosophical and is for me what makes the book essential.

The author says something early on that is seemingly so minor that it took my breath away once it sank in: the human race evolved in a climate that no longer exists. At just 1°C above pre-industrial global temperature, our current situation, we are in completely new territory. The planet has been here before, and beyond, and we know what that meant (hundreds of feet in ocean rise, massive extinctions, etc.), but fragile human bodies have not. From here the book details the ways in which climate factors will affect both the individual human and the larger human body (civilizations, societal structures, borders, the economy) at 2°, 3°, 4°, and so on. Conceivably much hotter than that. As he puts it: ours is "a civilization enclosing itself in a gaseous suicide, a running car in a sealed garage".

After this horrific sketch, including all sorts of things I'd never considered, comes a look at the probability of the human race being able to generate the political will to avoid climate collapse. This is where depressives might want to walk away.

The futurist Alex Steffen is quoted as describing what we face in even contemplating being able to stabilize things:
The task of transitioning from dirty to clean electricity is smaller than
The challenge of electrifying almost everything that uses power, which is smaller than
The challenge of reducing energy demand, which is smaller than
The challenge of reinventing how goods and services are provided (given the existing dirty infrastructure and the labor markets everywhere using dirty energy).
And then there is the need to get to zero emissions from all other sources (deforestation, agriculture, livestock, landfills).
And the need to protect all human systems from the coming onslaught of natural disasters and extreme weather.
And the need to erect a system of global government, or at least international cooperation, to coordinate above.
All of which is smaller than
The cultural undertaking of imagining together a future that feels not only possible but worth fighting for.

Oh, and we have only a decade or two (maybe three) before we're past any possibility of stopping the process of a climate alteration that won't be reversed for millions of years. Not thousands, millions. And that's only if we start right now, because the clock is already running.

I did like his suggestion for dealing with climate skeptics: wouldn't it be better to think climate change actually is human-made and therefore potentially fixable? Of course, the rest of the book will make you feel it may not matter in the long run what they believe. Global cooperation to eliminate all use of fossil fuels? In the next decade or three? Yeah, right, like that's going to happen.

Really, I don't think I can do justice to the sweep of this book. The author is not an alarmist (that would be me). He's not even particularly careful about adding to the problem (drives a car, flies when he wants, eats meat, etc). But he's fascinated with the climate news he's been following for years, and this is his synopsis and analysis. And in case you think you have a good handle on what's happening and what can be done about it, I'd say that's doubtful. So read the book.

Fabulous, and sobering review of The Uninhabitable Earth, Margaret. This seems like a book that we all need to read, so I'll buy a copy soon.

>185 kidzdoc: Thanks, Darryl. "Sobering" is pretty accurate. I'll be very interested to hear what conclusions you arrive at about our future as a civilization and species after reading it. He says a few other things that were particularly memorable:

- Moving us to another planet? Forget it. It would be so much easier to fix things here, where at least we have the raw materials at our disposal and the climate, as bad as it's going to get, is still closer to habitable for humans than, say, that on Mars.
- Silicon Valley is even more terrified of I.T. than climate change. (Hawking had the same fear.)
- There is a growing awareness among scientists and others that the invention of agriculture may have been the worst mistake we've ever made. He makes mention of Jared Diamond, for one. At least then we lived in harmony with our home and didn't risk the species with "humanity unbound", as it were.

I tend to think of us as really stupid bacteria, the kind that kills its host and then dies off. Even more stupid, really - we know it'll happen and don't stop.

>184 auntmarge64: Thank you for the review. Have been meaning to read this.

>150 auntmarge64: >176 auntmarge64: Okay, Marge. I accept the challenge. I have taken an ebook of FOE. I am taking you at your word that I will be mesmerized and unable to put it down. :-P

>186 auntmarge64: Small quibble - before agriculture (or at least in places and times where it was not in use or not widespread), there is fossil evidence of humans hunting in huge and wasteful ways. I'm remembering specifically one canyon in the American Southwest that revealed literally hundreds of dead...mammoths, I think it was - and the archaeologists determined that several of them (out of hundreds, remember) had been butchered. There were indications (though I don't remember the details) that it was a human-set grass fire that drove the animals into the canyon, and that the humans had then taken what meat they could carry and left. Not quite "harmony"...that seems to be a concept that escapes humans in general.

Which is not to say that the book isn't important, and scary. Or even that agriculture didn't allow us to spread vastly more than we could have only hunting and gathering. But still.

>189 jjmcgaffey: Hi Jen, point taken. I think they probably did mean we didn't run the risk of wrecking it. Too few of us because no agriculture = no cities, no overpopulation, etc. I doubt they meant idyllic, just not those stupid bacteria killing the host.

>188 brodiew2: Ha, Brodie! I hope you do like it! OK, I hope you're mesmerized.... :)

>187 dukedom_enough: Glad to encourage you. I'll be very interested to see how others feel about the book.

Second Person Singular by Sayed Kashua ***½ 4/18/19

The lives of two Arab-Israeli men in Jerusalem intertwine when one of them finds a letter to the other written in his wife's handwriting and hidden in a used book he buys. The husband, identified throughout only as "the lawyer", immediately wants to kill his wife but decides to investigate first, and he uses his contacts to track the man down. The second man, who met the wife only twice, years ago and before her marriage, is unaware of the furor and has been living an unusual life as a social worker and photographer. He is considerably more likable and interesting than the lawyer, who concedes that his main concern is not whether his wife was a virgin when they married but whether his acquaintances would condemn him if she hadn't been.

More important than the plot, and this seemed deliberate to me, were the descriptions of Arab-Israeli life: institutionalized poverty; lack of education, training and job prospects; general disdain towards themselves, and anger and distrust towards Jewish Israelis. The Jews, of course, dislike and distrust them, too, and with their great power and wealth they maintain the second-class lives of the Arab Israelis. Minimal slots (sometimes only one) are designated for Arabs in medical facilities, educational institutions, and presumably elsewhere. Transportation is third-class. Opportunities are less than minimal, and only those with luck (the lawyer) or by deception (the social worker) can make any headway. Both these characters hail from villages in the Triangle, an Arab-populated area some Israelis have proposed trading to Palestine for the area of the West Bank that Jews have illegally colonized. You can imagine that it's not a popular idea with Israeli citizens of Arab descent, who view Israel as their home and who fear even worse conditions under Palestinian rule - not to mention the racism inherent in the plan.

A good story set in an appalling society.

(Thanks to Kay, aka RidgewayGirl, for the recommendation.)

>191 auntmarge64: I have this on my wishlist thanks to Kay, as well. Thank you for the review.

>190 auntmarge64: That was a darn short sample form Amazon! I had the ebook practivally in my hand before a a separate past due item killed my FOE dreams...for the moment. I read the sample and admit that you are right, Marge. I am intrigued. ;-)

>193 brodiew2: It's a pretty short book. Good thing it's fiction, or the sample might have ended in the table of contents! :)

>182 auntmarge64: Although part of Holt's Hanne Wilhelmsen series (sadly, now finished, I just read the last installment), this was the author's nod to Agatha Christie. It's a classic "locked room" mystery and the only one of the series that is like this.

>195 avaland: I'll have to keep that series in mind. That Hanne!

>194 auntmarge64: Given the absence of Foe, I went looking for similarly themed books and landed on Bird Box. The sample is also compelling and I already have a copy in hand. I'll keep you posted on both.

>184 auntmarge64: this review of The Uninhabitable Earth caught my attention. It’s hard to watch resistance to action be our main action.

>191 auntmarge64: Kay’s review of Second Person Singular got me interested in this. And now I see you have read it too, with another appealing review. Noting.

>197 brodiew2: Hi Brodie, I'll be interested to hear what you think of Bird Box, which I haven't read.

>198 dchaikin: Dan, I was thinking of you when I posted the review of The uninhabitable Earth :)

>191 auntmarge64: I'm pleased that Second Person Singular is getting so much traction here. I heard about it from SqueakyChu, who often reads novels from that part of the world.

Hi Margaret: The Uninhabitable Earth sounds like a must read. Great comments. Onto the list it goes.

Second Person Singular also sounds good.

>195 avaland: I think, 1222, was the only one of the series published in the US, but all of them are available via Book Depository (or you might find them as used books online). In the last few books, they have her paired up with another very interesting character, and they make an interesting duo.

>202 avaland:. Oh dear, I think this means I'll have to get this series.

>203 auntmarge64: This: https://www.simonandschuster.com/series/A-Hanne-Wilhelmsen-Novel suggests they have been published more recently as ebooks (they are offering a freebie....)

>204 avaland: Hey, thanks!

The Book of Flora by Meg Elison **** 4/23/19

The final volume of the wonderful Road to Nowhere trilogy, which paints a very, very dark view of civilization after a plague wipes out most women and then kills most of the surviving women who get pregnant. The series definitely needs to be read in order, so start with The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, which is probably the easiest to follow because it starts in present time. The latter two volumes, including this one, take place several generations later and would be hard to just jump into, I think. If I had to pigeonhole the series, I'd say it might be considered a cross between Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" and Walter M. Miller's "A Canticle for Leibowitz". The future is portrayed as a very nasty place, especially for women, but it has some remarkable women in it whose stories are told in these volumes and who provide what hope there is that humanity might just survive. Very highly recommended for those who like post-apocalyptic literature.

(Don't know what's happening with the touchstones. McCarthy's and Miller's names bring up the book titles, and the titles bring up either the wrong title or nothing.)

A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute **** 4/24/19

An elderly English lawyer searches for an heiress to a small fortune and unexpectedly finds a young woman who survived Japanese captivity during World War II. The war section of the book is set on the island of Malaya, although the events Shute used for the story's basis took place on Sumatra.

Jean Paget, twenty-ish at the time, is part of a group of English women and children captured during the Japanese invasion and, because the Japanese don't know what to do with them, are marched from village to village for many months (historically, the women were Dutch, and the march lasted for two and a half years). In Shute's version, the women eventually manage to get permission to settle in an isolated village, where they live as natives and help produce rice in the paddies. When Jean is located in London after the war, she tells the lawyer her story, and she continues to write him for several years after as she travels back to visit the village where she lived and then goes on to Australia.

Much of this book is enthralling, with just a few spots that drag, but the overall story is quite a panorama of one woman's ability to make the best of any situation in which she finds herself. There are several very, very dramatic moments during the time on Malaya, one of which made me actually gasp out loud. The book is a combination of war story, love story, and woman's story. Really, the only thing I began to cringe at was the very frequent use of the phrase "oh my word" by various characters (not Jean, thank goodness, since she's in almost every scene). That more than anything else dates the book, and if I never hear that phrase again it'll be too soon, but I'm still delighted to have read this.

Note: Shute also wrote the equally moving "On the Beach". (Again, the title won't come up in touchstones.)

>207 auntmarge64: I'm a new fan of Mr Shute's and your review has reminded me that it's about time I read another one.

If you haven't already read them, I can also recommend Trustee From the Toolroom and Pied Piper.

>208 rhian_of_oz: I was wondering if his other books were worth reading. Thanks for the heads-up!

>209 auntmarge64: Oh yeah. The worst of his are at least interesting. Note that he frequently depicts racism and sexism on multiple levels (characters, societies, governments) - but at least to me, the author is not endorsing/supporting such bias, he's barely noticing it - it's just the way things are in that time/place.

I love Trustee from the Toolroom - that's a multiple reread for me. I found On the Beach very interesting, and not as depressing as many do - but then my touchstone for "temporary survivors of nuclear disaster" depressingness is When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs - a graphic novel that's hopeless and hapless from the start. Shute's book has a lot more to it than that. The first one I ever read of his was Round the Bend - the Second Coming as an airplane mechanic in WWII (as I recall...it's been a lot of years since I read it. I should read it again). I've never read Pied Piper, I'll have to look out for that - I got a bunch of Shute ebooks recently and have been working my way through them. Recently read A Town Like Alice (I agree, it's great), In the Wet (fascinating sneaky SF), and Beyond the Black Stump (interesting but far from a favorite. American/Australian culture clash - also a case of rich(ish) white boy entitlement, which always annoys me).

All of his (that I've read) are worth reading, and most are very memorable (note that I read Round the Bend...35 years ago? something like that).

>210 jjmcgaffey: Thanks for the roundup. The ebook library I use has Round the Bend and Most Secret as well as Alice, but none of the others. Not even On the Beach. My town library does have In the Wet and several others in hardcopy, though, so I should be able to get most of them.

The American Museum of Natural History and How It Got That Way by Colin Davey *** 4/30/19

This history does pretty much what the title claims. If there was a class being held on the topic, it would make a good textbook, and it's written like one, so it's not an overly exciting volume. But it certainly provides a factual context to the early history of both Central Park and the Museum, and this is, surprisingly. one of the most interesting parts of the book. The stories of the politics and personalities involved make for an entertaining look at how people in various spheres work both together and against each other in building city structures and cultural spaces. Teddy Roosevelt makes numerous appearances, as do various famous names in exploration and paleontology. Aside from the actual founding and early building of the museum, the main topics of interest are the development of the African dioramas and the dinosaur exhibits, Peary's arctic travels, and the history of the Hayden Planetarium and, later, the Rose Center for Earth and Space. This is an updated version of the book and includes information on new developments at the Rose Center current to December, 2018.

I have seen only an e-book review copy so can't comment on the final illustrations. Those included in the copy I received included old maps of Central Park, basic diagrams of the buildings as they evolved, and some (mostly early) black and white photos of (primarily) the rise of the building and various iterations of the large dinosaur displays. The text is liberally footnoted. The book can be used as a basic overview or as a source for interesting topics to be pursued independently.

(Read courtesy of NetGalley.)

The Sacrament (no touchstone) by Olaf Olafsson ***½ 4/30/19

Sister Johanna Marie, a middle-aged French nun, speaks Icelandic. This she learned from a roommate at the Sorbonne many years ago: a roommate with whom she fell in love and whose presence drove her into the convent. Although she never made her feelings known, she has been hounded for decades by her bishop, now a cardinal, for his perceptions of her feelings, and twice he has emotionally blackmailed her into investigating accusations of child abuse by priests. The second time, sent to Reykjavík because of her knowledge of the language, the nun is emotionally tortured for several reasons: she wonders what's happened to the Icelandic girl and whether she should try to find her; she frets over her failure the first time the bishop recruited her for this task; she finds herself being officially thwarted at every turn by her superiors and the parents and children involved; and, as becomes evident only late in the book, she pushes this investigation too far.

What also becomes clear only in the last half of the book is that there are two timelines in her travel to Iceland. The second trip, which comes into focus only slowly, is years after the first, and comes about because her presence is requested by a (now-grown) child she met briefly during the old investigation. The shifts between timelines are not at all clear, and I do think this confusion weakens the reader's ability to appreciate the facts being developed.

The nun is insecure, not overly likable, and not particularly wise, and the story is told entirely from her point of view. She feels her life may have had no meaning, and the reader may agree with her, although there is a surprise ending that gives some evidence that she may leave the world a better place. Still, she sees God in her life only when she faces the evil she finds, and I think that must be terribly sad for a religious.

(Read courtesy of NetGalley.)

Hello Marge. I'm nearing page 100 on Bird Box and find the story compelling enough. I look forward to seeing where it goes.

>214 brodiew2: Looking forward to the review!

The Library of Congress has made available online a collection of classic children's books from 1918 and earlier. The NY Times has an article about it at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/well/family/in-classic-childrens-books-a-wind... or you can go straight to the collection. The books are in color as they were originally printed.

And here's a direct link to the online collection:
https://www.loc.gov/collections/childrens-book-selections/about-this-collection/

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Denslow's Humpty Dumpty by W. Denslow **** 5/1/19

A very cute story of the original Humpty Dumpty's son, who doesn't want to worry about breaking like his father did. He goes to the Black Hen for advice, and she sends him to the proverbial farmer's wife to ask her to put him in boiling water to harden him through and through. I admit I thought this might have a horrific ending, especially if the farmer's wife was hungry.

>213 auntmarge64: Interesting review, but did you like it? I have had an Olaf Olafsson book kicking around here for years and I have yet to get to it.

>217 avaland: Not really. Not enough to entice me to read something else by him.

Hello Marge! I finished Bird Box and the review is up. I zoomed through it, which doesn't happen very often. It is an intense and compelling story.

I also have Foe Reid in hand and am through chapter 4.

Disaster's Children by Emma Sloley **½ 5/16/19

A leisurely, meandering story of a wealthy 25-year old living on her parents' communal ranch, where they and their equally rich neighbors plan for a self-sustaining future during the coming ecological crises. They call the outside "The Disaster" and barely acknowledge their own complicity in the state of the world. The ranch requires a steep financial investment and hard physical work from all, but because of the group's wealth they lack for nothing and buy what they need if they can't produce it themselves. Most of them stay off the Internet, relying on news synopses prepared by one volunteer. There are lovely picnics near one of their private lakes and long evenings drinking expensive wine in the clubhouse (they call it the Commons). Every now and then someone goes off to try to recruit more people of their status to join the ranch.

Marlo lives in her own home on the ranch, which she loves (they moved here when she was 5), but she wonders about staying for a while in the outside world and if she should follow her two best friends there to try to fix the world from within it. Before she can actually leave, a stranger shows up, she falls for him, and they decide to plan a future at the ranch. A surprise revelation makes her doubt her choice, and the book ends with her betraying those closest to her in the most unforgivable manner.

Marlo is not particularly likable and operates more like a teenager than a well-educated and sexually-mature woman. For most of the book I tended to dislike the ranchers, who have all they want materially but feel that somehow they're helping ensure the survival of civilization. But what Marlo does at the end of the book is so awful it makes the ranchers into victims, and her actions make little sense for a character who tends to think things through ad nauseam. The author, however, ends the book in a celebratory mood, with Marlo triumphant and her parents and other ranchers, including a close friend of hers, with a crushing surprise ahead of them.

All in all, the book is distasteful in its tone deafness and left a sour aftertaste.

I've managed to break my left hand (did the right one a couple of years ago, so I know the routine) and bruise some ribs, so I'm very behind in reading everyone's threads and even finishing the books I'm reading. Just saying I'll be in and out sporadically. I stepped into a pothole, not paying attention cuz I was talking to a friend. I'd say that will teach me to pay attention, but probably not .

>221 auntmarge64: I'm sorry to hear about your accident and injury. Wishing you a speedy recovery.

>221 auntmarge64: Ouch! I do hope you heal quickly.

Ouch! A not good book followed by a great deal of pain. I hope your recovery goes well and is as pain-free as possible.

>222 rhian_of_oz:, >223 NanaCC:, >224 RidgewayGirl:

Thanks, everyone. I'm trying to look at as a reminder of how people who have physical limitations and constant pain might be lethargic/irritable/inconsistent/uninterested in the usual things. Both my best friend and my sister fall in that category, and it can't hurt (well, ok, it does hurt) to have to face a bit of what their lives are like. I, at least, will heal, so I'm trying to be patient.

Oh ouch, double whammy. Hope you heal up quickly, and have some better stuff to read while you do.

Wishing you well and pain-free.

Oh, no! I'm sorry to hear about your injury, Margaret. I hope that you heal quickly and uneventfully.

Thanks, everyone. The ribs are almost healed, and in another 4 weeks I can take the brace off for good and get back to more accurate (and less time-consuming) typing. I've got three books to review and will see how fast I can get them up. First:



Three Remain by R. A. Andrade ***½ 5/26/19 (I had to hand-enter this book so the touchstone isn't working yet).

The publisher gives a good summary of the plot: A girl, young woman, and a man discover themselves in a countryside void of people and imprisoned by thick fog. Brought together by circumstance, the three confront bizarre, life-threatening challenges as they try to unravel the mystery. Dependent on one another, the unlikely trio must find a path to rejoin humanity.

This isn't apocalyptic fiction, although at the beginning it could easily have gone that way. What it is, however, is unclear for a long time. Certainly it's suspenseful, with the three characters running into strange circumstances again and again. They begin as strangers but slowly grow on each other and learn to trust each other's instincts, but why they have such good instincts is hard to fathom. For a patent lawyer, a woman with no memory, and a young teenager obsessed with her cell phone, they have some extraordinary innate abilities to cope with emergency situations, and let that be a clue. (They're not super heroes.) But still, I dare say you won't see the truth of the situation very quickly.

There are some quibbles: both the teenager and the woman have a habit of giving the man a hard time, with the woman repeatedly warning that he has "no chance" (and given their circumstances, he's not looking for one). The teenager acts like a younger kid much of the time, and even given the scary situation they're in, she complains way too much, questioning the adults over and over about the reasons for their plans. Both females get freaked any time there's a chance the guy will see them undress. My own thought each time was, "Really, THIS is your overriding concern?" I get it that the author wanted to show that the girl is young and the woman is upset that she can't remember her past, but it was way too repetitive. Where was the editor? WAS there an editor?

But given my complaints, I have to say I zipped right through this (OK, I skimmed some parts and seem to have missed nothing consequential) and ended up liking the book way more than I expected. It really was fun.

(Made available via NetGalley).

The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America by Matt Kracht ½ 5/30/19

Not funny, not witty. Each entry is a rant in crass, foul language (and I'm not squeamish about these things). I'd normally pass this along to someone else, but it's going in the recycling, where it might do a little good. (An Early Reviewers book)

The Invention of Yesterday: A 50,000-Year History of Human Culture, Conflict, and Connection by Tamim Ansary ****½ 5/25/19

The publisher's description:
A sweeping global human history that describes the separate beginnings of the world's major cultural movements--Confucianism, Islam, Judeo-Christianity and Nomadism--and the dramatic, sometimes ruinous, sometimes transformative effects of their ever closer intertwinement that is the defining feature of our world today. And not just the movements listed in the description, but all the massive cultural movements and other variables that altered the connections between groups and therefore the sweep of human history: tools, language, geography, money, the Crusades, inventions, machines, empires and nation-states, world wars, and, finally, technology, which is moving us towards a singularity of existence.

This is not a lengthy book, but the connections it makes between distant events which effected each other (for example, the Great Wall and the pressure it put on nomadic tribes to find new targets, such as Rome) are fascinating. I was especially interested in the descriptions of how culture and geography defined the types of religions which developed and how these in turn defined the reactions to immigration/invasion.

This is not a traditional history book but an idea book, and I found something on each page to intrigue me. Very highly recommended.

(Made available on Netgalley.com.)

From Savagery to Civilization: The Power of Greek Mythology by Vincent Hannity ***½ 6/1/19 (no touchstones)

The author's intent is to show how Greek mythology describes the changes in Greek culture and thought as the civilization developed. For someone familiar with the classics this will be too basic, but it would be very useful for those preparing to read Homer, Hesiod, the Greek playwrights and the Romans for the first time or as a text for a high school or a basic college course on Greek and Roman mythology and history. It would also be a good addition in libraries serving those populations.

(Available through Netgalley)

>231 auntmarge64: This is not a lengthy book, but the connections it makes between distant events which effected each other (for example, the Great Wall and the pressure it put on nomadic tribes to find new targets, such as Rome) are fascinating

I suppose you have to think of it like an ecology. Wishlisted.

>231 auntmarge64: I’m about to wishlist that too. Sounds like maybe a book my brain has wanted. (Makes me think of that show, Connections - although that was more like oddball connections)

ETA - Just noticed the author. Really liked his Destiny Disrupted

>232 auntmarge64: This title sounds terrific, but based on your comments, I’ll pass.

>233 haydninvienna:, >234 dchaikin:. I'm glad The Invention of Yesterday appeals to you. I'd never read anything by Ansary but now I want to read more, and my library has Destiny Disrupted (yay!) and Games Without Rules, so they're on my wishlist now.

Dan, re: the book on Greek mythology, I had the same reaction: great title! But it is pretty basic. I enjoyed it, though, because my own grounding in the subject is pretty minimal and the themes discussed interested me.

The following are the first four titles in "The Murderbot Diaries" by Martha Wells. They're told in the first person by an artificial construct made of both technology and human tissue and are normally under control of a "governor module" buried deep in their bodies which controls/punishes/instructs them. The bots can think, and the governor modules keep them from murdering everyone around them. They're treated as equipment and they terrify humans, for all their usefulness in situations in which they're rented out by their owners as security. (I've referred to this character as "it", following the author, but I did think of it as "he".)

The Murderbot, as it calls itself, has managed to deactivate the governor module, although that fact is well hidden from the company which owns it and the humans who use it. But Murderbot, as it turns out, feels very protective of the humans to which it's assigned. Yes, it's a deadly weapon and has no trouble killing to protect it's clients or itself, but it finds that it doesn't want to kill everyone around it.

Murderbot is very funny, in the style of the astronaut stranded on Mars in Andy Weir's The Martian. It doesn't want to be a human, it just doesn't want to get caught. The trick is to keep secret its independence so it's memory isn't wiped. For one thing, since it's freedom it's discovered the joys of downloading whole series of "filmed" dramas and is addicted to streaming them, even when multitasking. They're not only entertaining but a wonderful trove of information on how humans act - sort of (being entertainment). Murderbot also has a habit of befriending all sorts of other artificial creatures and using their connections to help it, so they become characters in the books too.

These four are novellas, although the author has a full-length novel due out in 2020.
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All Systems Red ****



Artificial Condition ****



Rogue Protocol ****



Exit Strategy ****

>221 auntmarge64: Just now getting the news. Glad the healing is going well. I can't believe you are already back in the LT review-writing saddle. I've got carpal tunnel surgery at the end of the month, so I will regard of you as my inspiration.

>237 avaland: I'm using the old one-fingered pecking method, and boy, is it annoying. The cast keeps hitting the caps lock. I just don't want to get too far behind. 12 more days till I get my hand back.

Wishing you good luck with the surgery!

The Nail House by Gregory Baines **** 6/6/19 (No touchstones)

A young, recently divorced Australian takes a high-paying job in China with one assignment: convince an old man, the last home owner in the path of a planned high-rise, to sell his house. Lindon knows no Chinese and seems ignorant of Chinese business practices, but he gives it his best shot, and in the meantime he meets the man's soon-to-be-married daughter and falls in love with her. Complications definitely ensue.

I did wonder if it's likely Lindon would have been hired for such a job, but his white face may have been a factor. The story itself is interesting and enjoyable, but with an ending that also seemed unlikely. However, my own familiarity with Chinese ways and with the current situation on the ground there is limited, so who's to say? I can say the novella was enjoyable and stayed with me, and that's a positive result for fiction.

(Netgalley.com offering)

I hope your hand is healing, Margaret. We don't realize how much we need two hands for everything until we can't use them. Your typing looks good to me.

>240 BLBera: Thanks. It's the time it takes. Tonight, though, I'm typing with both hands to give it a try. The brace comes off next week. Stiff but doable. Almost there!

Atlantic Winds by William Prendiville ***½ 6/9/19 (no touchstones)

In a Canadian logging town, two young people meet in junior high and become a couple for the remainder of their school years. During that time they cope with rumors of mill layoffs, a bully who terrorizes the girl, and a tragedy that affects the whole town.

This novella is a fond and unhurried look at a town's life and the development of the youngsters, in particular. I really enjoyed it until the last few pages, when all of a sudden a hurried ending was tacked on to fill in the futures of the young couple. After the leisurely pace of the rest of the story, this was very jarring and kind of ruined the book for me.

(Netgalley.com offering)



Neon Prey by John Sandford ****½ 6/11/19

One of the best of the wonderful Lucas Davenport suspense novels.

The Comet Seekers by Helen Sedgwick ****½ 6/15/19

Two people meet in Antarctica and are drawn to each other, recognizing the other's struggle with loss. Róisín is a few years older, a scientist, comet fanatic, and world traveler. François is the cook on the base, long a resident of Bayeux, France, which his mother Severine would never leave, even for vacations. She has finally gotten him to agree to travel himself, and since he's always been intrigued by Antarctica, he takes this last-minute job. Cooking is his passion.

Severine's passion, on the other hand, is periodic visits from all the ghosts in her family, with whom she has a more real relationship than with François. He has never believed her about the ghosts, though, and when they appear (whenever a comet is visible in the sky), he is alternately furious, hurt and embarrassed by her attention to them. To the reader, as to Severine, the ghosts are quite real and distinct.

The story goes back and forth between comet appearances. Severine isn't the first in her family to have visits from the dead. The earliest of the ghosts is Ælfgyva, shown in the Bayeux Tapestry being attacked by a cleric. In this story she has embroidered this scene, as well as that of the comet of that time, on the tapestry.





There is also a ghost from the 16th c or so who cannot get past her anger at being burned alive and her son taken from her, because she doesn't know what happened to him and whether she has descendants.

Róisín and François slowly get to know each other, listening to each other's stories and wondering what they can do to help each other. François can't help thinking he's seen Róisín before, several times (he has). How their families' stories intertwine becomes clear toward the end.

I loved this book. It's not a ghost story in any kind of scary way, except for Severine, in front of whom the burnt ghost occasionally bursts into flames. Some reviewers found the format confusing, but I thought the comet sightings, and the characters who carry through the centuries, were perfect.

All This I Will Give to You by Dolores Redondo ****½ 6/25/19

Manuel, a writer in Madrid, is interrupted at his home by the police, coming to inform him that his husband Álvaro has been in killed in a car crash in Galicia, hundreds of miles from where he had said he'd be on business. When Manuel arrives there, he discovers that Álvaro had a life of which he had no inkling - he was a marquis and wealthy landowner, the head of his horrible birth family, and he was in Galicia taking care of a family crisis when he died in a one-car accident. Manuel finds out he is Álvaro's sole heir, much as he wants to reject it, and as angry and hurt as he is to have to find out about Álvaro this way, he decides to stay for a time to work with a retired homophobic cop who thinks Álvaro was murdered and can't let it go. The cop also thinks Álvaro's younger brother was murdered when he died three years ago. Suspects abound, and Manuel finds himself sucked into the investigation, at the same time learning to love the area and its people (not so much the family).

Addictive suspense. Redondo is also the author of a three-part suspense series I've read is just as good, but only the first book is available for Kindle so far, although all are available in print in English.

The Snakes by Sadie Jones ***** 6/30/19

An extraordinary novel about the damage and unintended consequences there can be with unlimited power and ego. Touted as commentary on the English upper class, I found it to give me my first real inkling of what growing up as a child of Donald Trump must have been like, and I finally managed to identify the expression I see on each of his kids whenever they're shown: shock. That vacancy they show, those uncertain eyes: trapped animals with no hope of escape. There were moments in this when I thought I wouldn't be able to continue, it produced so much anxiety in me.

On the surface, this is a story about a young married couple in London, she from a well-off family she can't abide and he from a loving, though poor, single-parent family. Bea is a psychotherapist and makes the salary of a typical public servant. Dan wants to be an artist but his drive has been lost in the endless pointless days he spends as a run-of-the-mill real estate agent. He knows Bea has a trust fund of some sort that could help them, but she won't touch it. He's met her parents only once, and they weren't invited to the wedding.

Bea decides they should take their meager savings, rent out the flat, and travel in Europe for a few months to see if Dan can get back his artist self. Their first stop is a French country inn run by the only relative with whom she has voluntary relations: her brother Alex, older but always fragile, a drug addict who's fairly unstable. The inn is a shambles, and although Alex has great intentions of fixing it up, in two years he's gotten nowhere. Dan is appalled, Bea is just loving, understanding that this is way past anything Alex can handle. Dan doesn't understand, and neither does the reader - yet.

And then the parents arrive. The mother is addicted to pills and alcohol and has a long-term unhealthy, shall we say, relationship with Alex. The father is Donald Trump personified: bombastic, bullying, greedy, completely selfish, unconcerned with others' feelings, a billionaire with no need to ever think about consequences. He's bought himself out of all legal tangles and court cases and feels invincible. He does whatever it takes for the people around him to do what he wants: if necessary, soul-scarring emotional blackmail, especially with Bea and Alex. He preys on her insecurities and preys on his son-in-law's shock at how wealthy the family really is and the constant financial worries he's faced all his life. It's simply stunning. The father can't tolerate "no" for an answer on anything, not even from his kids.

And then tragedy strikes, and the family must cope with a burgeoning death inquiry by opaque French police. Without answers, the family begins to fall apart. And all those big and little emotional scars work together to bring the family to a shocking finale that definitely was NOT one that I had among my list of possibilities.

Days later, I still can't get it out of my head, especially when I see those Trump kids.

Just want to say I'm more or less absent from LT lately, although I am at least trying to keep up with my reviews. My baby sister is quite ill, and we've been discussing hospice, and I'm afraid I'm just unable to connect with what everyone else is doing. I hope everyone is OK, and I'll check in when I can.

Don't know how long this will go on, but I will be back at some point and looking for new book reviews from all of you.

I’m so sorry Margaret.

Oh, I'm so sorry to hear. Take care.

Real life does take over sometimes. I wish you and your family well.

Thanks, everyone.
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The Therapist by Nial Giacomelli ***½ 7/3/19 (No touchstones)

This novella is hard to pigeon-hole. On it's surface it's about two on-going events: a couple suffers through the loss of their 6-year old son and, at the wife's urging, begins to see a strange marriage counselor some distance into the country from where they live in Chicago. Meanwhile, a bizarre plague has broken out in Oregon, killing rapidly after a day or two of strange mental activity, at which point the body sheds first its skin, then bones and nerves, and finally disappears. While barely managing to go on with the their lives, the couple watch on the news as the plague moves across the country.

The story is told from the husband's perspective. There are indications that not everything he perceives is real, or occurring during his waking hours. Normally, this kind of plot might deter me from reading the book, but I found the story compelling, all the while wondering if the husband himself was sick and hallucinating the whole thing. I never did figure out exactly what was going on, but in the end that didn't detract from my enjoyment of the tale, so I'd have to definitely recommend it.

(Made available on Netgalley.com)

Sorry to hear, M, wishing you well with everything.

>251 dchaikin: Thanks, Dan. Hoping to get back soon.

I'll keep you in my thoughts, Margaret. Hospice was a wonderful support when it was needed for my mother and I hope it will be as strong a help to you and your family. Take care of yourself.

I'm glad you liked The Snakes. I hadn't seen the parallels to the Trumps, but that does add another layer to it.

>253 RidgewayGirl: Thanks, Kay.

I've had some experience with hospice (both parents), but my sister is probably not quite as close as they were when we got them in. For her, though, an early intervention would allow her to stay at home, which is what we all want, and I'm trying to convince the concerned parties that as much as they don't want to do it, the alternative may be disaster for her. So, fingers crossed. All I can do in this case is offer my perspective and the facts I've collected.

And you're probably the person who turned me on to The Snakes. Good call!

I'm very sorry to hear about your sister's condition, Margaret.

I'm so sorry to hear about your sister, Margaret. Good luck. My thoughts are with you and your family.

You have managed some great reading.

>255 kidzdoc:, >256 BLBera: Thanks for the good wishes. I'd forgotten how exhausting this can be, and I just hope my BIL can hold out. He works from home except when I go there for the day, and he does literally everything: shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry. I have a feeling they're not ready to admit hospice is necessary, but they see her cardiologist on Monday and I'm hoping he'll give her a reality check on her situation. They've been in it for so long I don't think they can look at things objectively. Well, it's not my decision - I just have to support them in whatever that decision turns out to be.

And I am indeed getting some good reading done. It's nice to have one thing be normal!

>243 auntmarge64: Have noted that particular book.

>246 auntmarge64: Only just getting over here. You are in my thoughts. It's a tough situation; I'm glad you are there for them both and I'm glad you are finding a kind of anchor in books.

Hello Marge! I hope all is well with you.

I am enjoying Jeffery Deaver's new book The Never Game. It has a fresh take on missing persons investigation and the new character has a fascinating backstory. Recommended.

>258 avaland: Hi Lois - Thanks for the thoughts. The books really are an anchor.

>259 brodiew2: Brodie, I'll check out the Deaver book. Thanks!

The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh ***** 7/17/19

Three disparate characters meet in the Sundarbans, the swampy Bay of Bengal mangrove forest at the confluence of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna Rivers. A young cetologist, originally from India but raised in the U.S., has come to see if she can find remnants of a dolphin population long thought gone from the area. She develops friendships with a local fisherman who seems to have an instinct for the waters and their wildlife (but speaks no English) and with a New Delhi-based linguist who is visiting in the area and agrees to serve as a translator.

The plot is developed in ways that give the author a wide opportunity for exploring the natural and human history of the area, and there is a huge amount of information Westerners will normally not have run across. Although some of the locations mentioned are fictional, much of the historical information is based on real events and real locations. The story is packed with background material, sometimes seeming a little forced into the storyline, but overall the reader will walk away satisfied with a good story and a comprehensive introduction to a little-known part of the world.

This is the first work by Ghosh I've read but it won't be the last, that's for sure.

Margaret- Prayers for you and your family.

Nice review of The Hungry Tide, Margaret. I'll have to move it higher up my TBR list.

>261 auntmarge64: I loved this book when I read it back when it first came out. I still have his trilogy unread on my shelves.

>262 mnleona: Thanks so much!

>263 kidzdoc: I'll watch for your review, Darryl. Have you read others by him?

>264 avaland: Lois, I looked at the trilogy, but historical fiction isn't usually my cup of tea. I'm not sure whether to pick it up or not. Maybe after I've read some others.

Speak No Evil by Uzodinma Iweala ***½ 7/23/19

A high school senior in Washington, DC, whose father is from Nigeria, is discovered by his strict father to be homosexual, and the boy is forced to travel to Nigeria for a church cleansing. Wanting to please his parents, and fearful of the spiritual repercussions of a lifestyle he's been taught is a terrible sin, he tries his best to forget his crushes and urges. He drops his best friend, the only non-family member who knows he's gay and who is unintentionally responsible for the father finding out, and at his minister's direction he tries to "act like a man", joining other boys in judging women, bragging about conquests, and generally being macho. But the psychological strain is enormous and brings about catastrophic consequences for himself, his family, and his best friend.

I thought the self-realization process was particularly well-handled.

>265 auntmarge64: Yes. I've read the first two books in his Ibis Trilogy, Sea of Poppies and River of Smoke, which were both excellent, along with The Calcutta Chromosome, which was mediocre in comparison.

>266 auntmarge64: Nice review of Speak No Evil.

>267 kidzdoc: Thanks for the feedback, Darryl.

The Odyssey by Homer ***** 8/8/19

The wonderful new translation by Emily Wilson, easy to read and understand. But thank goodness for the intro.

It's hard to believe I never read this in high school or college. Rather than get lost in the lengthy introduction, I decided to jump ahead and begin the tale itself. I found it hard to put down and sped right through it, but by the end I was thinking, "Boy, these people were weird", so thank goodness for that intro, which I started right after finishing the main work. One of the first things mentioned is that no one in the ancient world, at any time, acted or spoke like these people. So that was one question answered. Still, I found all the weeping by both men and women really strange. It doesn't seem like the kind of detail that would be just thrown in there, so I'm thinking it might actually be the way it was.

I do think reading the story and then the introduction was a successful strategy because there are so many people, places and events mentioned that it was easier to read the intro already knowing where they fit rather than trying to remember all the information from the intro while reading the actual work.

I'd love to give a more thoughtful review but not having learned ancient Greek, and having read no other translation, I doubt I'm knowledgeable enough to do it justice. All I can say is that for me it was a great reading experience.

Why Don't You Write My Eulogy Now So I Can Correct It?: A Mother's Suggestions by Patricia Marx ***½ 8/11/2019

If you like Roz Chast, who did the illustrations, you'll love this, too. The tone is similar and the memories are sweet and funny at the same time. Judging by their memories, it appears the writer and illustrator had similar mothers, and I certainly recognized the tone from my own childhood. Nothing like a reminder of those little admonitions and "suggestions", LOL.

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Dark Age by Pierce Brown ***** 8/15/19

Book 5 in the Red Rising space opera series. I started reading the series because the first few books took place on Mars. Since then it's expanded out to include much of the solar system, but it's still a great tale. You do need to start with book one, though: Red Rising.

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Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips ***½ 8/21/19

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Golden State by Ben H. Winters ***½ 8/25/19

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Good Girl, Bad Girl by Michael Robotham **** 8/28/19

His Favorites by Kate Walbert ***½ 8/30/19

This brief novel is what I would call impressionistic: dreamy descriptions that never really give a comprehensive description of what happens. There seems like there should be a point to the tale, a conclusion, a dramatic scene to bring it all together, but there never is. It's like trying to find the details of a battle in a typical Turner sea painting - there's drama, but it's obscure, a matter of how it "feels" rather than a clear depiction. Not my cup of tea, although the writing itself is atmospheric and clearly the work of a talented author. (I do like Turner, though.)

>270 auntmarge64: Is that one of his mysteries? My old boss at the bookstore loved him and was always trying to get me to read his stuff. Any good?

>271 auntmarge64: I have an arc of that kicking around here somewhere. Love your review of it!

>270 auntmarge64: Between your list and ridgeway girls review, Disappearing earth is going on my library hold list.

I finally got around to reading The Strange Bird and I gave it 5 stars. I was completely entranced by it and may have liked it better than Borne, although I doubt it's fair to compare novel and a connected novella. I have been a VanderMeer fans since his Veniss Underground (2003). I hosted him & Ann at the bookstore in the early otts, the crowd was pitifully small back then, but we talked books and traded recommendations. They both recommended Clare Dudman... (just saying'...)

Margaret, I enjoyed your comments on The Odyssey. I listened to it after reading it in high school, and appreciated it much more.

One of my professors once told us to never read the intro before reading the work, and I have found that to be good advice over the years.

Golden State is on my list, and I did enjoy Disappearing Earth as well.

>272 avaland:, >274 avaland: - Hi Lois, I love Van der Meer too, although I preferred Borne, as I recall. But I'd read just about anything he wrote. Thanks for the heads-up on Clare Dudman. I'll check her out. Have you read anything by her?

re: Good Girl, Bad Girl by Robotham - I think it's probably the first in a new mystery/suspense series (hopefully!) The main character is described as a student of Joe O'Loughlin's, the psychologist at the center of most of the earlier books. I've read almost all his titles, so, yes - a favorite author of mine.

re: His Favorites - I didn't really enjoy this, but you might. It's that kind of book. I thought when I first read your response it said you like that kind of book, but now it doesn't. I could be misremembering, though. Anyway, if you do like dreamy books in which plot takes a very secondary place to atmosphere, this might be for you.

>273 markon: Hi Ardene - Disappearing Earth is most interesting for the locale, as unfamiliar as it is to Westerners. It's no wonder, too - it's almost inaccessible except by plane or boat, and it's sparsely populated. Both native and Russian characters populate the book, and the land itself is prominent as a character, too. Worth reading just for that aspect, I think.

>275 BLBera: Beth, I really valued that method while reading Odyssey. Do you find it useful primarily for literature or for non-fiction, too?

>269 auntmarge64: nice to see this pop up here. And it’s nice to stumble into a book blind. Lately i’m adverse to it, but the idea still appeals. Trying to remember all the weeping. Also, curious about Emily Wilson’s translation.

>279 dchaikin: Hi Dan! I hope to be able to start following other threads again soon, and yours is one of those at the top of the list.

I wonder if Wilson used the term weeping but other translators saw a different way to express the characters' emotions. Hadn't thought of that.

The Churchgoer by Patrick Coleman ****½ 9/4/19

This turned out to be an unexpected pleasure for me. I rarely read books that discuss characters who are struggling with their Christian belief, and I'm not really sure why I requested it, but it was wonderful.

When youth pastor Mark Haines' sister killed herself to settle the existence of God for herself, Mark had a breakdown and turned to alcohol, eventually living on the street. That was 15 years ago. Now he's sober, lives in a small house in a California beach town, works as a watchman, and spends his free time surfing. He and his ex are in touch in a friendly brother-and-sister way, but his daughter, who witnessed his own suicide attempt as a young child, now has a child of her own and wants nothing to do with him. One day he allows himself to be conned out of a free breakfast by a young woman who then asks if she can stay at his place for a night or two. Neither trusts the other, but they make it through and then she disappears, reappearing a year later among the beach crowd before disappearing again. Mark becomes obsessed with finding her and making sure she's OK, seeing her safety as one way to bring himself a little redemption. What he stumbles into brings back all the memories of his sister, his pastoral years, and, inevitably, his own struggle with belief. As he follows clues through the drug trade and through the megachurch community, he begins to make sense of his own history and his own role in a megachurch-in-the-making.

Mark's voice rings very true, and he does not back down from examining the most difficult questions about his past. There is quite a bit of suspense in the plot, but the focus is on Mark's inner life. Highly recommended.

(Made available through Netgalley.)

>281 auntmarge64: I really, really liked The Churchgoer and even several months after reading it, I'm still thinking about it. I'm glad you liked it, too, as it deserves a wider readership. If nothing else, it's an excellent noir.

>282 RidgewayGirl: I just went and read your excellent review of The Churchgoer and agree with you: this should have a larger audience. And I had the same reaction: I started tentatively and was hooked within a few pages.

>281 auntmarge64: I like novels about people wrestling with faith and belief systems of different sorts, so this one's definitely noted. Thanks.

>284 lisapeet: Do hope you enjoy it!

Small Silent Things by Robin Page ***½ 9/10/19

In Southern California, two survivors, one of extensive psychological and physical abuse during her childhood, the other a Rwandan refugee who saw his daughter kidnapped, his wife raped and driven from him, and his entire extended family slaughtered. These people are neighbors in an upscale condo building and have never met before, but their pasts have come back to haunt them, and when they meet accidentally they start a friendship that helps them both. Jocelyn is now married with a 6-year old daughter and a wealthy, controlling husband. News of her mother's death, which should have released her, has instead brought her close to a breakdown, and a major part of her story here is her inner life as she tries to find a way to survive yet again. Simon, a world-renowned landscape architect, has also received a shock: a letter from a woman who thinks she may be his daughter, now an adult living in Boston and pregnant with her first child.

These two struggles should have been enough to provide a dramatic and psychologically intense plot, but unfortunately the author decided to throw in a third major plot development: an affair between Jocelyn and her tennis coach. The fact that the coach is a woman isn't the problem here - it's that most of the latter scenes involving Jocelyn detail their sexual trysts in great detail. Some readers may find this entertaining, but such extensive and explicit scenes are not what I enjoy reading, and I thought it was unnecessary in this context. Partly because of this I found Simon's story more compelling.

The Hills Reply by Tarjei Vesaas **** 9/15/19

Earlier this year I read Vesaas's novels The Birds and the Ice Palace, each of which I gave 5 stars. This collection of short fiction is more difficult to categorize and to read. Some of the stories are seemingly without a plot, with just a wash of feelings and impressions. Others have some plot, but only as a hook on which to hang descriptions of landscapes, dreams, and feelings. One story in particular affected me, that of a suicidal man who lets himself be lured by reflections to fall into a river and sink. He soon finds that dying isn't as easy as he thought it would be, and he struggles to stay afloat, holding on to a fallen branch, slowly losing strength, sinking further and further into hallucinations as he drifts down the river. The description of what he thinks he experiences is mysterious and moving.

All-in-all, this is a book that needs just the right audience. It wouldn't be my first choice as an introduction to Vessas, but there are those readers who will delight in the sparse, impressionistic writing. (Hello, Avaland?)

Phantoms by Christian Kiefer ***** 9/25/19

An unforgettable story about fate, betrayal, and culpability.

John Frazier, a young recently-returned Vietnam vet, is struggling with addiction and guilt for his part in the war. He stumbles across the story of another vet, Ray Takahashi, a Japanese-American sergeant who was allowed to fight on the European front during WWII and who then disappeared after returning to his hometown (John's hometown, also). (The area in question, Placer County, California, was in real life glad to see their Japanese fellows bused away to concentration camps and then actively discouraged from returning.) John is approached by a distant relative of his, a woman at the center of Ray's fate, and becomes involved in piecing together what happened that fateful day when Ray walked back into the life of the town from which his family had been forcibly displaced and imprisoned for the war's duration.

A mystery, a study of friendships and racial tension, and a story of a soldier looking for a way to return to a civilian life. Beautifully written and very highly recommended.

Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century by Charles King ***** 9/28/19

Franz Boas, a German transplant to the U.S. in the late 19th century, changed the way America thought of race. Isn't that a remarkable achievement? Rejecting scientific racism (race as a biological concept), he designed studies that showed that at least some physical characteristics thought to be racially-determined were variable, dependent on health and nutrition, among other things, and that differences in behavior previously blamed on "race" were often the effect of social learning.

Boas began writing, and then teaching, the theory of cultural relativism, "which holds that cultures cannot be objectively ranked as higher or lower, or better or more correct, but that all humans see the world through the lens of their own culture, and judge it according to their own culturally acquired norms." (Wikipedia)

His students (most famously Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, and Zora Neale Hurston) spread out into the world, studying isolated cultures and even their own cultures, and opening new departments of anthropology in far-flung universities. Their bestselling books spread the concepts they'd learned and reinforced with their immersion in unfamiliar societies, and as time went on even U.S. policy towards race was affected (Brown v. Board of Ed, for instance).

Here Boas and his students are given in-depth treatments of their lives, anthropological forays, writings, and theories. The book covers the period until shortly after WWII, at which point American theorists and policy makers started to look back in fondness to the days when white was best and the acceptance of difference frowned on as inferior, immoral, or just wrong.

One startling thought that came to me while reading this is that if "Jew" were substituted for "black" in every record of a racial atrocity in American history, those atrocities would be seen in a much different light by the average American. The Holocaust seems so very unthinkable, and yet treatment of slaves, lynchings, and Jim Crow have never raised the fury of the world in the way the Holocaust did. There's also a discussion of what a culture is, exactly, and this, too, strikes home for Americans. Black American culture has traditionally been seen as a corrupted African heritage erased further by the surrounding white culture. Hurston, in particular, was struck by the insight that American blacks have a cultural present, not a corrupted cultural past. I'll be the first to admit I detest the bastardization of English prevalent in some communities, and I loathe rap, but perhaps I need to accept these as aspects of someone else's culture, not just irritating changes to my own.

The author points out other disconcerting facts:
- Between the wars "the Germans were working diligently to understand how the United Stats had gotten racism so right. In 1935, when the Nazi government passed its own race legislation, the so-called Nuremberg Laws, the new statutes rested on years of careful study of the "US model," as Nazi officials called it. The difference, of course, was that Jews replaced African Americans as the object of fear." (Although the "one-drop rule", which the U.S. used to define a black person, was considered unworkable with the Jews in Europe.)
- In 1922 the Married Women's Act revoked the citizenship of American females who married foreign males who were ineligible for citizenship because of race or national origin (read: nonwhite foreign men). So in case you're thinking Trump can't revoke the citizenship of a native-born, think again. There's precedent.

And there is so much more here. Highly, highly recommended.

>289 auntmarge64: I have this book in the pile to read. It had a stellar review in PW so I picked it up upon publication.

>289 auntmarge64: As the daughter of an anthropologist who worked in the 1950s through ‘70s, some of that with Margaret Mead, I’m got to read this one.

>290 avaland: I think you'll really like it!

>291 lisapeet: That's a great legacy to have. Mom or Dad? And where did they work?

>289 auntmarge64: I keep running in to this book and now I know why. Thanks for your thoughtful review - I'll now be looking for a copy of my own.

>292 auntmarge64: My dad—he worked at a few different institutions but for most of his career at Rutgers in NJ and University of Pennsylvania. I have a silver baby cup inscribed to me from Margaret Mead! He would have been at the University of Chicago then.

>289 auntmarge64: added to my audible wishlist.

>294 lisapeet: that’s cool, Lisa.

>294 lisapeet: That IS cool!

>294 lisapeet: Ditto, ditto, ditto - VERY cool!

>295 dchaikin: >296 avaland: >297 auntmarge64: Thanks! I need to find the silver polish and buff that thing up. I have a baby spoon that needs the same... people don’t do that anymore, do they? Give inscribed baby cups and spoons and so on as a matter of middle-class course? Maybe Tiffany shopping folks still do, but I feel like that kind of wound up with my generation (I’m mid-50s).

>298 lisapeet: You're right, that seems to have died off. If you get a chance, send a pick.

>278 auntmarge64: I think it works best for fiction, Margaret, but it could depend on the nonfiction.

Some great reading here. I've added The Churchgoer to my list. As you stated, I probably wouldn't normally pick up a book about a crisis of faith.

I've added Vesaas to my list of authors to explore as well. So many books!

>300 BLBera: Looking forward to what you think of The Churchgoer and Vesaas!

Infinite Tides by Christian Kiefer **** 10/11/19

A character study of genius, grief, hitting bottom, and finding a way back.

Mathematical superstar Keith Corcoran has finally reached his goal of becoming an astronaut, but while assigned to the space station he receives word that his teenaged daughter has died. He is subsequently incapacitated by the first of many crippling migraines, but for various reasons he cannot be returned to Earth for months. During that time he's unable to do most of his work while, back on Earth, his wife leaves him and removes the contents of their home, leaving it for him to sell. His return, and how he copes with his grief and forced time off, forms the story.

Keith arrives home to find that his wife has, except for Keith's clothes and a couch, a bed, and a small TV, literally emptied the house. Still grieving his daughter's death, unsure if he'll ever be able to be an astronaut again, and with no confidant, he spends weeks alone, remembering and feeling guilty over his absence from his daughters life. He spends many days reading the paper at a local Starbucks, where one day he is approached by the boisterous Peter, a Ukranian immigrant who turns out to be his neighbor. Slowly they become friends, opening up about their individual pain. Peter was an un-degreed assistant astronomer at home, but here he can find work only as a stock clerk and is depressed and considering returning home. His wife, a delightful woman thoroughly in love with her husband, encourages the friendship as healthy for both men and tries to find ways to bring Keith into their family circle. As the months go by, Keith hits bottom emotionally, but then gradually turns a corner with help from Peter and family. Peter also finds a way forward that will make the move to the U.S. rewarding for him.

Because it's told from the POV of an emotionally isolated man in the midst of grieving, not really able to focus on the problem, this is a slow story to develop, but I couldn't quite stop reading it, and eventually it reeled me in. Definitely recommended.

>299 auntmarge64: That'll give me some motivation to clean it up...

The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld **** 10/19/19

Very entertaining suspense and seemingly the beginning of a new series.

Naomi Cottle is a survivor of child kidnapping and abuse, although she remembers very little from before her escape at age 9. Now in her late 20s, she is known to police as "The Child Finder", having an intuitive method of following clues in child kidnappings that the police have been unable to solve. Although she sometimes finds live children and sometimes dead, she has an astonishing success rate.

Naomi is asked by a rural Oregon couple to look into the three-year-long kidnapping of their 5 year old, Madison, who wandered away from the parents to explore the snowy woods when they went Christmas tree hunting. Presumed dead from hypothernia, Madison is, however, still alive, and her story is intertwined with Naomi's search for her, making for a chilling tale of two survivors. Sexual abuse is clear here, and I did find it unsettling, especially Madison's survival response in the presence of her kidnapper. But I also liked the book very much, and the sequel is already on my request list at the library.

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The All of It by Jeannette Haien **** 10/20/19

A short, sweet tale of a rural Irish priest who discovers that sometimes his faith doesn't give clear answers for all that happens to his parishioners. When a member of his flock dies, the widow, Enda, tells Father Declan an astonishing story of their life together, forcing Declan to rethink some of the certainties upon which he has always relied. Delightful.

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Lost Boy, Lost Girl by Peter Straub **** 11/1/19

Blue Moon by Lee Child ****
The Butterfly Girl by Rene Denfield ***½
The Drowned World by J. G. Ballard **½
The Night Fire by Michael Connelly ****½
Not on Fire, but Burning: A Novel by Greg Hrbek ****½
A Dream in Polar Fog by Juri Rytcheu ****
Hild by Nicola Griffith *****
The Body in Question by Jill Ciment **

Hello Marge. I hope all is well with you.

>281 auntmarge64: sounds intriguing. However, I try to avoid books that attempt to subvert my Christian faith. This sounds like it doesn't do that, but takes an honest approach. Am I getting that right?

Not reading much, but finished Dune on audio last month. I had never 'read' it. More ponderous than that movies make out. Thought there is action in the book, it feels few and far between. The world building and explanation of Paul's identity as Messiah slowed it way down. I get the achievement, but I found it plodding.

>305 brodiew2: Hi Brody. I'd say The Churchgoer is noncommittal about Christianity but somewhat negative towards megachurches.