RidgewayGirl Reads in 2022, Second Quarter

I moved into a new house a month ago and I'm still unpacking! The house is old and lovely and we're still discovering new details every day. It was the boyhood home of Adlai Stevenson and even has a (very short) wikipedia entry.



This picture was pulled from the internet. Spring has not yet arrived in Illinois.

As for reading plans, I currently commit to nothing.



Currently Reading



Recently Read



Recently Acquired

First Quarter Reading

January
1. The Dry by Jane Harper
2. The Bed I Made by Lucie Whitehouse
3. The Family Chao by Lan Samantha Chang
4. Mercy Street by Jennifer Haigh
5. Self Care by Leigh Stein
6. Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
7. In Concrete by Anne Garréta, translated from the French by Emma Ramadan
8. The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James
9. Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke

February
1. Joan is Okay by Weike Wang
2. Matrix by Lauren Groff
3. Subdivision by J. Robert Lennon
4. The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki
5. The Cutting Room by Louise Welsh

March
1. Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart
2. The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
3. Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge
4. Nervous System by Lina Meruane, translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell
5. The Fell by Sarah Moss
6. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
7. My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones
8. The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

Second Quarter Reading

April

1. And I Do Not Forgive You: Stories and Other Revenges by Amber Spark
2. Ocean State by Stewart O'Nan
3. The Second Cut by Louise Welsh
4. Vladimir by Julia May Jonas
5. Travelers Rest by Keith Lee Morris
6. The Berlin Exchange by Joseph Kanon
7. Slow Horses by Mick Herron

May

1. Likes by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum
2. Broken Glass Park by Alina Bronsky, translated from the German by Tim Mohr
3. Woman of Light by Kali Fajardo-Anstine
4. Who is Maud Dixon? by Alexandra Andrews
5. Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
6. Sleepwalk by Dan Chaon
7. French Braid by Anne Tyler
8. Seasons of Purgatory by Shahriar Mandanipour, translated from the Persian by Sara Khalili
9. Mrs. March by Virginia Feito

June

1. Paris Never Leaves You by Ellen Feldman
2. The Candy House by Jennifer Egan
3. Devil House by John Darnielle
4. Don't Know Tough by Eli Cranor
5. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
6. Straight From the Horse's Mouth by Meryem Alaoui, translated from the French by Emma Ramadan
7. Either/Or by Elif Batuman
8. Cities I've Never Lived In by Sara Majka
9. Bitter Orange Tree by Jokha Alharthi, translated from the Arabic by Marilyn Booth

The Lists

Books by Author's Nationality

Australia
Jane Harper (The Dry) (country of residence)

Britain
Jane Harper (The Dry) (country of birth)
Mick Herron (Slow Horses)
Sarah Moss (The Fell)
Louise Welsh (The Cutting Room, The Second Cut)
Lucie Whitehouse (The Bed I Made)

Chile
Lina Meruane (Nervous System)

China
Weike Wang (Joan is Okay) (country of birth)

Cyprus
Alex Michaelides (The Maidens)

France
Anne Garréta (In Concrete)

Germany
Alina Bronsky (Broken Glass Park) (country of residence)

Iran
Shahriar Mandanipour (Seasons of Purgatory)

Ireland
Sally Rooney (Beautiful World, Where Are You)

Morocco
Meryem Alaoui (Straight From the Horse's Mouth)

Oman
Jokha Alharthi (Bitter Orange Tree)

Russia
Alina Bronsky (Broken Glass Park) (country of birth)
Gary Shteyngart (Our Country Friends) (country of birth)

Spain
Virginia Feito (Mrs. March)

United States
Alexandra Andrews (Who is Maud Dixon?)
Elif Batuman (Either/Or)
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum (Likes)
Lan Samantha Chang (The Family Chao)
Dan Chaon (Sleepwalk)
Eli Cranor (Don't Know Tough)
John Darnielle (Devil House)
Anthony Doerr (Cloud Cuckoo Land)
Jennifer Egan (The Candy House)
Louise Erdrich (The Sentence)
Kali Fajardo-Anstine (Woman of Light)
Ellen Feldman (Paris Never Leaves You)
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
Kaitlyn Greenidge (Libertie)
Lauren Groff (Matrix)
Jennifer Haigh (Mercy Street)
Julia May Jonas (Vladimir)
Stephen Graham Jones (My Heart is a Chainsaw)
Joseph Kanon (The Berlin Exchange)
J. Robert Lennon (Subdivision)
Sara Majka (Cities I've Never Lived In)
Keith Lee Morris (Travelers Rest)
Stewart O'Nan (Ocean State)
Ruth Ozeki (The Book of Form and Emptiness)
Gary Shteyngart (Our Country Friends) (country of residence)
Amber Sparks (And I Do Not Forgive You: Stories and Other Revenges)
Leigh Stein (Self Care)
Simone St. James (The Sun Down Motel)
Anne Tyler (French Braid)
Weike Wang (Joan is Okay) (country of residence)
Isabel Wilkerson (The Warmth of Other Suns)

Books by Year of Publication

2002
The Cutting Room by Louise Welsh

2010
The Bed I Made by Lucie Whitehouse
Broken Glass Park by Alina Bronsky
Slow Horses by Mick Herron
The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

2016
Bitter Orange Tree by Jokha Alharthi
Cities I've Never Lived In by Sara Majka
The Dry by Jane Harper
Travelers Rest by Keith Lee Morris

2017
In Concrete by Anne Garréta

2018
Straight From the Horse's Mouth by Meryem Alaoui

2020
Likes by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum
Paris Never Leaves You by Ellen Feldman
Self Care by Leigh Stein
The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James

2021
And I Do Not Forgive You: Stories and Other Revenges by Amber Sparks
Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
Don't Know Tough by Eli Cranor
Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge
The Maidens by Alex Michaelides
Matrix by Lauren Groff
Mrs. March by Virginia Feito
My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones
Nervous System by Lina Meruane
Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart
The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
Subdivision by J. Robert Lennon
Who is Maud Dixon? by Alexandra Andrews

2022
The Berlin Exchange by Joseph Kanon
The Candy House by Jennifer Egan
Devil House by John Darnielle
Either/Or by Elif Batuman
The Family Chao by Lan Samantha Chang
The Fell by Sarah Moss
French Braid by Anne Tyler
Joan is Okay by Weike Wang
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Mercy Street by Jennifer Haigh
Ocean State by Stewart O'Nan
Season of Purgatory by Shahriar Mandanipour
The Second Cut by Louise Welsh
Sleepwalk by Dan Chaon
Vladimir by Julia May Jonas
Woman of Light by Kali Fajardo-Anstine

The new thread is officially open. Happy Spring everyone.

Beautiful new thread, Kay. I may plagiarize how you organize your "books by author's nationality" section. I have only been tallying totals. I like how you include the author's name. I have never tracked my reading by publication date, but there is an LT graph in my stats that I could check. Such interesting reading, and I am looking forward to more house and garden news and photos.

>9 labfs39: Lisa, I'll start posting photos as soon as the boxes are gone.

Happy new thread, Kay. Good luck with the unpacking. I am anxious to see pictures of the house. Spring is not quite here yet, but I am hopeful.

Stopping by your new thread. Your new house is really cute.

Oh my - just LOVE your new home. Wow.

>11 BLBera: I'm hopeful, too, Beth. It's a beautiful day today, which is welcome after several days of chilly rain.

>12 dchaikin: Thanks, Dan. The floors are creaky and yesterday we figured out how to use the picture rail to hang pictures from. It's an adventure.

>13 AlisonY: Alison, it's not as old as many houses where you are, but for the middle of the US, it's elderly. This neighborhood is in the middle of town and the houses are almost entirely built before 1930, with a fun assortment of styles and sizes.

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson is both a thorough and meticulous account of the millions of Black Americans who fled the South, from the end of the First World War until the 1970s, for the greater opportunities and freedoms promised by cities in the north and west. Those opportunities were not without risks and racism was embedded in the states outside of the Jim Crow South, just in different ways, but there was the hope of a better, less constrained life and the migrants were willing to work hard to make a place for themselves.

While this is a sizable book, it reads surprisingly quickly. Wilkerson used the lives of three individuals as stand-ins for the larger experience, making the book read almost like a novel. I was deeply invested in the lives of Ida Mae, George and Robert. There's a reason this book won so many awards and I'll grab a copy of Wilkerson's latest book, Caste, as soon as possible.

Gorgeous house, Kay! Does it come with a ride-on mower? And what does it say about me that that's my first questions?

>15 RidgewayGirl: Agreed about The Warmth of Other Suns—it goes down easily. She and Patrick Radden Keefe are the two long-form journalists I read in the past year who both did that and made it look easy.

>16 lisapeet: No, but that's not my problem. Word is that we'll need to buy a snow blower sometime before next winter. The yard has been kind of left to itself for a few years, so the nice man who came by the house a few weeks ago with his card spent today removing a large quantity of leaves and will finish up tomorrow. It now looks quite nice, with bulbs coming up all over, and the Siberian Squill in bloom in wide swathes in front and back.

Lisa, did you read Empire of Pain? I'm considering that one.

>17 RidgewayGirl: Heh, I always assume everyone else is like me and does everything themselves... I look at pictures of those English manor houses and think, "Gee, they must spend a lot of time vacuuming."

I did read Empire of Pain and thought it was excellent. Also Say Nothing—I recommend them both.

>19 RidgewayGirl: Lawn care is my husband's wheelhouse (he has opinions on grass varieties, which baffles me), but he's so busy right now and there were years worth of dead leaves and branches making the place look derelict. It now looks ready for spring.

Say Nothing was fantastic. I'd wondered about the other and if it held the same narrative momentum though.

(>18 lisapeet: I should probably amend that, lest it sounds like I'm bragging, to "I always assume everyone else is like me and does everything themselves, often completely unnecessarily.")

>20 lisapeet: No, I agree with you. There is still paint in my hair from painting the bedroom. I am, however, getting someone in to paint the dining room and kitchen - there is far too much old wood in there to risk having it ruined by an amateur (not to mention the high ceilings).

>19 RidgewayGirl: I'm with your husband. Plant the wrong grass variety and it will never work. Agriculture faculties have whole departments devoted to turf grass research!

Jade has learned to lean into being the scary girl, the one who smokes and is obsessed with slasher films, the one who stands on her own off to the side with a disdainful expression on her face. In the small mountain town in Idaho where she grew up, she stands out. But just around time for her to graduate from high school and leave the town of Proofrock behind her forever, things start to happen, things that only Jade can see are linked together, very bad things. And now she has to try to prepare people for what is coming, from the new girl Jade recognizes as a "final girl," to the chief of police, to the retiring high school history teacher who is the closest thing she has to a friend. But just knowing bad things are happening is not enough to stop them sometimes.

My Heart is a Chainsaw is the first of a trilogy by Stephen Graham Jones and the author's homage to the slasher movies of the seventies and eighties (with more than a few shout-outs to the Scream franchise). It's certainly a testament to both Jones's writing and his sheer enthusiasm that I happily kept turning pages despite how much slasher films bore me. Jade is both a delightful character and a dark one and the way Jones kept the tone of the novel flipping between lightness and horror was engaging.

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides is marketed as a literary thriller and beyond being set in Cambridge, I can't figure out how they decided that was a good idea. Everything other than the setting and the degrees held by several characters, is a run-of-the-mill mystery and is predictably written, predictably plotted, predictably structured, and with the predictable characters. If that's what you're in the mood for, enjoy it, but I didn't love the bait and switch that had me picking up a copy, in hardcover no less, with the expectation of at least being mildly entertained.

>24 RidgewayGirl: I felt exactly the same about this author's first book, The Silent Patient. So poorly written and so predictable, but people loved it.

>25 Cariola: It's mystifying!

...hope is the thing with feathers, and I have always been allergic to down.

And I Do Not Forgive You: Stories and Other Revenges by Amber Sparks is a wonderful collection of short stories, each one different from the other. From clever stories like In Which Athena Designs a Video Game with the Express Purpose of Trolling her father to the poignant Mildly Unhappy, with Moments of Joy, where a woman loses her best friend and doesn't understand why, Sparks uses fairy tales, references to mythology or supernatural elements in her writing. I really liked her writing style and how well Sparks manages to combine an offbeat sense of humor with moments of genuine heart.

>27 RidgewayGirl: Hmmm. Intriguing.

Ocean State by Stewart O'Nan begins with the ending; a girl talking about how her sister went to prison for her part in the murder of a teenage girl. From there, O'Nan returns to the beginning, telling the story from the point-of-view of the younger sister and of the murdered girl. O'Nan's a good enough writer to take all of the tension out of the story from the first page and still write a well-paced novel, although I think that the novels he writes that are based on issues are less strong or memorable than the novels he writes about family dynamics. Ocean State managed to address economic disparity and he writes beautifully of living in a run-down rental on the outskirts of a town divided between the wealthy people with ocean view homes and those who service their needs. But this novel lacks the depth of his quieter novels, like Wish You Were Here or the perfection of Last Night at the Lobster. It's still an excellent, well-crafted novel, just not one of O'Nan's best, but then his best novels are extraordinary.

In my continued efforts to be settled into this new house, I went to the antique store the previous owner told me he'd found the little man at the end of my bannister. He is named Don Juan, but prefers the English pronunciation, please. They knew which house it was immediately after I told them that I was there because our newel post guy came from their store and the owner lives a few houses down from me. She has childhood memories of trying to cut through the backyard without the last Stevenson resident, Bunny Ives, yelling at her.



I didn't buy anything at the antiques store, but I went to a rummage sale on Saturday and came home with this chair, that fits perfectly. I'm beginning to realize that the interior decorating theme for this house is turning into "Grandma's house, only with cats."

>30 RidgewayGirl: What a great find! I like the vibe of your house very much.

Your library! That floor! The chair is perfect for that space. It sounds like you are fitting in to your neighbourhood already. Love the story of trying to cut through a neighbourhood yard; reminds me of my childhood, lol. Everyone always knew where the cranky people lived.
I've got that O'Nan book on request at my library but they haven't got it processed yet so it may still be a while. I am looking forward to it, even more so after your lovely review.

>31 lisapeet: I'm in love with this house. It's got so much history, and that history is important to this town, so I keep running into people who tell me things about the house. And I love its vibe, too.

>32 raidergirl3: The library is currently my favorite room, largely because it's the most settled in. I'll take a couple more pictures when the light is better. And the O'Nan book is good -- he's such a good writer, and observer of how people interact and I like that he understands what it means to not have a lot of money and what that means.

>30 RidgewayGirl: what a perfect reading chair!

>34 wandering_star: It's very comfortable, although my husband has suggested that it really needs an ottoman. And maybe a good reading lamp.

>35 RidgewayGirl: I'd add in a soft throw (sometimes you get a bit chilly when reading for hours without moving). Plus a butler to bring drinks and snacks.

Beautiful house. Thank you for sharing it with us!

>36 rhian_of_oz: I agree. There should be a warm throw on all chairs and sofas, along with an assortment of throw pillows for lounging purposes. Had not occurred to me to add a butler, but that seems reasonable. There are buttons in the front-of-house rooms to summon the help, but these sadly do not work anymore.



>37 labfs39: Thanks, Lisa. I'm having such fun with this place. A lot of the fun is calling different repairpeople in, but still fun.

>36 rhian_of_oz: >38 RidgewayGirl: yes, you definitely need to add a Butler, for the chair.

>30 RidgewayGirl: ok, what is that white thing on top of your bookshelf? It looks like an Egyptian god mask.

>27 RidgewayGirl:, >29 RidgewayGirl: appreciating your reviews too... >24 RidgewayGirl: and you slams.

>38 RidgewayGirl: Fixing the butler buttons is near the top of the to-do list I hope?

>39 dchaikin: I think the "white thing" is a plague doctor mask.

>30 RidgewayGirl:, >39 dchaikin: Isn't it a plague doctor mask? I think you can find them used in the Commedia dell'arte or the venetian caranival. (see here).

>40 rhian_of_oz: & >41 raton-liseur: Yes, you are both right. When I was packing up the old house, I found two plague doctor masks we'd bought in Venice a few decades ago. They had been so carefully wrapped up that they sat undiscovered for years. I also bought some lovely marbled paper on the same trip to cover them with, so that's a project for more settled times.

In The Second Cut, the long-awaited sequel to Louise Welsh's debut novel, Rilke is still working the same job at a Glasgow auction house, he's still picking up men, but using Grindr instead of wandering through parks late at night, but he's a little older and showing his age. When the auction house is offered the job of clearing a large house in the country, they jump on the chance and are even willing to ignore a few things that might give a more reputable firm pause. But as the indications that something is wrong pile up, Rilke goes digging, even as he also gets involved in settling the affairs of one of their long-time customers.

If you liked The Cutting Room, you'll like the sequel, which generally follows the same path. It was a little unclear as to when this book takes place; the world has moved on a few decades, but the characters are only a handful of years older. But that's a minor quibble, when it's such a treat to just spend more time with Rilke and Welsh's gritty, hardscrabble version of Glasgow. The Second Cut is a fantastic noir, filled with bad men, innocents led astray, dark dealings, human trafficking and, best of all, Les is still out there, living his fabulous life.

A middle-aged English professor's life is upended when her husband, chair of the department, is caught up in a #MeToo scandal. While his behavior wasn't illegal, it was opportunistic and predatory and as he waits for a hearing to find out his future, his wife, who had previously been seen as a popular and as a feminist role model, is being regarded as complicit, especially as she has not spoken out against him. And her husband is feeling hostile and hard done by, leaving her lonely and unmoored. Which is when Vladimir enters the picture, new assistant professor and author of a well-regarded novel. Friendly and eager to please, he is exactly the right man to develop a crush on, an easy distraction from unpleasant reality.

For the first two-thirds of Vladimir, I was sure that Julia May Jonas was engaging in a clever bit of bait and switch. It's a thoughtful and very well-written look at academia, at aging, at a woman having to reassess her ideas about herself, and at a marriage that was not designed to withstand pressure. I enjoyed this part of the book immensely, and was laughing to myself about how an essentially quiet book about a middle-aged woman was marketed with that cover and a misleading title when the novel exploded into an entirely different kind of thing and became anything but quiet and thoughtful. It was definitely a book that surprised me.

I appear to have broken my self-imposed book buying moratorium. While not all books have been unpacked, the bookshelves that will allow those last books to be free are sitting in my house, waiting for my husband to put them together. Close enough, I say.



Metropolitan Stories by Christine Coulson
In the Company of Men by Véronique Tadjo
Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham
Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung
A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz

>45 RidgewayGirl: Interesting mix of books. Do you have some nice bookstores in town?

>45 RidgewayGirl: I don't post a lot on your thread but enjoy lurking! Interesting reviews and I love all the new house photos. I've read In the company of men not so long ago and will be interested in your thoughts on this one when you come to it!

>44 RidgewayGirl: How misleading the cover is! I was not expecting such a review after seeing the cover. A bad marketing decision, I guess, as it might be more difficult for such a book to find the readers who would enjoy it. (And it shows how we are conditionned as well as readers or buyers...).

>46 labfs39: Lisa, there's a comics bookstore somewhere downtown and a Barnes and Noble near me, and that's it. But I was surprised at the B&N having both a very good literary fiction selection and clerks who seemed knowledgeable and had time to talk to customers. There are two other cities less than an hour away with independent bookstores and I hope to go check them out soon.

>47 raton-liseur: I don't know that it was a bad marketing decision at all -- it has generated a lot of conversation, more than the typical literary novel about a middle-aged woman in academia would.

>48 RidgewayGirl: Good point!
I would not have picked the book if I had seen it on a table in the bookstore (at least not before reading your review), but I see your point. Another proof that I would not be a good marketing adviser...

Loving the house photos, and yes - the chair is perfect. More pics please!

A small family is driving from Seattle, where they picked up Uncle Robbie from rehab, back to South Carolina. They hit a snowstorm in Idaho and pull off the interstate to spend the night in a hotel. The Travelers Rest is a grand old place, currently being renovated and the only person they meet inside is the elderly owner. Quickly things start to go wrong.

Keith Lee Morris's book starts out as a novel about the Addison family; the fractures in their relationships highlighted by the presence of Tonio's little brother, the guy who is ambivalent about living near his disapproving sibling, while being attracted to his wife. The novel quickly changes though, once they reach the isolated mountain town with its decaying hotel, into what first looks like a horror novel, and it kind of is, but not in any traditional way, as the hotel rapidly separates each family member from the others. Tonio is stuck in an endless cycle of looking for his wife in the snowstorm and sitting in a parlor with the hotel owner. His wife is trapped in a room, but not that unhappy about it. His brother thinks he's left to go drinking as a choice he made, but with each passing day, he finds himself with less and less agency. And Tonio's son is left alone in an empty, unheated hotel, being fed by the owners of the diner across the street, who may understand his situation a lot better than he thinks.

This is a novel that starts strong and seems to be going in a specific direction, but then turns into something entirely different. This is an odd book. With every character isolated from the others, it turns into several different stories running in parallel. It also takes its time, meandering along as each character remains stuck. Two things kept me reading; the quality of the writing and the story of the boy, the one person still out in the world able to make decisions and try to find his family.

>49 raton-liseur: I've become more flexible about covers over the years. I still hate movie tie-in covers and those covers with women facing away, though. And in a year with no shortage of literary novels set in academia, I was drawn to reviews of this one, which means that it worked, at least on me.

>50 AlisonY: I will, Alison. Waiting until things are a little more settled (fewer boxes, more furniture) but I'm going to try and get pictures of the garden soon. It's in full bloom.

I like Joseph Kanon's spy thrillers because he does Berlin in the aftermath of WWII very well. In The Berlin Exchange, a scientist who was caught slipping nuclear secrets to the Soviets is released from a British prison in an exchange with East Germany. He wants to go to East Germany, specifically Berlin, because that is where his ex-wife and son are. And the reunion goes well, but East Germany isn't a place that will allow him to live peacefully and get to know his son and there are undercurrents that quickly sweep away his plans. And so a desperate plan to return to the west is born.

There's a lot going on, which is what one wants from a spy thriller. Kanon does a good job of making a man who helped the Soviets get a nuclear bomb sympathetic. And Berlin, as well as East Germany, under communism, is vividly described. This is a fun thriller with good writing. Kanon makes even the bad guys complex and paces this novel well.

>53 RidgewayGirl: I will look for this one. I read The Good German some years ago, and it has stayed with me. Good writing as well as plot. Unfortunately it's the only book of his I've read for some reason.

Eta: Actually I misspoke. I've also read Istanbul Passage, but didn't care for it as much. I had forgotten about it.

>54 labfs39: Lisa, my favorite of his is Leaving Berlin. This may have been colored by reading it while in Berlin and finishing it on the train home. I have Istanbul Passage, but have yet to read it. The thing I like best about Kanon's books is how well he brings postwar Berlin to life.

>55 RidgewayGirl: I was going to say that I would see if the library had Leaving Berlin, but evidently I'm not the right demographic! According to The Wall Street Journal it's a "fast-moving thinking man's thriller".

Enjoyed your last three reviews. The cover of Vladimir has an intentional Putin ring - in a mocking kind of way - and probably a Nabokov one as well. It’s entertaining and made me smile. Glad the book works and sounds interesting.

>45 RidgewayGirl: and yay for new books. Amoz Oz’s memoir is huge and a bit slow. But terrific.

oh I am jealous of that house! That chair is perfect and I agree about an ottoman,and a nice side table. Looking forward to hearing more about it. where did you move to if you dont mind my asking?

just noticed on your profile that you went to the UofA! When were you there? I lived in tucson for 74-85 years, getting my bachlors and masters. I try to go down there any chance I get.

>56 labfs39: Lisa, I loved it and I am a slow-moving woman.

>57 dchaikin: Dan, I'm excited to read Amos Oz, having heard so many good things about it. And there's something about just committing to a long book when it's worthwhile. And Vladimir is an intelligent book that doesn't mind going off the rails. I enjoyed the ride. Not sure I would have picked up the same book had it been titled "Brian" or "Ted," even if the cover art were the same.

>58 cindydavid4: Hi, Cindy, we've ended up in Bloomington, Illinois, which is the self-titled "hub of the corn-belt," just to give you an idea about how very midwestern it is. The middle of the city is filled with old houses of various kinds. And I attended ASU, not UofA, although I was only a few years behind you. Tucson was a wonderful place (I haven't been in years). I envy you living there. A far different vibe than ASU for sure.

oh unfortunately I am in Phx. I graduated at a time when there were few jobs in my profession there, and went out of state to work for a few years. Ended up back in phx, and just recently retired after 35 years. My husband and I have a great house in one of the suburbs, and the town has been trying to make it more desert friendly. But its not tucson!

>61 cindydavid4: Your first sentence made me laugh. But there are nice areas with character in Phoenix and on a rainy day like today, I remember the allure of the desert.

>62 RidgewayGirl: hee, I grew up here, and couldn't wait to get out! You are right there are some nice areas, but they ended up tearing down lot of them to make highrises and condos And yes the desert is amazing, tho we are approaching summer with our first 100 of the year. Mornings are still cool tho.

>63 cindydavid4: We hit 61, although still in the 30s at night...

I've had this on my tbr for awhile and since there's now a mini-series, I thought it made sense to read it before diving into the show.



Slough House is the out of the way office where MI5 sends the agents who they'd rather forget. One agent left a top secret file on public transportation. Another fell apart after her boss died. Nobody can stand another agent. And River had been on the fast track until he messed up an important training exercise. All of them hope to be called back to Thames House while Thames House hopes they will quit. Presiding over this band of failures is Jackson Lamb, who doesn't like any of them. And then a young man is kidnapped and it looks like the Slow Horses finally have a case.

Mick Herron's novel is a lot of fun. The story is fast-paced and this gritty version of London, where the agents of MI5 is more involved in their career trajectory than their jobs, is fun to read about. I'm eager to read the next in the series.

>65 RidgewayGirl: I really need to get around to reading this one. :)

>66 AnnieMod: It's good! And there are enough differences between the mini-series and the book to make both interesting.

>67 RidgewayGirl: I'll probably never see the miniseries, but I have the book and am definitely looking forward to it.

I'm also looking forward to this book. One of these days...

>67 RidgewayGirl: The series (the books) had been on my TBR list for a long time but I never seem to get to it even when I am fishing for a new series. The TV series may push me to it - I am not sure I will watch it (I am not watching much of anything these days) but people talk about it and I’d rather know what the fuss is all about. So we shall see.

It was the mini-series coming out that made me pull this one off of the shelf. I pick up the Soho Crime imprint when I find them.

Catching up after a while!

>52 RidgewayGirl: I recently heard an interview with Ann Patchett in which she talked about being insistent that The Dutch House had a woman on the cover who was gazing out. And that she believes that was one of the reasons the book sold so well!

Also, I had not clicked before reading your comment that the cover of Vladimir is a picture of a man with his head cropped out, presumably a reference to all the headless women on covers - which makes the cover (and the book) more appealing to me - although you had already sold it with your review.

>53 RidgewayGirl: Thank you, I have not read Joseph Kanon before and have now put a library hold on this book.

Oh the UK cover of Vladimir is very different - much more "literary" and much less fun!

>73 wandering_star: Far, far less fun, but probably a lot easier to leave out where others can see it.

A few pictures of the new house now that Spring has finally gotten its act together.

So pretty. Looks like the previous owners were keen gardeners which is fabulous,

Beautiful!

Nice pics!

>45 RidgewayGirl: "self-imposed book buying moratorium" Banish the thought! I like to think I am not alone with my terrible habits....

Interesting reading, as always!

>76 AlisonY: The historic society that owned the home did a lot of thoughtful landscaping. Every few weeks brings new surprises.

>77 labfs39: & >78 BLBera: Thanks, Lisa and Beth.

>79 avaland: Well, the moratorium is truly over in any case. I spent this past week back in SC and managed to visit several bookstores, both familiar and new to me, which means that there are a good stack of books making the trip home with me.

Likes by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum reminded me of how good a traditional short story can be. The stories aren't themselves old-fashioned at all, but the structure and rigor of them feels a little old school, in the best possible way. These are stories that remind me of why I love short stories.
I found this book when it was a finalist for The Story Prize, which is a great resource for finding excellent collections. (http://thestoryprize.org)

These stories are varied and never felt repetitive. A father worries about his daughter as he watches her instagram feed. A burglar cases a house that he's sure will be empty when he breaks in. A writer spends much of her time at a writers's retreat walking and becomes fixated on one specific house. A trio of girls find the balances in their friendship changing with adolescence. Each story is so well crafted and I could have read an entire novel about any one of them, but each was complete in itself. This is an excellent collection.

>81 RidgewayGirl: I loved that collection.

>82 lisapeet: I read a fair number of short story collections and this one was excellent. I've added her novel to my list of books to look for.

>81 RidgewayGirl: That does sound like a great collection.

ok, consider it done! Sigh my tbr list is as long as a CVS receipt. Not ocmplaing too much tho.

>83 RidgewayGirl: I loved Ms. Hempel Chronicles when I read it, which has to be about 15 years ago now. There's not a whole lot to love about middle schoolers as a group, but she's so clued into them and sweet about them.

>81 RidgewayGirl: Oh yes, this was one of my top reads of last year!

>87 wandering_star: I can't believe I had never heard of this author before this book.

Sasha is a Russian emigrant living in a housing project in Berlin with her younger half siblings and an aunt. She's brave and resilient and fiercely intelligent. She's also deeply damaged and has trouble trusting anyone. Circumstances put her into contact with a sympathetic man and his teenage son and, as the story progresses, the full story of what happened to her is revealed. There's some harsh things revealed in this novel, and it's sometime difficult to read about what Sacha experienced during her childhood.

Broken Glass Park is Alina Bronsky's debut novel and it reads like a first novel; it's somewhat awkward in places and the pacing is odd, but there's also raw emotion, Sasha feels like a real person throughout. It's set among Russian immigrants and it's full of love for that community, even as Sasha wants to get away from it. I'll be reading more from this author.

>89 RidgewayGirl: And I'll be looking for this one. It's the Bronsky I haven't read, and the only one not featuring an elderly female protagonist.

Woman of Light is a family saga beginning at the end of the nineteenth century and continuing into the Great Depression. It follows a large family of Latino and Indigenous Americans living in western New Mexico and Colorado. They're sharp-shooters and snake charmers and fortune tellers, laundry women and miners, all trying to make their way in a largely hostile world. But they are, for the most part, resilient and busy falling in love, making lives and enjoying what they have.

There are a lot of strong characters, all vying for attention here, and the novel jumps around the timeline with abandon. But Fajardo-Anstine's first book, Sabrina and Corina, was a fantastic collection of short stories, so even when I wasn't sure where or when we were at the start of a new chapter, each section worked so well on its own; it didn't matter if I could keep track of the relationships. I don't generally like family sagas, but Woman of Light was a banger.

>90 labfs39: And I'm eager to dive into Bronsky's novels about unsympathetic old women.

I'm looking forward to Woman of Light, Kay. I loved Sabrina and Corina.

>93 BLBera: It was good, although neither the title nor cover illustration have anything to do with the book.

>91 RidgewayGirl: I'm another big Sabrina & Corina fan, and I've been looking forward to this one.

>95 lisapeet: And this one is largely set in Denver, too, which isn't a place a lot of books are set.

yup, that sounds about right. Wish it were otherwise

>81 RidgewayGirl: just ordered that

>97 RidgewayGirl: Too true.

I'm in the process of hunting for a few last pieces of furniture for the house and my son and I stopped by an antique shop downtown. I looked around, eyed this one small table and said hi to the owner on the way out. We chatted and the whole conversation changed when I told him which house we lived in. Basically, I found a gossip who specializes in local history and I heard all about Adlai Stevenson's sister, who lived in this house her entire life, from her feud with the Vrooman family over the outcome of the Presidential election that Stevenson lost (Mrs. Vrooman stated that it was because Adlai was an atheist), to her throwing a plate at the maid for the temerity of buttering an entire slice of toast at once, when the proper thing is to butter each bite (I buttered my toast this morning in honor of that unnamed maid).

And then he showed me this chair. It came from her estate and he claims it's visible in some of the pictures of the house's interior held by the historical society archives (I do need to go check those out). Obviously, I had to buy it. It needs reupholstering and possibly an exorcism, but isn't it amazing?

>101 RidgewayGirl: oh I love stories like that, what a treasure you found (in both the chair, and history buff!) Hope you find more like that (he probably know who does upholstry too)

>101 RidgewayGirl: Don’t get impaled on it.

>101 RidgewayGirl: What a great story.

>102 cindydavid4: I'd already heard some stories about the house, and especially Bunny Ives, and it never fails to be fascinating.

>103 dianeham: Diane, we have a cat who is not very bright and we have discussed whether or not that is something she might do.

>104 BLBera: I have a feeling that the antique shop owner had more stories to tell.

>105 RidgewayGirl: that sentence is a link to a poetry book. Keep an eye on that cat.

>106 dianeham: Found the mistake!

Your yard is stunning, Kay. And what a great source for stories in the antique shop. I still haven’t started watching Slow Horses, but I’m caught up with the books. Waiting patiently for my library hold on the new one.

>101 RidgewayGirl: Wonderful story and chair! I'm so glad you were able to secure the house.

>108 NanaCC: Thanks, Colleen. It has nothing to do with us. I have put my pots on the front porch and they are waiting to be filled with the herbs and flowers I picked up yesterday. I'm eager to read the sequel to Slow Horses, definitely before the next season of the show.

>109 labfs39: I do feel lucky, Lisa. It's an extraordinary place. In addition to the fox I saw trotting down the driveway right after we moved in, we've also seen a very large opossum and a raccoon. It's a wildlife fiesta out here.

>110 RidgewayGirl: At our house outside Seattle, we had a possum couple that used to stroll over our patio every evening. They would stop and look in as though to see what we were up to, then meander on their way.

>111 labfs39: That's very sweet. On our NextDoor, there are videos up of possums just wandering around on people's porches late at night. People seem to like knowing they are there, which is good.

Recently, I was in the mood for a fast-paced thriller that was well-written and unpredictable and was sorely disappointed by the book I chose -- one that had been on more than a few "most anticipated" lists and which was marketed as a "literary thriller." And since I don't learn from experience, I picked up another fitting exactly the same bill. And this one was everything the other thriller was not. It sped along at a relentless pace, contained an unlikely quantity of twists and turns, featured two utter unlikeable and also fascinating characters and it was well-written and fun to read. I suspect that a few of the plot lines do not hold together under close examination, but I was so taken with this book, and I raced through it so quickly, that that didn't matter in the slightest.

Who is Maud Dixon? by Alexandra Andrews starts with Florence, small town Florida girl who went to the state university and then got a job with a New York publishing house, only to find herself well out of her comfort zone. Her fellow co-workers come from well-heeled, private school backgrounds, giving them a facility negotiating the New York social world that Florence feels she will never have. After a drunken encounter with an older man much higher up in the company, Florence makes some very bad decisions, which lead her to grabbing at a job offer to be the assistant of a reclusive best-selling author. The story begins with a set up that could easily sustain an entire novel, and uses it as an opener. From there, things become much wilder as Florence becomes more and more fascinated and curious about her secretive employer. When they both travel to Morocco to do some research for the next novel, things veer out of control.

Cloud Cuckoo Land is a novel spanning centuries by Anthony Doerr, author of 2014's book of the moment, All the Light We Cannot See. There are several interwoven stories, ranging from the mid-fifteen century siege of Constantinople, to a girl on a spaceship traveling to what is hoped to be a hospitable planet. All share a knowledge of an Ancient Greek story about a simple shepherd searching for the Cloud Cuckoo Land in the clouds, an avian version of Big Rock Candy Mountain. As the stories alternate, connections between them are revealed.

This is an unabashedly sentimental book, but somehow I loved it. Doerr has a knack of creating characters for whom the reader immediately cares about, even when that character is doing bad things. He also manages to write a novel involving several different times and characters and make each equally interesting, from a young man caring for a pair of oxen, drafted into working for the sultan besieging the city of Constantinople, to an elderly man helping a group of children put on a play, to life on a spaceship where everyone aboard knows they won't be the ones to reach the planet they hope will save them. Doerr knows what he's doing and does a masterful job with an intricate and interwoven collection of plots and his writing is a joy to read. It is a novel designed with the intention of making the reader feel, but somehow I didn't feel manipulated, even as I so clearly was.

There's a moment, towards the end of Dan Chaon's dystopian novel, Sleepwalk, where the central premise for a lot of the story is revealed to be a scam and I realized that I was just along for the ride. Billy, or whatever you want to call him, is a man with many aliases. He makes his living driving around North America in a mobile home delivering people, sometimes babies, and objects of various kinds. His selling point is that he is unknown to authorities, his identity isn't in a single database. Oh, except he donated sperm when he was a lot younger, just to earn a few extra bucks. And now that one thing is causing him a lot of problems.

Sleepwalk is set in a near future that is similar to our own and also very different. It's where corporations call the shots, drones masquerade as Pokémon characters and civilization is collapsing. Billy isn't a good guy. He's a large middle-aged white guy doing whatever his employers ask him to and sometimes those things are very bad. He's also oddly likable and occasionally does the right thing, often against his own self-interest, like rescuing a pit bull from a dog fighting ring. As the novel progresses, it becomes weirder and weirder, yet somehow I was more and more invested in this guy and his faithful dog, just trying to figure things out before something bad happens.

In settling in news, today was first veg box from the CSA I signed up for and it's a good thing we like salad. Will be attempting to sauté mustard greens tomorrow and I've been informed that the garlic scapes in the front make good pesto.



And I've joined the neighborhood book club.

>116 RidgewayGirl: oh excellent! what will they be reading next?

>117 cindydavid4: The next book is Oh, William! by Elizabeth Strout, which I read last year. There's also a mystery book club in the neighborhood and their July book is another one I've read, which seems to bode well. They aren't choosing books I wouldn't otherwise read.

Have you done a CSA before? We've done one for about 6 years and have grown to really love it. There is definitely a learning curve, though, as you get used to using what has grown that week!

>119 japaul22: This is my first CSA and I'm excited about it. I'd never even heard of garlic scapes before and so it's a little boost to my time in the kitchen to get to learn new recipes. I signed up for every other week because there are only two of us and I added eggs to the box, which came in different sizes and colors. So, right now, very enthusiastic, and up for the challenge of using all those greens.

Let me know if you get anything that you need recipe ideas for. Garlic scapes make a good pesto! I like it mixed with basil or it's a bit too strong of a flavor for me.

I'd never heard of using garlic scapes in pesto. But unless I bought a lot of basil plants, mine aren't big enough when scapes are around. But I like the idea because I always think my pesto is too acrid because of the raw garlic.

ETA: I wonder if I could cut up and freeze some of the scapes? I might ask at the farmer's market this morning.

Mmmm garlic scapes. I keep toying with the idea of a CSA box but never do it—maybe next year when the summer doesn't look as busy (ha).

I have the Doerr and Chaon on my pile, and looking forward to both. They seem like good summer reads (whatever that is).

Congrats on your book club and CSA. I love mine (both the book club and CSA) :). I look forward to the Doerr book, sometime this summer.

How did you find your book groups, Kay?

>121 japaul22: Jennifer, I didn't even know what garlic scapes were! But I did make pesto from them and it was both delicious - lighter and fresher than other pestos, but also we both had the worst garlic breath afterwards. This will not stop me from serving the rest tonight.

>122 dudes22: The grocery store near me had sizable bags of fresh basil on sale. Now to use the rest of that...

>123 lisapeet: The move was a good excuse to sign up for a CSA. There are a bunch around here. It seemed like a good way to find out what's local. And both the Doerr and the Chaon were the kind of books I got lost in, so perfect for vacation or an hour spent outside reading.

>124 BLBera: I'm very enthusiastic about the CSA. Thinking about adding a little of the chamomile to the blueberry muffins I plan to bake today.

>125 labfs39: The book club will meet on the 25th. I will report back.

French Braid is so distinctly and entirely a novel by Anne Tyler that the addition of the author's name to the cover is superfluous. Set in Baltimore, this is the story of an ordinary family over decades, told through what are almost interconnected stories. Each chapter is beautifully written and holds such empathy for each character, even as they fail to see the needs of the family members around them or simply long to be somewhere else. From a week-long summer vacation near a lake to a family reunion at an Easter dinner to an anniversary party, this is the kind of quiet novel that Tyler is deservedly known for and was a pleasure to read. I have the habit of forgetting about how much I love her writing for long stretches and then I pick up another one of her novels and I remember what a great and under-celebrated novelist she is.

>127 RidgewayGirl: I agree. If you told me what it was about, I wouldn’t expect to like it. But I liked it very much.

>128 dianeham: Just a delight to read. Tyler knows what she's doing.

Tyler is great with families.

After your review I'm sure looking forward to reading French Braid!

>97 RidgewayGirl: Sad, isn't it.

>127 RidgewayGirl: The Anne Tyler is on my long wishlist. I used to read her in her early years (she was younger, I was younger), but not so much during my LT era. I'm glad to have your review, though!

>130 BLBera: She really understands the complexity of families, how one member can feel part of a happy family and another can feel like they can't get away fast enough.

>131 mdoris: It's the most Anne Tyler novel ever written, Mary.

>132 avaland: Lois, I read a bunch of hers in the late eighties and then somehow just forgot about her until A Spool of Blue Thread came out to a lot of attention. I've been catching up and keeping up with her new novels ever since.

>133 RidgewayGirl: - After I read my first Anne Tyler, I started picking more up at library sales, etc. I have a bunch still on my TBR pile. Like you, I kind of forgot about them until we read A Spool of Blue Thread for our book club. I should pull some out.

I loved her early work, but once the stories and characters started all sounding alike, I stopped.

>134 dudes22: I'd kind of like to go back and read some of the ones I read decades ago, like Searching for Caleb or Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.

>135 cindydavid4: She certainly writes about a specific kind of person.

Seasons of Purgatory is a collection of short stories written by Iranian author Shahriar Mandanipour and translated by Sara Khalili. Although the author had to leave Iran and now lives in California, the stories are set in Iran during and after the Iran-Iraq war, a war Shahriar served in. The stories range in tone from sad to angry and all reference a loss of some sort.

The story that most sticks in my mind is King of the Graveyard, about the parents of a dead man searching for his grave in a waste field, always worried about being seen by those in the cemetery. There's also The Color of Midday Fire, where after a child is killed by a leopard and her father, a veteran of the war, reluctantly goes to hunt it down. There's a melancholy feel to these stories, of broken men and a country in which everyone is suspicious of everyone else.

It was harder for me to get into these stories than ones written by Americans, but that was kind of the point of reading them. I was pulled into a world I have no reference points for, although the language of loss and despair is a universal one.

>137 RidgewayGirl: yes. We are bearing witness, if nothing else

>138 cindydavid4: Oh, that's a good way of putting it. I think expose to different cultures and ways of seeing the world don't necessarily need to be fun, just illuminating in some way.

If John Cheever and Otessa Moshfegh got drunk and wrote a book together, it might look a lot like Mrs. March by Virginia Feito. Taking place in New York at an undisclosed time -- the story mentions some modern items, but not others, while simultaneously appearing to take place in the early sixties -- the story follows Mrs. March as she prepares for a party being held for her husband's best-selling book. She's picking up macarons when she's asked if the main character of her husband's novel is based on her, sending her into a tailspin that accelerates the more she thinks about it. A woman much invested in outward appearance, she's horrified to be thought to resemble the character in the book who is an aging prostitute everyone finds repulsive.

This is the story of a woman's descent into madness and the entire novel is from a close first person, leaving it ambiguous whether all of it is entirely in her head or if things are happening around her. Is her husband malicious or merely unobservant? Is her son a creepy weirdo or just a kid with an unstable mother and an absent father? Are all of their friends laughing at her or just enjoying the party?

This is a book with a lot of promise that didn't quite deliver on it. I'm curious to see what Feito writes next, and while I did enjoy this one, it was pretty flawed.

i too thought it held lost of promise and it captured my attention for a while. Got to a point tho that I was tired of being in her head, and yes pretty flawed is right.

>141 cindydavid4: I really don't think that the author liked Mrs. March at all. A character may well be unsympathetic or even unlikeable, but the author has have affection for them.

I think you are right.

I was uncertain about this book going in. I loved Ellen Feldman's novel about the Scottsboro trial in the 1930s, but I've been burned before by books set in Paris during WWII and by books set in bookstores in Paris, so a book set in a Paris bookstore during WWII seems to have the highest possible chance of being terrible. Fortunately, this was not the case. Feldman has written a nuanced novel about surviving in an occupied city as a widow with a young child without romanticizing the choices she made.

Paris Never Leaves You moves back and forth between Charlotte's experiences during and immediately after the war, and her life in New York in the 1950's where she found refuge with a former colleague of her father's. He and his wife provide her with housing and a job in publishing. Her daughter remembers little before their life in New York, where she is entering adolescence and wondering both about her father and her Jewish faith. Her daughter's questions bring back memories Charlotte is working to bury, as does a letter she receives from South America.

Feldman never romanticizes the decisions Charlotte made during the war, and she also makes each character, regardless of who they were or what they did, someone who is also making difficult and sometimes impossible choices. There are no clean consciences and no one emerges without scars. Feldman's writing is clear and she's scrupulous in both her plots and her research. While this one does not supplant Scottsboro as my favorite novel by this author, Paris Never Leaves You comes a close second.

oh this looks good; like you I have been burned too much, but I will have to try this

>145 cindydavid4: I'm such a sucker for books set in Paris. There have been so many terrible, treacly books set there that I have picked up with great excitement. But Ellen Feldman is a good writer who does her research and while I didn't love Next to Love, the others of hers I've read were very good. Especially Scottsboro.

>144 RidgewayGirl: Hmm, I'm tempted.

A sort of sequel to A Visit from the Goon Squad, The Candy House is a series of stories following the members of a family and those who interact with them in an alternate version of our present, in which people can upload their consciousness and view events from their lives they'd forgotten as well as being able to access moments from the point of view of others. This conceit plays out with varying degrees of importance in each story.

Jennifer Egan is a talented and assured writer, which makes every sentence a pleasure to read and each individual chapter (with one exception) a delight to read. But the book itself is hard to grasp hold of and I don't expect to remember much about it. I did like thinking about whether I'd upload my consciousness or become one of the "eluders." I initially thought I'd stay far away, but let's be honest -- I'm too nosy to hold out for more than a few moments. The chapters where she kept the focus on the immediate family were excellent, the other ones maybe less so. Which is not to say that Egan's writing isn't fantastic no matter what she's writing about, she just does better with more to work with.

>81 RidgewayGirl: Book bullet on this one. I love a good short story collection. BTW, photos of the spring garden are just lovely!

>149 Cariola: It's a gorgeous collection. I think you'll really like it. And thank you. As the garden settles into summer, there's more greenery and fewer blooms although the day lilies are starting to bloom.

Gage is a true crime writer who wrote a bestselling book about a woman who killed two intruders and was convicted of murder in his hometown. The movie rights and more books have earned him a reasonable living. Now he's purchased a house that was once the site of a double murder, with the intention of writing about it. But the house has been so thoroughly renovated, it's an effort to picture it as the murder scene and Milpitas, California has spent years forgetting the murders ever happened.

Devil House by John Darnielle seems like it's going to be a haunted house story, and then it goes in an entirely different direction, a few times. And then there's the ending which has me still thinking about it and while I'd love to bring up my thoughts, I'd hate to ruin the experience of this book. Just don't expect a straightforward haunted house story and do expect to be thrown for a loop a few times.

>151 RidgewayGirl: Been nterested in this one. My little horror circle has been pretty meh on it since it superverts expectations so radically from the haunted house trope. That's the impression i get. Might have to sitwith this one a while and try it out.

>152 stretch: If you go in without expectations, and knowing that Darnielle is doing something different with this than a straightforward genre novel, I think you might enjoy it. There are major shifts in tone between the chapters that shouldn't work and there's horror there, but of the much more common sort than anything supernatural.

Trent is in his first year coaching the Denton Pirates and they are playing better than ever before, with a real shot at making the playoffs, a good thing given how mistrustful everyone is of this Prius-driving family from California. But the team's success isn't due to Trent's leadership, but to a volatile teenager named Billy Lowe, whose home life fuels his rage. When Billy's behavior gets him suspended from the football team, Trent is determined to save him, but what he sees when he goes to Billy's home one night is enough to plunge him into a situation he can neither understand nor control.

Don't Know Tough may be a debut novel, but it's also a lot more assured than debut novels usually are. This is a solid noir, stark and unforgiving. Eli Cranor has conceived of his characters so thoroughly that no matter what they do, those actions are utterly in keeping with who they are. It was fun to find such a solid crime novel and I'm eager to see what Cranor writes next.

When we decided to move, I promised myself a print of my favorite Kate Beaton cartoon as a treat and two months, twenty-three days after we moved in, I actually followed through.

Your home is coming together beautifully. Lots of character. If you ever open a b&b, I'll be there!

>156 labfs39: Lisa, you are welcome to visit anytime. We have a guest room with a balcony and its own bathroom. I'll make muffins!

>155 RidgewayGirl: I love her work! That one is priceless.

>158 Cariola: I just love it so much. Every detail is perfect. And it looks great on my wall and lets people know what they are in for when they visit.

Elizabeth Zott had an unhappy childhood, but her determination took her to university, where she studied and excelled. Her academic career is cut short by sexual violence, but she picks herself up and finds a job in a large laboratory, where she is treated dismissively while doing far better work than the men around her. When she meets the company's star scientist, she finds someone she can relate to and they fall in love. But this, too, is cut short. And life as a single mother without any support is almost impossible at that time, but when a nosy neighbor comes calling and an unusual opportunity presents itself, Elizabeth might just be able to find her footing.

This book has the worst marketing ever. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus is being offered as a Marvelous Mrs. Maisel-style novel; a delightful, fun read. And this cover advertises something frivolous. That is not what Lessons in Chemistry is. Sure, the writing style is light, and there's a warmth to the connections between the characters that is reminiscent of Frederick Backman's work, but the heart of this story is dark and Garmus doesn't soften the realities of being a woman in the 1950s. I suspect readers who choose the book based on appearance will likely be taken aback by how unnostalgic the story is. I loved it for the voice and for how much Garmus clearly enjoyed her characters, who managed to be idiosyncratic without being twee.

>160 RidgewayGirl: This book has the worst marketing ever.

One of the blurbs on the front cover of the version I read stated "Sparks joy with every page". Um blurber, did you even read the book?

>161 rhian_of_oz: Just so tone-deaf. And when I mentioned I was reading this book, a few people mentioned that they'd felt blind-sided by the book and disliked it as a result. No doubt the marketing department just wants copies to sell, but it does such a disservice to a very good novel.

In the middle of Casablanca, Jmiaa, a prostitute in her mid-thirties, lives with her daughter and a roommate, where she supports herself and her daughter and tries to have a little fun along the way. In Straight From the Horse's Mouth by Moroccan author Meryem Alaoui, and translated from the French by Emma Ramadan, Jmiaa tells her own story, how she went from a beloved daughter in a secure family to having to earn her own way in a society where women have very few options. And the reader accompanies Jmiaa through her current life, where she might just have a chance at something better.

Jmiaa is a fascinating character. She's not much given to self-reflection, but she's also not going to indulge in feeling sorry for herself. Instead, she lives her life in the moment, keeping nothing to herself. I'm not sure I'd want to know her in real life, but she's a fantastic character to spend a few hours with.

>160 RidgewayGirl: I have been in two minds about this book - the story sounds interesting but the marketing has been so fluffy. Your review makes me think I would like it.