The Cue Card

Hi bookworms. How was your week? Yesterday we took a drive into our local mountains and parked at the top of the pass. There was some snowflakes swirling about and it was nice to get out and see the natural world after my knee surgery. Does this picture at left look like a painting or a photo? Lol.

We saw some bighorn sheep on the way back, but otherwise it was fairly quiet out there. Soon the park service will close the mountain gate on Dec. 1, and so it will be snowed in for the winter. You can continue to hike up there if you want, but otherwise nature and wildlife get a nice reprieve from humans and cars. This week there’s more snow forecasted for the mountains and we should get some too at the house. Happy Thanksgiving week to those in the States.

Also yesterday was our dog Willow’s fifth birthday. Here she is trying to help out my husband with the chores. Willow was a pandemic baby born into this world in November 2020. We got her when we felt our other dog Stella, then 9, was getting a bit too old to go cross-country skiing very far. As you know, Stella and Willow have become a dynamic duo over the years 🙂 and they continue to live their best lives.

In book news, you might have seen last week that Lebanese author Rabih Alameddine’s novel The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) won the fiction prize for the National Book Award. The novel is set in Lebanon and “chronicles a family’s turbulent but happy lives” and the “unbreakable attachment of a [gay] son and his mother.” This novel was released in September and flew under my radar and I’m still a bit unsure about it, but it has a 4.18 rating on Goodreads … should you want to check it out.

Meanwhile Laotian-Canadian writer Souvankham Thammavongsa won this year’s Canadian Giller Prize last week for her second book of fiction Pick a Colour. It’s about the day in the life of a weary nail salon owner (a retired boxer) as she toils away for the privileged clients who don’t even know her true name. The novel is only 192 pages, but it sounds like it packs quite a punch … and is said to be about loneliness, love, labor, and class. I’m one of 349 who are on the wait list for it at the library, so we will see.

And now I’ll leave you with a couple reviews of what I finished lately.

Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks / Viking / 224 pages / 2025

4 stars. Sadly back on Memorial Day weekend 2019, Pulitzer-prize winning author Gerald Brooks’s husband historian Tony Horwitz suddenly died of a heart attack on the street in DC at the age of 60. He was on a book tour and Geraldine was not with him at the time. She had learned of it by a rather brief and imprudent call by an ER doctor while at home on Martha’s Vineyard.

This touching memoir follows those immediate days and months after the shocking death of her vibrant husband, who wrote a number of best-selling nonfiction books — along with alternating chapters several years later of a trip she takes to Flinders Island off Australia, where she finally goes to give herself the time and space to fully grieve him.

Geraldine had met Tony in graduate school at Columbia University and they had been married for 35 years. During their careers, they had taken news correspondent jobs in Australia and the Middle East and later became book authors after becoming parents to their two sons. At the time of Tony’s passing, they had been “empty-nesters” only for two years, living on their farm on Martha’s Vineyard. This book details their lives together as well as gives helpful insights into dealing with grief and sudden loss of a loved one.

I found her memoir both moving and wise and it helped a bit in light of the loss of my own father in March. It’s a good tribute to her husband Tony Horwitz, who wrote some great books, and I sympathized with her a lot. One side note is: I had met and interviewed Geraldine Brooks online for Publishers Weekly in April 2022 about her novel Horse. Back then I could sense the enormity of her loss hovering, but I could only say I was sorry, which felt pretty inept. I’m glad she gave herself the time in February 2023 to go to Flinders Island to do the work of grieving and remembering that would help her.

Here is a quote from the book I liked:
This story of a death is the story that dominates my life. Here I have retold it, rethought it. But I can’t change it. Tony is dead. Present tense. He will be dead in the present, in my present for as long as I am alive. I cannot change that story. I can only change myself.
Write the truest thing you know, said old man Hemingway.
Dear reader this is it.

Culpability by Bruce Holsinger / Spiegel & Grau / 380 pages / 2025

Synopsis: “A family heading to their son’s high school lacrosse game is thrown into chaos when their self-driving minivan is involved in a fatal accident. As each family member wrestles with their responsibility for the crash and how much trust they should put in AI, the author grapples evocatively with the trade-offs of automated life. This timely tale leaves readers with much to chew on.” — per Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly.

My Thoughts: 3.75 stars. This thriller and family drama novel, which was chosen by Oprah for her book club in July, had some pluses and minuses for me. I liked how the family’s autonomous car crash raises various ethical issues about artificial intelligence in our world and how sticky and tricky that all will be especially as it becomes more and more prevalent in the future. Parts of the story are pretty gripping and I followed it as an audiobook closely to see what would happen.

But the main family is overall pretty annoying and a later accident that happens while they’re recovering at a beach house on the Chesapeake Bay overshadows a bit of the main plot. I thought the novel was sort of trying to do a bit too much and maybe was half successful. Still it’s a thought-provoking glimpse into today’s AI world and maybe it only suffers from being a bit over-the-top. Still it’s a popular fiction kind of read so that’s pretty typical.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read these and if so, what did you think? Happy Turkey Day.

Hi Bookworms. How are you? I’m sorry I’ve not been about to visit blogs in a while as I was down for the count last week with the knee replacement surgery, but this week should be better and I can see what you all are up to and reading. Man surgery can put you off your game! The first couple days after were quite rough, but now I find with post-op Day 6 the pain has lessened and I’m getting more into a groove of a recovery plan. Come spring, I should be back to some of my regular activities.

In book news, we need to talk about the Booker Prize. Wow congrats to British-Hungarian author David Szalay for winning the prize last week for his novel Flesh. (In Canada they like to point out that Szalay was born in Montreal, lol.) I have not read his novel yet, but I know fellow bookie Carmen liked it and thought it was one to watch. And indeed it cleaned up.

Publishers Weekly says it’s about a “taciturn Hungarian man who serially attempts to build a new life after his traumatic adolescence.” Apparently the judges were taken with it because as chief judge Roddy Doyle said: “We had never read anything quite like it … a novel that uses white space on the page so well … as if the author is inviting the reader … to observe — almost to create — the character with him.” Hmm, food for thought if you decide to get a library copy, which I should be doing soon.

And stay tuned this week when Canada’s Giller Prize will be announced on Monday and the National Book Awards on Wednesday. It’ll be an interesting week. And now I’ll leave you with a review of what I finished lately.

The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession by Michael Finkel / Knopf / 240 pages / 2023

This is quite an eye-popping true crime account about a 20+ year-old misfit French man (Stephane Breitwieser) who in broad daylight stole more than 200 works of art from museums across Europe between 1995 and 2001, turning his mother’s attic into a trove of treasure.

His girlfriend Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus was his accomplice along the way. Apparently unlike other art thieves he stole not to enrich himself monetarily through ransoms or the black market but to surround himself with beauty. Hmm, I think the author tries to analyze this angle — as if it gives the thief more depth or gravitas? It’s definitely something unusual in light of other art thieves.

Thanks to Tina at Turn the Page for reading this one with me as part of a buddy read. It is an usual story that vividly recounts how this odd couple were able to pull off this crazy illegal undertaking. The guy, a self-made art freak, seemed pretty pathological … a narcissist who compulsively couldn’t control his urges to take significant artworks, particularly from the Renaissance period. He was out of control and he and his girlfriend were hitting museums at a pace unseen like before. They would visit a museum and sort of obscond with precious works under their clothes. Whether Anne-Catherine was bullied and under his thumb is up for discussion in the book … as well as whether the guy’s mother knew what her son was up to in her attic as well.

The book pretty fascinatingly details their long illegal raid across Europe and also reveals how poor (generally speaking) museum security is and how lenient the prison sentences are for art thieves globally. I had no idea about the ins and outs of much of this, which were a bit shocking. By the end of the book, I think Tina and I were both disgusted and done with all three culprits: the man, his girlfriend, and his mother. They had little to no shred of moral fiber to them nor responsibility. And what happens to the art is tragic. I will let you find out more about it. The book is fast and pretty short.

I’ve read the author’s other book The Stranger in the Woods from 2017, which is also about a freaky guy loner and thief. He seems to have that narrative down cold, so not sure what book will come next. I rarely read true crime books but once in a blue moon I will. Remember the Golden State Killer book from 2018 — I think that was my last one. The Art Thief is a book that counts for my nonfiction challenge.

That’s all for now. I was also planning to leave a review of Bruce Holsinger’s novel Culpability, which I finished recently on audio, but I think I will wait till next week as it’s getting late and I need a breather, lol.

Cheers All. Happy reading.

Hi bookworms, how goes it? Anything going on in your neck of the woods? So far we’ve had mild and windy conditions here the past month, and you can see from this sunset picture that all the leaves are down.

We might even go for a bike ride later today since it’s supposed to be 60 degrees in the afternoon. It’s all pretty warm for our parts now. Just last week, I had the snow tires put on the car to get ready for the season, but who knows when the snow will actually hit.  

Even the bears are still out and about. My husband and brother-in-law saw this family of a mama grizzly and three cubs last week when they went hiking in the local mountains. They were in the car and not on the trail at the time. A police officer told them that the bears had been seen along that stretch of road all summer.

It’s good the bears are all right and have not been hit by a car. When you see an amazing family like that, you definitely stop the car and watch them amble along, minding their own business. The cubs are getting big as you can see. Soon I hope they’ll be hibernating in a den away from the road. 

Meanwhile the Booker Prize winner will be announced Monday night. It could be a surprise pick or not. The judges seem to like to trick us, right?

I’ll wait to hear as I’ll be recovering from my knee replacement surgery that very day, argh. There’s nowhere to hide now. I’ve waited on a surgery list for almost two years and now the time has come. I’ll try to be brave. I offer this photo of a 1000-piece puzzle on rescue dogs that I finally finished after it was on our dining room table all summer long. I left it there in frustration as I couldn’t get much going on it for long a while. Then in October inspiration struck, lol. 

And now I’ll leave you with a review of what I finished lately. 

H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald / Grove / 288 pages / 2015

This popular memoir was first published in the U.K. back in 2014 and then in North America in 2015. It was big then … about an English professor at Cambridge, a falconer, who details her year of training a young goshawk bird all the while navigating her grief over her father’s sudden death from a heart attack.

Many of you have read this one, and I had started it at various times but then got waylaid. So when Kathy at the blog Reading Matters reviewed it so favorably in August, I decided to add it back to my list. I thought it might help with my own father’s passing earlier this year. 

My Thoughts: 4 stars. I loved the adventures the author has with her goshawk Mabel, especially when Mabel starts flying in wild habitats with the author following in dogged pursuit. Mabel is quite the hunter (as a bird of prey) and every pheasant and rabbit should beware … many end up dead in the book. I also liked hearing about how Macdonald comes to understand the bird and the training they go through, which is very gradual over time. The descriptions of Mabel and the woodlands where she thrives are terrific. And it’s evident how Macdonald’s time with Mabel helps her with the grief over losing her father, which is palpable. 

I was less drawn to the parts she writes about of the author T.H. White and his 1951 bird-training book The Goshawk, which Macdonald draws parallels to throughout her memoir. White seemed to be fighting his own demons and for some reason these extensive parts in Macdonald’s memoir distracted me from the parts about Mabel that I wished to get back to. I could have used less about T.H. White and more about how her pursuits helped with her grief over her father, which could’ve been talked about a bit more. 

I listened to the audiobook version narrated by the author who reads it wonderfully. I’m late to the party on this book but better late than never. It’s interesting to note that I have the ebook, the paperback copy, and the audio of this memoir (a trifecta of sorts), so I really wanted to get to it. 

Also I had no idea there is the film H is for Hawk coming out this December (with wider release in January) with Claire Foy as Helen Macdonald. Yay! Author Emma Donoghue was a co-writer on the screenplay. Here is a peek at the trailer for it. 

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read this and what did you think? What are you reading now? 

Hi bookworms, how’s it going? It’s been another quick week here with more windy, mild conditions. Our dog Willow has been out sunning herself with the pumpkins on the front stoop. She’s apparently protecting them, lol. It’s almost Halloween (already?!) and I realize I haven’t read any ghoulish kind of fiction this month. I usually like to pick up some kind of spooky thing. Though I did read the crime novel The Death of Us this month and watched The Lost Bus movie about the fire in California, both of which have some scary elements to them. But it’s not the same as a Shirley Jackson kind of tale or a movie or book that’s got haunted houses and ghosts causing havoc in the night. Have you read any this month? What would you recommend (either book or show)?

And I know it’s late October, but it’s better late than never to talk about a recap of my Summer reading Challenge. The ones pictured above were the 15 books I picked at the end of May that I hoped to get to. And I did finish them all except for one, which was Tim Winton’s novel Juice. That novel alluded me and it’s not easy to find, but I still plan to read it sometime. The rest were all quite good and I didn’t find any duds among the bunch. It’s hard to rate which ones I liked best or that stood out to me (most were four stars), but I’ve tried to list them below in some kind of order of which I thought were strongest. I’m still tinkering with the order.

• Audition by Katie Kitamura — it’s up for the Booker
• A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst — an unreal lost at sea true tale
• Nesting by Roisin O’Donnell — an Irish women’s abusive marriage and escape
• Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall — a British love triangle gone wrong
• The Death of Us by Abigail Dean — a married couple’s struggles after a home invasion
• Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie — the lives of four African women who are at a crossroads
• Heartwood by Amity Gaige — an all out search for a lost hiker
• Rabbit Moon by Jennifer Haigh — a hit-and-run accident upends a women’s life in Shanghai
• The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali — a lasting female friendship set during the political upheavals of Iran
• Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid — the early days of female astronauts in the space program
• So Far Gone by Jess Walter — an older reclusive man journeys to protect his grandkids from a militant group
• Tilt by Emma Pattee — a pregnant woman’s journey across her city in the aftermath of a major earthquake
• The Last Secret Agent by Pippa LaTour — a female spy’s true tale of her days in Nazi Occupied France
• The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus by Emma Knight — a woman at the University of Edinburgh tries to find out secrets about her parents

So there you have it. All in all, it was a pretty lively summer of reading with these books. And I pretty much liked them all. Did you read any of these?

And now I’ll leave you with a review of what I finished lately.

Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie / Knopf / 416 pages / 2025

Synopsis: Each segment of the novel follows a different African woman during the pandemic who are all friends — Chiamaka, Zikora, Kadiatou, and Omelogor — as they come to crossroads in their lives and figure a path forward.

Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer who recalls her past lovers and struggles with her choices and regrets. While Zikora is a lawyer in D.C. about to experience motherhood for the first time and upset that her partner has left. Whereas the outspoken Omelogor leaves a job of fraud in Nigeria to enter an MBA program in the States, only to find herself angered by her righteous classmates. And most disturbingly, Kadiatou is assaulted by a prominent man while at her hotel cleaning job and it blows into a public scandal.

My Thoughts: This was one of my last books on my summer reading list, lol. I thought there would be more interaction between the four women and it would be about their friendship, but no, the segments for the most part are pretty separate and it’s mostly about each of their lives and what they experience separately. It almost seemed like linked stories of the women, all of which have echoes of feminist themes.

I listened to it as an audiobook and the different narrators enlivened the story, and the first half with the women Chiamaka, Zikora, and Kadiatou I was engaged with. But then the latter half with Omelogor and a final part with Chiamaka went a bit off the tracks for me. My mind wandered and it sort of exhausted me as it went on too much. So the early parts kept me interested and the later parts tired me a bit. It seems I might have liked her 2013 novel Americanah slightly more, but I was glad to have finished this one too as I liked the women generally and the book’s feminist themes.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read any of these and what did you think? How’s your reading been?

Hi ho, it’s been a quick week. First off, thanks to those who participated in the No Kings peaceful protests yesterday, so good to express one’s first amendment right to free speech against what is happening under the current U.S. administration. It looked to be a great turnout!

We didn’t have any near us in Canada, but we do support the sentiments. It’s been a while since I flew to Denver in January 2017 to participate in the Women’s March, and if I had more notice, I’d like to have done so again. I was just in D.C. and I missed the march this time. But my brother shared some protest photos where he was in Pasadena, Calif., and my sister in San Francisco. All and all it seemed a great day. 

It was a bit quieter here. Our snow from last week melted and we’re back to fall again. I’ve been walking our younger dog Willow down our road. Stella is too old now to go too far. 

And I’m gearing up for a knee replacement surgery I’m having the second week of November. Sigh. I’ve been through this before — two years ago I did the first knee, now I’m doing the other. It’s quite an ordeal … but after three months I hope to be back walking okay and feeling fairly normal. And the good news might be: I’ll be ready for activities come spring and summer next year. Yay.

In book news, I don’t think I ever pictured the Booker Prize shortlist so here it is above. The prize will be announced on Nov. 10 and I would be a bit of a fool to pick which one will win since the judges seem to like to trick us at the last minute. I have only read Katie Kitamura’s novel Audition so far but I’d particularly like to read Flesh and Sonia and Sunny when my copy at the library comes in. I think the winner will be likely one of those three. Though then The Land in Winter or Flashlight will get it right? I’m slightly leaning towards Kiran Desai’s novel Sonia and Sunny for the win, but I haven’t read it yet, so what do I know. Katie Kitamura is certainly a beguiling kind of writer with her odd/lone protagonists and I’ve read and liked all three of her books. So your guess is as good as mine.

And now I’ll leave you with a couple reviews of what I finished lately. 

The Death of Us by Abigail Dean / Viking / 336 pages / 2025

Synopsis: This novel follows the lives of a young married couple in their 30s in London (Isabel and Edward) who struggle in the aftermath of a violent home invasion that changes their lives. Twenty-five years later, divorced and in their 50s, they find themselves (along with the other victims) gearing for the upcoming trial of the arrested perpetrator. Told in alternating chapters by Isabel and Edward you get their differing views on the case, their faults, and struggles, but also their connection to one another and love. 

My Thoughts: 4.0 stars. I don’t often read crime novels but this one was hailed very highly when it came out in April and I added it to my summer list. It’s a pretty potent crime story … of a serial killer/rapist on a spree, so trigger warnings abound. But it also unfolds quite convincingly and effectively and you come to know and root for the married couple Isabel and Edward. What happens to them impacts their lives and marriage in ways that catch you up and propel you through the story. 

The story swirls around quite long with small developments in their case and in their marriage as it crumbles a bit. They get to know a few of the other victims as well as the detective Etta Eliogu closely and Isabel makes a fateful decision when the case goes cold that she hopes might lure the perpetrator out in some way. 

It’s a different kind of crime story — not really a whodunit since you come to know that — but more of a victims’ story. The novel has a couple ebbs and flows in it and maybe a couple confusing transitions — since it jumps non-chronologically between the timelines — that I had to go back for in the audiobook. Still it’s easy enough to follow and you really get a sense of the characters of Isabel and Edward as real people … and root for their marriage and an arrest of the South London home invader. It’s a crime novel that was well worth my while.

The Fact Checker by Austin Kelley / Atlantic Monthly / 256 pages / 2025

Synopsis: This novel follows an unnamed protagonist who’s an obsessive fact checker at the New Yorker magazine circa 2004 in NYC. His job is to check every little detail on articles to make sure they’re the truth. He’s handled various serious pieces on terrorists, but then later he gets tripped up on an easier article he doesn’t expect to have any problems with …. about an organic farm that brings produce to the farmer’s market in the city.

He spends time (and a night) with a woman named Sylvia who works there who says something “nefarious” is going on but then she disappears the day after. He becomes worried and goes on a quest to find out what happened to her and if allegations about the place are true.

My Thoughts: 3.7 stars. I’m bucking the trend of the book’s low ratings on Goodreads (it did receive critical praise elsewhere). Austen Kelley deserves more love for this quirky, amusing novel. I too dabbled as a newspaper copy editor for years and I had to laugh particularly at the start of this debut. Then parts of it get a bit weird, other parts are amusing as he eventually makes a trip to the farm (a cult like place) to find out what’s going on. 

Along the way the protagonist comes off as a pretty endearing bar-going, baseball-loving, factoid-loving mess of a nerd who can’t let things go. He must get to the bottom of it and his search for truth and the facts and to help Sylvia. And he will … probably by mistake one day into the future. I think I could have a drink with him, but I don’t know where his friend Sylvia is. You’ll find out a little at the end. Note: the novel has one trigger warning for an odd scene of a sheep being killed, which I didn’t care for, so that was my quibble. Otherwise thumbs up.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read either of these and what did you think? How’s your reading going?

Hi Bookworms, how goes it? What are you up to this fine weekend? We have fall colors happening here! It’s been very dry with no rain for over a month but clear, cool mornings and warm days.

Which was perfect for my birthday yesterday. I’m starting a new decade now and it’s a bit hard to believe. Let’s keep with the adage that you’re only as old as you feel. Perhaps that’s the best way to go about it. I’m not sure how I feel, but I don’t think it’s as old as the number suggests.

This Thursday I’ll be going on a trip to the Washington D.C. area as well as to Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, lol. I’m just there to visit old friends and maybe see a museum exhibit or two. I once lived in Virginia pre-2008 before coming out here, so it’s a return of sorts.

I have not been back since 2016, and I think it might be very different in this current political climate. My D.C./Va. era dates from 1993-2010-ish. And I was there during 9/11 and man was that a somber day to be there and see the Pentagon.

And now in book news, I see that the National Book Awards for Fiction put out its longlist, which is above. I have not read any of these, but I’m looking to read Angela Flournoy’s novel The Wilderness (due out Sept. 16) that follows five black women through decades of friendship, and Megha Majumdar’s novel A Guardian and a Thief (due out Oct. 14) that looks to be a dystopian tale set in Kolkata, India. I have my radar on both of these, but also what about Joy Williams’ collection of stories The Pelican Child, which comes out Nov. 18? The list of Finalists will be announced Oct. 7 and the winner on Nov. 19. So keep your eyes out. Do you know any of these above?

Also don’t forget that the Booker Prize shortlist comes out this Tuesday. I have only read Katie Kitamura’s novel Audition so far from the longlist, and I’m not sure if it will make the shortlist, but I heard two BookTubers say their favorite book on the longlist is Benjamin Wood’s novel Seascraper about a man in England who earns a meager living trawling for shrimp on the beach until one day he meets a filmmaker who changes his outlook on life. Hmm. It comes out here Sept. 23. I will try to get a library copy.

And now I’ll leave you with a couple reviews of what I finished lately.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans / Crown / 304 pages / 2025

Synopsis: This epistolary novel follows the life of a divorced, retired woman, Sybil Van Antwerp, as she corresponds from 2012 to 2021 with her family, friends, acquaintances, and literary idols.

Sybil, is 73, when it starts in 2012, and is pretty set in her ways. She’s a bit gruff and prefers to communicate through letters. She has two grown kids — Fiona and Bruce, and a child who died as an adolescent — and a brother and a couple close friends.

Through a series of circumstances she comes to have quite a bit weighing on her shoulders, which includes: an anonymous harasser; an eyesight condition; a couple suitors; a DNA test; hosting a friend’s kid at her house; and fixing things with her daughter. Through her correspondence over several years, she tries to resolve things and in the process comes to learn more about herself and grows as time goes on.

My Thoughts: 4.4 stars. This novel has been one of the most popular hits this past summer. I read it as a buddy read with Tina at the blog Turn the Page. We both seemed to really like it. Overall I found it engaging and touching. The protagonist Sybil is a character, particular in her ways, whose story comes around through her correspondence and you come to understand what writing means to her and why she values it so much. I don’t want to say too much to give anything away, but she goes through some personal growth that helps her and is someone you feel you know by the end. I don’t think I’ll forget Sybil anytime soon. Thanks to Tina for reading and discussing the novel with me.

Early Sobrieties by Michael Deagler / Astra House / 272 pages / 2024

3.5 stars. A recovering alcoholic, Dennis Monk, age 26, is about six or seven months sober after he gets kicked out of his parents’ house in the burbs and sets off for south Philadelphia bumming stays on old classmates’ or friends’ couches and washing dishes at times at restaurants to make ends meet. He also tries to do apartment fix-ups for friends or help with odds and ends, so he can crash at their place.

His is a meek existence trying to navigate his early sobriety with getting by amid the gentrifying neighborhoods. Each chapter is like a different episode of whose place he’s at and what crazy thing is going on. The wily cast of characters he meets up with for a stay is colorful and not always safe. Monk was an English major and is trying through it all to observe and write something about the street life around him.

His narration is funny at times and though he seems a bit hopeless (whether it’s tugging out old carpet at a girlfriend’s, or watching out for a person’s parrot that escapes out a window) you root for him to resist the bottle and make it through this stage in life. Along the way, there’s amusing and astute writing here and there and some of the quirkiness, humor, and trouble of staying sober reminded me of a cross between John O’Toole’s novel A Confederacy of Dunces and Frederick Exley’s novel A Fan’s Notes. So that’s pretty high praise from me. It’s just that some of Monk’s journey grabbed me more than other parts that lagged a bit. It also turned out to be more episodic or like linked stories than I was hoping for …. from a coming-of-age sobriety novel. Still Deagler is a writer to watch.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read any of the books pictured above and if so, what did you think?

Hello. How was everyone’s week? We’ve had some nice warm September days here and I was out biking into the countryside and stopped at the village of Longview, population around 297 (give-or-take a few, lol). It’s a nice little place and is known for the oil they found there in 1937, which gave the unemployed something amid the Great Depression. Also apparently Clint Eastwood filmed some of the movie The Unforgiven there in 1991. What I like about it is the hay bales and large ranches and livestock that I see along the way and its views of the front ranges of the Rocky Mountains. The route there offers a rural road for cycling. 

Meanwhile in book news, Tina at the blog Turn the Page and I are doing a buddy read of the epistolary novel The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, which is about an avid letter writer in her 70s who has some spunk and is going through some stuff. So far so good. The novel came out April 29 and might have been the sleeper hit of the summer with a 4.60 rating on Goodreads and 4,756 reviews. It seems like a lot of people liked it.

In comparison, a novel like Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid, another summer bestseller that came out June 3, has a 4.37 Goodreads rating, with 60,774 reviews, whoa. TJR has a bit of a bigger market … with her books and following over the years. But still The Correspondent has done well.

And now just a recap of what I finished in July (top row above) and August (bottom row). Some I read in print, others were audios. Several were quite short novels (Audition, Tilt, Hunch Back, Wreck). Not sure I picked them for that but most here were on my summer list. I liked most of them so it’s a bit hard to pick which one was my top favorite of these though the one nonfiction book A Marriage at Sea made a lasting impression since it’s a pretty wild true tale and captured the imagination of being lost at sea. So there you have it and I will be doing a recap next time of how I did on my summer reading challenge. How did yours go?

And now I will leave you with a couple reviews of what I finished lately. 

The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali / Gallery / 336 pages / 2024

Synopsis: It’s the story of a decades-long friendship between two Iranian women (Ellie and Homa) starting in the 1950s whose lives are upended by their country’s political upheaval. The two meet at school at a young age and become fast friends. Ellie seems more traditional and concerned with what others think, while Homa is adventurous and spirited and throws caution to the wind. 

They fall out of touch when Ellie’s mother, a widower, moves them to another area of town to remarry, but later the two reunite in high school and go on to attend Tehran University. While Ellie gets caught up in plans to marry her boyfriend, Homa, who dreams of becoming a judge, is out protesting for students’ and women’s rights. Things turn dicey when Homa starts protesting the shah and regime change looms. The two friends undergo a harsh reckoning amid dangerous times that will haunt them into the future. A married Ellie is able to leave for New York, while Homa is captured behind. 

My Thoughts:  4 stars. I don’t want to say too much in detail about what happens in this novel as a couple dramatic events turn the tide for these two friends. Ellie narrates the story, which starts slowly about their school years, then it ratchets up once the Iranian Revolution begins. Kamali is a dynamic storyteller and I knew after her last novel The Stationery Shop, which captivated me, that I would need to get to this one as well. Historical novels set in Tehran are often fascinating — especially how the strong women there fight and form bonds to rise above harsh realities of the country’s oppressive regime. While this one might get a little drippy with everything it tries to tackle, it still makes you root and hope that the human condition and strong bonds can rise above such terrible circumstances and upheaval.

Catalina by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio / One World / 224 pages / 2024

Synopsis: This is a novel about the senior year of a Harvard University student in 2010 who’s an undocumented immigrant as she navigates uncertain times ahead. 

My Thoughts: 3.7 stars. I enjoyed listening to the audio and hearing about the protagonist Catalina Ituralde who was born in Ecuador and has lived in the U.S. since she was five when she was sent to her grandparents in NYC’s Queens after her parents were killed in a car crash. 

Catalina is smart and witty and feisty at times. She cares about her grandparents (also undocumented) who raised her and hopes the Dream Act bill (before Congress then), which would offer her permanent protection from deportation, will pass. She interns at a museum and starts dating another student. Then the Dream Act fails, and she finds deportation letters her grandfather hid in a drawer and tries to find a lawyer to help them. 

At first I found the book seemed more like a monologue of Catalina’s thoughts rather than a narrative of her life. But then as it goes on it branches out more into a story, which I was glad for. It’s not always easy to follow, but I liked Catalina and her perspective into the Dream Act and being an undocumented immigrant while being a student at Harvard. She has much personality and her struggles are eye-opening. 

I think I first heard about this novel when it was longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction in 2024. It seems to follow the author’s own life story as an undocumented immigrant going to Harvard. Apparently she was one of the first to graduate in 2011. She is very bright and a good advocate for the undocumented. I will be watching for whatever she puts out next. I believe she is still in the U.S. and is pursuing a PhD in American Studies at Yale.

I have another review to share, but it can wait till next time. That’s all for now.

What about you — have you read any of these books pictured above and what did you think?