Going Orbital

Hi all. I hope everyone is doing all right. I don’t know about you — but I’m still in a post-election news blackout and feel it suits me and my headspace nowadays. Who wants to witness whatever chaos lies ahead? It’s a new dawn here, see the sunrise from this week. Meanwhile I have more time to do other things, like read books, walk the dogs, do my part-time jobs, and take care of the homestead. And recently I received news that my next knee replacement is not going to be till February or March. I’ve been on a long surgery wait list.

There’s so many oldsters who are in need of joint replacements and only so many operating rooms in the city, so you must wait your turn. The replacements certainly work well (my first one went according to plan) and will allow me hopefully to keep active till late in life. I was able to bike this past Monday (see photo at left) since it’s been quite mild for this time of year.

Meanwhile my husband and I have made plans to spend much of December and the holidays in Southern California, visiting my father and brother and we’ll return in January. It’ll be a winter break, which is okay by me. So I need to gear up and get ready for the long road trip ahead.

In book news, I see that British author Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prizer this past week for her short 136-page novel Orbital, which is set aboard the International Space Station. Wow! It was quite a surprise since others expected Percival Everett’s novel James, or Yael van der Wouden’s novel The Safekeep to win.

But nope. Harvey’s book of astronauts in space, which apparently is filled with beauty and wonder, grabbed the attention of the judges who didn’t seem to mind that it’s “virtually plotless.” I have yet to read Harvey’s novel, but I intend to. I wonder if I will find the plotlessness a drawback, though it is quite short, so maybe I won’t. The cover is a bit fetching. Have you read this?

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

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante / Europa / 331 pages / 2011

4+ stars. First of all, thanks so much to Tina at the blog Turn the Page for doing a buddy read with me of this much-acclaimed novel. It had been on my shelves for many years and our read-along finally gave me the strong push to pick it up. It also had been named in the New York Times’ survey this past summer as the Best Book of the 21st Century. Whoa! I’m not sure why I had put it off so long, but after all the hoopla — it’s a pretty accessible story about the friendship of two girls from poor backgrounds who grow up in the same neighborhood in Naples, Italy, in the 1950s.

Elena Greco tells their story; she’s the studious good girl who despises her mother and gets high marks in school that allows her to continue on to attend high school. Whereas Lila is the adventurous one when they’re younger. She’s the bad girl in her antics who’s able to read and write brilliantly, but then is forced into working in her father’s shoe shop with her moody brother Rino instead of pursuing more school.

The story follows Elena and Lila’s close friendship and rivalry from ages 6 to 16 and their lives in the neighborhood, which is a pretty rough place … where people wind up dead, parents hit their kids, and bullying, backstabbing, and fighting are commonplace. The two girls inspire and rely on each other in ways to navigate and rise above the circumstances and patriarchal confinements of their lives.

At one point, they hope to write a novel as Louisa Alcott did with Little Women to become well off and independent. They each come to plot ways to transcend their neighborhood, Elena with school, and Lila by designing leather custom shoes to sell and by becoming engaged to a well off young man in the ‘hood. One summer Elena has the good fortune to go to an island to take care of a lady’s kids at the beach. While there, she falls for a boy, but a disturbing event transpires that makes her avoid him later.

After the novel’s accolades, I went into the book not knowing what to expect. But like others, I found it well written — in parts it’s a bit dense with a lot of exposition writing and not a lot of dialogue. Still it really takes you there, and I could picture Elena and Lila’s neighborhood and the people … and the poverty, violence, and the motivations behind the girls’ whims. From early on Elena felt school was the safest place to be.

Many characters from their area inhabit the novel and it was a bit hard to keep track of them all, but the key ones stood out. Their 1950’s setting is quite provincial, sexist, and hard, but I was lured in by the girls’ friendship and how they think highly of one another yet still compete a bit with each other and how they help each other to overcome situations. Lila is at first mean but later seems nicer to Elena than Elena is to her by the end. I’m not sure I preferred one girl over the other. They both seemed bright with potential to break out of their claustrophobic confines. Fingers crossed.

The novel is the first of four in a series. We plan to read Book 2 sometime next year. This novel was translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein, and was written under the pseudonym of Elena Ferrante. I tried to find the book cover I liked best. And so far, I have not watched the adapted TV series of it. Have you?

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

Posted in Books | 37 Comments

Aftermath

Hi all. I guess I will try to make this post short. For those who’ve followed this blog, which dates back to 2009, you know this isn’t a political blog and I try not to include my opinions about that here. But this past week with the election was truly shattering and deeply disappointing. It was not the outcome many — including me — were hoping for, and I think dark days and irreversible damage are ahead. It’s a very big downer and one that feels worse than in 2016. 

I feel a time of withdrawal is here … unplugging from news and social media and taking a step back. Who are we as a people? Where is the human race heading? Good grief, it doesn’t look anywhere good. I wish I could offer some solace, but there’s very little to say right now. I went back and read my post from November 2016, remembering those days and now this. Both are terrible. For those distressed perhaps one can find comfort in: reading and books; those we hold dear; and the outdoors, nature, sports, and chatting with other book enthusiasts. These are things I cling to, especially in troubled times. You can see from my photo I’m reading on our front stoop Elena Ferrante’s novel My Brilliant Friend.

Perhaps unsurprisingly over the past chaotic years “healing fiction” from Japanese and Korean authors has really taken off … like Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s series Before the Coffee Gets Cold and Hiro Arikawa’s The Travelling Cat Chronicles. Many of the novels are set in mundane locations and center on people struggling and overcoming everyday problems, and often feature cats with magical healing powers. You can read Alexandra Alter’s NYT article about the genre trend here. While I haven’t read these, I can see their cozy appeal. For me, books don’t have to be in this category to offer good escape and comfort. So many do that already, which is part of the magic of reading. 

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

Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing /357 pgs/1959

I think I reread this book every 20 years, my first time was probably in 1999 when I went to an exhibit of the expedition at the Natural History Museum in New York. In the book, Lansing wastes no time in his telling of one of the greatest survival stories of all time. It’s a roller coaster action-filled story. Caroline Alexander’s book The Endurance gives a bit more context, but Lansing was one of the first to give a full account of the Antarctic expedition of 28 men whose aim it was to cross the Antarctic continent in 1914 led by Irishman Ernest Shackleton. Apparently Lansing talked to 10 of the survivors and was granted access to the journals and diaries of those on the expedition in order to write this. 

As you probably know, they failed in their attempt to cross Antarctica because their ship the Endurance became trapped and crushed in the ice and they were left on the ice pack. But what they accomplished in their amazing survival turned out to be so much more. They drifted for a while on the ice pack until it melted and they launched three lifeboats into the Southern Ocean and managed to make it to Elephant Island where most stayed. Then Shackleton led a crew of five on a lifeboat trying to get help at the whaling station at South Georgia Island, which took 16 freezing days in an open boat. When they finally made land, they had to trek over icy mountains by foot to get help. 

It’s a rousing tale and I could almost feel the cold and salt-water wounds on their hands, their inadequate clothes and shivers, and the grossness of their rotting food rations. I don’t know how the 28 men survived the various legs of their scary predicament and the two years lost from the world, but their teamwork, fortitude, and how they rose to the occasion was incredible. A lot of credit goes to Shackleton’s leadership as “the boss” and keeping the men together and moving forward. To my knowledge, he’s one of the few polar explorers who brought his entire crew back alive after their ship was destroyed by ice and they were left abandoned. 

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read this and what did you think? Are you enjoying any good reads now? 

Posted in Books | 46 Comments

November Preview

Hi. Happy November. Wow we’ve come a long ways and are almost done with the year. I hope your reading is going well. There’s several reading genre challenges this month, including Norway in November, which I plan to participate in and perhaps German Lit month too.

In doing so, I hope to read at least one translated book from a Norwegian author and one from a German author this month. As well as I’m also going to be reading Elena Ferrante’s novel My Brilliant Friend in a read-along with Tina at Turn the Page, which is translated from the Italian, so there you have it — three different countries I hope to travel to in my mind, lol. Should I get out my suitcase? Our dogs, Stella, at left, and Willow, at right, will be my witnesses.

Meanwhile I’m midway through Somerset Maugham’s 1915 classic Of Human Bondage, which was an October read-along with Ti at Book Chatter. I will hopefully finish the tale of Philip Carey’s coming-of-age soon. Philip has recently met the cold waitress Mildred and I fear that will not go well. The novel feels a bit like a David Copperfield-kind of tale in which the protagonist goes through various phases and travels as he grows up, learns, and endures a number of challenges and changes of heart. I will see what becomes of Philip.

This week my husband and I actually went to a matinee movie at the theater! Is that crazy or what? We shirked responsibilities, lol, and saw Conclave, the movie based on the 2016 novel by Robert Harris, about various maneuverings that come to light in the selection of a new pope. It stars Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini among others. I thought the movie started off slowly, but it gets a bit more intriguing as it goes along. It’s a slow-burn kind of plot in which various cardinals are vying for the papacy and secrets become revealed in time. It has a good twist near the end and we enjoyed it, though I’m not sure it’s an Oscar contender.

And now let’s check out what’s releasing this month. Luckily there’s not as many new books to add to my TBR, which is great because for the next two months I’ll be reading mostly backlist books. Still I’ll mention Irish writer Niall Williams’s new novel Time of the Child (due out Nov. 19) which follows the story of a local doctor and his daughter Ronnie in a small town in Ireland, who take in an abandoned baby in December 1962.

I think it’s a bit of a Christmas story and it takes place in the same town as his popular 2019 novel This Is Happiness, but it’s not exactly a sequel. I have yet to read this author, but many love his books, including Ann Patchett who is a big fan. So I need to get on his books.

Next up is the Christmas-themed novella Brightly Shining (due out Nov. 19) by Norwegian author Ingvild Rishoi about two sisters ages 16 and 10 and the financial hardships they endure living with their single alcoholic father in contemporary Oslo. This translated tale is told by the younger sister who believes a miracle could help them.

It sounds like what they go through is heart-wrenching but they do their best to care for one another. It’s another Christmastime book and would satisfy my read for Norway in November as well as anyone participating in the Novellas in November challenge.

On the screen this month, there’s a smorgasbord of new releases. First in movies, Oscar-winner Cillian Murphy stars in the film adaptation of the historical drama Small Things Like These (due out Nov. 8) based on the novel by Irish writer Claire Keegan. Oh yeah, many of us liked this grim story set in 1985 about a father who discovers disturbing secrets about what’s going on at a local convent that makes him confront the secrets in the Irish town.

Irish actor Cillian Murphy is coming off starring in the epic Oppenheimer and this small but intense film might be just the ticket to keep his success going.

Then there’s Jesse Eisenberg’s comedy drama A Real Pain (due out Nov. 1) about two mismatched cousins who reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin star as the two opposites who embark on the tour with a busload of other tourists.

Culkin’s character seems a bit zany, but their tour also includes a visit to the Majdanek Nazi concentration camp, where another side of him comes out. Culkin was a big plus to the series Succession, and the film’s received high praise and is said to be “powerfully funny and emotionally resonant.” So we’ll see.

The other four notable movies are: Blitz (due out Nov. 1) with Saoirse Ronan that follows the story of a group of Londoners during the British capital’s bombing in WWII; Juror #2 (out Nov. 1), a Clint Eastwood film, about a man who struggles with a dilemma while serving on a jury that could sway the outcome; September 5 with Peter Sarsgaard (due out Nov. 27) about an American broadcasting crew that finds itself suddenly covering the hostage crisis of Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympics; and lastly Maria (due out Nov. 27), starring Angelina Jolie as the opera singer Maria Callas during her last days of her life in 1970s Paris as she confronts her identity and life.

Whoa, this should be an explosive month of good movies and I didn’t even mention the musical fantasy film Wicked (out Nov. 22), the generational film Here with Tom Hanks and Robin Wright (out Nov. 1), or the action movie Gladiator II with Denzel Washington (Nov. 22), those aren’t high on my list, but then there’s the various TV series to look for.

I’m curious to see Season 2 of Bad Sisters (on AppleTV+ Nov. 13), which is the black comedy spoof about five sisters in Dublin who plot to murder their brother-in-law. There’s also Season 5 of Yellowstone (starting Nov. 10), without Kevin Costner this time. We don’t watch the show, but many do. Also a similar new show is releasing called Landman (Paramount+, Nov. 7) about the wild world of West Texas oil rigs starring Billy Bob Thornton, Demi Moore, and Jon Hamm.

You might also like the sci-fi series Dune Prophecy, a prequel to the recent Dune films on HBO Max starting Nov. 17, or the historical drama Say Nothing on Hulu Nov. 14, based on the 2018 bestselling book set during The Troubles of Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe. The show Interior Chinatown (on Hulu Nov. 19), which is based on the 2020 novel by Charles Yu, looks like a bit of fun about a struggling actor who gets mixed up in the underground after witnessing a crime. Also actor Michael Fassbender stars in the espionage series The Agency (starting Nov. 29 on Paramount+ with Showtime), which looks action-packed and is based on the French series The Bureau. But if you need something calmer and stimulating try Ken Burns’s latest documentary focusing on the master artist Leonardo da Vinci on PBS (Nov. 18 & 19).

Finally in music there’s new albums by The Cure, Willie Nelson, Mary J. Blige, Gwen Stefani, Dwight Yoakam, Regina Spektor, and Shawn Mendes among others. I’m looking at British singer Michael Kiwanuka’s upcoming album Small Changes (due out Nov. 22). He has a very atmospheric sound, which they once used for the intro of the show Big Little Lies, and you can hear his new song The Rest of Me here.

That’s all for now. What about you — which releases are you looking forward to this month? Happy November!

Posted in Top Picks | 44 Comments

Scattered Days

Hi all. I’m going to try to post regularly on Fridays now. Ha, as soon as I say that I’m doomed, but I will try to make Fridays my post day. We’ll see if it lasts. I hope so. Even if I don’t have a book to discuss, I’ll try to have something to feature and chat about. I’ve always admired other blogs that stick to a schedule, so I’ll give it a go. 

I hope everyone’s fall has been nice. This past Monday we had our first snowfall, and it stuck around for two days before melting away. The forecast looks clear now till Halloween when trick-or-treaters might see snowflakes again. It’ll be fun if the spooky night sees snow, though the pumpkins don’t like freezing temps. 

My reading lately has been scattered. Part of that is that I’ve got three novels going on and I don’t seem to be making much headway in them, and partly it’s due to the election bearing down on us. We might have turned off the news, but still it’s permeated our brains by now. For many of us, the next 10 days will be a knotted ball of anxiety. The uncertainty is palpable. I have voted early from abroad and I urge you to wherever you are. Will chaos ensue? I really hope not. I’m eager to move forward and not go back. 🙂 

Lately in book news, I see that Percival Everett has won the Kirkus Prize for Fiction for his novel James and received $50K. Wow and he’s still up for two more big awards with the Booker and the National Book Award. Will he win either of those? I have read and liked James and I still want to read The Safekeep and other nominees. Speaking of which The New York Times had an interesting story this week about the Dutch author of The Safekeep, which you can see here.

And unfortunately due to snow and not feeling well, I missed seeing Rachel Kushner talk about her nominated novel Creation Lake at the book festival here. But I saw the book talk with Anne Enright and Roddy Doyle and the other event with Holly Gramazio whose time-bending novel The Husbands sounds a bit like a hoot, with different husbands coming out of the attic … like a revolving door. I haven’t read it yet, but I think she must have had one heck of a wacky dream. It was fun attending the book festival and it’s given me more for the TBR. Though lately one weird thing is: the city’s whole library system has been derailed by a cyber-security problem and has been mostly shutdown for over a week. You can’t check out or return books and there’s no indication when it will return. Argh.

And now I’ll leave you with the novel I finished lately. 

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa /Harper /160 pgs/ 2023 

3.7 stars. I enjoyed this one on audio, which takes place in an artsy neighborhood of Tokyo where there are a lot of bookstores. Takako, 25, is in free fall when she gets a call from her uncle Satoru offering for her to come live at his old used bookshop. She’s had a skank of a boyfriend who she’s found out has taken advantage of her and has had to quit her job to avoid him. Now she’s sleeping the days away in a small room above the bookshop and depression has taken over.

But in time her uncle and the cozy bookshop and its customers weasel their way into her life and give her meaning and reason to keep going. She learns to fight back against the skank and begins to read and enjoy Japanese lit. A number of Japanese authors and novels, which I’d like to read, are mentioned throughout the story. I always seem to like translated Japanese lit. 

The novel’s second half involves Satoru’s long-lost wife (Momoko) who returns after five years away. She and Takako bond on a girls’ hiking trip, and Momoko confides in her why she left and why she’s returned. It’s a heartwarming tale and though it might have familiar themes of other bookshop kinds of novels about healing and spreading one’s wings, this novel is well told, engaging, and has worthy nuggets of wisdom in it. It might be a bit slight, but I liked the characters and how they evolved and grew closer. Sometime I will pick up the sequel novel that came out this year: More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop!  

That’s all for now. What about you have you read this book or bookshop novels like it, and if so, what did you think? Happy Halloween! 

Posted in Books | 38 Comments

Burros and Books

Hi all. I hope everyone is enjoying some pretty fall days. It’s starting to get cooler here now. And as it gets closer to Halloween, we might even see a snowflake or two. We’ll see. Last Monday was Thanksgiving here in Canada, which was a beautiful day and my husband and I went for a long bike ride. I shot this photo as we biked along one of our favorite routes, and later we had a nice Thanksgiving turkey dinner at our local golf club, which put out a lovely special holiday meal. No clean-up at home necessary, yay.

Recently we took down our vegetable patch for the year. It was a good season and we still have plenty of squash and cucumbers left, and enough to make zucchini muffins.

On Saturday I will head to the city for the book festival by Wordfest. It’ll be my first of three events. The talk features several female authors: Holly Gramazio (The Husbands), Madeline Ashby (Glass Houses), Robyn Harding (The Haters), and Marissa Stapley (The Lightning Bottles). Have you read any of these? I have read Harding before … her 2017 crime thriller The Party was a doozy. Then on Sunday I will see Irish authors Roddy Doyle (The Women Behind the Door) and Anne Enright (The Wren, the Wren), and Monday’s talk features Rachel Kushner (Creation Lake). Yay.

After Saturday’s talk, I plan to meet up with book blogger Haze from The Book Haze, which should be a lot of fun. A while ago after I found her blog, I discovered she lives in this province as well, so it’ll be great to meet up in person. Check out her blog if you don’t already know it. She reads and reviews a variety of great books.

And now I’ll leave you with a review of a nonfiction book that I finished lately.

Running With Sherman by Christopher McDougall / Knopf / 352 pages / 2019

My sister gave me the perfect gift when she sent me this book early this summer, since I have been interested in keeping donkeys at our back field ever since we moved to a more rural location in January 2023. They seem adorable animals and I have been intrigued by them for a long while. Though I’m still trying to talk my husband into the idea of these braying pack animals. I hope someday it will happen and we will have two here … if all goes well.

As for the book it’s a heartwarming true story that’s very informative too … about an abused, neglected donkey that is given a second chance at life when the author and his family save him from the previous owner and take him to live on their farm in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County. Sherman — as they rename him — can barely walk at the time due to overgrown hooves.

Luckily with vet care they are able to rehabilitate him … and when the trainer says Sherman “needs a purpose,” the author gets an idea to train him for the World Championship burro race in Colorado. This involves running alongside the donkey holding a rope from the harness as the donkey runs (or decides not to run) the mountainous course.

Over several months the author and “his team,” which includes his wife and a neighbor’s college son, train with Sherman along with two other buddy donkeys named Flower and Matilda that lure him along. As the race nears they have to overcome many obstacles just to get to the race — due to unrelated injuries and driving logistics — which miraculously they do.

The book is about donkeys but also about the people in their rural neck of the woods and so much more. Some of the book is the author’s personal story and another part is his journalistic reporting about Amish country, endurance running, and the world of burro racing and those who do it. Who knew? I hadn’t even heard of the sport till this book. But what really won me over are the three donkeys: Sherman, Flower, and Matilda. They are smaller than you might expect but they each have their own funny personalities and egg each other on. I loved them.

It’s a moving story for animal lovers, or for readers of human interest sports stories. I have the paperback copy as well as the audio version, which is entertaining and enthusiastically read by the author.

You might remember the author from his 2009 bestselling book titled Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Super Athletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen about the author’s journey to Mexico’s Copper Canyons to learn the secrets of the Tarahumara Indian native people, known for their ability to run for hundreds of miles without problems, or injury. Well apparently Matthew McConaughey has signed on to star in the movie version, which is still in early development. We will see if it pans out and is made.

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

Posted in Books | 42 Comments

Breezing Into Fall

Hi all. I hope you’re having a pleasant fall. It’s been nice here and warm conditions make it feel like it’s an Indian summer, but I know others far away are on the run from Hurricane Milton so hopefully they can get out of its path in Florida. What’s being predicted doesn’t look good. What a worry for the state’s Gulf side.

Meanwhile next week the city’s book festival is going on here along with a Challenger pro-tennis tournament, so I’ll be driving back and forth to those events. At the festival, I’ll be seeing authors Roddy Doyle, Anne Enright, Robyn Harding, and Rachel Kushner speak about their new novels. I sort of want to see Nita Prose and Alice Winn too, but I’m not sure I will get there since we live a ways away. I will report back on what happens.

Also my husband and I recently saw British nonfiction author Ben Macintyre talk about his recent book The Siege, which gives a suspenseful account of the 1980 hostage crisis that took place at the Iranian Embassy in London.

Whoa, I don’t recall much about it at the time — perhaps since the other Iranian hostage crisis was going on and I was in high school — but it was a very tense, dangerous situation. Macintyre’s books are all very good, especially his 2014 book A Spy Among Friends about British spy Kim Philby. It was great to see him and he gave a great talk about his new book, which sounds like a page-turner.

Now let’s check out the various books I picked up from the library recently. Here’s my library loot at left. Have you read any of these? They all look pretty good, but I might not get to many this time around, since I signed up for Ti’s October read-along of Of Human Bondage, which I need to start pronto. I just finished a novel for PW, so that distracted me for a bit. Now I’m back to pick up Somerset Maugham’s 1915 classic, which seems like it’ll be terrific. Yay.

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

I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger / Grove / 336 pages / 2024

4 stars. It’s been years since I read author Leif Enger back when he wrote his lovely debut Peace Like a River, which actually was published on 9/11/2001 — not a good pub date! But here I was 20 years later reading his newest tale, which I couldn’t resist —set along Lake Superior in the not so distant future, where much has closed, violence is out there, and people are barely getting by. Groups of people have been opting out by taking a suicide drug known as Willow.

But bar-band bass guitarist Rainy is doing his best with his beloved wife Lark, who owns the bookstore in town and seems like the coolest, poetic person on earth. But when a boarder (Kellan) comes to stay at their place — little do they know that he’s being pursued by bad guys who want the drug stash he stole from them. As Kellan flees, the bad guys descend upon the house while Rainy is out and cause heartbreak for him to find.

Rainy takes to a sailboat to escape and to try to find Lark’s spirit amid the Slate Islands where they once sailed together. Along the way he stops in various coastal towns for supplies and finds he’s being shot at and pursued. Meanwhile out on the lake, he meanders his grief and learns how to manage the boat under tough storm and lake conditions. It’s dicey trying to stay alive out there on so little rations and he meets one couple onshore that help. Later at another stop, he helps a young girl (Sol, age 12) get out of her harsh predicament and she becomes a passenger on his boat. Eventually the bad guys catch up and things play out on a large medicine ship.

Much of the story is vividly and movingly rendered like the misty fog on the lake and Rainy’s feelings onboard, and other parts get a bit slow, weighed down and long. But still you keep on to see how it will play out and how Rainy will fare. The ending with the bad guys gets a bit suspenseful — and afterwards I felt like I had been through the ordeal and I thought about the book for quite a while. Kudos to Enger for this dystopian tale and its chilly lake setting.

The Women by Kristin Hannah / St. Martin’s / 471 pages / 2024


4+ stars. The first half of this novel I liked best about young American nurse Frankie McGrath’s time helping the wounded in Vietnam circa 1966-1969 and the friends (Barb, Ethel, and doc Jaime) she meets while there. She follows in her brother’s path to Vietnam. The first half is fast paced and really details how tough it was and the contributions the nurses made, and how young they were. Innocent Frankie comes into her own there as time goes on and she finds she’s good at being a nurse and helping save the lives of soldiers torn apart.

Along the way, I didn’t doubt Frankie made close friends and fell for a couple men over there during such intensity. But when she gets back to the States after her service, so much goes wrong at each turn that it’s a heavy dose of drama. Though I don’t underestimate that Veterans struggled to acclimatize when they returned from the war and were looked down upon by a society that had turned against the war. Many did and became dependent on drugs and alcohol to ease their nightmares and pain.

Frankie’s struggles with her parents and how the country perceived Vietnam nurses as pretty much invisible and like non-veterans seems well described. But later the twists that come with the relationships she has (one in particular with a Navy officer) goes sort of overboard. It gets a bit drippy. Yet still all the research the author obviously did into the Vietnam War and the vet nurses comes through and makes it a worthy respectful story of their contributions and perhaps is her best book yet … though I have only read her novel The Nightingale. I listened to The Women on audio narrated movingly by Julia Whelan.

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

Posted in Books | 42 Comments

October Preview

Hi all. We’ve made it to October, wow. It’s really fall now. The plants and trees are changing color. The Virginia creeper across the trellis out front has already turned red, and we’ve had a few overnights of frost. It’s almost time to put the vegetable garden to bed here, but still we might have a few 70-degree golden afternoons left, which will feel like bliss. Meanwhile my thoughts go out to all the people struggling after the devastation of Hurricane Helene. It looks terrible in parts of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida, and I hope they find some relief soon. The loss of life is stunning and awful to hear. Charity Navigator is a good place to look where to send support.

On a happier note, there’s plenty of reading challenges going on over the next two months. This month I signed up for a read-along of Somerset Maugham’s novel Of Human Bondage over at Ti’s blog Book Chatter. Since it’s a long classic, we have the entire month to read and chat about it and dip into all things Maugham. Perhaps I’ll also read one scary novel for the Readers Imbibing Peril (R.I.P.) challenge, or continue on with reading Booker Prize nominees. There’s also various other bookish challenges for next month including: nonfiction November, Norway in November, German reads, and my read-along of Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend with Tina over at the blog Turn the Page. So I guess it’s time to gear up and get ready.

But first let’s see what’s releasing this month. There’s new notable books coming out by Jean Hanff Korelitz (The Sequel), Ta-Nehisi Coates (The Message), and Michael Connelly (The Waiting) among others. Are you seeing a pattern with these titles? Also Al Pacino has a memoir (Sonny Boy) coming out as well as the late Russian activist Alexei Navalny’s posthumous memoir Patriot. I’m looking at these and a couple others, including Louise Erdrich’s novel The Mighty Red (due out Oct. 1), which according to Publishers Weekly follows the indigenous folks of the Red River Valley of North Dakota … “in a captivating tale of love and everyday life amid environmental upheaval and the 2008 financial crisis.” Erdrich is a gem of storyteller, but I have only read one of her novels so far — The Night Watchman from 2020, which I liked. So I might give this one a try too.

I’m also looking at Canadian author Tammy Armstrong’s book Pearly Everlasting (due out Oct. 1), which Publishers Weekly says is an enchanting novel about a “spirited teenage girl who sets off through the woods of 1934 New Brunswick, Canada, to rescue the bear she considers her brother …. in an adventure that brims with folklore and superstition, as Pearly musters the courage to overcome her fears.”

This novel received a starred review from Kirkus and takes place during the Great Depression from a remote logging camp. The author is a poet who lives in a fishing village in Nova Scotia. Since I need to read more Canadian authors and Pearly Everlasting includes a bear, I’m game for it, lol.

In what to watch this month, it seems there’s not too many TV series to check out perhaps other than Season 2 of The Diplomat (starting Oct. 31 on Netflix) starring Keri Russell. We didn’t make it through Season 1 as Russell was great as always, but the storyline seemed to get a bit crazy.

But there are several movies that look good (it’s not all about the new Joker film with Joaquin Phoenix), including the family-friendly film My Penguin Friend (available to stream Oct. 1), which appears to be endearing and is based on a true story about a lost penguin and a heartbroken Brazilian fisherman. Though if it’s creepy you’re looking for this Halloween season, try the new Salem’s Lot movie on HBO Max starting Oct. 3. It hasn’t received great reviews, but Stephen King is tweeting about it and it’ll likely get you into an October mode.

There’s also the movie A Different Man (due out Oct. 4) about a guy who undergoes facial surgery for a disfiguring condition but then becomes fixated on an actor in a stage production based on his former life. It’s won awards at various film festivals and the trailer reminded me a bit of the 1980 film The Elephant Man loosely based on the real life of a deformed man named Joseph Merrick.

Am I dating myself? That one was very good and looks similar to the condition the man has in the new film, which stars Sebastian Stan as the afflicted guy. Yet A Different Man is listed as a black comedy psychological thriller film, so we’ll have to see how it plays out.

Next up is the latest movie starring Saoirse Ronan titled The Outrun (due out Oct. 4) about a young woman recently out of rehab for alcoholism, who returns to the beauty of the Orkney Islands off Scotland, where she grew up, to try to come to terms with her past.

It looks like a winner especially if you like Ronan’s films, and of course she’s had many great ones over the years including: Lady Bird, Little Women, Brooklyn, On Chesil Beach, and Atonement among others. She’s a star and has just got married this summer to actor Jack Lowden who plays River Cartwright in the TV series Slow Horses, so that’s pretty exciting, right?

But perhaps the biggest movie this month is Conclave (due out Oct. 25), based on the novel by Robert Harris, about a Cardinal who when tasked with leading the way to selecting a new pope later finds himself at the center of a conspiracy that could shake the foundation of the Church.

Ralph Fiennes stars as the Cardinal, and actors Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini also make appearances. It could be a whopper of a psychological thriller if it lives up to the book, so we will see … and the cinematography in Rome should be great too. Could it be Oscar material?

And lastly in music this month, there’s new albums by Coldplay, Finneas, Bon Iver, Tears for Fears, and Leon Bridges among others. I’ll pick Coldplay’s new one called Moon Music due out Oct. 4. It’s the group’s tenth studio album and will be followed by a world tour. It’s also going to be aired in theaters around the globe for a listening event on Oct. 2 & 3. Now here’s the band’s single Feels Like I’m Falling in Love from Glastonbury.

That’s all for now. What about you — which new releases are you looking forward to this month?

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Fall Pickings

Hi all. Happy first day of fall. It’s going to be a beautiful and warm week here … though we already had one morning of frost on Saturday and we had to pick some vegetables the night before and tarp the rest. We saved most of the plants, while a few got shriveled. It’s hard to believe we’re already at this point. Meanwhile, I had a fun birthday on Friday with tennis doubles during the day and a dinner out with my husband and a cake afterwards, lol. You know you’re far, far along when one candle represents a decade, right? Oh well.

Lately we’ve been watching and liking the mystery/crime series The Emperor of Ocean Park based on the novel by Stephen L. Carter (on Crave in Canada) and also the mystery drama The Perfect Couple (on Netflix), based on the book by Elin Hilderbrand. Both of these shows are fun suspense and not too heavy. We’ll probably watch Season 4 of Slow Horses (on AppleTV+) next, and I’m curious whether to try to get the historical drama series Shogun especially since it won like 18 Emmy awards recently. Apparently you can view it in Japanese with English subtitles, or in an English dub version. Have you tried it?

In book news, I see that the longlist for the National Book Award came out last week, which included these 10 fiction titles:

All Fours by Miranda July
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
The Most by Jessica Anthony
Catalina by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
James by Percival Everett
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
My Friends by Hisham Matar
Yr Dead by Sam Sax
Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte
Ghostroots by Pemi Aguda

The Finalists will be announced Oct. 1. You can see there’s two that overlap with two titles on the shortlist for the Booker Prize, which includes:

Held by Anne Michaels
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
Orbital by Samatha Harvey
James by Percival Everett
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood

I was surprised that novels by Richard Powers (Playground), Hisham Matar (My Friends), and Sarah Perry (Enlightenment) did not make the cut for the Booker’s shortlist. Are all these above stronger? I still want to read The Safekeep. I’ve been on the library wait list for it as long as it’s been on the Booker list, ha.

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

Sandwich by Catherine Newman / Harper / 240 pages / 2024

I guess since a lot of people read and talked about this summer-set story that I’ll pick it for the popular novel of the 2024 summer. So get out the sunscreen if you haven’t read it yet. I listened to the audio version narrated entertainingly by Nan McNamara.

What it’s about: Mid-fifty-ish Rachel or Rocky as she’s called is really going through something — menopause and internal struggles — the week she and her family are at their usual old Cape Cod rental place, which they’ve been going to since their two kids were young. Now they’re older and almost leaving the nest. But yet here they all are together again: with Rocky, her husband Nick, her elderly parents, son Jaime (and girlfriend Maya), and daughter Willa under one small roof. Rocky’s grateful for them all but also nostalgic about the past years when the kids were young. Then she begins to remember sorrowful and secret things that happened back then, which start unfolding as the week goes on.

Rocky’s dealing with her kids’ changes and her parents’ on top of her own. It’s not a story with much action or activity, but it’s more of a domestic, dialogue-imbued plot with internal meanderings.

The author does a good job describing the beach cottage environs, household banter, and things going on with Rocky. Though I almost put it down early on — thinking it was hard to grasp onto much — but it gets a bit better further in, so I kept going. I did laugh at various funny things Rocky says as well as others in the book. Though if you have trouble with loose talk of “vaginas” in many chapters, then be a bit forewarned. Quite a bit of the humor is like that. Towards the latter half the story becomes a bit more heartwarming with the family’s bonds.

Despite her dramas, I thought Rocky seemed lucky to me, especially with her low-key, gracious husband who seems a bit like a saint facing Rocky with her inner turmoils, and the kids have a sweetness about them. Her parents are funny too — though they face challenges. It might not exactly be your family experience, but a slice of it was entertaining and at times warm like a mojito on an engaging summer evening.

Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster / Penguin Classics / 1912

I remember my mother reading this book to me as a youngster and now I’ve returned to it these many years later. I recall being awe-struck as a kid that this orphan girl was now at college and writing all these open candid letters to the anonymous benefactor who sent her there … and that she was learning all sorts of things and having a wonderful time at college and setting her sights on becoming an author, which her benefactor wants her to do.

I could picture Jerusha (Judy) and her life there and I sort of wanted to be there too. Judy is a positive girl with a can-do spirit and has some perky, fun wit about her. It felt very interesting to listen to this epistolary novel published in 1912 and to get a glimpse of the world then and to see what Judy thought of such writers as the Brontes, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Shakespeare and to hear of her classes and writing process.

I enjoyed the audio version narrated by Kate Forbes. It’s a sweet story and maybe it’s a tad sentimental but that’s okay. I give her permission. Judy goes through quite an intellectual and emotional awakening in her coming-of-age journey from college freshman to graduate and story writer, which gives her confidence, happiness, and ultimately love. In some ways the novel reminded me slightly of Chaim Potok’s novel The Chosen because of its journey of a young person’s learned awakening through school and books, though Judy’s is a secular awakening in contrast.

I have never read and didn’t even know about the sequel Dear Enemy, which was published in 1915 three years later. Sadly author Jean Webster lived only to age 39 and died giving birth to a daughter in 1916. How sad. Her days at Vassar College (class of 1901) apparently gave her material for this book. Returning to Daddy-Long-Legs reminded me too of my mother who passed in April. Such books are good to keep passing along to the generations after. You can still find plenty in Daddy-Long-Legs to treasure, including Jean Webster’s voice of a young precocious girl getting ready to meet the world.

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

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One More Swim

Hi all. I hope everyone is well. We’re already flying through this month it seems. Our Labrador dogs had a nice swim in the river a couple nights ago when it was around 85/90 degrees. They really love swimming and retrieving the ball. Stella is 12 now and swimming gives her some much-needed physio for her arthritis and weak hind legs. Willow, in the foreground, is three years old and can swim very fast. She’s a turbo charger and retrieves the ball lickety-split. 

Now today a rainstorm has moved in and the temps have dropped to 50F. I’m sort of wondering if the high heat is behind us here as we get closer to fall. Just a few weeks ago I was in SoCal visiting my Dad and now it’s being besieged by three wildfires there. I’m keeping a close eye on those from this map. They’ve actually arrested someone for arson in the Line Fire in San Bernardino County. Good grief. How awful to intentionally do this — it’s hard to imagine the malevolence. Meanwhile on the other side of the country, I hope those who endured the deluge from Tropical Storm Francine are okay and will get their power back soon.

Let’s turn to book news now. I see that the Booker Prize shortlist will be announced this coming Monday Sept. 16, so look for that. The 13 novels on the longlist will be whittled down to six. I don’t think I will guess which ones will make it since I’ve only read Percival Everett’s James, but I’m quite certain that James will be on the shortlist and has a shot to win the grand prize in November. Will you be reading any of the nominees?

Also I wanted to review how I did on my Summer Reading List challenge. When all was said and done I completed 10 of 15 novels on my list. I’ll go for 10 next year — as usually other reads slip in. Here are the ones on my list I finished in order of those I read first:

  • The Road to Dalton by Shannon Bowring  (4.2 stars)
  • River East, River West by Aube Rey Lescure (4.3 stars)
  • Kindred by Octavia Butler (3.5 stars)
  • Clear by Carys Davies (3.75 stars) 
  • Prophet Song by Paul Lynch (near 5 stars)
  • Long Island by Colm Toibin (4 stars)
  • A Great Country by Shilpi Somaya Gowda (3.75 stars)
  • James by Percival Everett (near 5 stars)
  • The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng (4.5 stars)
  • The God of the Woods by Liz Moore (3 stars) this was an alternate pick

Here are the ones I didn’t get to but might some other time:

  • My Beloved Life by Amitava Kumar
  • The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon
  • The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson
  • The Women by Kristin Hannah
  • How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair
  • My Friends by Hisham Matar (I tried this but put it down after 5%) 

I enjoyed most of them quite a bit. And here are a couple reviews of what I finished lately. 

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore / Riverhead / 496 pages / 2024

3 – 3.5 stars. This drama/crime novel is about a teenage girl (Barbara Van Laar) who vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp in 1975. The disappearance lays bare the pain and troubles of her wealthy family who own the camp and who lost a son (Bear) similarly fourteen years earlier. As a panicked search begins, various suspects and secrets eventually come to light and a young, unproven assistant investigator Judy Luptack tries get to the bottom of what happened in the past and present cases. 

This widely touted crime novel, which received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Kirkus among others and made Obama’s summer list, reminded me slightly of Rebecca Makkai’s 2023 novel I Have Some Questions for You. That one is set at a boarding school and this one is at a camp, but in both unsettling truths about the cases come to light that have affected those on the periphery for decades. Both, too, swirl around with various suspects and motives for a good long time. This novel, which I listened to as an audiobook, is 496 pages in print!

Eeeek. I wanted to really like it — as I had liked Moore’s novels Long Bright River and Heft quite a lot, but this one not so much. In fact I almost DNF’d it early on, but I struggled to continue on … trying to care about the case and the characters … trying to give it a pulse and thinking it would revive amid the woods, but the pacing and length felt sort of agonizing to me. 

It’s a bad sign when I wanted the female investigator Judy Luptack (the most favorable character) to figure it out about 150+ pages earlier. I realize it’s a slowburn kind of crime novel that tries to delve deep into its large cast of mostly unlikable characters … the main ones from the wealthy troubled family that owns the camp — with the alcoholic mom and the unresponsive father, but man this felt like an eon. I felt the suspense was muted and thought I probably could return to summer camp by the time anything came of it. (For camp, I went only one summer as a youngster to Bob Mathias camp in the mountains east of Fresno, Calif. No persons disappeared there to my recollection, but it might have been around 1975, gulp.) Some of Moore’s writing was evocative and well done, but the pacing … and the ending needed a lifeline to me by then.

Still I seem to be in the minority on this novel, which has a 4.27 rating on Goodreads. So check it out if you think it might appeal to you. 

A Hundred Flowers by Gail Tsukiyama / St. Martin’s / 288 pages / 2012

4 stars. A family is rocked when one of them — the man, a history teacher and an intellectual named Sheng Ying — is taken away to a reeducation camp in 1958 Maoist China. Told thru those left behind — who include his wife Kai Ying, who struggles to keep the family going; his elderly retired father Wei, who feels guilty his son was taken; his 12-year-old son Tao, who suffers a scary fall at the beginning and is taken to the hospital; his Aunt Song, an avid gardener; and a homeless pregnant teen named Suyin, who comes to take refuge with them.

The story took on a kind of slice-of-life look of those living under a repressive regime and trying to cope with the loss of a family member and the uncertainty of whether or not he will return. 

Midway through you learn how Sheng came to be taken and what it was for … which leads to friction within the family and you wonder if they can forgive each other and be healed. Then late in the story, the elderly father of Sheng makes a cross-country trek to try to locate him and you have to wait to see what happens. 

This was my first Gail Tsukiyama novel — found at a library book sale — and I thought she wrote simply and movingly about each member in the household and what they’re experiencing and have been through. I’ve read several books about China during the Maoist regime and each has given me a fuller picture of the terror during that time. Perhaps the best to me is the 1987 memoir Life & Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng. 

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

Posted in Books | 46 Comments

September Preview

Wow happy September everyone. Welcome to the best month of the year, ha. I might be a little biased since it’s my bday month and usually a pretty time of year, but I like it. My husband and I have been bicycling this summer over hill and dale and on Sunday I finished my longest ride this season going 47.5 miles (usually I’m in the 20 to 30 mile range). It was a long, good ride. I was tired later and I guess it was a good test for my knee replacement that I had last November. Except for a bit of swelling afterwards, I’m happy to say the knee passed the test. I’m trying to get in good shape for my next knee replacement coming likely again in November. Sigh, I guess I’ll grin and bear it. I hope everyone is enjoying their walks and workouts when it’s not scorching hot outside. 

And now let’s see what’s releasing this month. This is usually one of the best months of the year for new books and things to watch, but unfortunately some say the election season cuts into that a bit. It’s said that publishers often avoid releasing new books during the fall of a presidential election since they can often be overlooked …while the public and news media are focusing on politics. A reporter at The Post talks about the trend here. But is it true or just an old wives’ tale? I think a bit of it might be true but still there seems to be plenty of books from great authors releasing this month, so what the heck. It shows that people will read during any season, news cycle, or climate. 

In fact, I had trouble deciding which five authors and novels to pick among the deluge of good books releasing this month. Among others there’s novels by such well-known authors as Kate Atkinson, Robert Harris, Liane Moriarty, Attica Locke, Rumaan Alam, Matt Haig, Olga Tokarczuk, and Sally Rooney.

I guess I’m still wondering if I should try Rooney once again. I was lukewarm about her 2018 novel Normal People, but perhaps her new novel Intermezzo (due out Sept. 24) will be better? It’s about two brothers — one a lawyer and the other a chess prodigy — who work through the death of their father, their love lives, and their relations with each other. So perhaps I should give Rooney another chance?

So far I’ve picked several others that include Elizabeth Stout’s new novel Tell Me Everything (due out Sept. 10). This is the one in which Strout’s character Lucy Barton gets to know Olive Kitteridge, who lives in a retirement community in their small town in Maine, and Lucy becomes fond of town lawyer Bob Burgess, who’s working on a case.

Strout’s old beloved characters return once again … and meet up, so it’s not one I can miss. Have you ever wondered what Olive would think of Lucy, or how Lucy and Bob would match up? Well now’s your chance to see. 

Next up is Danzy Senna’s novel Colored Television (due out Sept. 3) about a struggling L.A. novelist (Jane Gibson) who gets lured by a hot Hollywood producer into thinking a TV show might be her ticket. As they begin to develop a biracial comedy show — things appear to be going right for Jane until apparently things go amiss. This novel has been getting much attention and sounds a bit like a culture comedy and a satire of Hollywood.

It seems like a fun read to me and I’ve not read Danzy Senna before. She happens to be the wife of Percival Everett whose novel James I recently finished. Both of these authors are on a roll lately. Her new novel is supposed to be a bit funny …. we’ll have to see. 

Then there’s Rachel Kushner’s new novel Creation Lake (due out Sept. 3) about an undercover female agent who infiltrates a commune of radical French environmentalists in southwestern France. Will she be lured into their way of thinking, or stay the course? The style of it is said to be a new take on the espionage novel and one I probably can’t ignore.

So far, Kushner’s novel is on the Booker Prize longlist and will probably make the shortlist too. She’s written various notable books over the years, but I’ve yet to read her until hopefully this time. Creation Lake apparently has some funny parts to it and the protagonist Sadie Smith seems like a cool agent to follow. We will see how it pans out.

There’s also Richard Powers’s novel Playground (due out Sept. 24) about several people who come to gather on an island in French Polynesia for a plan to send floating autonomous cities out into the open sea. Eventually the island residents must decide whether or not to greenlight the new project on their shores … which will change their home forever.

The novel sounds a bit complex with the four different characters and the plot, but I might investigate it as it’s on the Booker longlist as well and because Powers’s 2018 novel The Overstory was such a big success. The cover looks pretty cool too. 

And for the final book pick this month, it’s either Sally Rooney’s novel Intermezzo or Garth Greenwell’s new novel Small Rain (due out Sept. 3). I should also say I’ve read Rumaan Alam’s novel Entitlement (out Sept. 17), which is sort of an unsettling novel about a young protege in New York who becomes consumed by what she thinks she deserves at work and in life. You might recall Alam’s previous novel Leave the World Behind, which was unsettling too. But back to Greenwell’s novel Small Rain — it’s about a medical crisis that turns a gay poet’s world upside down. This novel has gotten a lot of high praise from critics and is one Kirkus Reviews says in which Greenwell “transforms a savage illness into a meditation on a vital life.”

In things to watch this month, there’s Season 4 of the British spy series Slow Horses on AppleTV+ starting Sept. 4, which stars Gary Oldman as the curmudgeonly boss of a motley group of British reject MI5 agents who try to pursue threats as best they can. We’ve seen all of the seasons and plan to continue on with it … Oldman is a greasy grump in this — who I’m still hoping will wash his hair someday, lol. 

Next up is the mystery drama series The Perfect Couple (on Netflix starting Sept. 5), starring Nicole Kidman and Liev Shreiber, which is set on Nantucket and is based on the 2018 novel by Elin Hilderbrand … about a wealthy family whose members are suspected in a murder when a body is found on the beach.

This looks like delicious fun and could be like the juicy mindless stuff we need as the election gets closer. It reminds me slightly of Big Little Lies full of wealthy people behaving badly, which is a genre that often delivers on watch-ability.

Also there’s Season 4 of My Brilliant Friend (on HBO starting Sept. 9) — based on Elena Ferrante’s novels — which I haven’t been watching, but they say is very good. I’m still waiting till I read the novel — which I’m planning a buddy read of with Tina at the blog Turn the Page in November. It’s been a long while in the waiting. Some dislike the book, while others think it’s the book of the century, lol. So which is it?

If that doesn’t do it, Kathy Bates’s law series Matlock on CBS starting Sept. 22 looks pretty cute … about an elderly woman who rejoins the workforce at a prestigious law firm and uses her wily ways to win cases. It’s almost like an Angela Lansbury kind of role that meets The Good Wife, lol.

Or perhaps the movie Lee (due out Sept. 27), starring Kate Winslet, might interest you … about the story of WWII photographer Lee Miller who went from being a fashion model to an acclaimed war correspondent. There’s been various books written about her over the decades and the lives she led, though I don’t know all the details.

As for new music this month, it’s a toss-up between Miranda Lambert’s new album Postcards From Texas (due out Sept. 13) or Keith Urban’s new album called High (out Sept. 20). I like Lambert’s single Dammit Randy, which you can hear here. I’m getting a little country, right?

That’s all for now. What about you — which releases are you looking forward to this month?  Happy September. 

Posted in Top Picks | 42 Comments