One More Swim

Posted on September 12, 2024 by Susan

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

Posted on September 3, 2024 by Susan

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

Beach Days

Posted on August 26, 2024 by Susan

Hi. How are your late summer days going? These past couple weeks I’ve had a nice visit with my Dad in Southern California and tomorrow I head back home. He lives inland, but we also spent two lovely Sundays at the beach. There were hardly any waves, but it was enjoyable for swimming, and my brother and a friend joined us too. Summer wouldn’t be complete without some time at the beach, right?

It’s crazy that Labor Day weekend is coming up and that it’s almost September, holy smokes. I guess I will do my preview post next week on what’s new releasing. Till then I’m looking over my summer reading list to see what’s left that I want to finish. I’ve read nine out of 15 and it’d be nice if I finish at least one or two more before putting an end to my summer list. What about you — have you finished your list yet? How are you doing with your goal?

And now I’ll leave you with a couple reviews of two that were on mine.

James by Percival Everett / Doubleday / 320 pages / 2024

4.5+ stars. Whoa this retelling of the Mark Twain classic Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is darker and more scary than the original, but it’s quite a worthy take on the Twain classic.

Enslaved Jim, who secretly can read and write, tells the story this time and I was captivated to hear what he says and thinks. The beginning and first half seem to follow the original fairly closely. Thinking he’s going to be sold, Jim runs to Jackson Island to hide, there he later is joined by young Huck who’s faked his own death to get away from his abusive father. The two make to escape on a raft on the river looking for freedom, but Jim also hopes to earn money to buy freedom for his family who are left behind.

Along the river they have various adventures and close encounters where they’re almost apprehended and killed. Interestingly Jim employs slave dialect when he’s around whites who like to think they’re superior, but he uses regular language when he’s alone talking with other slaves or blacks who also speak normally. There’s a few secrets like this that you learn along the way — the biggest of all comes towards the end — that’ll make you sit up and spin your head around.

It is a dark and suspenseful journey as Jim becomes a wanted runaway slave accused of theft and murder. The con men the Duke and King, who I didn’t like in the original, are apart of this one too. They are bad news … as is a ministerial troupe — that Jim comes along — in a different kind of way. Huck and Jim get separated a couple times for a good long while, and you wonder if they will get back together … and find a way to escape and be free.

I liked how this telling puts you right into the shoes of Jim and makes you feel his scary predicament and what slavery means and is like in all its violence, inhumanity, and ugliness. It’s gruesome. Jim makes for a perceptive hero and you cling to him along the way. Percival Everett is able to do a lot in this retelling of the classic tale while paying tribute to it too.

The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng / Bloomsbury / 320 pages / 2023

4.5 stars. There’s some beautiful storytelling in this and the audio is wonderful. The novel has a bit of a longing, haunting quality to it … and is atmospheric about a time where things collided in Penang, Malaysia for a white colonialist couple Lesley and her ailing husband Robert Hamlin who have guests come stay with them in 1921. The guests are famous British author Somerset “Willie” Maugham and his young secretary and love interest Gerald. Willie’s just learned that he’s lost everything in a bad investment, but he doesn’t want to go back to England to his wife and debt, so he’s looking for more to write about quickly to earn money.

Lesley’s marriage too she learns is on the fritz, and she becomes involved with a Chinese revolutionary in 1910 … as well as a murder trial in Kuala Lumpur when she hears her good friend Ethel Proudlock has been charged with a man’s death. Ethel says he was trying to rape her. Lesley tries to help Ethel and advises her to tell the truth about how she knows the man, but you have to wait to near the end to see how it all plays out.

The story is abuzz with infidelities, relationship triangles, expat feelings of place, and a good portion is spent over the murder trial. It seems like a Somerset Maugham story — indeed Willie is writing about the secrets among them and the trial for a book that comes out at the end. The plot winds on in its own good time, alternating between Lesley’s perspective and Willie’s during a time and place with people close to them who they can’t hold onto nor forget. It’s an intricate story. This is my first novel by Tan Twan Eng and makes me want to read his two others. The House of Doors kept me intrigued.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read these and what did you think? Enjoy your long weekend ahead.

Posted in Books | 30 Comments

Into the Desert

Posted on August 18, 2024 by Susan

Well it seems our summer days are dwindling quickly. I made it to SoCal on Friday for a visit with my Dad and came through Palm Springs airport. You might recognize the lovely San Jacinto Mountains. I was having lunch with a friend nearby where I took these photos. It’s been pretty toasty and is expected to be 114+ degrees in the desert this week. Luckily we’re about 45 minutes west of Palm Springs, so we’re aiming for only 100, lol. I’ve been doing my bike riding and activities in the early morning, and the good news is we’re headed to the beach for a couple days where it will be cooler and I’ll take a dip in the ocean, woohoo. My brother in Pasadena will meet us there.

In book news, I’ve noticed that fall book lists are starting to roll out. As usual, there’s quite an array of top books coming out over the next few months. It’s a bit exciting, but I haven’t really looked just yet, since the truth is I’m still working on my summer list. We still have some time left, and I have a few going this week. I’m midway into a hardback copy of Percival Everett’s novel James which I’m quite enjoying. I’m glad I read Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the spring since it follows it pretty closely. I also have a print copy of Hisham Matar’s novel My Friends and the audio of Malaysian author Tan Twan Eng’s novel The House of Doors, which I’m liking a lot too. He seems a talent and I must read his two other novels sometime in the future. 

Also what did you think of Obama’s list of summer reads, which he recently put out? Have you read any of these? I’ve read two: Wide Wide Sea and Help Wanted and I’m reading James now. I’m looking forward to Liz Moore’s novel The God of the Woods. And I’ll probably read Martyr sometime. Obama’s got a pretty good list but there’s always room for others, right? Is there anything that surprises you? Hmm.

So there you have it. And now I’ll leave you with a review of what I finished lately. 

A Great Country by Shilpi Somaya Gowda / Mariner Books / 256 pages / 2024 

3.75 stars. The life of an immigrant Indian family is rocked after the 12-year-old son is arrested for flying a drone near Orange County Airport. The kid Ajay, who’s on the autistic spectrum, is pretty clueless what all the fuss is about but he tries to evade police and they tackle and book him thinking he was trying to do something terrorist-related. 

The parents had just moved the family (of their kids Ajay, Maya, and Deepa) out of their middle-class Irvine, Calif. neighborhood to a loftier area called Pacific Hills (I thought of it as Laguna Niguel) and all are adjusting to their new neighborhood. But then the media gets a hold of Ajay’s arrest, and protestors erupt believing the police are guilty of racial profiling and abuse of power for roughing him up. Will his case move forward? And will his family be able to handle what’s happening?

The story, which I listened to on audio, at first reminded me slightly of Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities in the premise’s setup. Granted that was long time ago and I don’t remember it as well now. But Gowda’s storytelling is quite engaging and fast-paced. The three kids and parents all have their views and different backstories … each having some trouble going on: Deepa is a socially conscious teen who gets caught up in her friend Pacho’s undocumented family’s plight; and Maya is caught up detrimentally in trying to gain a rich boy’s attention. The parents don’t really realize all the things going on with their kids until it snowballs and they fear losing all what they worked decades for. 

The author raises some good issues — exploring the differences in our society, the various cultures, and how we exist together — in an engaging plot. My only drawback is that it was a bit heavy-handed at times and not too subtle. It could be on purpose though. There’s also a couple coincidences in the plot that make it a bit of a stretch and the resolution is quite tidy. But still it’s also well done at getting into the heads of the various characters and moves quickly and was pretty enjoyable. I was drawn to it since it’s set in Orange County California. I will watch to see what the author puts out next. 

That’s all for now. I hope you enjoy the last few weeks of summer. Happy reading.

Have you read any of these books — and if so, what did you think?

Posted in Books | 40 Comments

August Preview

Posted on August 7, 2024 by Susan

Hi all. Welcome to August. I’m a bit late with my preview post but here it goes. What does this month represent? The last hurrah of summer perhaps, or the glory days of reading on the back deck. This week we’ve actually had a couple days of rain, which is unusual now, but I hope it’s helping with the wildfires. A big thunderstorm came in with a boom.

Sometimes in August there’s a slight hint of autumn in the air this far north, but I’m not really ready for that just yet. On cooler evenings I’ll play a bit of “golf” with our dog Willow. I’ll practice my chipping in the yard and she’ll retrieve the golf balls. She loves “golf.” I just grab my club and she’s off running.

And in about ten days I’ll be flying to Southern California to visit my dad. I was last there in April when I lost my mom. It’ll be good to see my dad again. We’ll go to the beach, relive good memories, and play some putting games on the green there. It’ll be crispy hot and worth a dip in the ocean.

And now let’s talk about what’s coming out this month. I see there’s new novels by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Abi Dare, and Elif Shafak among others. I’m looking at these ladies’ books and a couple others, including one newly translated into English from Japanese author Yoko Ogawa. It appears she wrote Mina’s Matchbox in 2006 and now it’s available in North America on Aug. 13. Publishers Weekly says it’s about: a Japanese woman who looks back 30 years to 1972, the year she stayed with her aunt’s family in the coastal town of Ashiya, and reflects on the secrets she uncovered there.

Ogawa’s books are usually a bit different, but I have liked both her novels The Housekeeper and the Professor (translated 2008) and The Memory Police (translated 2019). She reminds me slightly of British author Kazuo Ishiguro because her books that I’ve read involved plots surrounding memory, which some of his books do too. Her new novel seems to capture childhood memories, and apparently it’s a coming-of-age tale about a 12-year-old who is charmed by her asthmatic cousin, the books they share, and the pygmy hippopotamus her cousin has as a pet and rides to school. Thus the book’s cover, lol.

Next this month I’m also hoping to read Peter Heller’s new wilderness adventure novel Burn (out Aug. 13), which the publisher says is about two men — friends since childhood — who emerge from a camping/hunting trip in rural Maine to a “dystopian country racked by bewildering violence.” A bridge is blown apart, buildings burned, and cars are bombed out. Have they come upon the work of armed secessionists or what? They try to make their way to safety and then discover something startling that alters their path. Uh-oh.

This sounds like vintage Heller … and back to the days of his dystopian debut novel Dog Stars. I think I’ve read four of his books … and they often involve male-centric wilderness survival plots. They’re usually not too dense and are more adventurous kinds of tales, perfect for August. And narrator Mark Deakins has read Heller’s audios for years if you want to try that version. See what you think.

In screen releases, I don’t see a lot out this month but the Olympics are ending this Sunday Aug. 11, and then the Democratic National Convention will air Aug. 19-22 in Chicago, so perhaps new things are waiting to release in September. I have enjoyed watching the Olympics, particularly the swimming, cycling, and track and field have been amazing. And some of the gymnastics too, along with other events.

We did finish the crime series Presumed Innocent with Jake Gyllenhaal, which was spooky/creepy and had a little twist at the end which we were ready for. It was updated pretty well from the 1987 novel and 1990 movie, so I can’t complain too much. The only other shows that really caught my eye this month are Season 4 of Only Murders in the Building (starting Aug. 27 on Hulu) and Season 2 of Pachinko (AppleTV+ starting Aug. 23). I might try to finish Season 1 of Pachinko … which we didn’t get through when it came out, but I liked the novel by Min Jin Lee so much that I’m going to try the show again.

And I see that Vince Vaughn is in a new drama called Bad Monkey (starting Aug. 14 on AppleTV+), based on the 2013 novel by Carl Hiaasen, about a former police detective relegated to restaurant inspections who gets pulled into a murder case. Some of the trailer looked a bit funny with Vince being the usual clown funny guy, but it seems quite over-the-top too. So I’m not sure we’ll stick with it, but if you like Hiaasen’s crime novels then you might check it out.

In music releases this month, there’s new albums by Lainey Wilson, Amos Lee, Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings, and Ray LaMontagne among others. These are some pretty strong artists to choose from, but I’ll pick Ray LaMontagne’s new album Long Way Home, which is his ninth studio album since his debut in 2004. And here is a song off that called Step Into Your Power.

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

Posted in Top Picks | 53 Comments

Summer Breeze

Posted on July 31, 2024 by Susan

Greetings all. How is your summer going? Can you believe Thursday is August? Oh my. And unfortunately I’m late with my monthly preview post so I will do that next week. Things have been busy. I’m just now getting back on the blog after I was away last week reffing the junior provincial tennis tournament a couple hours north of us. It was a long week of 10+ hour days. Luckily it’s over now, and I look forward to visiting your blogs soon to see what you’re reading and what’s up in your world.

Have you been watching the Olympics? Crazy to see the triathletes swimming in the Seine. I hope it’s clean enough now. I have enjoyed seeing the pool swimming races and I’m looking forward to the track and field too … and maybe some of the beach volleyball and the cycling road race. I’m game for whatever looks good.

In book news, we had a good discussion last post about the New York Times’ recent list of the Best Books of the 21st Century. You all made astute observations about what you thought about it and what was on the list and how many you’ve read. And now I see that the Booker Prize longlist is out for 2024, which includes six novels by U.S. authors among the 13 titles nominated. Here are the nominees:

Colin Barrett, Wild Houses
Rita Bullwinkel, Headshot
Percival Everett, James
Samantha Harvey, Orbital
Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake
Hisham Matar, My Friends
Claire Messud, This Strange Eventful History
Anne Michaels, Held
Tommy Orange, Wandering Stars
Sarah Perry, Enlightenment
Richard Powers, Playground
Yael van der Wouden, The Safekeep
Charlotte Wood, Stone Yard Devotional

Two of these novels — James and My Friends — were on my summer reading list and still need to be read. Besides those I’m curious about The Safekeep, which explores the legacy of WWII and is about two women in the Dutch countryside in 1961. Hmm, I don’t know too much more about it than that, but it’s said to be good. Though perhaps Percival Everett’s James might be the Booker favorite. What do you think? Which books look good to you on the longlist? The shortlist will be announced on Sept. 16 and the winner in November, so get cracking.

And now I’ll leave you with a couple reviews of books that I finished lately. Coincidentally both novels below feature protagonists who rekindle a love interest/affair from their long ago past. This plot seems to be coming up for me lately — I think I’ve had three books like this — but it’s okay as I seem to be a bit of a sucker for it regardless.

Long Island by Colm Toibin / Scribner / 304 pages / 2024

4 stars. I had recently rewatched the 2015 movie Brooklyn starring Saoirse Ronan so I felt ready to get to the sequel novel. Long Island follows the Irish immigrant Eilis, 20 years later after her marriage to Tony Fiorello, a plumber, along with their two teenage kids, and his large Italian American family of three brothers and parents all living on Long Island in the 1970s.

From the start we learn (along with Eilish) that Tony’s been unfaithful to her and fathered a child with one of his customers and that the baby will be left with them to raise. Eilis is none too pleased and decides to return to Ireland on a trip to visit her 80-year-old mother and to think things over with Tony.

It’s all pretty claustrophobic on Long Island with Tony and his family, so it’s a good thing once the story turns to Ireland where Eilis hasn’t been since she left so many years ago. Back in her hometown, Eilis runs into her old beau from her youth Jim Farrell, a pub owner, whom she left to marry Tony. Still unmarried, Jim has secretly been involved recently with Eilis’s old friend Nancy, a widow who maintains the family chip shop. Nancy has a son and is a good and sympathetic character.

But it comes down to: what will happen amid the old heart strings when Eilis and Jim come across one another. Will they try to go back and rewrite the past … and try to get back together? Or will Nancy be on to that, and Tony still be in the cards for Eilis? You have to meander your way through quite a bit to find out.

The novel seemed slow-going in parts … but otherwise I was into the tale of unfulfilled love, second chances, and new and old places in one’s life. The way it ends it seems like there’s room for more sequels ahead. This was my first Toibin novel, which I listened to as an audiobook performed well by Irish actress Jessie Buckley. There’s various characters in it — family and otherwise — and Jessie captured each one pretty effectively. Eilis’s Irish mother, for example, is quite the character … she’s much more grumpy in the book than in the movie Brooklyn. And I hope she finally settles for having a fridge and washing machine courtesy of Eilis, but I’m not sure she didn’t send them back.

All and all the sequel kept me attentive to what would unfold and how the characters would deal with it. Eilis and Jim delve into a situation with no easy options.

Leaving by Roxana Robinson / Norton / 344 pages / 2024

3.75 stars. I was interested to see where this story would go … about a chance meet-up later in life of two ex-college lovers — Warren and Sarah — who went on to marry others and now have grown children. Warren is still married and has a daughter Katrina, while Sarah, a grandmother, is divorced and has a son and daughter who has kids.

Early in the book, Warren and Sarah start an affair … after seeing each other at the opera in NYC … and rekindle much of what they had together so long ago. They fall in love and start to make plans … but not everyone in their families is happy when things emerge, and there is pressure to break it off.

The story details their work — Sarah is a museum curator and Warren an architect — and their lives with their grown kids, which throws some complexities into the situation. You feel what they’re going thru as they try to navigate their previous families to be together in life. Sarah feels quite real though Warren feels a bit more wooden and tense as he tries to hang onto his adult daughter in their future. It’s like a divorce story that gets a bit ugly. And the story, a bit dark, plays out sort of like the operas both Warren and Sarah enjoy watching. I was interested to see this drama through.

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

Posted in Books | 46 Comments

Bales and Books

Posted on July 18, 2024 by Susan

Hi. How is everyone doing? Surviving the heat? It’s been busy here so I’ve been AWOL off the blog for a while. Summer will do that. July means gathering hay bales and we got eleven round bales this year on our property, which was better than last year’s smaller amount of four due to the big drought and record-setting temperatures in 2023. Usually our neighbor the baler pays us for the bales and takes them for his own horses or distributes them to other farms in the area, though this year there is a glut of bales around here so their value is much less. But they are pretty to see all over the countryside.

My reading is moving along steady but slowly lately. Did you happen to see the New York Times’ list of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century according to authors and critics? It’s a bit interesting to look at. I thought they should’ve separated the nonfiction and fiction books … but they combined them onto one list.

You might be a bit surprised that Elena Ferrante’s novel My Brilliant Friend, which came out in 2012, is #1 of the Best Books, and #2 is Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns from 2010. Though I know much about these books, I have yet to read them. I still plan to. One of my favorites in their Top 10 is Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go at #9 from 2005.

The New York Times has since put out a second list of Readers’ Picks of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. I sort of think this list overall might be better, and it has Barbara Kingsolver’s novel Demon Copperhead as #1. Whether you agree with that or not, the readers’ list has a good mix of top reads over the past twenty plus years.

But looking over the lists it does make you wonder what does Best Book of the Century actually mean? Is it the most memorable book? Or the most literary or creative work? Or the most enjoyable? Or the one that makes the biggest impact on the world? Whatever it means exactly the lists are sort of interesting to look over and maybe to use to add to one’s To Be Read files.

I plan to add some books. What about you — do you place any value on these kinds of Best Of lists, or are they not relevant to your reading? I guess I sort of like such lists, but I don’t get to backlist books too frequently, since I’m often filling up on recently released stuff. Still I want to go back and read the good ones I’ve missed.

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

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch /Atlantic Monthly / 320 pages / 2023

Wow 5 stars. This chilling Booker Prize-winning novel lives up to the hype. The story snuck up on me as I listened to it as an audiobook while doing yard work. I’m glad I went with the audio since the novel has hardly any paragraph breaks (or quotation marks), which makes it seem more dense than it really is. And the audio’s narration by Irish actor Gerry O’Brien is well done.

I found Lynch’s tale to be: powerful, scary, and timely … about a regular Irish family going about their daily lives when a new ruling party in Ireland takes over the government and the secret police come to interrogate the husband Larry Stack, a trade unionist. Eilish Stack, the wife and a mother of four, wants to cooperate with whatever it’s about … but they both don’t seem overly concerned until Larry disappears after participating in a teachers’ march.

Eilish, the main protagonist who works for a biotech company, is left trying to manage the house with an infant; a son Bailey, age 11; a daughter Molly; and a son Mark who’s nearly 18 … as well as to see to her aging father Simon whose mind is slipping from dementia. She has a lot on her platter. Then her son Mark is called up for military service and she tries to hide him in a neighbor’s outbuilding. As more disappear and the country begins to unravel … war breaks out between the regime’s forces and a rebel group. A bombardment begins with dire consequences that leaves the family scrambling for survival (no spoilers here). It’s a tale that feels all too real and harrowing … as a totalitarian state shutters a democracy.

The writing in it is very good, and Eilish Stack is a strong flawed heroine who makes some mistakes but faces very hard choices. She reminded me slightly of the character Mary Pat Fennessy in Dennis Lehane’s Small Mercies. She is not as tough as Mary Pat, but she is a character you won’t forget anytime soon.

Apparently when Paul Lynch started writing the book in 2018 he was reacting to the Syrian Civil War and the refugee crisis … and he was still writing it during the pandemic and a case of long covid. But he doesn’t really think of it as a dystopian tale since he says such scary things are going on in the world today. Read it and see.

Fresh Waters for Flowers by Valerie Perrin / Europa / 304 pages / 2020

3.5 stars. I know so many readers on Goodreads loved this one, so I’m a bit in the minority about this bestselling French novel translated into English about a young poor orphan girl Violette who comes to marry a guy named Phillipe Toussaint and becomes a cemetery keeper in Burgundy … for sad reasons that become clear as the story unfolds.

Phillipe is a philanderer who later doesn’t return one day, so Violette carries on with her job and the likable staff at the cemetery. Then she meets detective Julien Seul who’s there to bury his mother next to a grave of a man she requested to be near. Various threads of the story ensue thereafter: of Violette and her failing marriage and the sad loss they suffer; her relations with Julien who wants to find out more about her; and Julien’s mother Irene and the secret affair she had. The story snowballs into an epic engagement of the various components.

I thought the tale has some nice storytelling parts and side characters to it, but the story wasn’t exactly my cup of tea. The saga of the various affairs and the great tragedy that comes to befall Violette and Phillipe seems a bit over-cooked … as they try to get to the bottom of how it happened and who was responsible. It just felt a bit overstuffed and maybe bit redundant in places … and like a saga that wasn’t in my wheelhouse for whatever reason. Was it the writing, or the meandering style, or just the story of intense trauma that I didn’t cling to? Still I liked it well enough to find out what happens and to make it to the drawn-out end.

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

Posted in Books | 46 Comments

July Preview

Posted on July 4, 2024 by Susan

Hi all. Happy 4th to those of you in the States. It’s hard to believe it’s July now. Woohoo. It was a pretty rainy May and June here (check out the rainbow I saw last night), but we should get some of our best weather the next few weeks. So break out the sunscreen.

July should be busy. I’m officiating a couple important junior tennis tournaments, and the women’s Canadian Open pro golf tournament will be here so I’m excited to go watch that. I’ve been playing in a lady’s golf league this summer, which has been a lot of fun. Who would’ve guessed it. So with that and the yard work, I’ll be full on. What about you — will you get to the beach this month?

Now let’s check out what’s releasing this month. There’s so many new novels coming out that it’s a bit hard to pick a few, but first I got to go with Liz Moore’s novel The God of the Woods (out July 2) which is about a sister who goes missing at a sleep-away camp years after her brother’s disappearance there … leading to dark truths unraveling about their wealthy family. Uh-oh.

Apparently it’s both a domestic drama and a crime novel. And from what I’m hearing it seems like it could be the novel of the summer, even if it’s nearly 500 pages long. I repeat: it’s looking to be the novel of the summer! I have read Moore’s other novels: Long Bright River, Heft, and Unseen World, which are all really good, so I’m on the list to get this one. Bring it on.

Next up is Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s sophomore novel Long Island Compromise (due out July 9) about an American Jewish family in New York whose suburban paradise is shattered when the father, a wealthy business owner, is kidnapped. Decades later the legacy of the trauma still leaves a mark on the family. Oprah Daily calls it “A big, juicy, wickedly funny social satire … probably the funniest book ever about generational family trauma.”

Not sure the situation seems funny, but I thought the author’s 2019 debut novel Fleishman Is in Trouble was quite a hoot in parts — and she’s a big talent. Amusingly irreverent. And I don’t plan to miss her new one. I was bummed not to see the TV miniseries based on Fleishman Is in Trouble, which came out on Hulu (Disney+ in Canada), but Jesse Eisenberg stars as the lead character with Claire Danes as his ex-wife in the drama. It looks pretty amusing and like it follows the novel pretty well. Perhaps we’ll break down and get Disney+ for a month. 🙂

There’s also the new novel by Kate Quinn called The Briar Club (due out July 9) about female friendships and secrets in a Washington D.C. boardinghouse during the McCarthy era. Publishers Weekly says it’s a stellar historical mystery … in which Quinn brings the paranoid atmosphere of McCarthy-era Washington to vivid life.

The setting looks good to me … as well as that of Marjan Kamali’s novel The Lion Women of Tehran (out July 2) about a decades-long friendship of two Iranian women whose lives are upended by their country’s political upheaval. It looks enticing, and Helen already read and reviewed it favorably on her blog. So yay.

I have read two of Kate Quinn’s earlier novels and Marjan Kamali’s debut The Stationery Shop, which was a nice surprise hit. Their books are usually in the genre of women’s fiction … but I wouldn’t say chick-lit. I dabble in women’s fiction sometimes but not all that frequently.

I think for now I’ll stop there with book releases and move on to what’s coming out on the screen. Granted there’s a lot of notable sports on the TV in July, which often occupy some of my free time. First Wimbledon (July 1-14) of course, as well the Tour de France (June 29-July 21), then a couple pro golf majors, proceeded by the Olympics in Paris (July 26-Aug. 11). So you’ll probably be checking that out, yay Paris. I admit I’m a bit of a sports junkie, since playing many sports in my youth, and I usually love seeing some of the Olympics.

But if you need a break from those, there’s Season 2 of the gritty British police drama The Responder (on BritBox starting July 11), as well as the new TV series The Emperor of Ocean Park (starting July 14 on MGM+) based on the 2002 novel by Stephen L. Carter …. about a law professor whose life is shattered when his father, a judge, dies … and a journalist questions whether it was due to foul play. I remember the novel made quite a splash when it came out many years ago and it looks pretty good with Forest Whitaker as the judge. But does anybody have MGM+? Not sure where or what that is.

Next is the TV series Lady in the Lake (starting July 19 on AppleTV+) based on the 2019 novel by detective author Laura Lippman. It stars Natalie Portman as an aspiring reporter in 1960s Baltimore who pursues the murder of a forgotten young woman. The movie trailer looks a bit crazy and I’m beginning to wonder if every role Portman takes on is a bit off-kilter. From her movies Black Swan to the recent May December, she often plays some wacky characters. But then author Laura Lippman is usually pretty good so maybe try an episode or two, before casting it to the wind if need be.

In new music this month, there’s not much I see coming out. But I’ll pick Canadian folk/country singer Donovan Woods’s new album Things Were Never Good If They’re Not Good Now (due out July 12). Here’s a single off that called How Good. Enjoy.

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

Posted in Top Picks | 40 Comments

I’ve Tried Being Nice

Posted on June 27, 2024 by Susan

Hi All. I hope your summer is going well. It seems June went by in a blink of an eye and July is almost here. I’ll have my Preview post out next week as to what’s coming out ahead, but I’m not ready just yet. We’re headed into Canada Day long weekend here and it looks like big thunderstorms are looming. At least, it’ll help to get a bit of rain for the plants. And luckily we don’t have any big plans other than to enjoy ourselves in the countryside and maybe get out the bikes, the golf clubs, and the yard work equipment for whenever it’s not thundering down. What about you — do you have big plans or travel for the Independence Day ahead? Most of the continent is frying right now, so what more do you need than to take a dip in the nearest ocean, lake, river, or pool. Otherwise stay in the A/C and enjoy a fun beach read or two. 

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

Clear by Carys Davies / Scribner / 208 pages / 2024

3.75 stars. It didn’t take too long for this story to capture my imagination … of a lone occupant left to his animals on a remote island in the North Sea circa 1843 and the Scottish Reverend (John Ferguson) who is sent some 400 miles by boat to evict him. Impoverished John is doing the bidding of a wealthy landowner who wants the man gone … as part of the forced evictions known as the Highland Clearances to sweep away unwanted tenants. 

But John’s wife Mary has misgivings that it won’t be an easy job, and after weeks she sets off to see if she can bring John back. In the meantime John has had an accident on the island and is found and taken in by the lone man, Ivar. As they get to know one another, even with different languages, it is unclear if John will tell the man why he’s there, or whether he will end up using his gun to convince him. The man Ivar is at home there on his beloved island among his animals and knows no other life. 

The writing is sparse but with keen observations of the rugged, wet, and windy terrain. It’s very atmospheric and you can feel the remote isolation, the unkempt man, the cliffs, and the crashing waves that make boats unwelcome. It’s a short book and one whose arresting ending comes soon enough like the big cresting waves to the shore.

I’ve Tried Being Nice: Essays by Ann Leary /Simon & Schuster /240 pgs /2024

4+ stars. Ann Leary’s essays came to me at the right time. I had just finished Octavia Butler’s 1979 novel Kindred, which is quite a grim read and I needed a big palate cleanser and this proved to be the perfect audiobook, which Ann narrates herself.

Several of the essays are pretty humorous, including about Doodle lady, who lets her dog roam on the Learys’ property; or Ann’s funny incidences dealing with her actor husband Dennis Leary’s fans and fame and her diaries from the Red Carpet; or her tennis doubles partners; or the time a brown furry bat attached to her pajamas at their country house. Ann has some fun banter and self-deprecating humor … often over her suffering from being a constant people pleaser — which is most welcomed in this entertaining collection of essays. 

Not all the essays are funny, but the other ones are often poignant looks into her life: about her writing; or how her family moved around a lot as a kid; her hearing problems; her alcohol relapse; her family life with Dennis and their two kids and becoming an empty nester; her taking up tennis in her 40s and becoming an EMT; their downsizing and move to New York; their travels; and the dogs in her life. Wow there’s so many enlightening glimpses into Ann.

Of course, I had no idea about her much before. I had read Leary’s 2013 novel The Good House and saw the movie too, which I had liked. So I thought this one might be enjoyable and thankfully it was, yay. Especially so, since I’m a dog lover and a tennis player — both of which she talks about being herself in a couple chapters. She also writes about being a person who’s avoided confrontations throughout her life (me too, alas) and seems to be trying to train herself not always to be such a people pleaser.

This book seems a bit different than Ann Patchett’s 2021 book of essays These Precious Days, which I also liked. Maybe that one has an earnest, searching look back on life, while this one has a bit more banter to it. But this one also seems quite open and genuine and has some great lines in it. So thanks to Ann for getting me back onto a more positive track and reading space with this entertaining book. I can go back now to my summer reading list filled with novels of despair and angst, lol. 

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

Posted in Books | 49 Comments

Beyond the Dome

Posted on June 18, 2024 by Susan

Hi. I hope all is well and you’re not living under a heat dome presently, or hopefully it will leave soon. Try to stay cool and hang in there. I think we’ve had the opposite here lately with rainy weather and a few mornings with frost advisories. Strange how it can be so different. The dogs sure like the cooler temps. Willow, our young girl is on the left, and Stella, our senior girl is on the right. They like sitting out on the grass when the weather is nice. And I think when summer temps return this weekend, they will be ready to go to the river for a swim. They’re avid swimmers.

In book news, I see that author V.V. Ganeshananthan’s second novel Brotherless Night, about a family fractured by the Sri Lankan civil war, has won this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction. Wow was it a surprise or no? I think those who read it said it was a frontrunner all along. But this author is new to me, so I will put her book on my library list. The novel also won the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction in May, so the author has taken both awards recently, woohoo. Apparently she is an American author born to Sri Lankan immigrants who teaches at the MFA program at the University of Minnesota. Congrats to her on the two wins. 

And now I will leave you with a few reviews of what I finished lately. All three are from my summer reading list. 

River East, River West by Aube Rey Lescure / Morrow / 352 pages / 2024

(4.4 stars) This doesn’t read like a debut novel. Wow Aube Rey Lescure pretty much hits it out of the park on her first go-around. The novel was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction for good reason. Set in Shanghai, it peers into the life of a Chinese-American family and alternates perspectives between mixed race 14-year-old Alva and rich landlord Lu Fang, 58, who becomes her stepfather after marrying her white American mother Sloan. 

At first sulky Alva (who dreams of coming to America) wants to change from her public school to the Shanghai American School and schemes to get her new stepfather, whom she doesn’t think much of, to pay for it. He sympathizes a bit since he once wanted to study at a university abroad but got waylaid during the Cultural Revolution and ended up as a lowly shipping clerk. 

As their timelines go along, Alva finds herself losing control with drinking and rebelling teen behavior among the lives of the rich expats at her new school circa 2008, while Lu Fang’s life goes back in time to when he first met Alva’s mother (Sloan) and they started an affair when he had a Chinese wife and child on the way. Years later he pushes his son to get strong grades to go to university in the States.

Then something happens, and Lu Fang comes to reconnect with Sloan over many years. Each person in the family is going through stuff and trying to reinvent themselves in Shanghai. Teenage Alva and Lu Fang who are far apart at the beginning come to understand more about each other over time and get closer. This is a perceptive story of a family caught between cultures that captured me with its characters’ stories and its Shanghai setting along the way. 

Apparently the author grew up in Northern China and Shanghai and graduated from Yale in 2015. This is her debut!

The Road to Dalton by Shannon Bowring / Europa / 250 pages / 2023

(4.2 stars) I really enjoyed this novel, which I listened to on audio, about a handful of inhabitants in a small town in Northern Maine. Its various characters are all equally enticing and I found the storytelling rather seamless. It felt like these people were just out your doorstep with their connections and problems and all felt quite real, along with their dialogue among one another. 

There’s Rose, who has bruises from her fiance Tommy; clinic doctor Richard Haskell who treats people in town and is married to librarian Trudy; even though Trudy’s more interested in her best friend Bev Theroux, married to Bill. Their son Nate, a cop, is married to Bridget who’s struggling unbeknownst to anyone with postpartum depression after having baby Sophie; and teenager Greg, who’s sort of rotund and pals around with classmates Angela and Henry but struggles with low self-esteem.

The chapters switch around among these characters, all of whom are interesting, likable, and easy to follow. I especially was drawn to Nate, the cop, who gets most of the attention when he endures heartbreak midway into the novel. The story about these characters went down as easy as ice cream on a summer day and I eagerly wanted more. Which is good because Bowring’s sequel Where the Forest Meets the River will be coming out in September. I’ll be waiting.

The book’s storytelling among a group in a small northern town reminded me a bit of Canadian author Mary Lawson’s novels. If you like her, you’ll probably like this one too.

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler / Beacon Press / 288 pages / 1979

(4 stars) This — my first Octavia Butler novel read for my book club — is a pretty intense time travel story that transports the black protagonist Dana Franklin, age 26, from her home in California in 1976 to a plantation in Easton, Maryland circa 1815. At the time she’s married to her white husband Kevin, who like her is also a writer. She can’t seem to stop her time travel, which at first is just for short periods of time to apparently protect the white plantation owner’s son Rufus (for reasons she comes to learn), but as it goes on Dana becomes entangled to the lives on the plantation for longer periods. 

And it’s a brutal place. Slaves she comes to know are whipped, raped, and their children sold at whim. Dana herself a free woman is subjected to a gruesome beating when she’s caught teaching a young slave to read. Her husband too gets caught in the loop of time travel there that separates them for five years. On and on the brutality goes as Dana tries to gauge the evil plantation owner and reason with his erratic son Rufus, whom she tries to make a pact with that they can help each other, but little good that does since he’s too unreliable and cruel. 

Along the way Butler’s novel shows and teaches about slavery and its legacy … of what it was like and what happened on plantations. She puts you right at the scene and writes it like a novel resembling a first-person slave narrative. It’s a violent, savage, and dehumanizing undergoing. Dana has trouble getting back to her real home in 1976, but she comes to figure out how to manipulate the time travel. The ending, which takes a good while getting to, comes crashing down like I knew it had too. I thought this was less sci-fi and more slave narrative with a little time travel thrown in. It’s still a rattling look at nineteenth-century plantation life these many years later from when the author wrote it in 1979.

I listened to the audio book of it read by actress Kim Staunton who does a superb job getting through some disturbing and harrowing scenes. Apparently there was a TV series of the novel that ran for one season on FX and Hulu in late 2022 before being canceled. 

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

Posted in Books | 56 Comments