Greetings. I hope everyone in the States has a very happy and safe Memorial Day weekend. We had our long weekend last weekend in Canada, which was rainy. Actually it’s been rainy here for about 10 days now, which should help the drought a bit, but it’s been hard to do any planting, golfing, or bicycling, lol. I guess it’s the unofficial start of summer. Yay! It’s very green outside right now … and soon the clouds will clear and it will turn hot and dry.
I was debating about whether to make a summer reading list. Sometimes they are more fun to make than to follow, lol. I usually like to be free to pick up whatever books happen to suit my mood at the time or that I can access from the library. But still making a summer list is fun and I like linking up with Cathy’s blog at 746 Books who hosts the lovely Summer Reading Challenge each year and to see what others are reading. I will tip off my summer reading now and end after Labor Day and see how far I get.
This year instead of choosing many light summer beach reads and thriller type books, which at times don’t live up to the hype, I’ve picked a list of my usual kinds of reads that have gotten past me, or that I haven’t been able to pick up just yet. Many of these I’ve talked about before on previous Preview posts. Do any of these below look good to you? Only two are nonfiction books and the rest are recent fiction, except for Octavia Butler’s 1979 novel Kindred, which I’m reading for my July book club discussion. I tried to get books from an equal amount of female and male authors. And I’m sure that there will be other books that slip in as I go about my summer, but here is an outline of the 15 books I’m aiming for.
James by Percival Everett / Doubleday / 320 pages / 2024
The House of Doors by Twan Eng / Bloomsbury / 320 pages / 2023
How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair / 37 Ink / 352 pages / 2023
My Friends by Hisham Matar / Random House / 416 pages / 2024
The Women by Kristin Hannah / St. Martin’s / 480 pages / 2024
Long Island by Colm Toibin / Scribner / 304 pages / 2024
A Great Country by Shilpi Somaya Gowda / Mariner / 256 pages / 2024
The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson / Crown / 592 pages / 2024
River East, River West by Aube Rey Lescure / Morrow / 352 pages / 2024
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon / Doubleday / 448 pages / 2023
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch / Atlantic Monthly / 320 pages / 2023
The Road to Dalton by Shannon Bowring / Europa / 250 pages / 2023
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler / Beacon / first published 1979
My Beloved Life by Amitava Kumar / Knopf / 352 pages
Also I looked ahead to see what novels are coming out this summer that are on my radar, and these below fit the bill. They’re written by authors whom I’ve read and liked before, or whom I’m looking to read. Do you see any that appeal to you?
Bear by Julia Phillips / Hogarth / 304 pages / June 25
The Cliffs by J. Courtney Sullivan / Knopf / 384 pages / July 2
The God of the Woods by Liz Moore / Riverhead / 496 pages / July 2
Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner / Random House / 464 pages / July 9
Mina’s Matchbox by Yoko Ogawa / Pantheon / 288 pages / Aug. 13
Burn by Peter Heller / Knopf / 304 pages / Aug. 13
And now it’s time for me to get cracking. I look forward to getting out the sunscreen, the hat, the deck umbrella and to plopping in a deck chair when time permits and enjoying my summer reading. What about you — will you make a list, or simply wing it?
Greetings. How’s everyone’s May going? It’s getting pretty busy here. We are trying to whip the yard into shape and put in some tomato plants and vegetables now that our snowstorms appear to be over. And we are looking into putting some fencing around the lower garden to keep out the deer since they especially liked the zucchinis and cucumbers last year. The good news is the leaves on the trees are coming out and everything is turning green right now. Unfortunately we had our first gray “smoke day” on Saturday from wildfires in the north, which I hope will be helped by rain later this week. Cross your fingers. It seems so early to be starting with the dreadful fires again.
I joined a ladies golf league once a week and I took this photo above while I was on my way to the course. It features the beginning of the splendid Canadian Rockies with a bit of snow on them.
My reading sputtered last month with everything, but after we arrived back a couple weeks ago, I took my library holds off pause thinking that they would come in as usual sporadically, but no, they came in all at once!
So I have much library loot to behold. What do you think of these novels to the left? Which ones would you read first? I hate to lose some of these and have to go back on the library wait list … but that’s the brakes. I’ve actually started the novel Welcome Home, Stranger since it seems shortest and I can move onto others after, but I have no idea where I heard of it from. They all look pretty enticing.
And now I’ll leave you with a couple reviews of what I finished lately.
The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact, and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook / Doubleday / 432 pages / 2024
My husband and I listened to the nonfiction audiobook of this narrated superbly by Peter Noble on the 1,600 mile road trip we took to California in April, and it didn’t disappoint. Over hill and dale, we closely followed the legendary explorer Captain James Cook as he took his third and final voyage, which started in 1776 in England, with his crew arriving back in 1780.
The purpose was ultimately to find the elusive Northwest Passage. The expedition took two ships — one called the Resolution with Cook onboard — and the other the Discovery with Charles Clerke in command. Interestingly William Bligh, who later commanded the ship the Bounty when it was mutinied, was one of the officers aboard. Perhaps that was an omen?
Cook’s third expedition was a long, hair-raising voyage as the ships set sail from Plymouth stopping in Cape Town before going onto New Zealand and the islands in the Pacific then up along the North American coast all the way to the Bering Strait and Alaska until they encountered sea ice and turned back. I won’t spoil the particulars for you of where and what misfortune exactly took place, but the return trip is where things took a troubled turn for the legendary explorer.
Up until then, I was struck by how well things went for Cook. His encounters with the Indigenous peoples were usually friendly and he was making great progress on discovering and mapping new lands. But there were also a handful of dangerous times when he was unbelievably lucky to get out of situations alive and when he was harsh to the crew. Though all in all, he seemed well respected for the great explorer he was. The Indigenous Hawaiians saw him as the god Lono, which apparently might have contributed to his fate … as well as other lapses Cook made late in the journey.
I was caught up in the epic voyage as told by Hampton Sides — who uses many of the diaries and sea accounts of the times to recount what happens. Despite them, Sides remarks how you never really see the inner Cook or his emotions, rather he emerges more as a “navigational machine.” In addition to Cook, various chapters delve into a Polynesian man named Mai — the first in England — who Cook was commissioned to return to Polynesia. Mai is quite a colorful character and his cultural foray into London life and on the expedition with the crew is quite an interesting side thread.
Hampton Sides is an elegant writer who breathes life into the adventures of Cook and what the crew face along the way. Cook had a big impact on the places he landed and named many of them too. I think I was looking for a little more analysis at the end in the epilogue, but otherwise I found it a fascinating sea voyage to think about. It certainly was epic.
PS. My family lived in Oahu in the late 1960s since my Dad worked at Tripler Army Medical Center, so that is why I’ve always been a bit curious of the history of Cook and what happened to him amid the islands.
Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty / Holt / 474 pages / 2021
The novel features an Australian tennis family — the Delaneys — and was a read recently for my book club. The parents Joy and Stan have been married 50 years and are unhappy in their recent retirement. Their four adult kids grew up playing competitive tennis and are still shaped by those days. Then a young female stranger ingratiates herself into the parents’ lives, staying at their house and cooking for them, while later Joy goes missing and various suspects from within and out come to light.
This novel is sort of a doozy. Moriarty’s storytelling abilities are full of quirky details about the family and their relations … where “apples never fall far from the tree” (hence the title). And when the mother goes missing, the family takes a turn. You begin to look at cracks in the retired couple’s marriage, their adult kids, and who the damaged stranger is who comes to stay with them. Moriarty keeps you invested enough in the plot and characters with only an eye-roll or two, but it does go on a bit too long. Like other of Moriarty’s novels, a bit less would have been better. But I was happy enough with the ending and glad it veered positive.
I’ve only read one other of hers — Big Little Lies — as well as watched the TV series of it along with Nine Perfect Strangers. The plots all get a bit crazy — but that’s supposedly some of the fun of it. Her next novel Here One Moment is coming in September, and it’s another 512 pages. So I guess she’s not going any shorter.
That’s all for now. What about you — have you read these authors and what did you think?
Hi all. We arrived home on Saturday from our road trip after a month in California. It’s still chilly up here, lol, and the leaves on the trees aren’t quite out just yet.
I want to thank all of you who sent kind words after my mother’s passing. It was so helpful to get your notes of sympathy, encouragement, and commiseration. You all are terrific and I appreciate each and everyone of you. Many of you I’ve known for many years through chatting about books here and at your sites. It’s been a great community to me.
And it just so happens that I recently passed my 15th anniversary blogging at The Cue Card. Apparently back on May 5, 2009, I put out my first three posts all at once: one was a review of German author Bernhard Schlink’s novel The Reader, another was a review of Richard Yates’s modern classic Revolutionary Road, and the last was an interview and book review I did with author Nien Cheng, which is still one of my favorite posts. Her 1987 memoir Life and Death in Shanghai is essential reading for anyone wanting to know more about China’s Cultural Revolution. I had the great fortune to meet Nien back then and to be invited to her place for tea, which was quite an honor.
Little did I know in 2009 that I would still be blogging this many years later, ha. At the time, I was living part of the year in Washington, D.C. and part of the year in Alberta, Canada, where I would come to move after getting married the following year. I don’t know what made me start the blog exactly, but I think I wanted to be able to remember the books I read in some meaningful way … so writing down synopses, thoughts, and asking for feedback was my way of doing that.
Mostly it’s been great and I have fifteen years worth of thoughts about what I read. Granted, there’s been times I thought about giving up blogging, but you all are such good readers and expand my horizon about books reviewed and what books to pick up that I’m inspired to keep it going. It’s been fun. So here I am on the way home going into the bookstore in Dillon, Montana.
And now without further delay, let’s look at what’s coming out this month. May is sort of the gateway between spring and summer, though I think it’s not really summer till the end of the month, and it’s more spring-like here. So let’s not go full-bore into summer reading just yet. We need to save that for June. For now I’m looking at three novels for May that hopefully will be enticing.
First is Colm Toibin’s novel Long Island (due out May 7), which is a sequel to his 2009 bestselling novel Brooklyn. It picks up the story of Eilis Lacey, two decades later — now in her 40s and with her husband Tony on Long Island in 1976 and his overbearing in-laws. But then something happens which infuriates Eilis and she returns to Enniscorthy, the small town in Ireland she left in the 1950s. Apparently Eilis’s second homecoming upends life in the village, so we’ll have to see what happens.
I’m woefully short on reading any of Toibin’s novels and I only watched Brooklyn at the movie theater in 2015 with Saoirse Ronan starring as Eilis, the young immigrant girl. But I liked it, so I plan to read the sequel and get the lowdown on Eilis in her middle years. Will she find happiness?
Next up is British author Elizabeth O’Connor’s debut novel Whale Fall (due out May 7), which follows the story set in 1938 of Manod, an 18-year-old girl who’s lived on a remote, rugged island off Wales with her father and sister. Then a couple arrives to study the island’s culture and Manod is drawn to them and their glimpse of the world beyond … “leading her to make some hard decisions about the life she ultimately wants to lead” says Publishers Weekly. Overall “O’Connor paints a portrait of a community and a woman on the precipice, forced to confront an outside world that seems to be closing in on them.”
Yikes. It sounds like the kind of isolated island story I often fall for … and here I go again! Exactly how many island novels have I read in the past few years? It feels like at least half a dozen, but they’ve all been good.
Another possibility this month is Michael Deagler’s debut novel Early Sobrieties (due out May 7) about “a young alcoholic in the early days of sobriety,” says Kirkus Reviews, “who gets the boot from his parents’ suburban Philadelphia home and begins what will be a half-year odyssey as the serial houseguest of relatives, old flames, and running buddies from high school and college.”
It’s said to be wry, sharp, and charming, and one that maybe slightly reminds me of Frederick Exley’s novel A Fan’s Notes mashed up with John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces combined with Carrie Fisher’s Postcards From the Edge. Even if it’s not any of these, I still have to check it out. Over the years, early sobriety novels have come and gone, but only a few have the staying power to be modern classics, right?
I’ll pass this month on talking about what’s releasing to watch, but it’s likely that a new Mad Max prequel (due out May 24) will battle another Planet of the Apes sequel (coming May 10) for movie box-office glory. Who will win? And what was the last one of these that you watched?
As for music this month, there’s new albums by Billie Eilish, Kings of Leon, Lenny Kravitz, Ani DiFranco, the Avett Brothers, and Kim Richey among others. I’ll pick the Avett Brothers new self-titled album (due out May 17) since it’s the band’s first in five years. The folksy brothers hail from Concord, N.C. and will follow up the album with an expansive tour. Here’s the sound of their new song Country Kid.
That’s all for now. What about you — which new releases are you looking forward to this month?
Hi all. The sad news is my mother in California passed away on April 15, so I’m currently taking some time to reflect and help my Dad and siblings with arrangements. I am glad to have been in California visiting my parents at the time. I appreciate all your kind thoughts and will be back shortly to talk about all things books and reading. Many thanks.
Hi all. Thanks for your well wishes about our trip. We had a nice drive from Canada and arrived in California four days later. The dogs enjoyed our overnights at hotels from their dog pillows, lol. We took an interesting tour at the Hoover Dam and saw Lake Mead and various sights along the way. You can see SoCal, at left, still has some nice snowpack in the mountains … and less so in the desert of Nevada, photos below. It’s nice to be back in my hometown, where I’m checking in on my parents. Today my Dad is waging war with his weeding tool on the dandelions in the yard. He’s keeping them at bay.
I have taken a bit of a blogging break while being here. Still I hope to visit your sites when I can. Currently I’m reading Liane Moriarty’s 2021 novel Apples Never Fall for my book club discussion in early May. It’s a bit long at 469 pages and is about an Australian family whose mother goes missing. The story keeps you guessing a bit. I will see where it goes. I’m also just starting an audio of Scottish writer Muriel Spark’s 1988 novel A Far Cry From Kensington, which seems pleasing. I have not read Spark before, but she appears to be a gem of a writer and received much acclaim during her life (1918-2006).
For a survey question this month, I am wondering when is the preferred time you do the majority of your reading and where do you like to read most?
I will start us off with an answer. For some reason, I really enjoy reading when I first wake up, early morning I’ll stay in bed and read for a while before the day starts. Then I get up and conquer the day, lol. It’s a quiet time that I like. I also like to read at night right before I go to sleep. My audio listening happens during the day, mostly on walks, while doing yard work, or driving. What about you — where and when does most of your reading take place? Do you have a comfy chair, sofa, or a patio you like to sit in while reading?
And now I’ll leave you with a few short reviews of what I finished lately.
True Grit by Charles Portis / Simon & Schuster / 215 pages / 1968
I liked the main character 14-year-old Mattie Ross from beginning to end. Her voice looms large in this classic Western set in the 1870s in which she goes after her father’s killer into Indian Territory with the help of Marshall Rooster Cogburn and Texas Ranger La Boeuf.
I listened to the audio version read by author Donna Tartt who is part Mattie Ross I think. So good. This one is a keeper. You could finish the story and then start it again from the beginning. Donna Tartt is an enthusiastic reader and the audio includes a postscript essay by Tartt, which talks about her family’s love of the novel and her thoughts about it. I only lament that Tartt has not read for more audios. She has a Southern accent, which is perfect for this tale, which starts in Arkansas.
But for some reason, I never saw the movie True Grit — either the 1969 version with John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn, or the 2010 version with Jeff Bridges as Cogburn and Hailee Steinfield as Mattie Ross. I’d like to go back and watch both, if I can find them. Did you see them?
The Caretaker by Ron Rash / Doubleday / 252 pages / 2023
I seem to be in the minority on this novel, which received many high marks. Some of the writing is really well done, but I didn’t really believe or warm to the premise too much. It’s hard to say more without giving away the story, but it’s a sticky situation.
Set in the 1950s in rural North Carolina, a boy (Jacob) gets involved with a poor girl (Naomi) who is a seasonal maid who his parents don’t want him to mix with. They elope anyways and his parents pretty much disown him. Then he’s drafted into the Korean War and asks a friend (Blackburn) to watch out for his pregnant wife while he’s away. Jacob spends a year or so there and gets into a dangerous firefight. Meanwhile things at home take a turn due to a dubious secret plot that upends their lives. Only time will tell if they find out about it.
This is my second novel I’ve read by Ron Rash whose novel Serena I read years ago. I often like his Appalachian settings, and while I have liked his books and characters, they haven’t been a total home run for me yet. Still his books are worth checking out.
The Last Days of Hitler by Hugh Trevor-Roper / 288 pages / 1947
This book is often cited on lists of the top nonfiction of the past century as a significant historical work. First written in 1947, the author was appointed by British intelligence in Germany to write a report investigating the final days of Hitler and those around him at the end of WWII in April 1945 and how his death was confirmed and what happened in the underground Berlin bunker where he was and the months leading up to his suicide at 56 with Eva Braun, 33. They were married 40 hours before their deaths.
The book also offers a bit of a sprawling picture of the Nazis, their party ranks and power plays among potential successors to Hitler in the final days. Some where deluded in thinking they could continue on even as the Russian and Allied forces were closing in … that the Allies would allow the Nazis even to exist after surrender. They were nuts in various ways.
The book focuses quite a bit on Nazi architect Albert Speer and his thoughts on Hitler, as well as evil Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Goring, and it made me feel a bit sick listening to the audio about the totalitarian regime. But for historical purposes and other reasons needs to be known about so it can be avoided at all costs. It’s a dark time and lesson in history.
That’s all for now. Sorry to end on such a grim thing. I hesitated about whether to include a review of such a book here, but if we never study past history and its horrors then how do we know and learn and get beyond such dark events. I was a history major in college and then went into journalism, but I mostly read fiction now, lol. Fiction is the antidote.
I hope you all are having a nice April. The roses are starting to burst here so the next post will likely include colorful roses. What about you — have you read any of these books or authors, and if so what did you think?
Happy April everyone. I hope you had a lovely Easter and that your spring has sprung and your flowers are out. Life has been busy here. I was reffing the U12 national tennis tournament last week so I was full on with the kids’ competition. So many matches!
Now our snow is melting quickly here after we had another flurry recently. This week we begin our spring road trip to California, Yay. I think there will be much to see along way as we pass through parts of Montana, Idaho, Utah, and Nevada and then on into the Golden State. We will get out to walk the dogs as necessary. So I’m not sure how much I will blog this month while I’m there, but I will take photos for whenever I do. We will be visiting with my parents at their senior community and also get to the beach.
Meanwhile there’s plenty of new April releases to check out. Months ago, I read an advance copy of Amor Towles’s new book Table for Two (due out April 2), which is a short story collection. It’s good, I enjoyed the stories. For those who are fans of his, it’s worth reading, but it’s not one of his big full-blown novels, so temper yourself just a bit. The last story in the collection features a sequel with his character Evelyn Ross from the novel Rules of Civility, who comes to work for a film studio in Hollywood. It’s pretty good to hear what becomes of her. And has anyone seen the new TV series adaptation of Towles’s novel A Gentlemen in Moscow? Is it a thumbs up or down?
I’m also looking to pick up some other novels (below), even a couple nonfiction books look good this month. So let’s get started.
Welsh author Carys Davies’s new novel Clear is one I’m looking to pick up. Set in the 1840s, it’s about a Scottish minister who is sent to evict the last inhabitant on an isolated island in the North Sea. At first, the two men do not speak a common language, but then after one is injured they gain a connection. It seems like a quiet novel that explores various themes.
It’s not exactly a new premise to me. I’ve read two other novels having to do with forced evictions on islands before, namely Michael Crummey’s superb 2014 novel Sweetland set on a remote island in Newfoundland, and Paul Harding’s 2023 award-nominated novel This Other Eden set on an island off Maine. But I haven’t read Carys Davies before and there’s something about books set on remote islands that make you want to read them. Ever since the tale of Robinson Crusoe!
Next is Matt Riordan’s debut novel The North Line (due out April 2), which Publishers Weekly calls “an irresistible portrait of commercial fishermen fighting for survival in early 1990s Alaska.” It’s about a college student named Adam who’s trying to earn quick money for college so he joins an Alaskan fishing crew.
I think he gets more than he bargained for on the rough Bering Sea. At first he thinks the adventure is quite revelatory and the work on the ocean invigorates him, but later he’s caught in a situation which turns dangerous and he’s fighting for survival. David Sedaris calls it “a frightening story of tough men pushed to the brink.” I haven’t read about such fisherman since Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm in 1997, so count me in.
There’s also the new novel from Irish author Caoilinn Hughes called The Alternatives (due out April 16) about a female geology professor who disappears off the grid, prompting her three sisters to search and track her down, which opens old wounds and adds new insights. It’s said to be a portrait of a family perched on a collective precipice that’s “witty and unexpectedly hopeful by one of Ireland’s most gifted storytellers.”
Well that’s a tall order, considering there’s many wonderful Irish authors these days. Granted I’ve been on a binge of Irish authors the past couple years, so I plan to give Hughes a try as well. I haven’t been disappointed by any yet.
Next are two nonfiction reads that look good, which include Erik Larson’s latest book The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War. It’s said to bring to life the five-month period between Abraham Lincoln’s 1861 election and the outbreak of the Civil War, focusing on the intensifying showdown over Fort Sumter in Charleston, S.C.
Admittedly I rarely feature nonfiction books in my Preview posts, but I need to make an exception for Larson, whose books often weave such unbelievable true tales of historical significance. I have not read them all, but my favorite is In the Garden of Beasts about the American ambassador’s family in 1933 Berlin during the rise of Hitler’s Nazis. The story is unreal and scary too. Not sure this one can match that, but I plan to check it out all the same. I tried to get an advanced copy, but I was out of luck.
Lastly I’m interested in Hampton Sides’s new nonfiction book The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook (due out April 9). For anyone who has spent time in Hawaii or the South Pacific, this true tale of the great British explorer Captain James Cook, who stepped ashore at Waimea in 1778 and met resistance with the natives, might be of interest.
As Shackleton author Caroline Alexander says: the book “transports the reader to one of the most thrilling eras of human exploration. … Hampton Sides has conjured Cook’s fatal voyage in all its extraordinary and tragic magnificence.” I’m game for it since I like reading about the epic explorers, especially since Hampton Sides is said to be one of the best narrative nonfiction writers around. I will find out if this is so.
And for April, I’m going to skip posting about new screen (TV & movie) releases since I’m busy packing up here and likely will not be watching much while I’m away, so let me know if you see anything good. But there’s quite a few new music albums coming out by such artists as The Black Keys, Pearl Jam, Iron & Wine, Maggie Rogers, and a little known singer named Taylor Swift. She apparently has her 11th studio album due out April 19, but for my own listening tastes I’ll pick singer-songwriter Maggie Rogers new one called Don’t Forget Me (due out April 12), which is her third studio album. Maggie grew up on the Eastern shore of Maryland in Easton, which I know well from my D.C. days. Here’s her new single.
That’s all for now. What about you — which new releases are you looking forward to this month? Have a great month and happy reading.
Hi all, I hope you are well. It’s a bit crazy how much things can change in a week right? If you saw last week’s picture of the yard and this week’s, you might notice that the white stuff is back. I think we have about three to five inches of snow now with more to come through Sunday. It’s okay, we can always use the snowpack in the mountains. I’m not sure if this is winter’s last stand or not. Often we get one more storm in April, but it’s usually just light spring flakes.
No big news in the reading department. I returned most of my “library loot” back to the library sadly … since our trip is coming up. I still have Ron Rash’s novel The Caretaker and Rita Bullwinkel’s novel Headshot as well as an Irish novel I’m reading for PW. So those will keep me busy till we leave along with the audio of Donna Tartt reading Charles’s Portis’s 1968 novel True Grit in her Mississippi accent. Tartt did this narration back in 2006, but heck it’s one of the few things we have of the elusive slow-working author, so I’ll give it a whirl. You might recall it was 2013 when her last novel The Goldfinch was published and usually it takes her about ten years between books. So where is the next? LoL. No word so far.
And now for my survey question of the week, I’ll pose the blogging question: do you have a set day of the week that you post on, or does it vary? Do you plan ahead with blog posts on timing and content, or is it more spontaneous and sporadic? I will say I try to post once a week, but it can vary on what day. I’d like it to be — perhaps every Friday but then things come up and the plan goes sideways. I often have things in mind for content a bit ahead of time but nothing is really engraved in stone. What about for you?
And now I’ll leave you with a review of what I finished lately.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain / 1884
I revisited this classic on audio in all its vernacular language since I wanted to get a handle on it before reading Percival Everett’s new novel James, which reimagines the novel from enslaved Jim’s perspective.
You might recall the story about Huck Finn is a first-person narrative told by him around age 13 during the 1830s and ’40s in a small town in Missouri along the Mississippi River. It’s a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in which Tom and Huck end up getting a good sum of money and that follows Huck into this story. Huck’s alcoholic, abusive father “Pap” tries to get the money and locks him in a cabin. In time, Huck fakes his own death and escapes running away to Jackson Island, where he reunites with his guardian’s slave, Jim, who has run away after hearing he was about to be sold.
Huck and Jim find a raft and decide to go downriver on a journey that turns out to include various close calls with thieves, slave catchers, natural dangers, and con men. They often find themselves in dicey situations, which has Huck coming up with schemes, plots, and getaways. Even friend Tom Sawyer gets involved towards the end when Jim is captured and they try to get him back.
Often referred to as the “greatest American novel,” The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been one of most banned books of all time. I’m against banning any books or changing any words of classics, but I admit I struggled with its vernacular and things. I didn’t struggle with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but this novel with its elements about race and racism is more complex.
In the novel, Twain is satirizing some of the society of the day — and people’s racist beliefs. During the journey, Huck learns much and becomes closer to Jim as it goes along. He sees his humanity and saves Jim at various times. But the language — 219 uses of the N-word — and the stereotypes are tough to navigate. The story also prattles on in places, particularly the section involving the con men — the King and the Duke. Their long section drove me pretty crazy, and in various parts the story has a lot of shenanigans afoot, which tried my patience.
My favorite part is just they’re floating downriver on the raft … while escaping bad guys and injustices. This I could completely understand. So all in all, it was mixed for me. I still admire the talents and gumption of Twain for his day … and think Percival Everett’s tale might be a worthwhile look too.
That’s all for now. What about you — have you read Twain’s books and what did you think?
Hi all. Does it feel like spring where you are? It probably is. It’s even feeling a bit like spring up here. Most of the snow has melted away once again, and we are enjoying balmy temps. We might even go for a bike ride this weekend, which is a bit unheard of here in March. And the month is flying by, isn’t it?
We are gearing up for our road trip to California in April, just about two weeks away. It’s hard to believe. I’m getting together a few audiobooks for the trip, which include mostly historical nonfiction ones for my husband. Sorry to say, I will be leaving fiction behind for a while on the journey, then fling open my beach bag of novels once we get there, lol. Is it almost time for the beach?
Good news is I saw a pileated woodpecker this past Wednesday when the dogs and I were at a wooded park near the river. They are fun to see, but we don’t get to see them often. Their red heads make them easy to spot. I didn’t take this particular photo as I couldn’t get a good shot of him bobbing around, but I recorded the bird’s sound, which my Merlin Bird app recognized as the pileated woodpecker. Apparently the bird is the largest woodpecker species in North America and likes to eat carpenter ants, among other things. Its strong bill can chip large holes into trees searching for insects. Do you have these birds where you are?
And now you can see my “library loot” for this week. I still have several remainders from the weeks prior. Ann Napolitano’s novel Hello Beautiful just came in for me. I need to jump on it quickly since it’s long, but I think I’m going to start Ron Rash’s novel The Caretaker next. It looks like a quick, good read set in a small Appalachian town during the Korean War years. I read the author’s 2008 novel Serena, which was turned into a movie with Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, but I think the new one looks a bit better.
And now I’ll leave you with a review of what I finished lately.
Absolution by Alice McDermott / FSG / 336 pages / 2023
4.4 stars. This is a story about a woman named Tricia looking back on her life and her friendship with a woman, Charlene, whom she meets in Saigon in 1963. Tricia is corresponding decades later with the woman’s daughter Rainey and telling her things that happened there.
In the ’60s, Tricia and Charlene are “helpmeets” to their husbands’ careers in Vietnam early in the war, giving parties and supporting them. Newly arrived and married Tricia, 23, meets Charlene at a garden party when her baby throws up on Tricia’s dress. From this incident, Charlene comes up with a plan to sell Barbie dolls to help fundraise for toys and things for children in the local hospitals.
Soon Tricia is part of Charlene’s “cabal” to try to do good around Saigon, helping with the Barbie sales and traveling to a leper colony to measure the people for new clothes there. It turns out Charlene, a mother of three, is a “dynamo” of altruistic schemes, trading on the black market, pushing people around, hanging at the country club, popping pills, and doing what needs to be done for her causes. Meanwhile Tricia and her husband are trying to start a family, but she’s having trouble with miscarriages. These worlds collide sometime down the line.
This might not sound like much, but in Alice McDermott’s hands with all the things at play she turns it into gold. A lot of things going on mix: with the Vietnam backdrop, early feminism, faith, war, morality, friendship, children. The novel’s structure too is pretty cool as it looks back and is also in the present. There’s a nostalgia looking back and a naivete of one’s life at age 23 amidst a war zone.
I think Alice McDermott said she was wondering about the wives in Graham Greene’s 1955 novel The Quiet American — what their lives were like — and came up with this novel. The time and place came alive for me with these characters in the 1960s. I have not read McDermott before, but I picked up her novel Charming Billy once when it came out in 1997. I’d like to read more of her books, which mostly have Irish Catholic characters and themes from McDermott’s background.
That’s all for now. What about you — have you read any of these authors and what did you think? Have a great weekend.
Hi All, how was your week? Don’t forget to set your clocks forward on Saturday night. I like Daylight Savings Time — as the light seems to stay around longer in the evenings. And there’s more time to work in the fields, lol. But at first, the time change usually throws me off for a while.
And if you’re planning to watch the Academy Awards it’s this Sunday, so mark your ballots. I suspect that Oppenheimer will win some big awards and perhaps Killers of the Flower Moon. We just finished watching American Fiction and the chilling WWII movie The Zone of Interest, which were our last ones over the past year we’ve seen of the Oscar nominees, which include:
Oppenheimer
Killers of the Flower Moon
Anatomy of a Fall
The Zone of Interest
Maestro
Napoleon
American Fiction
Past Lives
Golda
The Holdovers
Society of Snow
Nyad
Priscilla
May December
They were all pretty good. We haven’t yet watched the film Poor Things, or the Ukraine war documentary 20 Days of Mariupol, which looks harrowing, but I hope it wins Best Documentary to bring more attention to Ukraine’s plight. Happy Oscar viewing.
Meanwhile in addition to the five library books that came in last week that I posted – I received three more this week. Have you read any of these? They look like winners, but how do I squeeze them all in before they’re due, lol. Usually I juggle and pick and choose and then I have to get some back another time.
And now, I will pose this week’s survey question which is: what is the name of the last indie bookstore you visited? And what did you buy? I will start. At Christmas time, I went into a very small bookstore in Alberta called Yooneek Books, which is a different way to spell unique I gather, and I picked up a nonfiction book entitled: Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden: Two Sisters Separated by China’s Civil War by Zhuquing Li. I have not read it yet, but the author teaches East Asian Studies at Brown University, and it looks like a sad and informative story about her aunts’ lives. What about you — what was your last indie visit?
And now I’ll leave you with reviews of what I finished lately.
Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips / Knopf / 304 pages / 2023
I loved the storytelling in this novel, which I listened to on audio. Much of it is about a 12-year-old girl ConaLee and her mute mother Eliza, who are being taken by a depraved ruthless man called “Papa” to a lunatic asylum in 1874, where he says Eliza will be cured. The asylum, run by real-life Dr. Story Kirkbride, offers the two refuge from the dangerous world where they’ve come from.
Since the Civil War days of 1864 mother and daughter had been living in a cabin up on a mountain ridge in West Virginia trying to avoid thieves and stragglers from the war, soldiers up to no good. Eliza’s husband left years earlier to fight on the Union side and he hasn’t been heard from since. Neighbor Dearbhla takes the horse to search for him believing him injured in a hospital. While she’s away, the Confederate-sided Papa makes his entrance terrorizing Eliza in a scene that will set off trigger warnings for various readers. By the time, ConaLee and Eliza get to the asylum you feel as about as much relief as they do. The place seems to have an interesting night watchman, a benevolent founder in Dr. Story, an orphan named Weed, and a tough woman who runs the kitchen.
As the story bounces between 1864 and 1874, connections begin to form of who the real father of ConaLee is and what happened to him and what will become of Eliza, her care, and ConaLee, who joins the staff at the asylum. It’s a wonderfully told story that’s both dark — for its wartime shatterings — and light — with the refuge of the asylum. I didn’t know of author Jayne Anne Phillips before, but I’d like to read more of her books in the future.
My Friend Anne Frank by Hannah Pick-Goslar / Little Brown Spark / 2023
The author’s own story and her friendship with Anne Frank are very powerful in this recounting. Although she shared her life story for many decades after the Holocaust, this was my first time knowing about Hannah Pick-Goslar and her friendship with Anne Frank. I feel remiss in not knowing about her earlier.
Hannah and Anne met and knew each other as young neighbors and classmates in Amsterdam and into their pre-teen years when the Nazi roundups began. Like Anne, Hannah suffered much during World War II, though her path differed a bit. When the roundups started, Anne’s family disappeared and went into hiding in 1942, but Hannah’s family stayed and got caught up in 1943 and was sent to Westerbok transit camp. Later in Feb. 1944 Hannah and her family were taken to the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen, where she says her path crossed once again with Anne’s sometime early in 1945.
Apparently one day Hannah heard Anne’s voice on the other side of a fence. When I was listening to the audio — I could scarcely believe it, so emotional to even imagine. Did they really briefly reunite once more?! I like to think or hope so. But by that time Anne was starving and not well and Hannah tried to throw her some food. But then didn’t see her again. Near the war’s end, Hannah tells of how she was one of thousands of Jewish prisoners forced onto the Lost Train to Poland where she was without food or water for 13 days … before being liberated by Russian troops.
Hannah’s years post-war, which she also writes about, are interesting … how she became a nurse and moved to Israel and was in touch with Otto Frank, Anne’s father, who was on a quest to publish Anne’s diary. It goes on to describe how Hannah went on her first speaking tour in the U.S. about the Holocaust in 1957, letting people know of the horrors and genocide and what happened to her friend Anne. And she continued nearly until she died in October 2022, giving talks about Anne and the Holocaust and letting students know.
Hannah was an amazing heroine and one of the last eyewitnesses to the Nazi genocide. Her memoir was made possible thanks to Tel Aviv journalist Dina Kraft who began a series of interviews with her before she passed. This moving and scary memoir is worth its weight in gold and then some.
That’s all for now. What about you — have you read these books and what did you think?
Hi All. Happy Leap Day. This extra day of February happens every four years so it’s a bit special, but I think most of us are ready now to move into March and spring. Already things are melting away up here and it’s very windy today. It’s been a strange and warmer winter than usual. Still the coming of March is often a cause for celebration, don’t you think? Will things start to turn green and flowers bloom where you are? They won’t be turning color here just yet, but it’s still nice to think about.
There’s no time to waste in talking about new releases this month, but first check out this picture of the novels that arrived in for me at the library this week. Oh my. When they all come in at once, I have to juggle which I can read before they’re due back. Doesn’t that drive you crazy? I like the looks of all of these. Do any stand out to you, or have you read any of them? I’ll keep you posted which I finish and like. So far I’ve started Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips.
Now for new March books, I’m looking at four that have particularly caught my attention. First off, Percival Everett’s novel James (due out March 19), which I’ve mentioned before, is one that has received a lot of critical praise. It’s a reimagining of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn told from enslaved Jim’s point of view.
As Ann Patchett says: “James is funny and horrifying, brilliant and riveting. In telling the story of Jim instead of Huckleberry Finn, Percival Everett delivers a powerful, necessary corrective to both literature and history.” It sounds good and I hope to read more of Percival Everett’s books afterwards, including his 2001 novel Erasure, which is the basis for the film American Fiction.
Also I’m curious about Xochitl Gonzalez’s second novel called Anita de Monte Laughs Last (due out March 5). Her debut novel Olga Dies Dreaming was quite a hit when it came out in 2022, which I still need to read. Now her second novel — about an art history student at Brown University who unearths the buried history of a Cuban American artist who tragically died in 1985 — is getting favorable reviews too.
The story moves back and forth in time and follows both women’s perspectives, while examining themes of art, power, and love. Author Ana Castillo says it’s “a remarkable story about reclaiming what has been erased.” So I’m on the wait list for it.
Next is the debut novel from Rita Bullwinkel called Headshot (due out March 12), which is about eight teenage girls as they compete at a boxing tournament in Reno, Nevada. The girls’ pasts and futures are examined as they summon the emotion and force of will required to win in the ring.
It sounds pretty raw and I’m a bit hesitant to read a girls’ boxing novel, but this debut has received so many glowing remarks about it that I want to check it out even if it’ll make me squeamish a few times or so. We’ll see. The author, who I’ve not heard of before, lives and teaches in San Francisco.
The last book pick is a novel called A Great Country (due out March 26) by Shilpi Somaya Gowda, which according to the publisher “explores the ties and fractures of a close-knit Indian-American family in the aftermath of a violent encounter with the police” … when the 12-year-old son is arrested.
This one is set in the affluent area of Pacific Hills, California, and examines the fallout of the arrest and how it shakes each family member’s perceptions. It’s been compared to Celeste Ng’s novel Little Fires Everywhere with themes about immigration, social class, and privilege. So count me in. I have not read the author before, but she’s already had a few bestsellers.
On the screen this month, there’s a plethora of new shows coming out. First off, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the movie Dune Part 2 out March 1. The sequel follows Paul Atreides (played by Timothée Chalamet) as he unites with the Fremen people of the desert planet Arrakis to wage war against House Harkonnen. Hmm. There’s sure to be some sandworms involved, but do note the movie is 2 hr 46 mins long, so plan accordingly if you plan to see it. I’m a bit more on the fence this time around, but it’s still probably a go.
Also note the Academy Awards airs on March 10, so if you plan to catch anymore Best Picture nominees beforehand, you need to get cracking.
Other than that there’s five new TV series coming out that look pretty good. All of them are based on novels, except the first show called The Regime (on HBO Max starting March 3), which is a six-episode political satire that depicts a year in the life of a crumbling authoritarian regime. It stars Kate Winslet as a chancellor gone power hungry. Is the political climate right for this, or what?
The series was filmed in Austria and features the impressive Liechtenstein Garden Palace in Vienna. Check out the set.
Next is the seven-part mystery drama series Apples Never Fall (on Peacock starting March 14) based on the novel by Liane Moriarity about the Delaney family whose mother Joy (played by Annette Bening) vanishes, forcing her four adult children to confront their parents’ marriage and their past. Whoa it sounds like a doozy.
Coincidentally my book club will be reading and discussing the novel Apples Never Fall in early May. Should I wait till then to see the show, or go ahead and see it now? I guess I can wait. Reading it first is usually much better.
Then there’s the seven-part historical series Manhunt (starting March 15 on AppleTV+) that’s based on the nonfiction book by James L. Swanson. It follows Secretary of War Edwin Stanton’s search for John Wilkes Booth in the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.
Anthony Boyle, who’s currently in the show Masters of the Air, will be the bad guy assassin John Wilkes Booth with British actor Tobias Menzies as Stanton. The series features a large cast and I hope it will be as gripping as the book.
Next is the gritty crime drama American Rust: Broken Justice (starting March 28 on Prime), which is the second season featuring Jeff Daniels as a compromised chief of police of a small Rust Belt town in southwest Pennsylvania … whose morals become tested when the son of his girlfriend (played by Maura Tierney) becomes accused of murder. It’s based on the 2009 novel by Philipp Meyer. It seems like it’s been awhile since Season One in 2021, which got canceled by Showtime but then was picked up by Prime. Yay, Jeff Daniels is always a treat to watch.
The last series is the eight-episode period drama A Gentleman in Moscow (premiering March 29 on Paramount+ and Showtime) based on the 2016 bestselling novel by Amor Towles. Scottish actor Ewan McGregor stars as Count Alexander Rostov, who’s banished for decades in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution to an attic room at the Hotel Metropol. Will Ewan be able to pull off the Count? I’m betting he will. And the series was filmed in England, not Moscow, so the Count should be all right. Lol.
For music in March, there’s new music coming out from such well-known artists as Norah Jones, Justin Timberlake, Kacey Musgraves, Lenny Kravitz, the Black Crowes, Beyonce, and Sheryl Crow among others. I’ll pick Kacey Musgraves new album Deeper Well due out March 15 as my choice this month since I’m liking country these days, though I’m also curious about Beyonce’s upcoming country album called Act II due out March 29. So we will see.
That’s all for now. What about you — which new releases are you looking forward to?
