The Cue Card

Replacements and Prophets

Posted on December 5, 2023 by Susan

Hi. How is everyone doing? I hope you are enjoying the holiday season. I have been off the blog for a while due to my knee replacement surgery last week. I came home from the hospital on Friday afternoon and I’m getting my bearings. All is fine and I’m on the road to recovery, which right now includes strengthening exercises and plenty of icing. I’m still working to get the swelling down, but it’s coming. My husband and sister-in-law from Vancouver deserve a lot of credit for getting me through. And thanks to all of you for the encouragement and thoughts you sent beforehand. It was much appreciated.

Before the hospital, I picked out a Christmas tree and we plan to decorate it this weekend. Hopefully the next post will be a bit more Christmassy. I still need to get more into the holiday spirit. I don’t even know where November went?!

In terms of shows lately, we’ve still been alternating episodes of the TV series Lessons in Chemistry (starring Brie Larson) with The Diplomat (starring Keri Russell) along with Bosch: Legacy (Season 2). All three shows are pretty good. I haven’t decided if we’ll return to watching the final season of The Crown (after four episodes) because reliving what happened to Princess Diana in that sad chapter is not really something I’m gravitating to right now.

Meanwhile in book news, it seems the judges of the Booker Prize surprised a lot of people (me included) when they awarded Irish author Paul Lynch with this year’s Booker Prize for his novel Prophet Song. Oh my, I had to quickly look up what the novel was even about. I guess I was so sure Paul Murray would win for The Bee Sting since those who read it praised it so highly.

But no! It went to Prophet Song instead, which is a slow-burn dystopian novel about a woman’s struggle to protect her family as Ireland collapses into totalitarianism and war. The book only became available in North America today, Dec. 5, so perhaps it’s no wonder not many knew too much about it here. From what I’ve read, I think it has its backers and those who don’t think too much about it. But I’m putting the novel on my list for 2024. Its theme of a democracy falling into an authoritarian state seems timely and one we should all fear and work our hardest to prevent.

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

Better Living Through Birding: Notes From a Black Man in the Natural World by Christian Cooper / Random House / 304 pages / 2023

I listened to this nonfiction book narrated by the author and I was taken by his enthusiasm for telling his story and his passion for birding. He covers a lot of ground and at first I didn’t even realize the book would be mainly a memoir of his life story … about his family, his coming out gay, his time at Harvard, his career working at Marvel and such. The book is also a bit of a travelogue about his far-off adventures (he’s traveled widely), and other parts include his birding and tips, as well as his Black activist work on civil rights. So the birding aspect is just one facet in a book with many.

People might remember Christian Cooper for the awful incident he had in Central Park in May 2020 with a white woman who crazily accused him of threatening her life (when he only asked her to put her dog on a leash since they were in a protected area of the park), but his book is so much more than that one incident. It gives us a great introduction to him as a thoughtful, bright person who seems terrific. Along the way, I liked his strength, courage … and insights about birding and civil rights these days.

People might have once thought that a black man in NYC being a passionate birder might be a total novelty, but Cooper says that is improving now. More African Americans and other races and ages are getting into birding and wildlife watching, and that’s good for everyone. Thanks to Christian Cooper and others like him. It’s certainly refreshing.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read this book and if so, what did you think? How is your reading going lately?

Posted in Books | 32 Comments

The Last Ranger

Posted on November 22, 2023 by Susan

Hi all. I hope everyone in the States has a very Happy Thanksgiving or wherever you may be. My relatives are gathering in Southern California for the holiday and it should be fun there. Though we are staying put for my knee surgery next week, so we will celebrate it here. Will you be getting a storm where you are or will it be nice and balmy for your turkey day feast?

Lately my husband has put up four bird feeders around the house, including the one in the photo, and we are watching to see which birds appear. I think the seasonal birds have flown south by now, so we are seeing many: Black-Capped Chickadees, House Sparrows, Magpies, Blue Jays, Northern Flickers, Mourning Doves, and Downy Woodpeckers.

And occasionally we see various other birds such as Pileated Woodpeckers, which are good-sized and have nice red-capped heads, and once this summer we saw a Great Horned Owl. The Northern Flickers (shown at left), which are also in the woodpecker family, have a colorful design to them so it’s nice seeing many of them here. But I have to practice taking pictures of the birds as they fly away at a second’s notice and I miss them. Our recent bird fixation jibes well with my nonfiction audiobook this month of Christian Cooper’s book Better Living Through Birding: Notes From a Black Man in the Natural World. I’m not that far yet, but I’m liking the author’s enthusiasm who narrates it for the audio.

In other book news, I see that Justin Torres won this year’s National Book Award for fiction for his second novel Blackouts, which according to AP’s Hillel Italie is a “daring and illustrated narrative that blends history and imagination in its recounting of a censored study of gay sexuality.” Torres’s book imagines a conversation between a dying man and the young friend he educates about a real history in 1941 called “Sex Variants.”

Although I don’t think his novel will make my TBR list, it is worth noting that it beat out four other finalists, including Paul Harding’s novel This Other Eden, which I had picked to win, so I’m 0-2 on my literary award guesses so far. Next up, is the Booker Prize announcement on Nov. 26.

Meanwhile we’ve been alternating watching episodes of Lessons in Chemistry starring Brie Larson as the quirky Elizabeth Zott — with the final season of The Crown starring Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana. We all know how that tragedy unfolded and I’m not finding it very easy to watch the tragedy again, though the performances seem pretty well done.

We also finished the four episodes of the miniseries All the Light We Cannot See – the first two episodes seemed pretty good, but the final two episodes seemed quite wobbly and a stretch to believe. Still the theme of a radio program connecting characters across enemy lines is a touching one. I liked the novel quite a bit more than the series.

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

The Last Ranger by Peter Heller / Knopf / 304 pages / 2023

3.7 stars. I liked the main character of this outdoorsy crime novel named Ren Hopper, who’s an enforcement ranger at Yellowstone National Park. Ren seems burnt out dealing with unruly tourists and those who get into trouble with wildlife. And he’s still grieving over the loss of his wife and his mother’s descent into alcoholism, but he finds refuge in the nature of the park, fishing, and his chats with his friend Hilly, a wolf biologist, who lives in a nearby cabin.

Then while going fishing one day he runs into a man with his dog whom he senses is poaching a bear in the park. The guy Les seems bad news and soon after his friend Hilly is nearly killed in an episode in the park. Meanwhile someone is leaving Ren threatening notes and signs.

As Ren investigates, the storylines play out in a slow-burn kind of way with plenty of atmosphere of life in the park and info about wildlife, particularly wolves, which were reintroduced to Yellowstone in 1995. I thought Heller intermingled these snippets fairly well without losing sight of the main thread. Towards the end, Ren gets involved in a relationship he doesn’t see coming, though perhaps the reader does. A flurry of action comes in the final stage, which I was waiting for. There’s not much of a surprise with it, but Ren and the perpetrators have their day.

I sort of wonder if a sequel with Ren might be in the works. He’s a good character and Heller seems at home writing about national parks and life as a ranger, and Ren’s love life might just be going somewhere. I’d be happy to see a sequel. I have listened to four out of the six books written by Peter Heller, which were all outdoorsy/adventure male-propelled novels with a bit of suspense.

This wasn’t my #1 favorite (perhaps The Dog Stars still is), but it was engaging nonetheless. I listened to the audio narrated by Mark Deakins who’s done well reading some of his other titles. I expect another book perhaps next summer. And thanks to Sam over at the blog Book Chase, who also reviewed this novel, for reminding about it.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read this author or seen these shows — and if so, what did you think? Happy Thanksgiving.

Posted in Books, TV | 42 Comments

Study for Obedience

Posted on November 14, 2023 by Susan

Hi. How is your week? Lately we’ve had many clear days with windy conditions. It was so windy a few days ago it sheared off some large branches from our poplar trees. We spent some of the weekend picking up the debris. We live near the prairies and the foothills here and it’s definitely the windiest place I’ve ever lived. In the summer there’s always a steady wind blowing.

You might have caught the news that author Sarah Bernstein won Canada’s Giller Prize last night for her novel Study for Obedience. Wow! This surprised me since I sort of thought Eleanor Catton would win for her novel Birnam Wood, but No! Perhaps it’s a bit of an upset. Bernstein, who grew up in Montreal and now lives and teaches in the Scottish highlands, takes home $100K for the win. Congrats to her. The timing couldn’t have been better since I just finished reading Study for Obedience over the weekend (see review below). How apropos. The author’s novel is also on the shortlist for the Booker Prize. Will she win again? That would be quite a coup, but some are guessing Paul Murray’s novel The Bee Sting will win. Though we will have to wait and see on Nov. 26 when the prize will be announced.

In other news, we’ve been watching and liking the TV series All the Light We Cannot See on Netflix and should finish it in a couple days. The two leads who play the blind French girl Marie-Laure and the German soldier boy Werner seem to be new actors and are pretty refreshing in their roles. With only four episodes in the series, the script seems to move at a brisk pace, faster than the novel it’s based on. Someone said the ending differs from the book, so I will prepare for that.

Also on Netflix we liked the movie Nyad based on the true story of Diana Nyad’s long-distance attempts with her team to swim from Cuba to Florida in her 60s. It’s quite an interesting and unreal story … and I think Annette Bening spent a couple years training for the role. She’s a dedicated swimmer now. Jodie Foster is also good as her coach and long-time friend Bonnie Stoll, and the shots from the ocean are pretty compelling and put the miraculous feat into perspective.

Earlier we finished the final season (Season 3) of the British crime drama Happy Valley with Sarah Lancashire as Police Sergeant Catherine Cawood and Siobhan Finneran as her once-addicted sister. They’re both excellent in their roles, dealing with a demented bad guy who years ago hurt Catherine’s daughter. But man that small town in Yorkshire is riddled with dark crimes. It’s not exactly a ‘happy’ place. We followed that with Season 3 of the news drama The Morning Show, which was a pretty crazy season and sort of soap opera-esque. I’m not sure I’d recommend it, but at least the large cast was entertaining enough. During the season, Jon Hamm plays an Elon Musk kind of character who tries to take over the network and much shenanigans ensues. I still think Season 1 was the best of that series.

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

Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein / Knopf Canada / 208 pages / 2023

(3.5 to 4 stars) I think Shirley Jackson (and Lydia Millet) might have liked this strange little novel … which includes an off-kilter narrator who goes to her brother’s rural estate in a northern country to help him with things after his wife leaves with their children. The narrator is a solitary “inept” person who took care of her siblings growing up, left journalism and is a typist for a firm, and tries to maintain control over herself and adhere to obedience at all times.

When her brother suddenly leaves for a trip, she is left at the place alone with his small old dog and begins to take long walks into the woods and mountains, eventually having to go into town in the valley for supplies, which is a bit hard since she doesn’t know the country’s language. Then weird things begin to happen (on properties in town) and she feels the animosity and suspicion from the townspeople, which she tries to make right by volunteering at the farm co-op and leaving some woven stick dolls, but things don’t exactly go as planned and you wonder how it will end.

The plot seems simple enough to understand, but the off-kilter solitary narrator goes off on tangents that may or may not be too understandable. She’s mentally out there … and reflects a bit about how the townspeople might belong there but not her. Some stuff she talks about flew over my head. Still the writing is pretty smart and with its long, long sentences is quite lyrical and alluring. It’s a nice wonder that this little unsettling novel won the Giller Prize and made the Booker Prize shortlist. Whoa. Though I was hoping the ending would have had something a bit more happen. The townsfolk seem to hold her to account for several bad things that happen, but the ending perhaps wasn’t as big as I was looking for, though plenty of murky oddness abounds.

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf Canada for allowing me an advance copy to read and review.

Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim / 207 pages / 1898

(3 stars) I’m learning about this author and her books a bit late in life. I listened to the audio read by British actress Lucy Scott of this semi-autobiographical 1898 classic tale, which reads like a memoir. In fact some people call it a memoir, others say it’s a novel, but I guess the publisher calls it a novel.

I liked hearing about how a garden in the Prussian countryside made this woman — the protagonist Elizabeth — feel very happy and free from things that constrained her in her life. Her husband was an aristocrat, and life for women in her day was pretty confined, but it was made better when she moves to an old house in the countryside with a large garden. There she takes pleasure and refuge in outdoor life, planting, and nature, and with her writing and three babies — the oldest being 5 and the youngest 3, whom she refers to as “the April baby” and “the June baby.” Of course she has a governess for them and neither cooks nor sews but spends her time with books in the garden, and many see her as eccentric.

Her husband — who thinks very little of women’s capabilities — she refers to as “The Man of Wrath.” And on Elizabeth describes in a diary-like style the seasons and the flowers in the yard, the servants, gardeners, and visitors who come by. It’s a pleasant enough tale as Elizabeth is in good spirits and making light fun of society and things of the day. Her memoir-like tale seems quite modern — as if she were talking about the refuge of gardening during the recent pandemic instead of what it offered her back in 1898. I’m not sure I knew women were talking about all she describes in the book — their rights, roles, and happiness — back then, so it has relevancy.

I will have to read Von Armin’s most popular novel The Enchanted April sometime. Judging from her bio, she lived quite a well-traveled life, living in England, Switzerland, Prussia, France, and the U.S. and being born in Australia. So she was out and about and knew various languages and writers of her day, including EM Forster and HG Wells … and she fled WWI and WWII lands, spinning 21 tales and dying in South Carolina in 1941. Whoa I didn’t know much about her before I came upon this book, which was her debut and apparently a hit back in her day.

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

Posted in Books, TV | 32 Comments

Dogs Days of Fall

Posted on November 7, 2023 by Susan

Hi All. I hope you are well. The snow here has melted away and we are back to fall conditions with a family of deer grazing on our front lawn. This photo of our two Labrador dogs Willow and Stella was taken a couple weeks ago after the first snowstorm. The dogs love the snow and are my everyday helpers, getting the mail and doing errands with me. They like the dog park too in town.

Willow is a ball-crazy, red Lab and is almost three (her birthday is coming up on Nov. 22!), and Stella is our yellow, food-crazy senior girl at 11.5 years old. She’s the boss around the house, who’s never missed telling us its meal-time even by a minute. Both dogs get about a thousand pats per day, which is what they pretty much demand and deserve.

Nothing is too new in the reading department, though I’m about five books behind pace now of my Goodreads reading goal for the end of the year, argh. I doubt I will catch up, but I have made a TBR list of about eight to 10 books I hope to squeeze in before Dec. 31. I will keep those under wraps for now. How are your reading goals going? Are you on track? Also don’t forget: next week Canada’s Giller Prize will be announced on Monday, as well as the National Book Award on Wednesday. I’m thinking Birnam Wood will win and perhaps This Other Eden, but I’m not totally sure.

And now here are a few reviews of what I finished lately.

This Other Eden by Paul Harding / Norton / 224 pages / 2023

(4.3 stars) This was my first Paul Harding novel and wow he writes like dynamite. Beautiful passages of the setting and characters. And Edoardo Ballerini narrates the audiobook so well, bringing to life the story of a small mixed-race community on an island off Maine, established in 1792 by the patriarch Benjamin Honey, a former slave, and his Irish wife Patience. More than a century later in 1911 the Honey descendants are still living on Apple Island along with a couple other families and eccentrics — with the children being taught classes by white mainlander Matthew Diamond, who visits the island on weekends. Though all is not well when state officials, motivated by eugenics, start getting involved with the island’s direction and the poor people there.

It’s sad and tough how the story plays out. There’s quite a few characters to keep track of, but the main characters — Esther Honey, the grandmother, and especially her grandson Ethan, who is a promising painter — are interesting to follow. Ethan gets sent off the island by Matthew Diamond to pursue his art and there he meets and falls for the Irish maid Bridget. You’ll want to see what happens to them.

Overall this is a tragic story and all the more since it’s based on a true story of long-ago inhabitants on Malaga Island, now an uninhabited 41-acre reserve off the coast of Maine. I thought the novel was well done — harsh yet with beautiful lyrical passages. I could’ve used a bit more perhaps from the minds of its main protagonists – but that’s just a quibble. The novel’s a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Booker. But will it win? I am not sure it will, but I’d be okay if it does.

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue / Knopf / 304 pages / 2023

(4.0 stars) The novel’s beginning – I found sort of creepy when married university prof Fred Byrne gets involved in the lives of two 20-something friends James Devlin and Rachel Murray who work at a bookstore in Cork, Ireland, that is throwing him a book launch. Rachel, 21 in 2010, is a student of Dr. Byrne’s and has a crush on him, and her roommate James is her new BFF, whom she meets at the bookstore. The start seemed like a used coming-of-age plot and made me feel that I was done with 20-something, millennial fare. I recall thinking I wouldn’t be picking up another. After all, I only read the first Sally Rooney book.

But then as it goes on the story expands its horizons — in the second half — and I found the novel much more engaging and worthwhile. Rachel, who’s trying to find her way amid the bleak recession, gets an internship with Deenie, Dr. Byrnes’s wife who works in publishing. Meanwhile her BFF James is trying to come out of the closet and also write a TV script, while Rachel’s dating a guy named Cary on and off.

Rachel gets into quite a terrible bind and predicament along the way. And Dr. Byrne is quite the rogue. It’s one of those situations that marks one for life and Rachel is best to leave town after. The plot explores the lives of Rachel and James as they move on and where they go after some years … their friendship and the relationship with Cary too.

Despite the serious drama of the plot (which I can’t say too much about without ruining it), there’s some funny lines weaved throughout the book, which made me snicker. I also liked how the ending came back around and gained some resolution about what had happened earlier, which I gather Rachel is able to find some comfort in. I listened to the audio narrated very well by Tara Flynn. The author Caroline O’Donoghue is one to watch, even though I like to think this is my last millennial, 20s story. This novel was on my summer list.

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray / Berkley / 368 pages / 2021

4.3 stars. When the novel was picked for my book club, I had no idea about the life story of Belle da Costa Greene and how she passed as white for years as the personal librarian to financier J.P. Morgan’s massive rare collection, even though she was secretly black. I had no idea either how successful she became in her role as Morgan’s librarian, bidding and making important acquisitions for rare art and manuscripts and representing Morgan abroad in a white man’s job role and world. From 1905 to 1913 when Morgan died Belle managed his collection, and then his will granted her $50K, which was over a million in her day. She continued on as librarian under Morgan’s son and became director of the Pierpont Morgan Library in 1924 and retired in 1948.

Whoa this lady put herself on the line and had a lot of courage, facing the ire of JP Morgan and hiding her “secret,” and becoming so accomplished with his rare collection. The authors do a good job fleshing out her story, when a bit is missing from the real record since Belle burned her personal letters. Still the book provides an interesting glimpse into how Belle mingled in high society NYC and what her relations were like with the Morgan family and her own black family who lived with her for some time and she supported. As well as there’s a romantic angle between Belle and an art historian that you don’t know whether it will last or not.

Mostly the tension permeates throughout the novel over Belle’s secret of passing as white during days of much racism, segregation, and white supremacy and whether she will be found out. At the end I wanted to know a bit more about her and the secret – which was not addressed in the Authors’ Note at the back. Still it’s an intriguing historical tale of a strong woman’s will, brilliance, and gumption that I’m glad I learned about. I’m hoping it will provide a good discussion for our book group next week.

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

Posted in Books | 33 Comments

November Preview

Posted on October 31, 2023 by Susan

Boo. Happy Halloween. I hope everyone has fun tonight. We had our first snow last week, but we can handle it. It’s typical this time of year. And November is almost here. There’s quite a bit happening this month, including the time change, a few key literary award announcements, and of course U.S. Thanksgiving. Though unfortunately I won’t be going anywhere as I’m having (right) knee replacement surgery on Nov. 29. Gulp. Yeah, I’m getting up there. I’m sure the sports I did most of my life (as well as my genetics) contributed to the loss of cartilage in my knees. I will try to grin and bear it as best as possible.

Meanwhile there’s many releases to talk about this month, especially in movies. But first there’s new fiction by such notable authors as Michael Cunningham, Paul Auster, Jonathan Evison, Sigrid Nunez, Naomi Alderman, and another Molly the Maid mystery by Nita Prose.

I’m hoping to read a new slim collection of short stories by Irish writer Claire Keegan called So Late in the Day (due out Nov. 14), though the three stories in it aren’t actually new. They span her career and have been repackaged into this book. Kirkus says the selected stories “examine the power dynamics between men and women through relationships, chance encounters, and sex.”

I have liked Keegan’s spare, direct writing style and her themes in her two books Small Things Like These and Foster so I will continue on to check this one out.

Next up, since it’s nonfiction November month I’ll pick Liza Mundy’s new book The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA, which actually came out Oct. 17, so I’m sort of cheating since this isn’t a November release. But I only found out about it recently! The book covers three generations of women at the CIA: the early days after WWII, then after the Cold War, and recently after the attacks of 9/11. It tells about the sexism and discrimination the women faced at the CIA as well as their struggle to get their voices heard.

I think the early operatives’ stories will be interesting. And I still have Mundy’s 2017 book Code Girls on my shelves waiting to be read, so perhaps I could read them close together. That’s a lot of women’s history for sure.

Speaking of history, I’ll pick Jon Clinch’s historical novel The General and Julia (due out Nov. 14) as my third choice. It explores the life of Ulysses S. Grant, who in writing his memoirs in 1885 reflects on his past as the Civil War general and former president, his marriage to his wife Julia, and his entanglement in a terrible Ponzi scheme.

As it goes back and forth in time, the novel sounds like it delivers a moving story of an iconic figure, whose views on race and Reconstruction changed over time. This is my first book by the author who lives in Vermont.

And for extra credit this month, Ed Park’s speculative novel Same Bed Different Dreams (due out Nov. 7) has been getting a lot of talk … as a wild sweeping novel that imagines an alternate secret history of Korea to the present “suffused with postmodern weirdness.”

Publishers Weekly has already picked it as one of its Top 10 books of the year, calling it ingenious. Is it? Well it will likely need to wait as a 544-page fever dream kind of novel is not really in my wheelhouse right now, but I will keep it on the back burner maybe for next year.

Meanwhile there’s a slew of upcoming screen releases. First in TV series, you might be keen to check out Black Cake on Hulu starting Nov. 1, based on the 2022 novel by Charmaine Wilkerson about two estranged siblings who delve into their mother’s secret past after she dies and leaves behind a puzzling will. I still need to read this one.

Then the bestselling WWII novel All the Light We Cannot See is coming out as a four-part miniseries on Netflix starting Nov. 2. It’s been long anticipated and I liked the 2014 novel quite a bit, but the critics have not liked it much, argh. Still I will likely see it, if we decide to get Netflix this month.

Moving on to Season 6 of The Crown. Whoa it’s the final season airing on Netflix starting Nov. 16. Most of the cast is back from Season 5, which I think I missed, with Imelda Staunton as Queen Elizabeth and Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana in her final days. Apparently it covers the years 1997 to 2005 and will feature flashbacks with Claire Foy and Olivia Coleman as the Queen too. At least that’s what I heard. I’m game for this final round.

Though Season 2 of Julia is also starting Nov. 16 on HBO Max, with Sarah Lancashire as the iconic Julia Childs. Yea, we liked Season 1, and the new season features Julia and her husband Paul enjoying epic culinary adventures in France. It was shot on location in the South of France and features most of the returning cast, so what are we waiting for?

Though I might need to watch Fargo Season 5 (airing on FX and Hulu Nov. 21) since it was shot around Calgary and Alberta. The new season features Jon Hamm as a preacher and sheriff who thinks he’s above the law and Jennifer Jason Leigh as his mother-in-law, the Queen of debt. I have not watched this series before, but it’s never too late to start.

In movies, there’s a feast of new Oscar hopefuls due out including director Sophia Coppola’s latest Priscilla (releasing Nov. 3) based on the life of Priscilla Presley played by Missouri’s own Cailee Spaeny.

The film has received some pretty strong vibes … along with director Alexander Payne’s latest comedy-drama called The Holdovers, which is about a cranky teacher (played by Paul Giamatti) at a prep school who must remain on campus over the holidays with some students who have nowhere else to go. Set in 1970, it looks like a fun, warmhearted movie that was shot in Massachusetts. Who doesn’t love a quirky Giamatti?

Another Hunger Games movie is out Nov. 17, based on the last book The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. It features a whole new cast. No more Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss, so I think I’m out.

But Thanksgiving week, a few big movies will release: including Ridley Scott’s historical epic Napoleon (due out Nov. 22) with Joaquin Phoenix as the ruthless French emperor. Apparently the film includes six major battle scenes and depicts “Napoleon’s rise to power through the lens of his volatile relationship with Empress Josephine” played by Vanessa Kirby. Oh my. Ridley Scott’s films always take me back to Gladiator, which I swear is on TV about every weekend.

But if that is too much for you, then you might like the laughs in Nicolas Cage’s upcoming film Dream Scenario (due out Nov. 22), where he plays a hapless man whose world is turned upside down when millions of strangers start seeing him in their dreams. Ha. It looks funny and could be just the comedy needed for the holidays.

Cage plays goofy characters pretty convincingly and I’m still reminded of his kooky role as the twin brothers Charlie and Donald Kaufman in the 2002 movie Adaptation, which cracked me up.

Lastly in movies is Leave the World Behind (due out Nov. 22) based on the 2020 apocalyptic novel by Rumaan Alam. Oh yeah this was a good spooky one … about a family’s vacation at a luxurious rental home on Long Island that is interrupted when two African American strangers knock on the door bearing news of a mysterious blackout. Uh-oh. Things get dicey from there, remember?

The movie stars Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, and Ethan Hawke among others. I recall listening to the audio narrated by Marin Ireland and feeling a bit eerie as I walked through the woods with it.

Finally in music this month, there’s new albums that seem appealing by Dolly Parton, Passenger, and Amos Lee among others. Though I’ll pick singer-songwriter Chris Stapleton’s latest one called Higher, which is due out Nov. 10. Here’s a track off of that called White Horse, which is vintage Stapleton. Enjoy.

That’s all for now. What about you — which releases look good to you? Happy November.

Posted in Top Picks | 30 Comments

The Observer

Posted on October 23, 2023 by Susan

Hi. I hope everyone is well. We’re supposed to have our first snowstorm this week, which is not too unusual considering it’s almost Halloween time, but am I ready for it? Nooo.

Last week we had a sunny day when I took this photo, yay. I had to get out for one more warm day. It felt nice and I liked using my Trek road bike for one more ride, which is what I trained on for our Italy bike trip. It’s my lucky chariot, lol.

Not much else new, but I see that the movie Killers of the Flower Moon, which I posted about last week, hasn’t received completely favorable reviews. Kirkus Reviews sort of panned it for being more focused on the bad guys and not enough on the Osage people, and Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post says the book’s suspense has been taken out of the movie. Uh-oh. I still plan to see it sometime — either at home or at the theater — but I will temper my expectations.

Perhaps the movie Nyad about long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad starring Annette Bening and Jodie Foster will be more enjoyable. It entails Nyad’s training and 2013 swim from Cuba to Florida. Has anyone seen it yet? It’s out in select theaters now and streams on Netflix beginning Nov. 3. Those two actresses should be a dynamo combination.

Speaking of movies, we watched the movie Golda this past week about the former prime minister of Israel Golda Meir (played by Helen Mirren) and the stakes she faced in 1973 when Egypt and Syria invaded Israel. It’s a pretty intense little war drama, and for the most part, we liked it. It shows the precarious position of Israel at the time, and Helen Mirren of course is excellent.

Though she sure has to smoke a lot of cigarettes in the role. Apparently Golda Meir was a chain-smoker who knocked off 70 cigarettes a day, which it seems the film’s director took to heart. It’s one big cigarette-fest that made us a bit sick. Still it seemed pretty true to life. Liev Schreiber plays U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and his scenes talking with Mirren as Meir are apparently indicative of their close diplomatic relationship. It goes without saying: the timing of the film is pretty apropos with the awful recent events going on all over again. Isn’t it dreadful news. Is there an ounce of hope anywhere?

We also watched the documentary about spy author John le Carre’ called The Pigeon Tunnel, which just came out on AppleTV+ and is based on his memoir. It was filmed before le Carre passed away in 2020 and shows the famous British author giving his last interview, which is quite candid and revealing.

Whoa, he had a terrible family life. His mother left when he was like 5 and his father was a swindler/criminal, who had the author later in life bail him out a couple times. The film also delves into le Carre’s career during the Cold War and his time as a spy. It touches on the traitor Kim Philby and on the author’s books. So if you like those or are just curious, it’s quite interesting and worth seeing.

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

The Observer by Marina Endicott / Knopf Canada / 255 pages / 2023

This is a bit of a quiet novel about a couple — Julia Carey and Hardy Willis — who move in the 1990s to a tiny town in northeastern Alberta, Canada. He’s a new recruit with Royal Canadian Mounted Police and she’s hired as an editor for the local newspaper The Observer.

Written in the first person from Julia’s perspective, the story starts off a bit slow as they’re meeting people in the town and learning their ways and trying make ends meet to pay bills. Julia feels like an outsider who’s not used to a rural community, though eventually they start making friends especially with the other RCMP members there and their spouses.

Hardy, as a new member, is given much brunt work and is on nights, seeing to wrecks on the highway, death notices, and other grim tasks. Julia tries to help him cope, but he doesn’t tell her much of what he encounters on the job. The story moves about like little episodes about town, from one thing to the next … with Julia handling sporadic work at the The Observer and becoming friends with a recent widow named Stephanie whose RCMP husband committed suicide. She wants to ask her more about it but holds off for a while.

As the novel goes along, I became more drawn into Hardy and Julia’s lives … as they have a baby and things become harder for Hardy on the job. You come to realize the stress and hardships these police members face as they endure threats, crimes, and victims in bleak circumstances, which take a mental health toll on them. It leads to a scare and down time in Hardy and Julia’s lives that they must face together. You’ll want to stay tuned to see what happens.

Apparently the novel is based on the author’s own life of her several years in Mayerthorpe, Alberta, (near where years later four RCMP members were killed tragically by a gunman on a rural property in 2005). By novel’s end, I found it pretty affecting and a bit of a haunting look back on one’s life … when some deeply impressionable events happened. It’s a quiet, small-town tale but still manages some poignant ripples. It’s my first novel by Canadian author Marina Endicott novel and won’t be my last.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for allowing me the ARC to read and review.

Island Home: A Landscape Memoir by Tim Winton/ Milkweed /256 p / 2017

I’ve loved much of Australian author Tim Winton’s fiction, but this book was really more essay-like than what I was expecting as a memoir. Much of it includes the western coast of Australia — places Winton grew up, which I know he loves and essays on saving the environment and his environmental work, which I admire and I’m all for.

But I found the book episodic and the chapters brief and not all that well explained to an outsider whether in mentioning species or places. Parts of it flew past or beyond me, so I didn’t enjoy it as much as I wanted to. Still I admire Winton’s love of nature, environmental awareness, and his work in the campaign to save the Ningaloo Reef and other wild places. But in terms of reading, I’ll stick with his fiction in the future.

That’s all for now — what about you have you read these authors, or seen these movies and if so, what did you think? Enjoy the week.

Posted in Books | 43 Comments

October Days

Posted on October 15, 2023 by Susan

Hi all. Sorry I’ve been AWOL from the blog for a while. I didn’t mean to take this much time away, but my husband and I got sick after our bike trip in Italy with our first bout of Covid ever. It’s mostly done now.

And luckily it didn’t hit till after the trip, which was great! We cycled with our family group (18 in all) all over Puglia, Italy, and had so much fun. Of course we started first with a tour in Rome, where this photo was shot and we biked part of the Appian Way, pictured below. All in all, it was quite a bucket list experience.

We’ve been back a week now — resting up. I can’t believe it’s already the middle of October. I didn’t get to read much while there because we were on the go everyday. So I’m way behind with books I planned. Though I finished a novel and review for PW and can move on from that, yay.

And now I’ve been looking at what’s releasing in October and have come up with a few picks below. Nothing too surprising just a few from big-name authors that I probably shouldn’t miss … though maybe I should be looking for some Halloween reading too for around this time.

First up, is the new short-story collection from Jhumpa Lahiri called Roman Stories (out Oct. 10). What perfect timing, right? Nine stories all set in Italy. Over the years, I have read and loved three of Lahiri’s books, namely: Interpreter of Maladies, The Namesake, and Unaccustomed Earth. Though I have not read her newer books about learning and writing in Italian and her essays about translation. But if she likes Italian and being in Italy then I’m all for it.

Lahiri is a daughter of Bengali immigrants who grew up in Rhode Island and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000 for her story collection Interpreter of Maladies.

I’m also curious about Alice McDermott’s new novel Absolution (due out Oct. 31) about two American wives who try to help their ambitious husbands “do good” for the people of Vietnam in 1963 Saigon. Sixty years later one of the women’s daughters contacts the other woman about their time there, and they look back at that pivotal period and their lives on the periphery.

I have not read McDermott in many years, but her novel Charming Billy won the National Book Award in 1998. I recall that some of her novels contain themes from her Catholic upbringing. She teaches at John Hopkins University and lives outside D.C.

Then there’s Jesmyn Ward’s latest novel Let Us Descend (out Oct. 24), which I hear is a rather bleak slavery story. Do I really want to read this now — when the news has been so awful these days? It’s about an enslaved girl’s journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and a punishing Louisiana sugar plantation.

Then again it is from the award-winning writer Jesmyn Ward … who fills Annis’s journey with spirits and memories of her African grandmother. It might be that the writing in it is worth the price of admission, but go into at your own risk.

As for what to watch this month, I’m curious if anyone’s tried out the new eight-episode series Lessons in Chemistry (on AppleTV+, Oct. 13) based on the 2022 novel by Bonne Garmus. I liked the book quite a bit, which is about the quirky Elizabeth Zott who wants to be a scientist in the 1950s but winds up instead on a TV cooking show in the early 1960s.

Actress Brie Larson takes on the roll of Zott and I hear it’s getting some tepid reviews. Some are saying its exploration of female empowerment falls a bit short, though I think we need to see it for ourselves. Larson was excellent as Jeannette Walls in The Glass Castle movie, so we need to see if she can deliver as the anti-social Zott.

There’s also Season 2 coming of Bosch: Legacy with 10 new episodes starting Oct 20. I repeat there’s more Harry Bosch! It’s coming on Freevee, which I think means Prime. And this time someone’s kidnapped Bosch’s daughter Maddie, who’s become a rookie cop, and it sends Bosch into crazy mode.

The good news is most of the old characters are back including Mimi Rogers as “Money” Chandler and Bosch’s old partner Jerry played by Jaime Hector. But I don’t see Amy Aquino as Lt. Grace Billets, ugh, and sadly actor Lance Reddick who played the L.A. mayor died in March. Still it should be an intense season of action with Bosch on the rampage to get Maddie back.

But of course the biggest screen release this month is Martin Scorsese’s movie Killers of the Flower Moon (due out Oct. 20) based on the 2017 book by David Grann that stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro among others. It’s about a murder case of Native Americans in 1920s Oklahoma that sparked an FBI investigation by J. Edgar Hoover.

If you plan to see it, you need to get comfortable as the movie chimes in at 3 hours and 26 minutes long. But I’m geared up for it. I meant to read the book, which I still might do, though I have other books in the soup mix right now. Still it’s from Scorsese so I’m debating whether to see it at the theater or at home streaming. The Oppenheimer movie was long, but this one is even longer! Still it looks to be an Oscar winner.

Lastly in new music this month, I’ll pick singer songwriter Ilsey’s debut album From the Valley (out Oct. 10). She has a very cool sound and grew up near Laurel Canyon, where all the great tunes were once played. Check out the video of her song No California here.

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

Posted in Top Picks | 29 Comments

Pedaling Away

Posted on September 25, 2023 by Susan

Hi all. I just wanted to touch base that I’ll be taking a bit of blogging break while we’re away on our bike trip in Italy. We leave soon and I have my e-reader stacked full of fall reading for the plane, including one novel for PW to read and two advanced copies I haven’t gotten to yet, which include Canadian authors Sarah Bernstein’s novel Study for Obedience (out Oct. 10) and Marina Endicott’s novel The Observer (out Sept. 12). I’m a bit surprised to see that Study for Obedience just made the shortlist for the Booker Prize announced a few days ago. I’ve heard it’s quite strange, but I’ll give it a shot. Also Paul Harding’s novel This Other Eden made the Booker shortlist and I was listening to the audio recently, but I think I’ll switch to the ebook as I might like it better in print.

I wanted to take Jhumpa Lahiri’s new book Roman Stories (out Oct. 10) with me, but I didn’t get an early copy … so I’ll wait. When I return home I’ll try to put together a Preview of October release picks as there’s some good upcoming novels to make way for. Meanwhile I bought tickets to the upcoming book festival Wordfest (Oct. 11-15) and plan to see journalist Susan Casey talk about her new book The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean (out Aug. 1) and Mary Trump on her book The Reckoning. Not sure why she’s here, but I’m sure Canadians are very wary of her uncle running for reelection. There’s also a slew of other authors coming including: Ashley Audrain, Patrick DeWitt, Michael Crummey, Emma Donoghue, and Anne Berest, whose novel The Postcard I read earlier in the summer. I’m not sure how many I will see as I live far from the city these days.

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

The Furrows: An Elegy by Namwali Serpell / Hogarth / 288 pages /2022

As it opens, a biracial woman named Cassandra Williams recounts her brother’s death in a tragedy at a Delaware beach when she was 12 and he was 7. Thereafter the story relates how the grief affected the later lives of her and her parents. Her white mother, who’s long denied that he died, goes on to form a nonprofit for missing children; while her black father leaves to remarry; and Cassie, who’s seen many therapists over the years, has had trouble processing the reality of the tragedy and her memory of it. At the time, she blacked out and his body was never found.

The short-ish novel starts pretty straightforward, but the second half gets sort of kooky: when things turn up casting some doubt whether the boy actually died or has just been missing. Cassie, or C as she’s called, becomes involved with a man who thinks he went to school with him. Uh-oh. That’s not all that’s odd, but I will leave the rest to you.

This is my first time reading this author who is Zambian. Her 2019 debut The Old Drift received a lot of recognition as did this one, but I wasn’t that enamored with the story. It was just a bit odd and trying to be elusive, though its exploration of grief and how it can blur reality and memory is an interesting theme. I gave it 3.5 stars.

The Premonition: A Pandemic Story by Michael Lewis /Norton /320 p /2021

As good as this nonfiction book might be for a person in public health, it was not really what I expected and not really the book for me. I think by picking it up, I was trying to get a grip on the recent pandemic and what went wrong to control it and why some leaders seemed so dangerously irresponsible. But the book doesn’t get to the recent pandemic until quite late in the book — and a lot of the book seemed to be data analysis of various other pandemics, crunching the math, disease modeling, and genomic sequencing. I didn’t really feel the human element of the victims in the hospitals as it wasn’t that kind of book.

Two people who are mostly talked about throughout the book are: Veterans Affairs official Carter Mecher and California deputy chief health officer Charity Dean — who both did a lot to wade through government bureaucracy and complacency to sound the alarm about the disease threat and spread and to come up with plans of containment and to get leaders to implement them. I admired their fortitude and years of commitment in fighting communicable diseases. I’m sure they’re public health heroes and saved numerous lives, but a biography of their careers was not really what I expected this book would be. Still I was interested when it talked about the various ways the previous Administration or the CDC blew it in protecting the public; how they downplayed the disease and threat in various ways.

But generally the book was more a numbers and modeling kind of book in understanding pandemics and what to do; and less the human side of pandemics inside hospitals, or a political one. So you just need to beware of that going into it, which unfortunately I wasn’t. I found it at times a laborious listen on audio, though admirably its information tells a true tale of these two people in particular who made a difference fighting disease and its spread in public health against major odds and bureaucracy. I think wonks might like it more.

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

Posted in Books | 22 Comments

A Splash of Fall

Posted on September 17, 2023 by Susan

Hi. Are you ready for fall? I’m still half in summer mode, but the colors seem to be changing up here. Our Italy trip is next week and we are getting excited and organized.

Meanwhile a few literary book awards are on the horizon. I sort of follow them for recommendations and to see what they consider the best of the year. Sometimes I agree with the choices and other times not so much. Note these upcoming announcement dates:

1) National Books Awards / Finalists on Oct. 3 / Winner on Nov. 15 / (My prediction: This Other Eden by Paul Harding)
2) Booker Prize / Short List on Sept. 21 / and Winner on Nov. 26 / (My prediction: The Bee Sting by Paul Murray)
3) Canada’s Giller Prize / Shortlist on Oct. 11 / Winner on Nov. 13 / (My prediction: Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton)

Recently the National Book Awards announced its longlist, which is below. So far, I have read two of the novels that I marked with asterisks. I wasn’t a big fan of Chain-Gang All-Stars (though I suspect it might win) and was just so-so about The End of Drum-Time, but I’m curious to read This Other Eden and perhaps Night Watch.

Justin Torres, Blackouts
LaToya Watkins, Holler, Child
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain-Gang All-Stars*
Aaliyah Bilal, Temple Folk
Eliot Duncan, Ponyboy
Tania James, Loot
Jayne Anne Phillips, Night Watch
Mona Susan Power, A Council of Dolls
Paul Harding, This Other Eden
Hanna Pylväinen, The End of Drum-Time*

Have you read any of these and do have any predictions? And now I’ll leave you with a couple reviews of what I finished lately.

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett / Harper / 320 pages / 2023

4 stars. This novel warmed to me in the second half; I especially became more invested near the end. The story has two alternating components: the present day where Lara, 57, lives with her husband Joe on a farm in Northern Michigan and her daughters Emily, Maisie, and Nell are home due to the Covid pandemic and available to pick cherries; and the past where a young Lara has an acting role in the play Our Town at the venue near Tom Lake where she forms friendships and becomes involved with the actor Peter Duke. It’s about Lara’s personal life that summer and her career stint as an actress and thereafter.

At the novel’s beginning, things to me felt quite sentimental and idyllic in setting and tone; and everyone in the family gets along wonderfully during Covid (no talk of deaths or the nation in free fall), and the cherries are ready for picking. Lara’s telling her daughters about this past time in her life, which they all are curious about since Peter Duke had become a big star. Early on, I guess I felt a bit ho-hum at times with the novel starting out. Then much later the story became more interesting to me — about the trajectory of Lara’s life … and what happened that fateful summer between a group of theater friends, among them Peter Duke and his tennis pro brother Sebastian, who keeps an eye on him. And why Lara decided later not to stick with acting and how she came to return to Northern Michigan to live after a stint of working in New York. The plot becomes more webbed so to speak. And I liked how the story felt very nostalgic about one’s past youth and the defining turns that mark one’s life … for which Lara was very grateful about — how it turned out. She made the right choices for her when it counted.

Patchett has various lines throughout Lara’s life that are quite poignant. And it seems a particularly personal story to Patchett (though I haven’t heard her interviewed for this). I’m guessing that she likes the play Our Town, which is pretty sentimental, and once maybe dabbled in acting or thought of it. She incorporates dogs, sewing, and even tennis (yay), not to mention plenty of farming and family. It’s quintessential Patchett — with things that are often favorites and what she does best. I liked this one better than her novel Dutch House, in which I never much liked the mothers in it.

As for Tom Lake, I listened to the audio version narrated by Meryl Streep, who gives a great performance. It was a bit interesting since the plot hinges a lot around acting … and here Meryl reads it and you wonder … how things were familiar or different to her. I’m guessing she had some head nods with the experience.

The Sun Walks Down by Fiona McFarlane / Farrar Straus / 352 pages / 2022

4.3+ stars. Whoa I don’t even know where I first heard about this novel, but I put it on my summer reading list back in early June and just spent the past two weeks with the audio version … while painting the back deck. Make no mistake: this is no flash-in-the pan, quick summer read, this is a slow-burn mystery, being historical and literary fiction down to its core. It’s slow and long but pretty amazing all the same. This author lifted me off the ground and put me in the Flinders Range amid a community of people in Southern Australia who are in crisis mode soon after it starts.

That’s when six-year-old Australian boy, Denny Wallace, goes missing during a dust storm in 1883. He gets turned around and lost in the outback. His family is beset with worry and grief: Where is Denny?! He is the only boy in a large family, with Mary and Mathew as his parents and five sisters to boot, namely the young Cissy Wallace, who is probably my favorite character in the book. She’s quick fire and will say whatever’s on her mind, while riding into action.

Which is saying a lot because there’s a large cast from the community of Fairly who are featured in the novel, some of whom go out on search parties to find Denny. There’s newlyweds Minna Baumann and her husband Robert; and the Swedes Karl and Bess Rapp, itinerant artists; and Mathew’s Aboriginal hired hand, Billy Rough; and the hapless vicar Mr. Daniels, and the arrogant police Sergeant Foster, who wants to write a book; and a slew of others who escape me at the moment. The novel goes into their relations with one another, their back stories, and the search for Denny — who plays a part too, in trying to survive, but he takes off his hurtful boots, and leaves them behind, which can’t be good.

Amid the storyline is a bit of the undercurrents and clash between the settlers and Aboriginals, who are the best trackers and do much of the work. Fiona McFarlane is a terrific writer and a new author to me. I must go back and find her 2013 debut The Night Guest to read, which I’ve heard is very different from this one but also really good.

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

Posted in Books | 30 Comments

September Preview

Posted on September 5, 2023 by Susan

Hello. Happy September. I hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend. Our dog Willow, pictured at left, was pleased to get another swim in at the river. Now summer is about over. And I’m a bit sorry to see it go but then again with all the smoke from wildfires it hasn’t been that great to breathe, so it’s time to cool things off and get ready for fall. And September is usually my favorite month of the year. It’s my birthday month and often very nice out.

Also the good news is my husband and I and various relatives will be going on an organized bicycle trip to Italy at the end month. We are very excited about this. We have not been overseas since 2018 and rarely get over there, so this is a big treat. And like Deb over at the blog Readerbuzz who is also in Italy this month, I’m hoping to read something with Italy at its heart. So I’m looking forward to reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s new book Roman: Stories, which comes out Oct. 10, but if I can get my hands on it sooner that would be even better.

Meanwhile there’s a slew of new novels coming out this month and ones by such notable authors as Lauren Groff, William Kent Krueger, Nathan Hill, Thrity Umrigar, Paulette Jiles, Stephen King, and Zadie Smith among others.

I still have Nathan Hill’s first long novel The Nix sitting patiently waiting unread on my shelves and now he has a new one called Wellness due out Sept. 19, which apparently is a moving and humorous exploration of a modern marriage, middle age, and the tech-obsessed health culture. I could use something a bit fun and whip-smart satirical like this, but at 624 pages it’s a bit long for me right now. Still I look forward to getting to Nathan Hill sometime.

There’s also three others I’m hoping to check out, particularly the much-hyped second novel Land of Milk and Honey (due out Sept. 26) by C Pam Zhang about a chef in Los Angeles who is trying to survive in the wake of an environmental catastrophe and takes a position cooking for investors at a secretive food research community on the mountainous Italian-French border who see their facility as the planet’s last hope.

I don’t know if this premise interests me right off, but the author is said to have immense talent and writes apparently sensually and viscerally in this novel about food and appetite like no other. I missed her debut How Much of These Hills Is Gold so I’d like to try her writing out in the near future.

Next is Ron Rash’s new novel The Caretaker (due out Sept. 26) about a polio scarred man in 1951 who takes a job caring for his small town’s cemetery in western North Carolina, which suits his withdrawn nature. But when his best friend is sent to the Korean War, he is tasked with taking care of his best friend’s pregnant wife, who his friend’s parents don’t like. It all comes to a head somehow in a shattering family feud.

It’s probably best not to reveal too much more about the plot other than it’s said to be about male friendship, rivalry, and familial bonds. And like Rash’s other novels it has a down to earth Appalachian setting. I haven’t read the author since his novel Serena in 2008, but this one comes with starred reviews.

Lastly in books, I’m curious to read Daniel Mason’s new novel North Woods (due out Sept. 19), which is said to be a sweeping novel about a single house in the woods of New England, told through the lives of those who inhabit it across the centuries. Apparently the house has seen quite a diverse ownership over the years, starting in the 1760s, and its history of protagonists seems dramatic.

The novel is said to be quite immersive with its characters, and the plot sounds a bit like a Geraldine Brooks kind of book, right? (I remember her doing something similar with People of the Book.) I have not read Daniel Mason before, but he is a six-time author and a physician who teaches at Stanford. His last book was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and this one is highly blurbed about by many well-known authors.

As for what to watch this month, fans of the British crime drama Unforgotten will be happy that Season 5 is starting up on PBS on Sept. 3. My husband and I have not followed the show (perhaps we should), but I know that actress Nicola Walker who was popular as DCI Cassie Stuart will not be there this season and instead Dublin-born Sinead Keenan is playing a new detective.

Gosh I remember Nicola Walker from the great MI5 series back around 2003-2011. She’s a terrific actress for these parts, but I think in Unforgotten she thought her role had run its course, so the new female DCI will be there for Season 5.

Also The Morning Show is back with Season 3 on AppleTV+ starting Sept. 13. Yay! The newsroom drama is decadent fun and has a pretty star-studded cast with Jennifer Aniston, Billy Crudup, Reese Witherspoon, Steve Carrell, Julianna Margulies, and now Jon Hamm is joining the cast as some corporate titan looking to buy the network.

Aniston says, Season 3 is “a good, juicy one,” she told People magazine. “Everybody’s getting in trouble. Everybody has a secret. And everyone’s just walking the line. It’s a lot more sensual this year.” Oh thank goodness, that’s good to hear. Now start it up and get going.

Also the new British drama series The Gold (starting Sept. 17 on Paramount+) looks pretty gripping. It follows a dramatization of the group involved in the 1983 Brink’s-Mat robbery near Heathrow Airport, which was the biggest robbery in history at the time, and what happened to the individuals in the decade thereafter.

The cast looks strong led by Jack Lowden from Slow Horses and Hugh Bonneville from Downton Abbey, and the show also manages to tell the story a bit about 1980s London. So the only thing is how to see it if you don’t get Paramount+. The show has already aired on BBC One so it’s also available on BBC iPlayer if you can access that.

Lastly in music for this month, there’s new albums by Ed Sheeran, Corinne Bailey Rae, Allison Russell, Wilco, Bahamas, and Tyler Childers among others. I’ll pick country singer Tyler Childers new album Rustin in the Rain (due out Sept. 8), which he says is inspired in part by Elvis Presley. Tyler hails from Kentucky and is the real deal. Here’s his new song In Your Love. Enjoy.

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

Posted in Top Picks | 42 Comments