Monday, December 25, 2023 ~~ Books & More Books
THOUGHTS
Merry Christmas to those friends who are celebrating. I hope Santa was very, very good to you all this year. And to those who aren't celebrating, I'm sending you a plain, unadulterated Merry and the hope that you enjoy the peace and quiet of the day.
I have friends who go around making a big to-do when people wish them Merry Christmas without knowing if they celebrate it or not. I could care less. I respond with a smile and a generic response and move on. It is the thought that counts. Why rain on their parade? Life is too short and I have more important things in life to be Grinchy about.
Like drivers. Why is it every time I get on the highway I comment that today's drivers drive as if they were playing a video game -- zigging in and out, almost taking my bumpers off and all as if there were no consequences for a mistake on their part.
Yes, you are right, we were on the road again this week. We took that long drive to Philadelphia. It was Pop's birthday and we were there to celebrate; he even let us pay for his birthday dinner -- which is a hoot since he paid for every other meal we ate together. We long since stopped making a fuss over who should pay; it is his joy to take his family out to dinner. This was my first visit since Mom died and all things considered, he is doing great. He is much more up-beat and I can feel that a burden has been lifted. He is back making art and getting ready to put a couple of pieces in the community "Artists Among Us" show. He makes art for his own amusement; sometimes it even turns out to be really good.
OUGHTTOBIOGRAPHY
Still working on the "Necessary Roughage" icon.
TICKETS
Not until February I think.
THE BOOKS
Being on the road it was a bad week for reading. Then there was a problem with a book I chose. All in all, not enough reading took place this week!
The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr
This is the book I chose to read as the book that would take me over the top of last year's count. Readers here have raved about this one and reviews and articles all mention this one. I was so psyched. Then I started listening and I just could not get into the book. Some of it was the narrator. Some of it was RL getting in the way of my concentration. Finally, after 5 days of trying and the arrival of two holds, I decided to put the book aside for now and to move on. But I am bound and determined to return to this one after I read the two holds, maybe in the new year.
No rating
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James MacBride
With the finish of this book, I have read more books this year than in any previous year. Woo hoo!
As I opened the book, I realized that the hotel where I sat was a 20 minute ride to where this book was set. All I had to do was get on the nearby highway heading north and exit at Pottstown. It used to be a mill town but since the closing of the factories it is slowly becoming another commuter town housing the urban sprawl of Philadelphia. Growing up, this was one of the many towns on the local map but a place that we never went. We had no reason to go there, no family or friends to visit. As the book went on, it continued to name places I do have a connection to -- the town where both my brother and brother-in-law live, the home town of one branch of my family -- where Uncle Jake owned a corner grocery and Uncle Charlie another barely a block away and Uncle Ben was the greenskeeper at a local country club/golf course (the club is still a going concern).
Then I decided to Google to see if there was still a synagogue in the town. Turns out there is. DH went to school with the current rabbi, who is the widow of the father of a women I went to school with -- yes, her step daughter was older than she. Even more interesting is that currently the synagogue shares the building with a Black church, notable because the plot of the book revolves around the connection between the Blacks and the Jews living on Chicken Hill, both peoples despised by the local KKK (and yes, in the 1930s the Klan mentality was rampant and institutionalized even in the North). Regardless, Pottstown is Anytown, USA.
As for the book itself, oh my, was that delicious! I loved it. McBride is an old school storyteller spinning a simple yarn full of interesting characters all of whom have their own story. McBride's prose is simple but lyrical and the message is one of hope. The nasties get their just desserts and the righteous are rewarded. This one was so good that I am considering getting my own copy so that I can read it again and again. And bravo to narrator Dominic Hoffman, who got all the Yiddish and Hebrew right.
4.5 stars -- and I hope they don't make a movie out of it.
I have been trying not to think too much this week. It only gets me into trouble.
The only thing I want to comment on is the cover. How many different ways can I say that I like the Miss Silver series, knitting needles not withstanding? I do want to say that the cover really does not fit the material yet it was so typical of the competition.
A one-hit-wonder.
The book itself was a disappointment, even more than the narration, because it started off so good and then just completely fell apart at the end. It ever so badly needed two things: a ruthless editor and an author who listened to his editor — and my sympathy is with the editor. The book was full of riches, stories of pre-War Poland, of the Soviet gulags, of the antisemitism of everyday life, of escaping to America (and still facing antisemitism, racism and prejudice), of being a brilliant mathematician never recognized by her peers because she was a woman, of hardship, disappointment and anger, of revenge. But, the author wanted to tell all of his stories, whether they fit in the plot or not. He didn’t know how to, where to end the book and just kept meandering on and, trying to tie up every single loose end whether it needed tying or not. Kind of like this paragraph.
Okay, finally an Inspector Bonaparte that I did not like. My notes say that the premise was interesting but that it was disjointed and lacked verisimilitude. Too much disbelieve needed to be suspended. Maybe that is why less than a week and five books later I can’t even remember what the story was about. Still, I just bought a few more of this series, because all authors have bad years.
These two volumes were nowhere as good as the first two but I did walk away with one new author to devour — and a whole bunch more not to bother with.
“Fethering is on the south coast, not far from Tarring…”
“This is dedicated to the one I love…”
Thank you, Moonlight Reader. I missed this one way back when.
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DH, on the downhill slide into the end of the business year, has had a full schedule most days this month, giving me plenty of uninterrupted quiet time for reading. In fact, it was a recording break month: more books and more hours than any previous month. Of course, most of it was fluff of one sort or another -- but enjoyable fluff (which, if you have never read the label on the jar, is mostly sugar).
I miss our big, annual family and friends Thanksgiving gathering. We had our last family Thanksgiving in 2019 and didn't even know it would be our last. What I don't miss is the drive home and back in the holiday traffic! Barely on the highway and a voice from the back seat is already asking, "are we there yet?" No idea how hubby ended up in the back seat. We made that awful 'Boston to Philadelphia straight through NYC' drive for 40 years. I don't miss it. I just miss the fun part of being home with the family and I miss that my grandson is not learning the joy of extended family.
A lovely but mixed bag of short stories from one of my favorite authors. Each story was prefaced with why it was written and who had commissioned it. They span almost his entire career.
Finishing the series and leveling TBR. I'm sorry this is the end but she stopped writing the series when she started the "Her Royal Spyness" series. Definitely filed under "necessary roughage" but still a well written, well crafted cozy series. 
American History Lite -- or so I thought as I started the lecture series. Turns out I was wrong. In barely four hours, Janney gives us a birds-eye view of the Civil War (a war that, imo, continues to be fought today, 168 years later). She covers the big issues of why the war was fought and its lasting effects on our nation (conscription, income taxes, women's rights to name a few). She doesn't take sides and she doesn't apologize; she just explains the war in over-arching terms -- something I really needed. This is not about the battles and war strategy. It doesn't cover the big what-ifs. 
Continuing to hack away at Mt. TBR. I started the series in 2015 and have been reading it in fits and starts. The first few books were definitely better and I will continue to read as long as I can get the books for free. I also tried the author's Jaya Jones series but walked away after 3 books.
Thanksgiving turkey. Thanksgiving casseroles. Thanksgiving meat balls. Thanksgiving football. Thanksgiving shopping. Thanksgiving cooking. Black Friday. Thanksgiving leftovers!
Chicago came to town Tuesday night and we got tickets. Have loved the band for years now but the concert was a bust. We were never ones for rock concerts, so why we thought this one would be any different, I have no idea. It was just too loud -- even my husband was complaining.
Actually from last week's reads. Another interesting outing with Australian detective Napoleon 'Boney' Bonaparte. A dying lake is about to divulge its secrets. 
I love Professor Ellis. I can understand what he is saying and he doesn't get lost in the minutiae. His field is American History, particularly The Revolutionary War and the writing of the US Constitution. He knows the plays and the players and he is very good at writing books that focus on smaller pieces of the puzzle rather than trying to write the whole history in one go. The theme of this book is the how and why we end up with a single nation and not the loose confederation of states that was actually envisioned by the gentlemen sitting in congress in Philadelphia in 1776 and agreed to in the Articles of Confederation. The Quartet refers to and focuses on the 4 men who worked the hardest to promulgate the constitution and shepherd the former colonies into nationhood-- James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and George Washington. 
Color me a little disappointed. Enjoyable but not quite as satisfying as the first two of the series. Still, I will continue with this author.
To read the newly-released Arcadia, I had to go back and re-read the first two (because I did not remember them at all after 5 years). The two day binge was most enjoyable. Grainger is good at damaged main characters, strong-minded characters who have walked through Hell, bear the scars yet remain undaunted. Nonetheless, while Summer Lane is a compelling character, I think that Grainger has done a better job with the DC Smith series; the stories are stronger, the writing is edgier.
I can't say why but I have always been a bit fascinated by the idea of the great epic poems, literature that began its life not as the work of one person but as the creative output of a community singing its stories to life over generations. Before mankind could write things down, we told stories and we sang songs. (Strange to think that maybe we came hard-wired to be storytellers**). Anyhow, the book is actually a biography of an early 20th century classical lit scholar by the name of Milman Parry. He died tragically at the age of 33 but in his short life he was able to set the world of classical scholarship on its end by setting out to show that The Illiad and The Odyessy were not the work of one man known as Homer but the product of a pre-literate (i.e. before writing) custom of storytelling and song. Parry died before he could prove his point but others took up his baton. By the time I met the Homeric epics in the 1960s, they were already teaching us that Homer was not the author. So, this is the biography of Parry, of his scholarship and how his insights were preserved and explored after his death. 
Yes, I'm having a bit of a JJE festival -- but only because the Audible was sale was a 2 for 1 credit sale and this is the other book I bought and because I am trying to read all of the books in the Audible library TBR. I am amazed at how many times he can tell the same stories about the same events, each time coming at the same set of facts from a slightly different point of view, shedding new light and new insight on old stories.
DD1 moves in Thursday night and will be here until the end of the year, her annual visit while she works "A Christmas Carol" at the local theater (and her day job as well!). All the stuff that I rescued from my parents' apartment when they moved in March went into her room. I'm halfway through re-arranging the deck chairs. The bed is clear. I've set up a scanning station outside the upstairs bedroom to start scanning rescued photos and documents; a lot of boxes are now tucked under the table. Other boxes have been stacked higher to clear floor space in the bedroom. A bit more and the room will be ready for her.
I've decided that it's time to clean up my Audible TBR and read all of those books I bought. Upfield is on the list. As I said last week, he just keeps getting better and better. Why must murder wait? Because Boney was sent there to investigate a series of baby-snatchings and while that there is any hope that the infants are still alive, the murders connected to those snatching must wait until the babies are found. 
Poor Maigret! Finally takes a holiday and his wife ends up in hospital recuperating from an appendicitis. In those days, the nuns ran most of the hospitals in the smaller towns. In those days recuperation was slow; they didn't let you out of bed for a week. Not like today when they get you up and walking as soon as possible. In those days it wards with rows of beds with a few double rooms and even fewer private rooms. Poor Maigret! He was allowed to visit his missus once a day for half an hour. Hell of a way to spend one's holiday. Until one of the nursing sisters gives Maigret a note urging him to start asking questions about the death of one of the patients. Poor Maigret, no more. 
This one has been on hold since August 23. On Monday, it turned up as an Audible Daily Deal. With another few months to wait at the library, I snatched it up dirt cheap.
Please, Audible, stop lumping Patricia Wentworth in the cozies. Her work is too old to be considered part of the more recently carved out genre of "Cozy Mysteries." Wentworth is pure Golden Age.
I needed something light and dependable. I took a gander at the cover and couldn't pass it up. Don't let the cover fool you; this one is set in summer with no holiday connections at all.
I decided I need to read some Sir Terry and this one arrived in my "mind like the unexpected limbo dancer under the lavatory door of life." I didn't want to choose one I hadn't read already and I decided that I'm not a huge fan of the newly released recordings. So, I happily settled with what I think may be my favorite of them all.
Now that I set up a "scanning station" I ought to be scanning and not playing computer games -- in between cleaning out the bedroom for DD1's annual 6 week visit, which I also ought to be doing!
• Saturday night is a concert that we look forward to every year. The official name is Duo-Piano Concert. It features two pianos and six or more very talented local pianists. I call it "Dueling Pianos." Running the gamut from Bach to Bossa Nova, they play music that is familiar to the audience. The finale is always a 12 handed, musical chairs rendition of "Stars and Stripes Forever" (fireworks omitted). 
Mid-20th C mystery series set in Australian out-back featuring a half aboriginal, half white MC and all the racial stereotyping that was common to a lot of the writing of that period. I guessed whodunit early on but not the motivation; I think I am into this series more for the atmosphere and the setting. Enjoying the series so far. Just a question of how many I actually want to read. Kudos to the publisher for not bowdlerizing the books. 
First, the s-l-o-w, dr-ohhh-ning narrator killed any joy there might have been in this read. Second, it turns out that what I was reading were actually fragments of three works in progress at the time of his sudden death, which is not revealed until after I had slogged through three very strange stories. En fin, this one bad experience has completely turned me off to the idea of delving further in the works of Calvino. The only upside is that the book was less than three hours.
A lovely palate cleanser after the Calvino. This is the second book in the badly mis-named Marlow Murder Club series (sounds like a name chosen by a publisher to ride the coattails of the Thursday Murder Club, doesn't it?). At least the author hasn't let the publisher's hype get in the way of his making the series his own. Enjoyable read.
This one was a mixed bag for me and I wonder if I had read this one first whether I would have bothered to pick up Veronica and the Penguins (not the correct title but then again it was published under different names in the UK and US). The book is driven by the premise that the titular Ellie is stupid enough to marry a man whose reaction to a break up with a lover is to take a hammer to her collection of Beatrix Potter china. Danger, Will Robinson! I am not into abusive-husband driven stories. Fortunately Clive stuck to destroying property not people. Nonetheless, this story has some redeeming qualities that kept me reading. The Harpmaker, the other voice in the narrative, was a gem and I stuck around to see how his story turned out. All in all, as annoying as Clive was, it was an enjoyable story about people trying to figure out what love, marriage, happiness and family are all about.