Monday Mash Up

December 4, 2023 ~~ Books and More...

 

 THOUGHTS

My goodness! I have been so busy reading this week that I haven’t given much thought to my thoughts this week.

Not to get political but my sincere condolences to the families of the elder statesmen who passed from our midst this week — First Lady Rosalynn Carter, Secretary Henry Kissinger and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

I already shared the joys of shopping the Audible site-wide sale that ended December 1 in November, 2023 Reads. Mt. TBR has never been so tall — in fact, so tall that I do not plan on posting a pastiche of all the covers. But, I did list them all in the November wrap up for anyone who is interested. What really bums me out about buying from Audible is I don’t have the option to loan my books to friends or to give the titles away once I have read them.

 

OUGHTTOBIOGRAPHY

I ought to be prepping for Hanukkah — all that last minute scramble for gifts and making room in the kitchen; instead, I’m writing my Monday Morning Mash Up. I have so much I want to say about the books I read this week.

 

TICKETS

Place holder…

 

THE BOOKS

I continued whittling away at Mt. TBR this week. The problem is that I was reading the new books. Whatever. I still made a dent in the pile.  Right?

 

The Mathematician’s Shiva by Stuart Rojstaczer, read by Angela Brazil and Stephen R. Thorne

A one-hit-wonder.

I have so much to say about this one. I came across it while I was doing some background research for my comments on the Becky Nurse of Salem a few weeks back. Angela Brazil, leading actress in the play, also narrates audio books and I get a big kick out of listening to the books read by the actors I see on stage on a regular basis. So every now and then, I check them out on Audible to see what they have been doing lately. Which is how I found this book.

I have to tell you that I was a bit surprised to see that Angela and Stephen were contracted to read this particular book. The book is written in Yinglish, not English, and is full of Yiddish and Hebrew words replacing English words. IMHO, it really calls for a Yinglish speaker to read it (George Guidall, for example), someone who is familiar with and already accustomed to larding his speech with strange gutturals and the strangest of consonant blends. Not that Stephen and Angela can’t do a wide range accents but a native speaker/listener of any foreign language can always tell when an actor gets it wrong — and it derails the reading experience. This is a criticism of the management, not the actors they hired.

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.

BTW, “Shiva” in the title refers to the 7 day mourning period that commences with the burial, usually done as quickly as possible after death. In the Jewish tradition, there is no viewing and there is no wake; nothing until after the burial. Shiva is the period of time during which non-mourners pay their respects to the family, hence a house in mourning tends to be full of people coming and going throughout the day — some to console, some to pray, some to help out with the logistics.

MikeFinn, this is a “possible” for your list of “Old Folks Fiction” as the narrator is in his 60s and many of the characters are older than that. Anyone interested in reading stories of the immigrant experience might also enjoy this book. I found it interesting because my family emigrated 1880-1915, before the Bolsheviks, Lenin and Stalin. This is a story of post-WW2 Soviet Bloc emigrees and it is a very different story than that of my family.

3 stars for a book that started out as a 4 star read but tanked.

 

Man of Two Tribes by Arthur W. Upfield

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.
3 stars

Bibliomysteries Volumes 3 & 4

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.

 
• “The Hemingway Valise” by Robert Olen Butler: Did not like this one. Don’t recognize the author. Did not keep my attention. Writing style too pretentious. Narrator dragged. 2 stars

• “Dead Dames Don’t Sing” by John Harvey: Don’t recognize the author. Story okay but lousy narrator. 3 stars

• “The Dark Door” by Lisa Unger: Finally some improvement. Head and shoulders above the first two. If short stories were allowed (although this one is an hour and half or more in length), I would suggest this one for HB: PSYCH. 3.75 stars.

• “Bibliotheca Classica” by Simon Brett: Pure satire. Buckets of irony. Loved it. MC is a snob and a prig and a hypocrite and entirely unlikeable. Everything he is guilty of happily doing himself, he criticises and disdains in others. That irony spoke to me and told me that I need to read more of this author. I have filled my TBR and wish lists with his titles. 3.75 stars

• “Reconciliation Day” by Christopher Fowler : Vampire story. Not my bliss. Did not keep my interest. No stars

• “Hoodoo Harry” by Joe R. Lansdale: Creepy. Child abuse. Pedophilia. Sorry I read it. Not quite appropriate for this kind of anthology. No stars

• “The Traitor” by Martin Edwards: I know it is Martin Edwards but I can’t even remember what the story was about. No rating

• “The Last Honest Horse Thief” by Michael Koryta: This was the only story in the book that I even liked but where was the mystery? 3.5 stars

The Body on the Beach: A Fethering Village Mystery by Simon Brett

“Fethering is on the south coast, not far from Tarring…”

I chose the right place to jump into the words and worlds of Simon Brett. The first phrase of the series tells so much. There is no pause for a laugh, he just drops it in and keeps on moving. “Bibliotheca Classica” may have opened the door but it was surely this first phrase that that ushered me in, kissed me on both cheeks and invited me to make myself at home. I love puns. The residents of Fethering are a mixed bag of quirky, yet believable friends and acquaintances who I am hoping to get to know better. The main characters are the Oscar and Felix of the 21st century — polar opposites working together to get the mystery solved. Not only that but it all rests on top of a solid mystery. This is a cozy with teeth that bite.

Geoffrey Howard reads the first 6 books. I know his voice from all the Dick Francis books I have listened to over the past 20 years. It was strange. A couple of times I had to remind myself that I was not in DickFrancisland. Simon Brett takes over the audio narration in book 13 — and I do hope that he is worthy of the task.
3.75 stars

Bloodhounds by Peter Lovesey

“This is dedicated to the one I love…”

No, it isn’t quoted in the book anywhere but it came to mind as I started to write down my comments for this blurb. Book 4 in the Peter Diamond series is a paean to John Dickson Carr, the locked room mystery and in particular, the chapter in The Hollow Man that defines the lock room mystery (please don’t ask me exactly which chapter that is because I don’t have a hard-copy I can flip through looking for the answer). This mystery is full of red herring, dead-ends and blind alleys and I reveled in every minute of it.
4 stars

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

Thank you, Moonlight Reader. I missed this one way back when.

Note to the idiots at Audible: Either a book is “Literary Fiction” or it is “Memoirs, Diaries & Correspondence.” It cannot be both. BTW, while you are at it please learn the definition of “Historical Fiction” — Rhys Bowen, Georgette Heyer and Charles Todd write historical fiction. Nevil Shute, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens did not.

Okay, back to 84 Charing Cross Road. Enjoyable and just the right length for what it was. I would hate to see this little gem turned into a full length novel — and have all the joy wrung out of it.
3.25 stars

If I got the math right
I am 13 books away from beating last year’s total books read.