Monday Mash-Up

 Monday, January 15, 2024

One Hundred Years of Solitude

 

By: Gabriel García Márquez, (Gregory Rabassa, translator)
Narrated by: John Lee
Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Release date: 01-28-14

 

 

 

Editorial Review

Already a journalist and writer of literary fiction, lauded Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez made his true debut into magical realism with One Hundred Years of Solitude. This piece of literature is a treasure of Latin America's 20th-century literary scene and a strong piece of Colombian history.

The character-driven story of the mythical town of Macondo showcases all aspects of the human race. From the introspective and haunted patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, and his wife, Úrsula Iguarán, to illegitimate son Aureliano José, one of the many Aureliano Buendía's fathered by Colonel Aureliano Buendía, each character is unique and emblematic of the spectrum of humanity housed in this fictional town.

Gabriel García Márquez did more than launch his own foray into magic realism with this piece of classic literature. He was also one of the first four authors from South America named as part of the Latin American Boom, a literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Alongside Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, Argentine writer Julio Cortázar, and Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes, the Colombian icon’s work was circulated worldwide. To date, One Hundred Years of Solitude has sold 50 million copies in 46 languages and counting.

John Lee adds his voice to this brilliant chronicle of life for Latin Americans, making the audiobook come to life for the listener. He brings the art of García Márquez’s fiction and the lyrical magic of the town of Macondo to the forefront with a strong delivery, worthy of patriarch José Arcadio Buendía, all the way down to Aureliano Babilonia of the sixth generation. — Audible Latino Editor

 

This will be short

I have always been enthralled by and in awe of Garcia M's imagination. He leaves me speechless each time I read his work. Where do these words and images come from? The truth is that I am not as interested in the story arc or deeper meanings as I am in spending time with the characters, the setting and the language -- even in translation.

 

The Woman in the Library

 

 

 

By: Sulari Gentill
Narrated by: Katherine Littrell
Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Release date: 06-09-22

 

 

Publisher's Summary
Ned Kelly award winning author Sulari Gentill sets this mystery-within-a-mystery in motion with a deceptively simple, Dear Hannah, What are you writing? pulling us into the ornate reading room at the Boston Public Library.

In every person's story, there is something to hide...

The  tranquility is shattered by a woman's terrified scream. Security guards  take charge immediately, instructing everyone inside to stay put until  the threat is identified and contained. While they wait for the  all-clear, four strangers, who'd happened to sit at the same table, pass  the time in conversation and friendships are struck. Each has his or  her own reasons for being in the reading room that morning―it just  happens that one is a murderer.

Sulari Gentill delivers a sharply thrilling read with The Woman in the Library, an unexpectedly twisty literary adventure that examines the complicated  nature of friendship and shows us that words can be the most treacherous  weapons of all.

 

I don't want to talk about this book

 I liked this book too much to spoil it for others by talking about what happens in the story or by talking about the characters or the plot twists; there is enough already in the publisher's summaries to figure out if it is your kind of story.  I liked the structure -- a novel within an epistolary novel (this much I am willing to spoil, just to get you hooked).  It is what makes this novel a stand-out. It is not your everyday cookie-cutter murder mystery.  

Lean Mean Thirteen

 

 

 

By: Janet Evanovich
Narrated by: Lorelei King
Series: Stephanie Plum, Book 13
Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Release date: 06-01-07

 

 

Summary

New secrets, old flames, and hidden agendas are about to send bounty hunter Stephanie Plum on her most outrageous adventure yet!

MISTAKE #1 Dickie  Orr. Stephanie was married to him for about fifteen minutes before she  caught him cheating on her with her arch-nemesis Joyce Barnhardt.  Another fifteen minutes after that Stephanie filed for divorce, hoping  to never see either one of them again.

MISTAKE #2 Doing  favors for super bounty hunter Carlos Manoso (a.k.a. Ranger). Ranger  needs her to meet with Dickie and find out if he's doing something  shady. Turns out, he is. Turns out, he's also back to doing Joyce  Barnhardt. And it turns out Ranger's favors always come with a price...

MISTAKE #3 Going  completely nutso while doing the favor for Ranger, and trying to apply  bodily injury to Dickie in front of the entire office. Now Dickie  has disappeared and Stephanie is the natural suspect in his  disappearance. Is Dickie dead? Can he be found? And can she stay one  step ahead in this new, dangerous game? Joe Morelli, the hottest cop in  Trenton, NJ is also keeping Stephanie on her toes―and he may know more  than lets on about her…It's a cat-and-mouse game for Stephanie Plum,  where the ultimate prize might be her life.

 

 

A fun 7 hours

Evanovich is the antithesis to Sue Grafton (which I stopped reading somewhere around K; lost interest). Where Grafton is dark and edgy,  Evanovich is laugh out-loud funny, like reading a comic book. The "Stephanie Plum" series  is "cozy" without the heavy dose of saccharine I find in a lot of the hard-core cozies; too much sugar in the diet is not a good thing. The characters are a hoot, caricatures, really but good people when all is said and done (except for the bad guys, who are rotten to the core, of course). Fun to read every now and then but don't look for me to be binge-reading the entire series -- even if I do have two Stephanie Plum's scheduled for Halloween Bingo. File this one under "necessary roughage."

Three stars

 

The Appeal

 

 

 

By Janice Hallett
Narrated by Daniel Philpott, Aysha Kala, Rachel Adedeji, Sid Sagar
Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Release date: 01-25-22

 

 

The Fairway Players, a local theatre group, is in the midst of rehearsals when tragedy strikes the family of director Martin Hayward and his wife Helen, the play’s star. Their young granddaughter has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, and with an experimental treatment costing a tremendous sum, their castmates rally to raise the money to give her a chance at survival.
 
But not everybody is convinced of the experimental treatment’s efficacy—nor of the good intentions of those involved. As tension grows within the community, things come to a shocking head at the explosive dress rehearsal. The next day, a dead body is found, and soon, an arrest is made. In the run-up to an appeal, two young lawyers sift through the material—emails, messages, letters—with a growing suspicion that the killer may be hiding in plain sight. The evidence is all there, between the lines, waiting to be uncovered.

 

JUST WHO IS THE BAD GUY IN THIS STORY? Glad I stuck with it
 
My daughter recommended this one. It the only reason why I didn't quit after the first 20 minutes because this book doesn't work well as an audiobook. I had to accept that fact and move on. It helped that in spite of the medium issues, the book was well written and caught my interest.

The Appeal is an interesting twist on the epistolary novel, told in e-mails rather than actually letters, there being a difference in the conventions between the two modes of communication, length being the most noteworthy. My immediate reaction was that the author chose the epistolary style out of laziness. That's what I thought when I was looking for excuses to downgrade the book. Still, listening to e-mails read out loud headers and all can be tedious. Where a reader would skim the headers, an audiobook has to read out all of the words on the page-- and it gets repetitive very quickly.

As I said, I quickly came to see just how wrong I was about the author being lazy. It's harder to do character development well, not easier, when you are limited to the words your characters would put down on paper and what other people have to say about those characters in their e-mails. There are multiple narrators, some of who are reliable and others of who are not. The reader has to work out who is reliable and who isn't, even as the characters in the book have to work out who is reliable and who isn't as they exchange e-mails.

All in all, it turned out to be a twisting, turning mare's nest of a well written mystery. It is halfway through the story before the name of the victim is revealed and even further into it until you learn whose conviction is being appealed. Janice Hallett, while a first time novelist, is a former magazine editor, a journalist, a playwright (NetherBard) and a screenwriter (Retreat). Her maturity and experience showed.

I'm giving this one just shy of four stars -- and can't wait until January for her second novel to be published.

Last Bus to Wisdom

By: Ivan Doig 

Narrated by: David Aaron Baker

Length: 15 hrs and 43 mins

 

 

 

Publisher's Summary

The final novel from a great American storyteller. Donal Cameron is being raised by his grandmother, the cook at the legendary Double W ranch in Ivan Doig's beloved Two Medicine Country of the Montana Rockies, a landscape that gives full rein to an 11-year-old's imagination. But when Gram has to have surgery for "female trouble" in the summer of 1951, all she can think to do is to ship Donal off to her sister in faraway Manitowoc, Wisconsin. There Donal is in for a rude surprise: Aunt Kate - bossy, opinionated, argumentative, and tyrannical - is nothing like her sister. She henpecks her good-natured husband, Herman the German, and Donal can't seem to get on her good side either. After one contretemps too many, Kate packs him back to the authorities in Montana on the next Greyhound. But as it turns out, Donal isn't traveling solo: Herman the German has decided to fly the coop with him. In the immortal American tradition, the pair light out for the territory together, meeting a classic Doigian ensemble of characters and having rollicking misadventures along the way. Charming, wise, and slyly funny, Last Bus to Wisdom is a last sweet gift from a writer whose books have bestowed untold pleasure on countless people.
©2015 Ivan Doig (P)2015 Recorded Books

 

Reminds me of Jean Shepard

A few years ago, I saw this book in an Audible sale pile and didn't buy it. I regretted the decision. Then recently, it made another appearance on the sales rack and I bought it. I am so glad I did.

As I was listening to the book, it slowly dawned on me that the storytelling reminded me a lot of a 60s &70s NY radio talk show host named Jean Shepard. There was something about the sound of the narrator's voice and the cadence of the prose that shouted "Jean Shepard." He was a raconteur par excellence and told a lot of stories about his childhood, which are all described as "semi-autobiographical." Probably his mostly widely known piece of work was the 1983 film A Christmas Story, which was adapted from his stories. However, Shep holds a place in my heart because in 1968 he stood on the stage of my high school auditorium with a microphone in his hand, and the principal in the front row, and unmistakably uttered the word "fuck" --and even more miraculously he was permitted to continue his monologue. The times, they were most definitely a-changin'.

But I digress. I'm supposed to be talking about the book I just read, not old memories. I loved the book and I want to read more by Ivan Doig. If I am going to read a coming of age story, this is the way I want it to sound -- youth as a carefree adventure, sweet and old-fashioned.

Four stars and I love the cover.

P.S. I also like the pun in the title. This was Doig's last book and  these were his parting thoughts.

Taking Out the Trash: March Edition

My thoughts in a sentence or two on a whole slew of books that I have read but not yet commented on. These are all audiobooks and none of them is really trash; it is just that I am a fan of The West Wing and taking out the trash was their office code word for dealing with the little things that keep getting pushed to the bottom of the priority list.

 

Queen Victoria's Matchmaking

by Debora Cadbury

Interesting. Victoria & Albert's plan to unite Europe through strategic marriage was an utter failure. It failed to account for the personalities involved. Three and a half stars

 

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The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet

by Becky Chambers

I got lost somewhere a long the way. Three stars

 

 

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Gaudy Night

by Dorothy L. Sayers

It was an interesting glimpse into university life, a world I know nothing about, but it dragged. Three and half stars

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A Shilling for Candles

by Josephine Tey

Disappointing and I don't know why. Three stars

 

Memoir Marathon Weekend

 

I just spent a delightful weekend with two amazing people: Michelle Obama and Mel Brooks.

I know it sounds like a weird combination but it was just luck of the draw -- and the timing of holds. I am so glad that we had nothing planned for the weekend and that DH was caught up in March Madness so that I could pretty much read undisturbed for the whole weekend, although I will admit that DH yelled down from the loft at regular intervals to ask if there was anything I wanted him to do to help with the housecleaning that I was doing while I listened to my books. I kept telling him, "No." He lucked out because I didn't want to stop reading to tell him what needed doing.

My only criticism of both books is that they would have benefited by more judicious editing; they both dragged a bit. 

 

 

 

Publisher's Summary

 
In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As first lady of the United States of America - the first African American to serve in that role - she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the US and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare.

In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites listeners into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her - from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work to her time spent at the world's most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it - in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations - and whose story inspires us to do the same.
©2018 Michelle Obama (P)2018 Random House Audio

 

 

Publisher's Summary

All About Me! charts Mel Brooks’ meteoric rise from a Depression-era kid in Brooklyn to the recipient of the National Medal of Arts. Whether serving in the United States Army in World War II, or during his burgeoning career as a teenage comedian in the Catskills, Mel was always mining his experiences for material, always looking for the perfect joke. His iconic career began with Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows, where he was part of the greatest writers’ room in history, which included Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, and Larry Gelbart. After co-creating both the mega-hit "2000 Year Old Man" comedy albums and the classic television series Get Smart, Brooks’ stellar film career took off. He would go on to write, direct, and star in The Producers, The Twelve Chairs, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Silent Movie, High Anxiety, and Spaceballs, as well as produce groundbreaking and eclectic films including The Elephant Man, The Fly, and My Favorite Year. Brooks then went on to conquer Broadway with his record-breaking, Tony-winning musical, The Producers.

All About Me! offers fans insight into the inspiration behind the ideas for his outstanding collection of boundary-breaking work, and offers details about the many close friendships and collaborations Brooks had, including those with Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner, Gene Wilder, Madeleine Kahn, Alfred Hitchcock, and the great love of his life, Anne Bancroft.
Filled with tales of struggle, achievement, and camaraderie, listeners will gain a more personal and deeper understanding of the incredible body of work behind one of the most accomplished and beloved entertainers in history.
©2021 Mel Brooks (P)2021 Random House Audio

The Mutual Admiration Society:

 How Dorothy L. Sayers and Her Oxford Circle Remade the World for Women

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By: Mo Moulton
Narrated by: Lorna Bennett
Length: 14 hrs and 29 mins
Unabridged Audiobook

Publisher's Summary
A group biography of renowned crime novelist Dorothy L. Sayers and the Oxford women who stood at the vanguard of equal rights

Dorothy L. Sayers is now famous for her Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane detective series, but she was equally well known during her life for an essay asking “Are Women Human?” Women’s rights were expanding rapidly during Sayers’s lifetime; she and her friends were some of the first women to receive degrees from Oxford. Yet, as historian Mo Moulton reveals, it was clear from the many professional and personal obstacles they faced that society was not ready to concede that women were indeed fully human. 

Dubbing themselves the Mutual Admiration Society, Sayers and her classmates remained lifelong friends and collaborators as they fought for a truly democratic culture that acknowledged their equal humanity. A celebration of feminism and female friendship, The Mutual Admiration Society offers crucial insight into Dorothy L. Sayers and her world.

©2019 Mo Moulton (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing

 

How we slowly but surely move the world forward

You have me waxing philosophic this evening.

It is not the headlines that count. It is the slow, drip, drip, drip of incremental change wrought by individuals day after day, year after year that moves us forward -- toward enlightenment, toward societal change, toward whatever it is out there that we are trying to change about the world we live in.

Before there was Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, The Feminine Mystique and a whole lot of Playtex going up in smoke, there were Ms. Sayers and her Oxford buddies -- the generation that would have literally given birth to the Bellas, the Glorias and the Bettys. Moulton has put together a very readable biography of a remarkable group of intelligent, motivated women who in their own mostly quiet ways moved us forward.

If you are interested in Sayers and her life story, this is a good place to start. If you can, eyeball the book, because the audiobook narrator's habit of taking a v-e-r-y long paused before every bit of quoted text will drive you crazy -- along with her attempts to give each of the women their own voice, which, to me, in a non-fiction recitation is not necessary.

ACCC: March, 2022

 

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The ABC Murders (c) 1936 (read by Hugh Fraser)
Side Read: The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler (c) 1949 (read by Scott Brick)

 

 

By: Agatha Christie
Narrated by: Hugh Fraser
Series: Hercule Poirot, Book 13
Length: 6 hrs

Publisher's Summary
There's a serial killer on the loose, working his way through the alphabet and the whole country is in a state of panic.

A is for Mrs. Ascher in Andover, B is for Betty Barnard in Bexhill, C is for Sir Carmichael Clarke in Churston. With each murder, the killer is getting more confident - but leaving a trail of deliberate clues to taunt the proud Hercule Poirot might just prove to be the first, and fatal, mistake.

©1936 Agatha Christie Limited (P)2003 HarperCollins Publishers

Yes, Hastings is back but fortunately the too-good-to-be true boyfriend/murderer is not. Well, you can't have everything. At least Hastings was not the dolt that we have seen in previous stories. I really did enjoy this one. It was delightfully twisted.

 

 

A Philip Marlowe Novel, Book 5
By: Raymond Chandler
Narrated by: Scott Brick
Series: Philip Marlowe, Book 5
Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins

 

Publisher's Summary

In noir master Raymond Chandler's The Little Sister, a movie starlet with a gangster boyfriend and a pair of siblings with a shared secret lure private eye Philip Marlowe into the less than glamorous and more than a little dangerous world of Hollywood fame. Chandler's first foray into the industry that dominates the company town that is Los Angeles.
©1949 Raymond Chandler (P)2021 Random House Audio

I enjoyed this one, as well. I'm a fan of Chandler; a little bit noir every now and then spices things up. Maybe it's because I think of it as the masculine version of a Harlequin romance, where the he-man wannabe gets to indulge all of his fantasies of being the macho man that I can chuckle may way through these stories. I'd never want to meet a man like that in real life,  what a turn off, but I can deal with him on the page.

And, I'm enjoying this year's exploration of American murder mystery authors.

 

The March, 2022 Sideread Poll results:

 

I must admit that I was happy that The Little Sister was the March choice. Audible has a bunch of Margaret Millars but not the one nominated, while the library said, "Margaret who?" Sometimes I can read Rex Stout and other times I find the MC to be very annoying (see! I can't every remember his name). Audible has Perry Mason galore but I don't want to spend a credit getting it and the library had no Perry on audio. As for Baynard Kendrick, unknown to both Audible and my library.

The Thursday Murder Club

  

By: Richard Osman
Narrated by: Lesley Manville
Series: A Thursday Murder Club Mystery, Book 1
Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Library Loan

 

 

 

Publisher's Summary

Four septuagenarians with a few tricks up their sleeves.
A female cop with her first big case.
A brutal murder.
Welcome to...
The Thursday Murder Club

In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together, they call themselves the Thursday Murder Club. 

When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph left next to the body, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case. 

As the bodies begin to pile up, can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it's too late?

©2020 Richard Osman (P)2020 Penguin Audio

 

Characters Like Me

No doubt about it, I am a Boomer. I live in 'over 55' housing, down the street from a rehab facility and two different assisted living facilities (not that I expect to end up in either of them because when the kids pick my nursing home, they will pick something much closer to them). So why is it that these days, I seem to be reading a lot of old fart fiction -- Deacon King Kong, The Reading List, Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache series and when you get right down to it, Papa Poirot. Is this my way of preparing for the future? of starting to deal with the fact that, yup, I'm not as young as I think I am? Oh, gawd, I hope not! In the meantime, I will just continue to make fun of my predilection for the genre.

I really enjoyed the book and it had nothing to do with the fact that main characters were my age. I liked the book because I like the characters themselves; they are people I would want to hang out with. They were good people, aging gracefully. I liked the book because it was a damned good mystery--and would have been regardless of the age of the sleuths. I'm already on the waiting list for book two and looking forward to it.

If you read the audio version, stick around for the interview with Richard Osman.

Another four star read.

Life's Too Short

 

Dial A for Aunties

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by Jesse Q. Sutanto (read by Risa Mei)

Library loan

 

 

Publisher's Summary

 
"Sutanto brilliantly infuses comedy and culture into the unpredictable rom-com/murder mystery mashup as Meddy navigates familial duty, possible arrest and a groomzilla. I laughed out loud and you will too.” (USA Today, four-star review)

“A hilarious, heartfelt romp of a novel about — what else? — accidental murder and the bond of family. This book had me laughing aloud within its first five pages… Utterly clever, deeply funny, and altogether charming, this book is sure to be one of the best of the year!” (Emily Henry, New York Times best-selling author of Beach Read)

One of NPR's Best Books of 2021!

One of PopSugar’s "42 Books Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2021"!

What happens when you mix one (accidental) murder with two thousand wedding guests, and then toss in a possible curse on three generations of an immigrant Chinese-Indonesian family? 

You get four meddling Asian aunties coming to the rescue! 

When Meddelin Chan ends up accidentally killing her blind date, her meddlesome mother calls for her even more meddlesome aunties to help get rid of the body. Unfortunately, a dead body proves to be a lot more challenging to dispose of than one might anticipate, especially when it is inadvertently shipped in a cake cooler to the over-the-top billionaire wedding Meddy, her Ma, and aunties are working at an island resort on the California coastline. It's the biggest job yet for the family wedding business — "Don't leave your big day to chance, leave it to the Chans!" — and nothing, not even an unsavory corpse, will get in the way of her auntie's perfect buttercream flowers.

But things go from inconvenient to downright torturous when Meddy's great college love — and biggest heartbreak — makes a surprise appearance amid the wedding chaos. Is it possible to escape murder charges, charm her ex back into her life, and pull off a stunning wedding all in one weekend?
©2021 Jesse Q. Sutanto (P)2021 Penguin Audio

 

DNF for cause

Maybe I have lost my sense of humor and the ridiculous. I was enjoying the opening and looking forward to a fun, light-hearted read when out of the blue the whole thing went south, completely derailed. Who in their right mind chooses to trivialize attempted date rape and manslaughter these days? It is not a laughing matter and I didn't stick around to see it become one. Man, am I getting self-righteous in my old age -- and with little tolerance for insensitivity and stupidity.

My Beloved World

by Sonia Sotomayor (read by Rita Moreno)
Library Loan

 

 

Publisher's Summary
 
The  first Hispanic and third woman appointed to the United States Supreme  Court, Sonia Sotomayor has become an instant American icon. Now, with a  candor and intimacy never undertaken by a sitting Justice, she recounts  her life from a Bronx housing project to the federal bench, a journey  that offers an inspiring testament to her own extraordinary  determination and the power of believing in oneself.

Here is the  story of a precarious childhood, with an alcoholic father (who would  die when she was nine) and a devoted but overburdened mother, and of the  refuge a little girl took from the turmoil at home with her  passionately spirited paternal grandmother. But it was when she was  diagnosed with juvenile diabetes that the precocious Sonia recognized  she must ultimately depend on herself. She would learn to give herself  the insulin shots she needed to survive and soon imagined a path to a  different life. With only television characters for her professional  role models, and little understanding of what was involved, she  determined to become a lawyer, a dream that would sustain her on an  unlikely course, from valedictorian of her high school class to the  highest honors at Princeton, Yale Law School, the New York County  District Attorney’s office, private practice, and appointment to the  Federal District Court before the age of 40. Along the way we see how  she was shaped by her invaluable mentors, a failed marriage, and the  modern version of extended family she has created from cherished friends  and their children. Through her still-astonished eyes, America’s  infinite possibilities are envisioned anew in this warm and honest book,  destined to become a classic of self-invention and self-discovery.

©2013 Sonia Sotomayor (P)2013 Random House Audio          

 

Justice Sotomayor is one tough dude.
 
Any seven year old who decides that she must be the one to administer her own daily insulin shots and sets about to do it herself -- including having to light the gas burner with a match so that she can boil the syringe to sanitize it -- has the tools needed to grow up to be not just a judge but a Supreme Court justice.  That's where her story begins and it was just the first of many hurdles in her life that she met with grit and determination.  I loved every minute of the time I spent listening to her life story.

 

The Dictionary of Lost Words

 

by Pip Williams (read by Pippa Bennett-Warner)
Library loan

 

 

Publisher's Summary
 
Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, an Oxford garden shed in which her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Young Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word bondmaid flutters beneath the table. She rescues the slip and, learning that the word means “slave girl,” begins to collect other words that have been discarded or neglected by the dictionary men.

As she grows up, Esme realizes that words and meanings relating to women’s and common folks’ experiences often go unrecorded. And so she begins in earnest to search out words for her own dictionary: the Dictionary of Lost Words. To do so she must leave the sheltered world of the university and venture out to meet the people whose words will fill those pages.

Set during the height of the women’s suffrage movement and with the Great War looming, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. Inspired by actual events, author Pip Williams has delved into the archives of the Oxford English Dictionary to tell this highly original story. The Dictionary of Lost Words is a delightful, lyrical, and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words and the power of language to shape the world.

©2021 Pip Williams (P)2021 Random House Audio

 

Interesting thesis. Lousy execution.

While I agree with the author's thesis (he who controls the language, controls the narrative), the story was boring. I kept wondering where it was headed. Usually I don't mind a book that meanders along, but then again, at least I have a hint of where we are headed and the scenery along the way is interesting and engaging. The author could have made her point in half the time and perhaps even given us a more powerful story. I think that the only reason I finished the book was because I wanted to see where the author went with it.

ACCC: February, 2022

 

Main read:    Death in the Clouds  (read by Hugh Fraser)
Side read:  A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes (read by Samuel L. Jackson)
( no poll this month)

I  tore through both reads in less then 24 hours. Enjoyed them both thoroughly.

 

Publisher's Summary
From seat number nine, Hercule Poirot is almost ideally placed to observe his fellow air travelers on this short flight from Paris to London. Over to his right sits a pretty young woman, clearly infatuated with the man opposite. Ahead, in seat number 13, is the Countess of Horbury, horribly addicted to cocaine and not doing too good a job of concealing it. Across the gangway in seat number eight, a writer of detective fiction is being troubled by an aggressive wasp. Yes, Poirot is almost ideally placed to take it all in - except that the passenger in the seat directly behind him has slumped over in the course of the flight ... dead.

Murdered. By someone in Poirot's immediate proximity. And Poirot himself must number among the suspects.

This title was previously published as Death in the Air.
©1935 Agatha Christie Limited (P)2003 HarperCollins Publishers

 

While I enjoyed Death in the Clouds, I did have one big issue with it. This is the second book in a row where the perp was the almost-too-good-to-be-true love interest of the innocent ingenue.  But otherwise, a delightful locked room mystery -- because how much more locked can you get than an airplane in flight!

 

Publisher's Blurb

Academy Award nominee Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction, Star Wars films), fresh off the success of his uproarious, Audie-nominated performance of the mock children’s book Go the F**k to Sleep, delivers a swaggering, darkly-humored rendering of Chester Himes’ classic first novel. 

Himes, described by The Sunday Times as “the greatest find in American crime fiction since Raymond Chandler”, was no stranger to the world of crime: in his late teens and early 20s, he served seven years in the Ohio State Penitentiary for armed robbery, the confession to which was beaten out of him by the police. He delivers the tale of his hopelessly naïve hero suddenly finding himself on the run from a hypocritical and far-from-heroic police force with lurid violence and brutal humor. There is no voice better than Mr. Jackson’s to narrate this hardboiled story of love and crime, set in a richly imagined, mid-20th-century Harlem.

©1957 Chester Himes (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Listening to A Rage in Harlem as read by Samuel L. Jackson was a pure delight; he made the book sing. The book itself was a merry chase through Harlem's underworld of crime, complete with car chases and gruesome murders and very much in the style of the 1950s' down and dirty he-man, macho crime fiction that was being written at the time.

 

Three Act Tragedy

 

 

 by Agatha Christie (read by Hugh Fraser) c. 1934

Agatha Christie Centenary Celebration read

 

 

 

Publisher's Summary

Sir Charles Cartwright should have known better than to allow 13 guests to sit down for dinner. For at the end of the evening one of them is dead - choked by a cocktail that contained no trace of poison.

Predictable, says Hercule Poirot, the great detective. But entirely unpredictable is that he can find absolutely no motive for murder...

©1934 Agatha Christie Limited (P)2002 HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

 

 

Go, Aggie! It isn't until the very end that you realize just how delightfully complicated this story is.

 

Charles was scumbag through and through. A sociopath and a psychopath -- manipulator of people and cold-blooded murderer -- responding to the whims of his gonads. Yes, yes, I am willing to find only the worst in Charles.

Not a fan of Egg. There was just something about her that bothered me (and her mother, too). Don't think I ever saw what she saw in him -- or why. She fell hook, line and sinker for his manipulating, his flattery and his fawning attention. She just never thought out what being married to a man thirty years her senior would mean 10, 20 years from now. Beautiful but not very perspicacious.

Satterthwaite was a dupe and Charles used him badly. Poor Satterthwaite.

Hastings was not missed; he had long since worn out his welcome in his role as unreliable narrator. His secret has been revealed so that by now the reader knows not to trust him. Yes, mystery novels are about deception and leading the reader astray but when you know who is doing the deceiving and how they always do it, it gets boring. No Hastings opens a whole new tool box -- and we have just gotten our first peek as to what is in it.

 

I hopped on the way back machine looking for something new to read, something I didn't have to buy, because at this point my audio library is large enough.  Still, I was looking for something new. At the same time, I wanted to do some 'research' into American crime fiction before 1970 for the Agatha Christie read, which is focusing the side reads on American authors for the coming year. The result was the start of a hard-boiled noir marathon, with more to come in the next few months.

 

 

The Moving Target c.1949
by Ross Macdonald (read by Tom Parker aka Grover Gardner)
Audible Plus

 

Publisher's Summary
The first book in Ross Macdonald's acclaimed Lew Archer series introduces the detective who redefined the role of the American private eye and gave the crime novel a psychological depth and moral complexity only hinted at before.

Like many Southern California millionaires, Ralph Sampson keeps odd company. There's the sun-worshiping holy man whom Sampson once gave his very own mountain, and the fading actress with sidelines in astrology and S&M. Now, one of Sampson's friends may have arranged his kidnapping.

As private eye Lew Archer follows  the clues from the canyon sanctuaries of the mega-rich to jazz joints  where you can get beaten up between sets, The Moving Target blends sex, greed, misdirected love, and family hatred into an explosive crime novel.

Wait! There was S&M in this book? Really? Where? Well, maybe Tom Lehrer was right, "When correctly viewed, everything is lewd." I guess I didn't view it right.

I liked the book. It was a quick entertaining read Yes, it was full of the typical misogyny, objectification of women, racism, antisemitism, bigotry, violence, etc. that you find in this genre but I tend to ignore that baggage. I think of it as the macho version of the romantic fantasies that Harlequin peddles. It reminds me of how things used to be -- and will be again if things continue the way they are going.

Lew Archer is an interesting dude and I expect that I will be reading a few more before I give up completely on the series -- especially if I can find more read by Tom Parker, who is in reality Grover Gardner. When I first heard the narrator's voice, I recognized it immediately. I've heard it enough times. But it said 'narrated by Tom Parker" in the details and I said, "No, no, no! There cannot be two people with that same voice." A little research proved me right; that voice has multiple names.

 

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The Big Bang
The Lost Mike Hammer Sixties Novel
By: Mickey Spillane, Max Allan Collins
Narrated by: Stacy Keach
Audible Plus

 

Publisher's Summary

In midtown Manhattan, Mike Hammer, recovering  from a near-fatal mix-up with the Mob, runs into drug dealers  assaulting a young hospital messenger. He saves the kid, but the muggers  are not so lucky. In a New York of flashy discotheques, swanky bachelor  pads, and the occasional dark alley, Hammer deals with doctors and drug  addicts, hippie chicks and hit men, meeting changing times with his  timeless brand of violent vengeance.

Originally begun and  outlined by Spillane in the mid-sixties, and expertly completed by his  longtime collaborator Max Allan Collins, The Big Bang is vintage  Mike Hammer on acid—literally. Hammer and his beautiful, deadly partner  Velda take on the narcotics racket in New York, just as the streets have  dried up and rumors run rampant of a massive heroin shipment due any  day.

On the other hand, The Big Bang was a complete disaster. I wanted to read a Mickey Spillane but I made the mistake of choosing this one. This one was started by Spillane in the Sixties and finished by Max Allan Collins a few years ago. It was a stupid choice to begin with. How could I ever get the feel for Spillane if I didn't know what was Spillane and what was his not-quite-ghost writer. The more I read, the more it drove me crazy. How much of this is Spillane and how much of this is Collins? And how much of this is Collins get his jollies writing things that he would not get away with saying in one of his own novels?

Life's too short! DNF after a few chapters. I'm looking for one that is 100% Spillane; they are hard to come by on audio.

 

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The High Window c. 1942
by Raymond Chandler (read by Scott Brick)

 

Publisher's Summary
 
A  wealthy Pasadena widow with a mean streak, a missing daughter-in-law  with a past, and a gold coin worth a small fortune - the elements don't  quite add up until Marlowe discovers evidence of murder, rape,  blackmail, and the worst kind of human exploitation. 

I like Chandler and this one has been in my wish list for a long time now. Before I was able to buy it, Audible lost the rights to it. It was only recently that a new version was recorded and ended up in a sale pile where I could see it (and buy it). Glad I finally got my hands on it.

The Boys

 

Written and Read by Ron Howard and Clint Howard 

Library Loan

 

Publisher's Summary

Happy Days, The Andy Griffith Show, Gentle Ben — these shows captivated millions of TV viewers in the ’60s and ’70s. Join award-winning filmmaker Ron Howard and audience-favorite actor Clint Howard as they frankly and fondly share their unusual family story of navigating and surviving life as sibling child actors.

“What was it like to grow up on TV?” Ron Howard has been asked this question throughout his adult life. in The Boys, he and his younger brother, Clint, examine their childhoods in detail for the first time. For Ron, playing Opie on The Andy Griffith Show and Richie Cunningham on Happy Days offered fame, joy, and opportunity — but also invited stress and bullying. For Clint, a fast start on such programs as Gentle Ben and Star Trek petered out in adolescence, with some tough consequences and lessons.

With the perspective of time and success — Ron as a filmmaker, producer, and Hollywood A-lister, Clint as a busy character actor — the Howard brothers delve deep into an upbringing that seemed normal to them yet was anything but. Their Midwestern parents, Rance and Jean, moved to California to pursue their own showbiz dreams. But it was their young sons who found steady employment as actors. Rance put aside his ego and ambition to become Ron and Clint’s teacher, sage, and moral compass. Jean became their loving protector — sometimes over-protector — from the snares and traps of Hollywood.

By turns confessional, nostalgic, heartwarming, and harrowing, The Boys is a dual narrative that lifts the lid on the Howard brothers’ closely held lives. It’s the journey of a tight four-person family unit that held fast in an unforgiving business and of two brothers who survived “child-actor syndrome” to become fulfilled adults.

©2021 Ron Howard, Clint Howard (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers

 

Family, education, hardwork, respect for other people

 

I don't normally read celebrity memoirs or biographies. They don't need my money and I already know more than I want to know about them the headlines they generate. There are exceptions: Penny Marshall, Tim Conway, Ron Howard, Katherine Jounson to name a few. You get the idea of the kind of people I'm interested in getting to know-- and its not the glitz and glitter people and its not the broken people either. The minute I saw it on Audible, I knew I had to read it -- and it was well worth it.

Four stars

 

by Katherine Johnson with Joylette Hylick and Katherine Moore (read by Robin Miles)

 

Publisher's Summary

The remarkable woman at heart of the smash New York Times best seller and Oscar-winning film Hidden Figures tells the full story of her life, including what it took to work at NASA, help land the first man on the moon, and live through a century of turmoil and change.

In 2015, at the age of 97, Katherine Johnson became a global celebrity. President Barack Obama awarded her the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom - the nation’s highest civilian honor - for her pioneering work as a mathematician on NASA’s first flights into space. Her contributions to America’s space program were celebrated in a blockbuster and Academy-award nominated movie. 

In this memoir, Katherine shares her personal journey from child prodigy in the Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia to NASA human computer. In her life after retirement, she served  as a beacon of light for her family and community alike. Her story is centered around the basic tenets of her life - no one is better than you, education is paramount, and asking questions can break barriers. The memoir captures the many facets of this unique woman: the curious “daddy’s girl”, pioneering professional, and sage elder. 

This multidimensional portrait is also the record of a century of racial history that reveals the influential role educators at segregated schools and Historically Black Colleges and Universities played in nurturing the dreams of trailblazers like Katherine. The author pays homage to her mentor - the African American professor who inspired her to become a research mathematician despite having his own dream crushed by racism. 

Infused with the uplifting wisdom of a woman who handled great fame with genuine humility and great tragedy with enduring hope, My Remarkable Journey ultimately brings into focus a determined woman who navigated tough racial terrain with soft-spoken grace - and the unrelenting grit required to make history and inspire future generations. 

©2021 Katherine Johnson, Joylette Hylick, Katherine Moore (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers

 

What bothers me is that there aren't enough Katherine Johnsons writing books like this

Katherine G. Johnson's memoir is reminiscent of another memoir written almost 30 years ago, Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years. Also barrier breakers, Sadie and Bessie Delany were born at the end of the 19th century. They both graduated Columbia University. Both were professionals, one a dentist and the other a teacher. Both scored firsts for black women in the United States. But it wasn't the lists of accomplishments that made me think of the sisters as I read Ms. Johnson's book. It was actually something in the language and the diction that triggered the thought; there was something about the way Ms. Johnson wrote that brought the Delany sisters to mind, because, for whatever reason, they sounded so much alike. Then, there was the message that both books articulated: success in life requires an education and hard work and a successful life includes giving back to the community that raised you in order to raise yet another generation of successful community members. Nothing in life is just given to you. It is a universal message.

I don't usually read memoirs, especially the celebrity memoirs that seem to be the sum total of the memoirs and biographies that turn up in the Audible sale piles. I want to read about good people who have contributed to society and are proud but humble about their accomplishments, not a bunch of self-entitled braggarts or drugged up yahoos. I'm interested in the people who have given to society and worked to make it a better place for everyone. Mrs. Johnson's life story is a life lesson for all of us; we need more of them on our library bookshelves.

In short, go, get this book and spend a few hours with a remarkable woman.

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

by Stuart Turton (read by James Cameron Stewart)

Audible sale pile

 

 

 

Publisher's Summary

The rules of Blackheath: Evelyn Hardcastle will be murdered at 11:00 p.m. There are eight days and eight witnesses for you to inhabit. We will only let you escape once you tell us the name of the killer. 

Understood? Then let's begin....

Evelyn Hardcastle will die. Every day until Aiden Bishop can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others....  

The most inventive debut of the year twists together a mystery of such unexpected creativity that it will leave listeners guessing until the very last second.

©2018 Stuart Turton (P)2018 Tantor

 

 

The 1920's country house mystery to end all 1920's country house mysteries

 

I have mixed emotions about this one. I loved the start of it: bang! You are off and running before you even have a chance to stick your toe in the water.  You are sucked in. You have no idea where you are or what is going on. You are completely disoriented -- just like the main character. I did not like the ending. I was disappointed.  It lacked verisimilitude. I didn't understand how the main character could make such an about-face, and because of spoilers, that is all I am going to say about the ending. I really don't want to give away one iota more of this story than I have already given.

While I was wishy-washy about his plot choices, I applaud his writing. He doesn't waste words and uses simile to his advantage. There is a lot of action in the book and that doesn't leave much room for florid description; he doesn't need it. Agatha Christie lovers may get a kick out of Turton's 2020 take on the 1920's country house mystery. Is he telling us that they are his version of Purgatory?

In the end, I think that Turton has a few pearls of wisdom for his audience, perhaps even a few words of advice. But again, we are getting to close to spoiler territory and I will leave you to decide for yourself.