Monday, November 20, 2024 -- Books & More...
THOUGHTS
Thanksgiving turkey. Thanksgiving casseroles. Thanksgiving meat balls. Thanksgiving football. Thanksgiving shopping. Thanksgiving cooking. Black Friday. Thanksgiving leftovers!
Happy Thanksgiving, One and All!
TICKETS
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.
Sunday we saw Hangmen by Martin McDonagh — playwright (The Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Pillowman) and screenwriter (The Banshees of Inisherin, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri). What an afternoon! Two-plus riveting hours. If you get the chance, see it!
THE BOOKS
Three library holds came in this week. Sweet! It solved the perpetual dilemma of what to read next.
Death of a Lake by Arthur W. Upfield
Actually from last week's reads. Another interesting outing with Australian detective Napoleon 'Boney' Bonaparte. A dying lake is about to divulge its secrets.
3.5 stars
The Quartet by Joseph J. Ellis
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.
4 stars
A Midsummer's Equation by Keigo Higashino
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.
3.25 stars
Lane by Peter Grainger
One-Way Tickets by Peter Grainger
Arcadia by Peter Grainger
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.
3.5 for the series
My Murder by Katie Williams
(with thanks to Leah, whose review caught my attention)
From the moment I read Leah's review and the publisher's blurb, I was curious but dubious; is this my kind of book? Still I put it on my wish list and then on hold at the library in hopes I might get it before the end of Halloween Bingo (didn't happen -- and how would I have fit it onto my card?). Even after I had the book in hand, I was still harboring doubts. And then I started the book and with the first sentence it was, "Oh, my! this is new territory; we have never read a book like this before. I hope it holds up to the promise it has just made." The author had just cannonballed into the middle of the story. No slow build up; no explanations. Just bang, this is it, hang on to your hat.
The blurb and tags call the book sci-fi; I call it futuristic. The blurb calls it a mystery but really, it isn't, not in the traditional sense of a murder mystery. Told in the first person, it is actually a very intimate and very personal story about love and marriage, about parenthood and about keeping secrets. It is suspenseful but not truly a thriller; in other words, I am not now sleeping with the lights on
HB: Home is where the hurt is, set in Lansing, Michigan and set in the near future. Maybe Psych and maybe a bit Dystopian
3.75 stars
Hearing Homer's Song by Robert Kanigel
Audible Sale Pile
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.
** Now there is a book to write. The story of how technology has been driven by mankind's need to tell stories --alphabets, writing, paper, ink, printing press, bookbinding, stagecraft, art, paints, recording devices, movie, cameras, film, computers and digital technologies, etc.
3.5 stars
The Cause by Joseph J. Ellis
Audible Sale Pile
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.
This time, he knocked my socks off with this observation in the preface to the book. He wrote: Keep in mind that the past is not history, but a much vaster region of the dead, gone, unknowable, or forgotten. History is what we choose to remember.
3.75 stars
COUNTDOWN
Beating last year's numbers
Hogfather plus 28 to read
The Foolers -- A magic show. Family-oriented fun on a school night -- hey, but no problem 'coz we are empty-nesters. All kidding aside, it was a good show and we really enjoyed it -- even if we thought we were buying Penn & Teller tickets, because it was not immediately clear that P&T were not the performers but the producers. Also helped that the theater is a 10 minute drive. We'll be back in our seats in November when the band Chicago comes to town. Can't wait.
Becky Nurse of Salem by Sarah Ruhl. My goodness what a difference a week makes. This performance was head and shoulders above the one we saw last week. Strong acting. Stronger vehicle. Darkly funny. The lead actress, Angela Brazil, did a great job -- had to do a great job, because the way the play is written, the whole play hangs entirely on the lead. But then again, Angela is always a pleasure to see on stage, no matter what role she is playing.
From MikeFinn's Novels About Old People: links to reviews of twenty-one novels by nineteen authors 
No sooner was I settled in with Maud than one of my holds came in, one that I needed for Bingo. Still, I stuck with Maud. The light-hearted alien story would have to wait. Actually, I had the book on hold long before I decided that I would use it for HB. It was the Connie Willis name on the cover that did it. I knew that I was in for a treat even without reading a single review or commentary. In the end, it was aliens at my own speed -- funny, kind, free of paranoia and mindless violence and funny. In other words, I really enjoyed the book. I hope all you Willis fans will, too.
No. No. No. Indubitably I have outgrown teen romance stories. Indeed, I gave up Harlequins and Nora Roberts et al. over 30 years ago and now avoid anything that is primarily a genre romance -- too much formula and too much fantasy.
I did not read this for HB but certainly could have if I had had the right squares. I loved the lecturer and thought that she did an excellent job of research and of laying out her theses. Most fascinating thing about the whole lecture series is that Armstrong is a lit major, PhD in Medieval Literature and Professor in the English Department at Perdue AND not a historian, even though this series of lectures is more history than literature. Her talk about pandemics (of which the Black Death the most deadly) was eerily prescient. Great Courses & Armstrong released a follow-up series of lectures in 2022, which is waiting in my library. Thank you, Elenaterri for this one. 
Ugh. DNF. Life's too short. The abusive male characters were more than I was willing to sit through. I may try the next in the series. Loved the cover art.
Working my way through the series. The more I think about this one, the more I like it. Twists and turns, dead-ends and red herrings. But why does the cover art have to be so depressing?
