🕵️‍♂️ Spies and 🚀Rockets!

 Merry Christmas 🎄and

Happy New Year! 🥳

      The Blonde Identity by Ally Carter is a quirky, slap-stick spoof of the spy thriller. A woman wakes up at the foot of the Eiffel Tower with amnesia. Immediately, she has to run for her life from almost everyone. Should she trust the hot spy guy? The proclaimed agent of the CIA? The US embassy? This was a fun, fast-paced read. A great listen while wrapping presents and baking Ginger Snaps!

💄🕵️‍♀️🕵️‍♂️⛴️🏦

The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei was a cool book. In the not-distant dystopian future, a billionaire sends a crew to space to colonize another planet, Planet X. But even billionaires can't fund long-range space flight alone. Every country contributing can send their representative if they pass the rigorous training. They start at twelve at an elite academy and are all female. The Deep Sky reminded me of The Martian with its details. If The Martian took place on a ship of all women, and one of them is a killer, 

🚀🧑‍🚀🤖

A Week of Winners 🥉🥈🥇

 

  I've had the good fortune to spend the week reading award-winning sci-fi and fantasy. 

    In the Lives of Puppets by T.J. Klune is the 2023 Science Fiction Book winner of the Good Reads Choice awards. As I read, I noticed similarities to Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi--relationships, similar names, real boys--and looked it up to find I was correct. It is Pinocchio turned inside out. Most characters are robots, cyborgs, and synthetics, except for one real boy, Victor Lawson. Klune's story is imaginative, fast-paced, and humorous. Beneath all that is an account of humanity's greed and foolishness, but also their love. It deserves the award because it has layered characters, action, and adventure. 

Spoiler Alert: I didn't love the ending, and I don't think it was because of the other stellar books I also read. Stylistically, I would have preferred something different. I award this book the bronze medal.

🥉    

🤖🌳🐳

Science Fiction book of the year in 1988

Note: This is an old cover. I couldn't find the current one. 

    Connie Willis is my favorite author. Lincoln's Dreams is a mind-bending, suspenseful drama that shows Connie Willis at her best. Multiple plot threads propel the book. Jeff is a researcher for a man who writes Civil War historical fiction. His old roommate Richard, a psychiatrist at a sleep clinic, has a patient, Annie, who has recurring, disturbing dreams about the Civil War. From there, it gets really fascinatingly weird. I read this book about thirty years ago and still remember it. Revisiting it helped me appreciate Willis's talent for juggling many characters and plots while exploring ideas of duty and honor. I award this book the silver medal.

🥈

😴🚙💔

    Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher wasn't on my radar despite its many awards like the Hugo and Nebula. My daughter recommended it to me, and I loved it. Kingfisher takes the ingredients for a typical fantasy novel: a heroine who wants to save someone precious to them but faces impossible odds. First assemble an odd crew of fierce misfits, then adds some incredibly imaginative plot twists, and dash of romance. I award this book the gold medal.

🥇

🧙‍♀️🐶🧚‍♀️🐥🐓🥷

Thoughtful 🤔 Books--History, ⏰ Time Travel, and ❣️Complicated Family Love

 

    This week, I read The Paris Wife by Paula McLain. This is a perfect companion book for Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. I had an inclination that Hemmingway might be a jerk, and the historical fiction about Hadley Hemmingway, Ernest's first wife, confirmed it. At the end of A Moveable Feast, I wanted to know more about the people Hemmingway mentioned, and The Paris Wife filled those gaps. McLain's Hadley is somewhat shy, compliant, and deeply in love with her husband. Her voice is honest and sincere. I gained insight into the book A Moveable Feast. Hadley is timid and unsure among the fast-living, hard-drinking, intellectual free thinkers. She wants to believe that her marriage with Ernest won't be rocked by his unrestrained energy, desire, and deep wounds. This book didn't make me like Hemmingway any better, but it helped me better understand him. 

📝📚💔👶🏻

    Next Time by Cesca Major did the difficult task of putting a new spin on time travel. It was a Groundhog Day situation where Emma relives the same day repeatedly. Gradually, over-committed Emma realigns her priorities. I liked how cleverly the pieces fit together, and Emma gains wisdom and understanding. It feels somewhat moralistic--if you try harder at home, your family will all be fine-- but good-hearted. 

⏰🐕📚💼

     I finished the week with Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano. The story is told from multiple viewpoints. William comes to Chicago to play basketball. He is unsure and easily molded. Julia meets him and decides he's the one who will fulfill her dreams. Julia is the oldest and most driven of four close-knit sisters. They are like the March sisters from Little Women, so tightly woven together that it feels like nothing can drive them apart. There is a lot in this book that connected with me. When I was in middle school, I loved playing basketball; in high school, I had to choose between sports and music, and I chose music. However, I occasionally still have dreams that I'm playing basketball. Those are good dreams. Napolitano represents well how the loss of a sibling can echo through the rest of your life. She illustrates how much power parents have in the developing psyches of their children and what it may take to address those losses. Her writing is profoundly moving but not in a devasting way. I felt encouraged and hopeful.

🎨👶🏻💔🏀

   Last month Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano, and I loved it. Here is the review link: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/2023/11/i-find-ann-napolitano-and-now-im-in.html  

Classic Travel🗺️, Romance💖, Murder Mystery 🎄, and Sci-Fi🤖. Win!

 

    A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway is the December choice for my book club. We are reading travel books, and this was on several lists of best travel books. I am struck by the similarities of this book to last month's Travels with Charlie. Two famous authors' final books talking about travel seem ripe for a compare and contrast paper. It practically writes itself. I will refrain. 

    A Moveable Feast doesn't fit neatly in the travel category. I would classify it as a memoir. Hemingway recounts his life in Paris when he was poor and trying to find his way as an author. I encountered somewhat familiar names like Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and wished I knew more about who they were and why they were there. Hemingway is a big personality--he doesn't strike me as the quietly observant type but as a Man-of-Action. He recounts adventures with his first wife, Hadley, with tenderness and affection. In his recollections, he glories in being a young, strong, free spirit figuring out his talent. I don't like Hemingway the man much. He has a tone of arrogance that rankles me. He made poor choices and unapologetically hurt others. I'm glad I read it because he's a good writer who worked hard to improve; he knew exciting people and led an intriguing life. 

🇫🇷📝⛷️🗺️

    The View was Exhausting by Mikaella Clements and Oujuli Datta is romance and employs the fake-in-love trope well. Whitman Tagore is a rising movie star blazing a trail as a British Indian Actress. She is trying to break out of the woman of color best friend and nerdy computer whiz parts into a leading role. What would be stumbles for other actors, like an uncensored response to a bad breakup, could be career-ending for her. She hires a bulldog of a publicist who helps her craft a nuanced image designed to appeal to directors and fans alike. Part of that image is a hot playboy love interest like Leo Milanowski. The publicist arranges carefully choreographed "dates" to be "accidentally" photographed. It is a romance and, therefore, has a predictable story path. Still, Clements and Datta make it challenging for this trending couple and keep me guessing whether it is real or Hollywood magic.

🎥🤩

    The word to describe The Christmas Appeal by Janice Hallett is clever. I enjoyed her previous book, The Twyford Code, which is another innovative book. Here is my review of it:  https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/2023/08/i-read-super-serious-book-clever.html. This is a good choice if you like to read Christmas-themed books during the holidays. It is told entirely through emails, texts, and other modern forms of communication, making it an epistolary novel. That is a complex style to pull off; even Jane Austin couldn't do it! I found it quite British, mainly since I listened to the audiobook version. The story revolves around a village theater group doing a traditional holiday pantomime. Petty jealousy over starring roles, a struggle for power, crime, drugs, murder, and Santa work well together.  

🎄🎅🎭💊

    I was so glad to read the latest in The Murderbot Diaries series, System Collapse, by Martha Wells. It is dependable sci-fi with big stakes, selfish bad guys, and a cranky, likable SecUnit hero--a cyborg who was once compelled to serve, but through the power of story, his heart grew three times its size, and he (it?) became free. Internally, it calls itself Murderbot. The plot is propulsive, and the characters are authentic. I have reviewed the series here: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Martha+Wells. System Collapse is a good continuation. 

🤖🦾👽🛸

Two Books, Same Author, Both Scary! 😱😳👻👿

 Thank you, Hilary and Gabe, for your book recommendations this week!

twisty, sinister, exciting plot, intriguing protagonist, Alex Stern

        After eating Thanksgiving food for several days, I crave something spicy and bitter, like Phad Thai or chili. After reading gentle time travel books and romantic comedies, the Alex Stern series by Leigh Bardugo feels like what I need. Two of my daughters recommended it, and they warned me it was dark and creepy. They were right. I raced through the first two books, Ninth House and Hell Bent. Bardugo intends it to be a trilogy--yes, I'm reading another fantasy trilogy. I like Bardugo's writing. She is adept at creating tension, plot twists, and characters that crackle with mixed motives and intentions. Alex Stern is a transplanted Californian on a scholarship to Yale because of her unique ability to see ghosts. Alex becomes a member of a secret society that serves other secret societies, safeguarding them during their rituals. She wrestles with helping the wealthy and privileged stay wealthy and privileged. She needs them, but why do they need her, and what happens when they no longer do?

🐍😈🪦👿🐇

Crazy Books this Week--Good Crazy 😜

     This week, I read Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. I knew it had been a contender for the Man Booker Prize, so I had high expectations, but I was curious to see if I was up to the job. Cloud Atlas is one of those books I should read because it's an IMPORTANT book. Well, this was the week. 

    I like quirky books, whether it is plot, ideas, characters, or setting. Cloud Atlas is masterfully quirky. The book is like a set of nesting dolls. There are six narrators or six different stories told in six genres. It sounds confusing because it is confusing. Each story is told partway, then abruptly shifts to the next seemingly unrelated story. The center narration is of a post-apocalyptic world that has returned to the stone age and unashamed cannibalism. A repeated adage is, "The weak are the meat that the strong do eat." 

    The second half of Cloud Atlas is David Mitchell's answer to why not seek to be an oppressor or "eat the weak"? 

    "Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future."

― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas    

    I can see why it is considered a noteworthy book. It's technically brilliant, strives with thorny themes, and seeks to bring change. Cloud Atlas will linger in my mind.

☁️💨📚🎶

    I have now read the entire Before the Coffee Gets Cold series by Toshikazu Kawaguchi with Before We Say Goodbye. I read them out of order, so this was a jump back in time in a book about time travel. ;-) This series highlights how fleeting life is and contemplates how we spend it. It reminds me of a section of Mary Oliver's poem "Summer Day,"

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

Kawaguchi advocates for telling those we love how valued they are to us in his lovely stories. Here is a link to previous reviews in the series:

https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Before+the+Coffee+Gets+Cold

🦋☕️🕰️🎐

    I haven't reviewed any Jasper Fforde books, but I have read him. He is seriously weird. He has a series called  Thursday Next about real life and the book world not always peaceable coexisting, and the brave woman, Thursday Next, brings order and justice. The first book is The Eyre Affair. He is funny, thought-provoking and mind-bending.

    The Constant Rabbit is about rabbits living in England who underwent an anthropomorphizing event that caused some of them to become almost human. They live in houses, wear clothes, have jobs, drive cars, and are not very accepted by their human counterparts. Fford uses his book to discuss discrimination in a clever, sly, funny, and fun way. The protagonist, Peter Knox, is a weak-willed rabbit spotter. It is challenging to tell rabbits apart, and few people possess the skill. He is employed by a nefarious organization that monitors the rabbits. Peter is growing uneasy with his complicity against this unfairly maligned group, but what should he do about it. Then, a family of rabbits moves in next door.

🐇🐰🚨🦊

 

I Find Ann Napolitano and Now I'm in Book Love ❤️

    The big question of Dear Edward by Anne Napolitano is what does this twelve-year-old boy, the lone survivor of a plane crash that killed his parents and brother, owe to those who died? Napolitano slices back and forth between the flight and Edward's post-crash life. It is a genuine, gripping story. Edwards wants to return to normal, but the truth-tellers in his life, his therapist, and his best friend, Shay, convey that he will never be Eddy again. This is a coming-of-age story, a quest story, and a grief story. I gave it five stars on Goodreads.

🌟🛩️📬✉️🌟 

    I love everything by Connie Willis, but I especially enjoy her earlier books. Uncharted Territory is a humourous, sci-fi, western romance. Two government-sponsored explorers are mapping a new planet with the help of an indigenous scout who can fine them for every transgression against his home planet, like walking on the ground or speaking disparagingly about the planet or the scout. A starry-eyed new guy is added to the team; he is an expert in mating rituals who has followed the hologram adventures of Findiddy and Carson for several seasons. This is short, more of a novella, but Willis has several story threads bringing tension and hilarity. Classic Connie Willis.

👽🤠❤️

 

    Mrs. Nash's Ashes by Sarah Adler has many things going for it. The main characters, Millicent, a romantic, optimistic former child actor, and Hollis, a cynical, jaded writer, are on an unexpected road trip. There is good chemistry and sparkling banter between the two of them. Millie is on a mission to reunite her deceased elderly best friend with the lost love of her life from when they were in the Army in World War II. She is in hospice in Florida, so the clock is tick, tick, ticking. Airplanes and cars conspire against them as they travel from New York City. Millie carries three tablespoons of Mrs. Nash's ashes in her backpack. Hollis doesn't believe in lifelong love but is roped in. They encounter many roadblocks and adventures. The book sounds delightful, but I felt it was meh. The good guys in the story were squeaky clean, and the bad guys were unredeemable. The book could have used more tension in the plot. I'm good with a formula romance but I still need surprises and more complex characters.

💖🚙☀️

So Many Good Books This Week! Mystery 🔎 Romance 💝 Time-Travel🕰️ Science Fiction👽

 

Mysterious, duo timeline, good/bad, bravery, sister love

    Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok is a thrilling mystery/suspense story. About two-thirds of the way through, I guessed what the ending might be and hoped I was wrong. Kwok creates characters that try hard to be what they think others want, whether love, respect, or being truly seen. Successsful brilliant Sylvie Lee has disappeared, and no one but her still-living-at-home, socially awkward little sister is searching for her. But who is Sylvie Lee? The police interviewed the family and asked her nationality, and got three answers. She's American, she's Dutch, she's Chinese. For her sister, Amy, to find her sister, she must get to the bottom of who her sister was. The story's narration moves between Sylvie, Amy, and their mother, building tension and giving slivers to who Sylvie is. It is effectively told and worth the time.

🌷🪷🏵️🌹🥀

    I could tell Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan was a Romance book because of the happy pink and green on the cover. I just knew good things would happen after the sad things, of course. Recently divorced Nora Hamilton writes scripts for the romance channel. She barely keeps herself, her two children, and her one-hundred-year-old house afloat. She takes the pain of her divorce and crafts her first nonromance script, which sells big. It is filmed on her property, and the leading man, Leo Vance, doesn't want to leave. He offers to pay her a thousand dollars a day to stay for a week. They get to know each other. 

   Given the fantastic premise, Nora Goes Off Script felt well grounded in a life with school drop off, single mom schedules, noisy neighbors, and a mortgage. I also appreciated the sly winks at the romance tropes; even the names made me think of Nora Ephron and Leonardo DiCaprio. Nora also frequently refers to how she crafts her romance scripts--the formula she uses--and it's clever how her romance story starts the same but "goes off script." It made me smile.

🎬🎞️🌺🌅📖

    The second book in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, Tales from the Cafe by Toshikazu Kawaguchi continues in the same cafe about seven years later, with many of the same characters. I find these stories surprising and comforting. A theme in these tales is an opportunity to say what had been neglected to be said, to show love and care that hadn't been expressed. It is a place of second chances. 

    I have reviewed other books in the series here: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Tashikazu+Kawaguchi

☕️🌁❤️‍🩹🕰️

    Once, in a faraway library in the 80s, I stumbled upon a short story collection on the best seller's table. All fiction best sellers were novels, except for FireWatch by Connie Willis. I read it, and she became my favorite author. Her book, To Say Nothing of the Dog, is my favorite book. This week, I read The Best of Connie Willis: Award-Winning Stories. The short stories in this book are incredibly well crafted. Some are humorous, some are heartbreaking, and some are horrifying--imagine a world where all the dogs have died. I'd already encountered these stories in other anthologies, but they still drew me in and made me wonder about what-ifs. My favorite short story, "Even the Queen," is here. It is about mothers and daughters and that sometimes antagonistic relationship. It never fails to make me laugh.

👽🛸🚀🎄🕰️

Cozy Murder, Travel, and Praise to the Power of Books 📚

 

    My favorite type of mystery is a fun cozy with a twist. Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murders by Jesse Q. Sutanta fits that category. The amateur sleuth is Vera Wong, an elderly Chinese widow who lives above her tea shop in San Francisco. One morning, she finds a dead body in her shop and decides to solve the murder and dispense advice. 

    I have read Sutanto before (link: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/2022/09/mostly-mysteries.html) and like the characters she creates. They are quirky and fun. By the end of the book, they have usually discovered something new about themselves--I like character growth--and solved a mystery. 

☕️🫖🕵️‍♀️🥮🌉

    My book club is reading travel books. Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck is a classic in the genre. I had heard of it, but never read it. It was written in 1960 and published in 1962. It details Steinbeck's journey in a tricked-out truck with his standard poodle, Charley. I think Steinbeck's questions and views reflect that era. He talks frequently about men being real men. He is prescient about waste, describing cities ringed by their trash and the pervasiveness of plastic packaging. His journey starts in Upperstate New York and takes a northern route to Monterey, California then returns via Texas and the South. He makes a special stop in Louisianna to see some celebrated women called The Cheerleaders, who gather faithfully daily to verbally abuse those desegregating a local school. The words used were so vile he wouldn't repeat them. Reading Travels with Charley is like opening a time capsule and being shocked by past values and how some things haven't changed. He spent time debating the upcoming presidential election between Kennedy and Nixon and how terrible politicians are. As he goes through the southern states, he encounters a pervasive, blatant racism that seems shockingly cruel. Trigger warning: He quotes the use of the N-word. 

    I wonder how the discussion of this book will go at book club because it feels a bit like a hot potato. 

🛣️🌆🌁🚘🐩

The Cat Who Saved Books by Susuke Matsukawa feels more like an extended allegory than a novel. An orphaned high school student has been living with his grandfather and working with him at his used bookshop. Then, his grandfather dies. The grief-stricken Rintaro Natsuki is recruited by a talking cat to help him save books, leading exciting adventures. This book is translated from Japanese.

🐈😼📚📖

Three Thoughtful⏳☕️, Sometimes Difficult 🍽️🤑, Books 🕌🧕

 

painful, eye-opening, sensual, tactile

    I found Land of Milk and Honey by C. Pam Zhang challenging, not because it wasn't well written and complex, but because the topic is abrasive and terrifying. Zhang skillfully juggled many themes like rich versus poor, weak versus strong, insider versus outsider. She creates a dystopian world covered in a cloud of smog that causes crops to fail and vegetation to die. An aspiring chef with a failing career applies for a restaurant position that caters to the 1%. It's located high in the mountains where the sun can still penetrate. What does it take to work for the ultrarich in a time of famine? What is uncompromisable? How much of the chef's uniqueness can she retain and still be herself? In the book, at least partly about identity, the main character is never named. 

    Zhang's writing gives fleshy and sensual descriptions of food and pleasure against a backdrop of poverty and separation. It is disconcerting. It feels obscene. This was a powerful book that has caused me to examine personhood afresh. That's good, not fun.

🍓🍎🍫🍽️🤑

    I have read Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Tashikazu Kawaguchi (review here: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Before+the+Coffee+Gets+Cold) and was excited to read the sequel Before Your Memory Fades. It is an uplifting collection of different characters and why they would want to travel back in time knowing they can only stay fifteen minutes. During their visit, they can't change the present or get up from their chair. This book is an excellent answer to the aphorism, "You can't change the past." However, you can change how you perceive the past. That's important. Before Your Memory Fades revolves around an imaginary book called What if the World Were Ending Tomorrow? 100 Questions. The answers reveal what the characters value and point them to their true desires. The book is both thought-provoking and heartwarming.

🕰️⏳☕️💝

    I was browsing my local Barnes and Noble on Saturday, thinking about Christmas gifts, and I checked out the award winners in the children's section. I picked up Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga. The goal of the book is to represent those like the author. It is a peek into a world I know little about. Jude is a  child sent to America with her mother because of the unrest in her home country of Syria. She encounters misinformation and prejudice, but also makes new friends and has new experiences. Warga depicts the conflict within Jude well and how people can be a mix. Some are generous and friendly, others unkind. Jude rises to the occasion. 

🕌🧕 

Two Books by Women Who Use Initials and A Magical Librarian 📚

 

       As I listened to the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows audiobook by J.K. Rowling, I slowed it down because I didn't want it to end. And so I went to YouTube! I found an interesting  long video (30 minutes) that hilariously, in a British way, discusses the Christian symbols and themes in Harry Potter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBg2VDST2v8

    My favorite book of the series is the first one, Happy Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Children being rescued for cupboards and attics makes me happy. 

    My least favorite is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Harry comes into his adolescent anger, and his losses have crushed him. It feels like he loses hope. I see the necessity of this to the story and Harry's development, but it is heartbreaking.

 Here is my list of Favorite to Least Favorite, but I think they're all good:

1. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
3. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
4. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
5. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
7. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

    While the series author, J. K. Rowling, has come under criticism, I admire what she has created. It shows imagination, intelligence, and incredible planning. 

🪄🚂👹🐍

kind, self-care, morality of keeping house, neurodivergent, quick read

    When I was first married, I struggled with how to keep up with cooking, laundry, and cleaning. I wish I had How to Keep House While Drowning: a Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing by KC Davis. I would have been much kinder to myself. Davis emphasizes that having a "clean" house is morally neutral. Because she is neurodivergent, she needed to find strategies that worked specifically for her. Another lesson is that your living space should serve you, not you your living space. Instead of beating yourself up for not being motivated, consider how can I help future me? I think that is a great idea. I've used it myself. I will stop and get gas in my car--a job I dislike--so tomorrow, Barb won't have to do it when she's running late. I also imagine I'm the only one who struggles with staying on top of it all and it's good to know I'm not alone. When it comes to a clean house, perhaps it can happen, but maybe not everything on the same day. 

    I still can't motivate past, present, or future Barb to dust. Yuch.

🧹🧼🧽🧺

    What You Are Looking For is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama lifted my spirits. I listened to the audiobook read while I lay on the couch with the flu. It was engaging and magical. I love a book with a library at its center with the quirky people that staff it and the desperate souls that go there for answers. This book is a translation and takes place in Tokoyo, Japan. I probably didn't get all the cultural references, but it did not slow down the book. Some things are universal to all cultures--I feel like I'm going nowhere, I'm stuck, I'm trapped--the reference librarian has a list of titles and a felted mascot for you. 

📚🦀✈️🍳🗾

Marriage💔❤️‍🩹National Security🔐📱👂and Time Travel⏳💔

 

    How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told by Harrison Scott Key is a truly crazy story. Reading about Harrison's struggle with his wife's infidelity made me squirm. It sounded like a nightmare. He credits his ability to love his wife through everything to his faith in God, the support of good friends, his church, and an understanding of his wife's past hurts. Harris doesn't gloss over how painful her betrayal was or how angry he felt. Key lays bare the hurt. He avoids trashing his wife and her lover. He demonstrates the need to own his part of the breakdown and to ask and to extend forgiveness. It is miraculous to me that their marriage survived. As a bonus, he's quite funny. 

💍⛪️ 💔😍🏩

    I heard about Going Zero by Anthony McCarten, and it intrigued me. It is a technical science fiction thriller relating to how individual privacy is endangered. Ten contestants are challenged to "go zero"--not be found--for thirty days by an agency that has full use of everything electronic. I've watched NCIS, where the first step in an investigation is to look into the victim's emails, messages, phone records, bank transactions, and closed-circuit television. This book moves beyond police access and into national access in the name of preventing mass shootings and terrorist attacks. How far can we go, and how far should we go to keep people safe? I asked a security-minded friend about some of the incredible claims of the book, like can your television be used as a listening device when you think it's off? Answer: maybe. https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-stop-smart-tvs-from-snooping-on-you I choose to have an Alexa device and Siri, understanding that they are always listening, but not always responding. After reading Going Zero, I'm slightly creeped out about what those who gather data on me know. Do they know Ed Sheeran's song "Thinking Out Loud Makes" me cry? That too much dairy makes me gassy? Do they know I fought with my husband because he solved all the crossword clues before me? Oh, please, no. That's not even the worst of it. 

    This book has a technicality that is similar to The Martian by Andy Weir, a book I greatly enjoyed. I found the science in Going Zero accessible and exciting, if somewhat fantastical and scary. It generated good discussion as it became the book I talked to everyone in my orbit about. You're welcome!

🔐📱👂🙉🪪

Reece's Book Club choice. It had an interesting premise and an engaging protagonist. Cassandra, a neuroatypical woman, gains the ability to time travel. Can she use it to engineer herself a happier, less lonely life? Cassie is losing her job, her living situation, and her boyfriend. A tragedy in her past haunts her. It took too long to get to the good part of the book. There is a thread of Greek mythology that hadme guessing if Cassandra was a modern day prophet. The set-up could have been more succinct and the action streamlined. It felt like the book couldn't decide what it wanted to be: romance, redemption, an exploration of being neuroatypical? In the end, I'm glad I finished it, but the book felt uneven, like a cake baked in a wonky oven; some parts were overdone, others underdone, with occasional spots of just right.

🏺🏛️⏳💔

Many Books Where Someone Dies 🐋🦊🐰🧙‍♂️

SPOILERS AHEAD

    Every book I've read this week featured the death of someone crucial. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling is book six in the Harry Potter series, the second to the last. It stands in a difficult position of setting up the final book, but not outshining it and still telling a worthwhile story. It accomplishes that. The book ends with the death of Dumbledore, the protector of Hogwarts and Harry Potter. The defeat of Voldemort is all up to Harry now. 

    As a reader, I know Rowling is willing to sacrifice beloved characters, making for intense, compelling reading. I badly want to read the final book even though I've read it before. Not enough to actually pay for it, though. 

🧙‍♂️☠️🐍😵

    In The Last Devil to Die, the fourth in the Thursday Murder Club series by Richard Osman, the adventures of four dissimilar seniors continue. In this book, I learned about the antique field, more about Alzheimer's and dementia, the background of Ibraham, how drugs travel into England, and online romance fraud. It's a lot. Like the previous books, The Last Devil to Die is humorous, with unexpected hijinks. Osman tackles the nature of death and the morality of euthanasia. It gave the book a different, deeper flavor from the previous ones. Even though the main characters are elderly, in their late 70s or early 80s, they change and learn. This keeps Joyce, Elizabeth, Ron, and Ibraham exciting and me wanting to read more of their escapades.

🦊👺👴🏻👵🏻⚱️😵

 

    Reviews of Whalefall by Daniel Kraus have compared it to The Martian in its scientific depth and imagining. The premise of Whalefall is a scuba diver is swallowed by a sperm whale. It is set in the Monterey, California area. I lived there for a year and a half and recognized many locations. John Steinbeck's book Cannery Row features prominently in the book and the setting. When I lived there, I also read Steinbeck. It seemed appropriate.

    The young scuba diver, Jay, is trying to find his father's remains in the Pacific. The story moves between Jay's predicament of how to get outside of the whale and recalling his relationship with his erratic, larger-than-life, recently deceased father. The story is one dangerous episode after another. I read it in a day because I wanted to know what happened. 

🐋🤿🐳😵

    When I heard my grandson was reading The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, I also wanted to be one of the cool kids. I enjoyed other Kate DiCamillo's books like Because of Winn Dixie and Tales of Despereaux. Edward, the well-dressed china bunny and narrator, did experience a journey of discovery both in the world and in his heart. Initially, he is a self-centered, adored toy who needs to learn to love others. It is hard, and he finds it costly, but, in the end, it is worth it. He does go through extraordinary adventures.

    This was not my favorite Kate DiCamillo's book. Edward Tulane grew in his ability to love others; however, I didn't warm up to him. My ten-year-old grandson likes the book, so I may not be the target audience. The story gives many opportunities to discuss love, sacrifice, and death. 

🐰❤️💔❤️🐰

😵

 

One Book Week, But it was a Looooong One 🪄🧙‍♂️😵

 

        In reading a series, I find myself comparing one against the other. Which is the best? Which is my least favorite? I feel differently about the books this time around.

SPOILERS AHEAD

    Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling feels different from the series' previous books. Harry is an angry teen, and his problems and concerns are more mature. The dangers are more significant, and the difficulties more complex. In past readings of the series, I enjoyed book five less than the others. Harry loses his optimism, becoming cynical and angry. Considering what he's faced, it feels authentic.

    As I read through the series this time, I realized that each book ends with the death of a character. In book one, it is Professor Quirrell; in book two, it is Tom Riddle's diary--not a person--but definitely a character; in book three, it's Buckbeak; in book four, it's Cedric Diggery; and in book five it's Sirius Black. There are many more deaths to come. 

    I've read criticism of Rowling's choice to have characters die in a young adult series. For me, it gives the series gravitas and tension as the possibility of the death of a beloved character exists. A mark of good writing to me is causing me to care about a character. I remember reading Sounder by William H. Armstrong and Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls and being devasted by the dogs' deaths. I didn't regret reading them; I still remember them fifty years later. Children's books can be a way to talk about life's painful events before they happen and can be a source of solace. 

🪄🧙‍♂️😵

🧘‍♀️ A Famous Travel Book and🫙One of the Weirdest Books I've Read

 

    The first stop in my book club's journey of reading travel writers is Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I listened to the audiobook read by Elizabeth Gilbert. Her writing is humorous and insightful. She likes to delve into her motivations. If you are uptight and repressed, it can get uncomfortable. So I was uncomfortable. 

    I find people either love this book or hate this book. I fall in between. I like how she tames her inner critical voices by addressing them directly and reasoning with them. 

    I had some beliefs challenged by her understanding of spirituality and God. There is a common metaphor for religion. Several blind men are brought to an elephant; each feels a different part and thinks he understands what an elephant is. One feels the trunk and proclaims the elephant is like a hose. One feels a leg and thinks the elephant is like a tree. The point of the story is they are all wrong. Someone wiser and more knowledgeable is needed to reveal the whole elephant. It feels like Elizabeth Gilbert believes she sees the elephant. I find her story vacillates between humility and I-know-better. It can be annoying because it feels disingenuous. 

    Still, she tells an engaging story of her adventures.

🍝🪷🏝️ 🧘‍♀️

If you're interested, here is a website that talks about Elephant illustration:

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevin-wax/3-ways-the-blind-men-and-the-elephant-story-backfires/

🐘

    I like a weird book, and Things in Jars by Jess Kidd is one of the strangest I've ever read. It is difficult to categorize. It contains historical fiction, suspense, mystery, fantasy, and horror. The main character, Bridie Devine, is an Irish immigrant to Victorian London who works as a female private detective. The book moves between Bridie solving her current case of a missing child and gradually revealing Bridie's childhood. I like Bridie because she is unconventional, and fiercely fights for the abused and exploited. Even though Things in Jars is teeming with fantastical characters, it feels authentic. She is helped by the ghost of a boxer and her seven-foot-tall housemaid. The story can be gruesome, with detailed discussions of dead bodies, surgeries, and autopsies. I found it fast-paced and riveting. 

🧜‍♀️👻🫙🐌💧

🍁🇨🇦 Canadian Mystery, Facing Anxiety 😬, and Juicy, Literary Family Drama 🌊🐳

 

   At its heart, Every City is Every Other City by John McFetridge is a missing-person story. Gordon Stuart is a Canadian whose primary job is as a movie location scout. When that season ebbs, he works as a private detective for a security firm called OBC. Gordon doesn't like to get involved in the action, but circumstances force a change. I found this book quirky, but enjoyable. Its flavor is deeply Canadian. (If I had a bent toward poor metaphors, I might say as Canadian as maple syrup and ice hockey--thank goodness I'm not!) I found the book engaging. I liked the main character and learned about the life of a location scout, the city of Toronto, and the suicide rates of Canadian men of a certain age. 

🍁🇨🇦🏒🎥🎬🎞️

    It took me a while to read The Anxiety Opportunity: How Worry is the Doorway to Your Best Self by Curtis Chang. I heard him interviewed on The Allender Center Podcast and found his ideas intriguing. Chang is someone who has anxiety. He was a church pastor in San Francisco, but had to resign because of crippling anxiety. I also have anxiety and have read many books and articles aimed at anxious Christians. Most advice boils down to this: stop being anxious and trust in God more. The try-harder-do-better approach hasn't worked for me and, in fact, contributes to my anxiety. Chang's perspective is that anxiety can lead to deeper faith and trust. He gives practical advice like getting out in nature, eating and sleeping well, and talking with a therapist. He urges the reader to have the courage to face the roots of anxiety in their lives and also to understand God is not disappointed in them. I think I will always be an anxious soul, and instead of beating myself up, I want to pivot to the question of what my anxiety is showing me. Chang's encouraging book helped me consider what my anxiety can do for me and know God is with me. 

😬😳😰🥺🫨

    Little Monsters by Adrienne Brodeur is well-written literary fiction about a perfect-looking family with secrets living on Cape Cod. It contains thoughtful images and language with complex, somewhat unbalanced people. The mental state of the main characters gives the book an edgy suspense. Little Monsters made me think about the roles of men and women, art, the ocean, whales, and Cape Cod. Brodeur is an experienced, talented writer that I want to read more of.

🌊🐳🐋⛵️

🏞️ Travel Writing (the First of Many) and Two Harry Potter Books!🪄🪄

 

   My book club's theme for this year is travel writing. Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to_Zion Journey through America's Nation Parks by Conor Knighton. I picked this book to listen to on a car trip with my DH. As someone who has visited several national parks (Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon), I enjoyed "revisiting" them through the narration. Conor Knighton (http://www.conorknighton.com/) is a television news reporter who experienced a devasting breakup. He decided to travel for a year, visiting National Parks and reporting occasionally on the CBS Morning News. I thought the book would be, and this park is fantastic for this, and this park is excellent for that and was surprised in a good way. He organizes the parks topically: Sunrise, Water, Mystery, Diversity, Food, etc. I learned new things and have parks I want to visit, like the Great Sand Dunes, perhaps the quietest place in America. 

🏕️🌲🌳🏞️🥾

    Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, by J.K. Rowling, is the favorite in the series of a friend of mine, Gabriel Soll. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5.Harry_Potter_and_the_Prisoner_of_Azkaban?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=f4Wh4OPJOO&rank=1#SocialReviews  

It sparked the question in me: which HP is my favorite? I can see why Gabe likes this one. As the third in the series, I'm familiar with the characters and the main problem of Voldemort's desire to kill Harry and rule the world. In this book, the three friends still feel innocent of larger evil at work. Rowling writes well in both the present story and the meta-story. She grows her characters up from ten to twelve years old. The magical world she's created is believable and fascinating. 

    As an organizer, I wonder if she uses spreadsheets to keep track of everyone? Did she use software? Did she hire someone to help with consistency? 

    Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire takes a darker turn. A fellow student dies, and the evil forces gain strength. This book reveals much about Voldemort's earlier reign and how terrible and terrified everyone felt. Hagrid reassures Harry that they will be okay as long as they have Dumbledore. I like the values that Rowland points Harry toward--loyalty, friendship, and courage. Good stuff!

🪄🧙‍♀️🧙‍♂️🏆🐍🚂