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.
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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.
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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.
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