For My Dad

 

    The Monster at the End of this Book by Jon Stone is a book I associate with my dad. It is a children's book that breaks the fourth wall. Grover talks to the reader, trying to convince them not to turn the pages because there is a monster at the end of the book! I remember my dad reading it to my three-year-old sister after he came back from being deployed in South East Asia. He is the standard of how to read a book to a child.  Funny voices are required. When Grover yells, my dad yells. Dad invested wholeheartedly with enthusiasm and his audience appreciated it. My sister's face was rapt, and I could see her concern for Grover's plight.

    Many years later, when I had my own children, he read the book to them in the same way, and they loved it and him.

    Yesterday, my dad passed away. On his final day, my daughter sat beside him with her little one and read The Monster at the End of this Book. It was a good, sad day.

    I am a writer seeking to be published and this month I was. It was inspired by my dad. Here is a link. tools I'm grateful my dad got to celebrate that milestone with me. 

    Here is a link to my brother's lovely tribute to my dad: https://www.facebook.com/george.laskey

    

Older Murder, Newer Spies

 

    Louise Penny is one of my favorite mystery writers. Still Life is the start of her long-running series about Inspector Gamache and the village of Three Pines. Re-reading it was surprising because Penny does a great job of evolving her characters. Seeing them in their beginnings made me appreciate how she matured her cast over the series, but kept the essence of Inspector Gamache. I heartily recommend this series because it's well-done, humorous, and mysterious. 

👏👏👏

    American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson is not your typical spy novel. I find most spy novels to have a noble protagonist, but Marie Mitchell is trying to decide where her loyalties lie. The "enemy" who she loves or her country who has betrayed her and her family. Wilkinson tells a suspenseful tale with good action. She jumps around in time, giving the story a jolting quality that works well. American Spy is an entertaining book that also made me think about American foreign policy and the FBI. Impressive. 

                                                                            🕵🏾‍♀️🕵🏾‍♀️🕵🏾‍♀️

Surprise To Read Only One Book This Week

 

    I am a fan of C. S. Lewis. So when I encountered Surprised by Oxford: A Memoir by Carolyn Weber, I was intrigued because the title references Lewis's book Surprised by Joy. It is a memoir of his childhood and conversion. Weber's book is also a conversion story: hers, which happens at Oxford. She is a poor scholarship student from Canada. Her childhood has given her good cause to doubt the kindness of others. 

The writing is erudite; she's a student at Oxford, after all. Its plot drew me along. Her wrestling with Christianity feels authentic. Woven throughout the book are interactions with deep theological questions--why are we here? Do we matter? Does anything matter? Does God care? How do we know? Frequently, I found myself thinking: that's a good answer. Weber swims in deep waters, and, at times, it is a bit tedious. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book and gave it five stars. Weber dealt knowledgeably and compassionately with those inside the faith and those outside the faith. Good job. 

🤩⭐️🌟⭐️🤩

Rollicking Adventure and Quiet Melancholy

    As I reflect on the two books I read this week, they are about women seeking change. They live in different times, Veronica Speedwell in the Victorian Era and May Attaway in the current day, but they both desire more. They want to understand their pasts, engage in their futures, and escape the dull present. The books are dissimilar, one a spirited mystery and the other a contemplative novel, but both portray women courageously exploring life. 

 

    Reading A Curious Beginning (Veronica Speedwell Mystery #1) was like a tour of meet-cute tropes. Veronica Speedwell is a newly orphaned woman in the Victorian era, where women can not be responsible for themselves, but Ms. Speedwell is enlightened and independent. Are we surprised to find this gets her into trouble? We are not. A man close to her is murdered, and she determines to find out why, but her reluctant, annoying, darkly handsome protector, Stoker, is the number one suspect. I found Veronica Speedwell to be an anachronistic character. She would be at home in the 21st century. Raybourn asked herself what readers like and then stirred those together: murder, orphans, circuses, royalty, dogs, and Scotland Yard. The plot of the book is outrageously wild. It is a thrilling, madcap, break-neck plot rocking read. I'm not sure I will continue reading the series, but if I get too many sad, tragic books in a row, this is where I'd go to be cheered up and entertained. 🔎💃🏻🕺🏻

    My daughter mentioned she was reading Rules for Visiting by Jessica Francis Kane, so I picked it up. Even though it clearly states it's a novel, I kept thinking it was a memoir. It is written in the first person and has an intimate, shy way of communicating. It is midlife for May, the protagonist, who questions her lack of connection with others. Friends she's made through the years she only sees online. Their lives seem glossy, lush, and complete, while hers is barely peeking above the soil. Kane has done outstanding research about plants and trees using themes of growth and environment impressively. I found this book vulnerable, winning, and warm. 

🌳🌳🌳

This is a picture of the Fortingall Yew, possibly the oldest tree in the world. It plays a crucial role in Rules for Visiting.

Some New Reads and Some Re-Reads

    I am fortunate to have a book club with my sister. We meet on Zoom. because we live several states apart. This year we are reading murder mysteries. We started with The Thursday Murder Club, one of the best books I've read this year. I re-read it for book club and savored how Richard Osman dropped hints and clues about the murders throughout the story. The lovely, quirky characters made me laugh again. Even though they are in their 70s and 80s, they evolve and change like strong characters do. 

I count a book as highly successful if you can re-read it and enjoy it, but better still if you see details you initially missed. Richard Osman for the win! 📚⭐️📚⭐️📚⭐️

                                                     

    I don't know if it was because I had a busy week or because I paused reading Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions by Mario Giordano for The Thursday Murder Club, but this didn't sparkle for me. I like to finish books, so I finished this one, but despite being humorous and set in exotic Sicily, it didn't grab me. It had good elements: fun characters, puzzling mystery, and hot policemen. It is the first in a series, but I won't be reading the others because life is short, and they are lots of books. 🦁🦁🦁

    Several grandchildren visited this week, and I read The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson many times. I reviewed it earlier here. in-which-i-time-travel.html As part of fun things to do with Nana, we went to Barnes & Noble to get a book. I found this sequel to The Gruffalo, The Gruffalo's Child. I bought it for my home collection. The Gruffalo warns his child about the legendary fearsome mouse living in the deep, dark woods. The child becomes bored and ventures out to see this mouse for himself. What's going to happen? 🐭🐭🐭

Horse--One Book Week with a One Word Title.

 

    Geraldine Brooks is a talented and accomplished writer, and her latest book, Horse, shows her skill at translating her research into a well-told story. She weaves together several storylines that coalesce around a famous racehorse named Lexington. She tackles the thorny issue of writing from the perspective of a black person, even though she is white. I read a review of Horse in the Altlantic by Jordan Kisner addressing that topic. Here is a link: 638449 

  The two main black characters, Jarrett and Theo, don't evolve over the course of the book. My guess, and it's only a guess, is Brooks didn't want to give them any deep flaws to overcome for fear of misrepresenting black men. On the other hand, Horse is a carefully crafted puzzle. She starts with several seemly unrelated pieces and then lays them together to form a coherent, clever picture. I enjoyed it.🏇🏇🏇

Aliens, Tennis, and Hospitality

    Light Years from Home by Mike Chen is sci-fiction that revolves around relationships. The narration pings between brother Jakob, who's been missing for fifteen years, his twin sister, Kass, who believes Jakob flaked out to do his own thing, and Evie, the younger sister, who is convinced he was abducted by aliens. This drives the sisters apart. Then Jakob returns, claiming he needs their help to save the universe. Is it abduction or mental illness? Chen's fresh take on an abduction story is what happens to those left behind? It moved slowly at times, building drama and meeting setbacks, but overall I enjoyed the story. The hurting family has emotional depth and veracity, plus the tension of possible invading aliens. 👽👽

    Taylor Jenkins Reid's latest book, Carrie Soto is Back feels very timely. It is the story of a tennis champion who returns to playing at 37. She wants to defend her record number of grand slams. As I read the book, I thought of Serena Williams retiring from tennis. It's hard not to. Reid does an excellent job writing nail-biting tennis matches. She educates the reader about tennis--though I still don't quite understand about "breaking" your opponent's serve--and then writes breathless accounts of tennis battles. The plot is tight and compelling. Soto is a driven woman isolated from others. She is a figure both admired and loathed. Winning is how she defines her worth. This creates a toxic brew of ambition and animosity within her.  🎾🎾🎾🎾

    There is controversy surrounding this book. Carrie Soto is a Latina character, and Reid is white. Here is a link addressing that: readers-raise-alarms-about-taylor-jenkins-reids-upcoming-book

 

    In her latest book, The Gospel Comes with a House Key: Practicing Radically Ordinary Hospitality in Our Post-Christian World, Rosaria Butterfield makes a strong argument for generous hospitality. The book imparts the theology of hospitality with many anecdotes from her personal life. She is a hospitality ninja. I felt inferior. As I read on, I gained perspective. She is speaking from several years--perhaps decades--of experience and mentoring in this area. Her views are well articulated and deeply thought out. I found the book both challenging and inspiring. You can do this and get moving! 🥘🍲😋

From Mysteries to Misery to Making

 

  I was ecstatic to read the latest installment of the Thursday Murder Club, The Bullet that Missed by Richard Osman. His quirky, complex characters and the ridiculous situation they get into make me laugh out loud. My minor complaint is there are many characters, and I get confused if I've encountered this or that person in his previous books. Is there something crucial I'm supposed to remember? In the third book, the Murder Club takes on a cold case of a missing-presumed-dead reporter who was about to break a huge story. There is also continuing fallout from previous cases. Spicing things up is a dash of romance amongst the senior set. 👵🏻 ❤️👴🏻

   The Dry by Jane Harper was also a mystery. It appears a struggling farmer, Luke, kills his wife, son, and himself. His estranged best friend, Aaron Falk, returns to the rural town that drove him away to attend the funeral. He gets roped into investigating the deaths. Harper paced this book well. Luckily I started it early in the day because it sucked me in, and I didn't want to stop until I reached the end. I listened to the audiobook, and the accents added to the Australian setting. It was a tense, secretive story that kept me guessing till the end. 

  Both the mystery books I read this week were stellar, but in different ways. Reading them one after the other caused me to appreciate the skill it takes to build a compelling mystery and the various paths authors take to achieve their goals. 🤩

  I find Elizabeth Strout to be a gifted author. When I read her books, I am wrapped in the sadness and struggle of her characters because their voices are that authentic. Lucy by the Sea continues the story of Lucy Barton, a fresh widow who lives in New York when the pandemic strikes. Her ex-husband William convinces her to go with him to Maine until it passes. About three weeks or so, right? Strout captures the terror and unpredictability so well. I returned to the world of washing my groceries, isolation, and worry. Lucy has a complicated relationship with her rural roots and family. This cripples her enjoyment of the family she's created as she battles self-doubt and anxiety. It is written in the first person. Having read the previous books in the series, I feel I'm residing in Lucy's head, hearing her thoughts and wrestling with her concerns. Her self-talk is abysmal, realistic, and too much like my own. She makes me feel my latent sadness and fear as I enjoy her first-rate writing.😢😱

  I'm so glad the next book I picked up was this one.

    Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic was the antidote to depressing inner monologue of Lucy Barton. Gilbert kicks butt and takes names when it comes to facing her fears surrounding creativity. This was my second read through this book and I liked it even better this time. Her enthusiasm and just-try attitude fired me up to invest in writing. I am inspired by her letter to fear because it is a negative self talk neutralizer. 😌 

Here is a cute video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utW2cq17nBk

    What a great reading week I had with four stellar, wildly different books. 📚

The Mystery of Listening to Ghosts 👻👻👻

 

    I read the second in the Perveen Mistry series, The Satapur Moonstone, by Sujata Massey. It was as good as the first. link to that review here Maybe better because a return reader had been introduced to the world of 1920s India. This adventure takes place outside of Bombay in the princely state of Satapur, where members of the ruling family are mysteriously dying. Perveen contends with hazardous travel, dangerous animals, and a tangled tale of who-done-it. I was guessing until the end. There is a third one that I'm excited to read.🥻🔎

    I want to be a better listener--as long as I don't have to put down my phone. That candy is going to crush itself. 🍬🔨 You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters by Kate Murphy makes an excellent case for lifting my eyes from the screen to pay attention to others' words and their expressions and body language. I found the book readable, relatable, and applicable. I would recommend it to anyone seeking to connect with others: and who isn't after Covid lockdowns? Candy Crush doesn't feed the soul.👂🙉 

    I anticipated The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston to be a heavy literary book. I was so wrong. It is a paranormal romance fantasy. As Halloween approaches, this would be a perfect book for a romantic book club. It has impossible love and ghosts--lots-- and a midnight stroll in a cemetery with a ghost! The heroine has the rare ability to see ghosts. In the small town where she grew up, it got her labeled as the town weirdo, even though her parents ran a respectable funeral home. Right?! I found this book to be dexterously put together with ticking time bomb plot devices, captivating puzzles, chaos sorted, and wrongs righted.  Plus, of course, true love. 👻❤️

Traffic Jam

 

    Sometimes at my house, we debate what is and isn’t science fiction. I ran across an intriguing quote that generated good discussion:

“A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam.” – Frederik Pohl

    Upgrade by Blake Crouch is a prediction of the traffic jam, and it’s a good one. It asks a great question: if humanity were more intelligent could we solve our most pressing problems like the climate crisis? Logan Ramsey is the conflicted, troubled superhero to answer that question. He works for the Genome Protection Agency. In a world where gene modification has run rampant, someone has to reign in the crazies. For Logan, it’s personal because his mother, with his help, caused the most significant, deadliest genetic disaster. He is seeking to atone when he is genetically modified: upgraded. Will being smarter, stronger, and faster equip him to save the world?

    I would call this hardcore sci-fi because it only uses what our world has or might have. There is no external help from aliens, witches, or hobbits. It is fast-paced and provocative. It suffers slightly from a lack of warmth between characters, but Blake makes a tremendous effort to infuse it with emotion. 

 

    I want to be a better writer, and to that end, I try to read books that educate and encourage me. Charlie Jane Anders’ book title snagged me. Never Say You Can’t Survive: How to Get Through Hard Times by Making Up Stories appealed to my sense of tragedy. This book is a mash-up of memoir, instruction, and encouragement. She leans into taking the emotions of anger and helplessness to fuel creativity. I would listen to several chapters and feel fired up to write. 

    I love mysteries. My book club is doing an entire year of mysteries, and I’m so excited! The Widows of Malabar Hill: A Mystery of 1920s Bombay by Sujata Massey is a terrific mystery. It is deeply researched and depicts the smells, clothing, food, culture, and topography of Bombay crisply and immersively. It can be a little dry at first due to world building, but it keeps the action going. Paveen Mistry is the first woman lawyer in Bombay and because of past experiences she fights fiercely for the rights of women. She is an intelligent, creative detective. I liked this book because, even though it is heavy on history, Massey crafts a credible mystery that was a terrific read. And there is more of them!

Mostly Mysteries 🔎

    What a good reading week I've had! I read three excellent books.

 

    The Latecomer by Jean Hanff Korelitz surprised me. At first, I didn't like it because it was full of unpleasant, selfish people, but then they grew up. When I googled The Latecomer, auto-complete said things like: is it true? I had those questions as well because Korelitz grounded the book in reality. Outsider artist Achilles Gildo Rizzoli's art is a critical ingredient in the plot. achilles-g-rizzoli Other "real life" characters had me checking to see if I was reading a novel. One review called it a "comic novel," but I found it a portrayal of family members trying to get their needs met at the expense of others. It is an intriguing book that I enjoyed. I frequently googled the people and events mentioned. It was intricate, thought-provoking, and unpredictable. I don't know if Korelitz would say this, but I found the story's moral to be that therapy can make you a better person. It worked for the characters in this book. 

    I listened to the audiobook Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto. A disclaimer at the beginning explained that the English the aunties spoke wasn't intended to mock Asian people, but to represent them. I learned so much from this book! The characters are Indo-Chinese, meaning in the past, family ancestors migrated from China to Indonesia and then to an English-speaking area like Hong Kong or the United States. The Aunties speak Chinese and Indonesian fluently, but English is more challenging. Many funny moments revolve around the Aunties not understanding what someone means in English and Meddie not comprehending what the Aunts are saying in Chinese and Indonesian. The main character, Meddelin Chan, is a mid-twenty-year-old photographer who helps with the family wedding business. Her male cousins all move away as soon as possible and encourage Meddie to do the same. Meddie believes there is a curse on her family that causes all the men to leave--all the aunts are divorced. So when Meddelin accidentally kills a date her mother set her up with, she turns to her aunts, and they ride to rescue. This is a screwball comedy book that also does an excellent job as a mystery. 

    Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke was recommended on the podcast What Should I Read Next several times, and I've had it on hold for over a month. It was worth the wait. Darren Mathews' family has lived in Texas for generations. He dropped out of law school to start the journey to becoming a Texas Ranger after the murder of James Byrd Jr, a Texas black man, by three white men from the same town. Byrd was dragged behind a pickup for several miles until he was decapitated. Mathews is pulled in several directions. He tries to live by the Ranger code, but circumstances make it difficult. He is called upon to look into the death of a black man in the small town of Lark, Texas, but only when a young white woman is found dead days after the first death. I gave this book five stars because it tells a suspenseful, tangled story. I was guessing until the end who the killer was. I knew who I wanted it to be. This is the first in a series, and I can't wait for more.