Same Song, Second Verse or Same Authors, Next Book

 

    This week, I continued to read the series Murderbot Diaries and Flavia Albia novels. 

    I'm almost caught up with Lindsey Davis' series about detective (called informer) Flavia Albia set in ancient Rome. A Comedy of Terrors, by Linsey Davis, takes place at Saturnalia, a Roman holiday that feels like Christmas. There are greens, presents, family get-togethers, and, of course, murder. Davis paints a full-orbed picture of Rome--a big messy city populated with diverse, comical characters that sometimes kill each other. 

    Davis has written over 30 books--about a book a year--and they do not disappoint. 

    Network Effect, by Martha Wells, is a full-length novel about Murderbot. He is a construct of biology and technology. He reminds me of a cyborg, but is likable. Previous books were novellas about 150 pages long, but Network Effect is 350 pages, but it doesn't hinder Well's brisk pacing. Reading through the series, I can see Murderbot maturing in his capacity to care for and connect (See what I did there?) with others. I hope there will be a Netflix (or similar) series. It has the right ingredients: superpowers, a desire to be autonomous, seeking a purpose in a strange world, aliens, evil corporations, and adolescent angst. All good stuff.

    I'm not sure what drew me to The Six: The Lives of The Mitford Sisters by Laura Thompson. It is a biography of six British aristocratic sisters who came of age during the 1930s and World War II. Thompson educates the reader about the political extremes of the time: Fascism, Socialism, Nazism, and Communism. In the face of twenty percent unemployment, many of these ideologies were vying to be the prevailing policy in Great Britain. The times were divisive, and opinions were firmly held. One sister became a fervent Nazi and friend to Adolf Hitler, one's husband was the leader of the British Union of Facist, and another a dedicated Communist. Their lives and marriages were tumultuous and enthralling. It was an entrance to an eye-level understanding of Britain during this time and a chance to read some juicy life stories. Thompson called the sisters the Kardashians of their time. 😉

What I do for history!

Mystery, History, and Sci-Fi. Oh My!

 

    After weeks of reading weighty subject matter, I have moved on to my comfort reads of mostly mystery and sci-fi. There was a time when I read mystery books almost exclusively, but now I'm mature and try to read Things that Matter. The Grove of the Caesars (Flavia Albia #8) by Lindsey Davis is part of a series I have enjoyed for years. If you like mystery series, Lindsey is really good at what she does. She has two series taking place in Rome in the 1st century. The first is about Didius Falco--former military turned detective, and the second series features his adopted daughter, Flavia Albia. She is intelligent, sarcastic, and cynical--my kind of woman--and the mysteries are intriguing. I'm currently reading the next book in the series.

  

    My departure from the "fun" stuff is Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier. This is my book club book for April. It is based on a painting by Vermeer and was also made into a movie with Scarlet Johansson. I haven't seen the movie yet. My art person, Noelle, informed me that not much is known about Vermeer. He only produced thirty-four paintings, mostly of women. The painting is compared to DaVinci's Mona Lisa. It makes sense. It is hard to tell what the woman is feeling or thinking, but she is arresting. 

    The book was more fiction than history. The tension comes from several love triangles and the oppression of women and servants.

          

    I continued the sci-fi series Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. I read the first one earlier this year. search This week, I read Artificial Condition (#2), Rogue Protocol (#3), and Exit Strategy (#4). They were short, more like novellas with about 150 pages each. It is a coming-of-age story. It displays a favorite idea of mine (and others how_stories_change_brain) that story changes you. He is sarcastic, cynical, and lethal, but with a kind heart that he tries to hide and a fondness for soap operas: stories. He is an evolving protagonist and engaging. I have the next one in the series ready to read.

On a final note, Happy Birthday, Dear Beloved Husband, who is the evolving, good-hearted love interest in the book of my life.❤️🤓

    

Marriage is Hard and Robbery as a Career Path

    Are you familiar with the phenomenon of learning about someone or something and then seeing it everywhere? That is me with Heather Havrilesky. I heard about Foreverland: On the Devine Tedium of Marriage when Havrilesky was interviewed on the podcast Marriage Therapy Radio. I was intrigued and purchased the book with a precious Audible credit. I was initially disappointed because I thought it would be a Hurray-For-Marriage book; however, it is more raw and honest, showing a marriage in its complexity: in its divine tedium. It is a memoir of her fifteen-year marriage. This week I was listening to the podcast Death, Sex, and Money, and Havrilesky was on the panel  She is an advice columnist. She reminds me of Cheryl Strayed in her humorous guidance. I'm sure you will be hearing her everywhere.

    I like books with quirky plots or premises, and Something Missing is a ten on the odd scale. Martin has "clients" that he repeatedly robs from, not the usual big things, but little things like laundry detergent, toilet paper, and cereal. It is never said, but I think Martin has OCD. He is overly meticulous; his attention to detail has tipped from functional to crippling. When the book begins, Martin is emotionally isolated, but he is good-hearted and cares for the people he steals from. Unfortunately, he begins to invest in bettering their lives, and his carefully controlled life descends into chaos. Matthew Dick created an unusual character and made me care about him. I'm glad I read it.

I'm Reading Writers Who Write About Writers

The two books I read this week made me think writers can be neurotic self-absorb people--sometimes in a fun way and sometimes in a way that makes you want to stop reading mid-book to do something less depressing like read Jude the Obscure or The Road.

 

    After last week's heavy books (i-am-disturbed-war-violence-and-climate.html), I eagerly read Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead by Elle Cosimano. It is the second in a series about a newly divorced, financially strapped, mother-of-two writer of romantic suspense novels. I have read a lot of mystery and suspense novels, but Cosimano kept me guessing--she does several insane plot twists--and had me laughing out loud. The book is descriptive and full of hijinks. A good combination of tension and relief that makes me like Cosimano.

    I like books that have non-standard plots. The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz was recommended as that type of book. This book is also about a writer. The main character had a mildly received first book, but couldn't build on that success. When we meet him, Jacob Finch Bonner, he is bitterly teaching writing at a small-time writer's program, and he hears a fantastic plot that he's sure will be a best seller. If only he'd thought of it. The proposed book never materializes because the student dies. So Jacob writes it and becomes a best-selling author who is guilt-ridden for what he has done. Did he "steal" the plot if the original author was dead, and why is he getting threats of exposure? Korelitz writes a killer story. It reminded me of a Hitchcock movie where you are not sure things will work out for the hero. Jacob becomes frozen and depressed mid-book. It was crushing, and I considered not finishing, but I persevered and was rewarded with a stunning ending. It has a slow start, but when it catches fire, it's incredible. 

I Am Disturbed: War, Violence, and Climate Change.

    Some people have multiple books going at once, and I am one of them. The result is I finished five books this week. I didn't start them all this week. 

    At the recommendation of a fellow writer, I have read Lisa Cron's book Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel (Before You Waste Three Years Writing 327 Pages That Go Nowhere) for about six months. It was an instructive book about writing, and I think my fiction will be stronger and better for reading it. She is engaging, encouraging, and she has a master plan for writing a compelling novel. We'll see if it works.😉

 Mannequins Dressed for the Window: Haiku Secrets

by Gary Hotham

    My husband has a friend that is a published Haiku writer. Here is a link https://haikupedia.org/article-haikupedia/gary-hotham/ about him, his books, and accomplishments. He sent DH his latest publication. While sorting the mail, I opened it intending to read one or two and, instead, read the entire book while standing in the dining room. Hotham's work is lovely. I've had the privilege of hearing him read his work, and I'm a fan. Here is my favorite from Mannequins Dressed for the Window: Haiku Secrets. (I hope it is formatted correctly.)

penetrating an old story

new book odors

    Martha Wells's book, All Systems Red, is the first in The Murder Bot Diaries. It is an entertaining quick read (144 pages or 3 hours long). This is excellent sci-fiction and also a who-done-it. There are many in the series, and I already have the second one on hold. 

    City of Thieves by David Benioff and Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doer are both weighty and emotional books telling compelling, disturbing stories. 

    Benioff's novel reads like a memoir. It reportedly tells of his Russian grandfather's time in the siege of Leningrad during World War II. I found an article (https://nymag.com/arts/books/features/47040/) where Benioff explains it's all fiction, even the relationship with the grandfather. He goes a long way to creating this illusion by giving the main character the same surname as his own. It effectively makes the events of the novel--cannibalism, sexual violence, animal cruelty, and war violence--have a significant impact. It landed hard for me, partly because I read it the week Russia invaded Ukraine. I read City of Thieves to evaluate it for my historical fiction book club. It's not a good fit, but it is a powerful well-written novel that is too difficult for me personally to discuss. 

    Anthony Doerr wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning book All the Light We Cannot See. It is among the best books I've read, so I was excited for Cloud Cuckoo Land. Doerr is a master at weaving together the storylines. This book is about five different people in three different eras. Two are involved in the siege of Constantinople, two are present day, and one is on a spaceship in the not too distant future. They are all connected by Diogenes's ancient book called Cloud Cuckoo Land. I like novels with non-linear plots. I think it's tough to make it work and do it well, but Doerr does for me, but it can be a challenge keeping all the plots straight. I looked at some reviews on Goodreads. It mainly was given five stars or one star. It is long--over 600 pages--and painful. The depictions of violence and the effects of climate change are distressing, but in a good way.

    There are some things worth reading, even though they are disturbing. I think City of Thieves, Cloud Cuckoo Land, and last week's book The Invention of Wings are troubling books. They put me inside suffering characters and let me see and feel awful things. I hope that reading them will compel me to care about others and, from that caring, to act. Unlike the people in Ukraine, I get to take a break and read something less emotionally taxing.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I'm in a season of reading thought-provoking books.

 The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green is a collection of essays. Green can rip his heart out of his chest and then write poignantly about how it bleeds. The topics are wide-ranging: Cholera to Icelandic sports to climate change. Each essay concludes with a star rating of the subject. Cholera gets one star. ⭐️ Depression gets one star. ⭐️ Love gets five stars. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

"We all know how loving ends. But I want to fall in love with the world anyway, to let it crack me open. I want to feel what there is to feel while I am here." John Green.

It was engaging and provocative.

Much like the other book I read this week, The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd.

 

Kidd juxtaposes the historical Sarah Grimke--daughter of a slave-owning family in Charleston--with a fictional enslaved person owned by the family named Handful/Hetty. The two lives are intertwined when Handful is given to Sarah on her 10th birthday. The writing is excellent. Each woman has a distinctive voice that tells the story of slavery and enslaver. The book brims with the burning desire to be seen, valued, and free. I stopped reading for a few days because I was worried about Handful, and I didn't see how there could be a happy ending for her. 

The invention of Wings is the March book for my book club. Great choice.  

Non-Fiction That Feels Like Fiction and Fiction That Feels Like Non-Fiction: A Jacob's Ladder

 

Earlier in my life, I was a fiction reader with occasional forays into biography. I would put the fiction to non-fiction ratio at 95%-5%. Now, the spit is closer to 60%- 40%. Perhaps, because there are really captivating non-fiction writers, or I've matured in my capacity to read non-fiction. Still, I think it's Malcolm Gladwell: I love his books and podcast. Self-help books have become necessary. I need help, please someone tell me what to do. Also, I now read some theology books because my husband convinced me and Tim Keller is a list maker. 

The book Chasing the Thrill by Daniel Barbaris is a memoir, adventure story, and biography telling a bizarre story of wealthy octogenarian Forrest Finn's hidden treasure. Finn hid the treasure; wrote a poem and a biography. If you could solve the clues in the poem, you could find approximately a million dollars or more in gold coins and other artifacts. People died searching. Finn's family was threatened by those hoping to force Finn to tell them it's hiding place. I stressed reading the book. I worried about who might die and what might be destroyed or damaged in the search. It was probably hidden in a State or Federal Park. I kept my husband updated as I read it, and we disagreed on Finn's responsibility. I thought Finn should recover the treasure to save further death and possible injury to his family, but my husband seemed more engaged by the mystery and adventure. A classic problem of opposites attract that we've wrestled with as a couple. I like security; he likes adventure. He gets me out of the house, and I make sure we have clean underwear when we go. 

There is research showing reading fiction can make you more empathetic. https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/how-reading-fiction-increases-empathy-and-encourages-understanding

I agree that fiction can give you perspectives on life that are unimaginable. Hell of a Book by Jason Mott creates understanding about being black in America. In that sense, Hell of a Book was painful to read, but Mott pulled me through his novel with intrigue and humor. The book feels like a Jacob's ladder toy that continually unfolds, but there isn't a clear "top" or "bottom." Mott juggles story lines with dexterity landing them deftly in the ending, leaving me, as a reader, amazed. I am a sucker for award-winning books, and Hell of a Book won The National Book Award for Fiction. I think this will be one of my top books for the year.

                                                                                                                                                      

Have I Read My Best Book of 2022?

I think I may have read my best book of 2022. If not, then in the top three. It is The Sentence by Louis Erdrich. This is the first book I've read by Erdrich, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for fiction. I love prize winners. I hope some of their shininess rubs off on me! The title connotes a prison sentence the main character, Tookie, has served, but it also refers to a sentence written by Proust crucial for solving ghostly problems. An amazingly clever set of bookends at the beginning and end. The book probably used "sentence" in other ways that I didn't even catch. Everything in the book feels complex and nuanced. I have little exposure to indigenous Americans other than westerns and learning we've broken every treaty the U.S. made with them. The book has both tragedy and laugh-out-loud moments. One is an interaction between the indigenous Tookie and a woman seeking validation for being "sensitive." I will be reading more of Louise Erdrich.

I also read Emotional Inheritance: A Therapist, Her Patients, and The Legacy of Trauma by Galit Atlas. Atlas, a therapist, proposes that unprocessed trauma is carried in the body and behavior from the victims to their descendants, poisoning their lives. It is filed under Psychology, but it reads like a memoir. She draws from her life and her patients to expound on her ideas. She makes a compelling case. I found myself gaining awareness of generational trauma. For a book that discusses the Holocaust, childhood abuse, suicide, and other sorrows, it left me feeling hopeful.

This was a three-book week. I finished Carved in Ebony: Lessons From Women Who Shape Us by Jasmine L. Holmes. Holmes is a black woman writing about influential, but sometimes obscure, historic black women who were unknown to me. Holmes chose well. These women were teachers, missionaries, and activists personally risking much to further others. It was a Christmas gift to me that was worth the time to read, and it expanded my understanding. 

More About Stanley Tucci--I Might Have a Problem

 

    I am the kind of person that when I find something I like, I really like it, and anything else is a disappointment. I might be headed that way with food memoirs. Last week it was Stanley Tucci's book, Taste. This week was My Life in France, by Julia Child with her niece, Alex Prud'Homme. I got there by watching the movie Julie & Julia with Tucci as Paul Child. It is a foodie, romantic film that I heartily recommend for Valentine's Day.

    My Life in France is descriptive of French food and a compelling life. I would say that Paul and Julia Child were odd ducks, just the kind of people I love to read about. Julia's awakening to her grand passion late in life makes me want to risk (A little bit, let's not get crazy).

Comparatively, my other book of the week, a reread for book club, seemed bland. I would call A Gentleman in Moscow a kindly read with more plot than character development. Count Alexander Rostov is sentenced to house arrest, but he lives in a hotel. He is there from 1922 into the late '50s. Rostov is changed and shaped by his confinement, but it surprises me that he retains his equanimity. Perhaps the book's lesson is that your lock-down buddies make all the difference; I think I would have gotten murderous or crazy, but he becomes an even lovelier person.

I Want to go to a Stanley Tucci Dinner Party!

 

    I enjoyed Lindsay Ellis's book, Axiom's End, so much that I eagerly dove into the second in her Noumena series, Truth of the Divine. Unfortunately, it was not as good. It was ambitious. She contends with the idea of what makes a "person" in a thoughtful way, making me seriously consider should Outerspace aliens be given full rights as humans. Is there some kind of real-world application that Ellis is pointing towards?

Digression: Science fiction, at its best, can address cultural, moral, and ethical issues that are difficult to see because we are invested in our own tribe. I remember watching an original Star Trek series episode where the Enterprise crew is caught up in the conflict of two black and white aliens fighting to the death. They looked similar, but one was black on the right side, and the other was black on the left. ("Let That Be Your Last Battlefield," Star Trek, Season 3, Episode 15) I remember thinking, who would fight over something so silly?

 Truth of the Divine also addressed post-traumatic stress disorder and depression in ways that felt oppressive. Perhaps the writing was so realistic I internalized Cora's pain? The book was long--I think over-long--and dark. I don't regret reading it and will probably read the third book in the series. Ellis has created engaging characters and an odd, contorted plotline that has me curious about the ending. How is it going to land? 

    I wanted something lighter after Truth of the Divine and Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci was perfect. It is a memoir that made me hungry and wish my parents were Italian. I listened to the audiobook read by Tucci, and now I'm his secret BFFs. So I watched his movie--at his recommendation--The Big Night.  It has many big names: Tony Shaloub, Isabella Rosselini, Minnie Driver, Ian Holm, and more. I enjoyed playing one of my favorite games of what-else-have-I-seen-you-in that drives Dear Husband crazy. I found it on Amazon and gladly paid $3.99 to watch it. 

You're welcome, Stanley. 

Tucci is married to Felicity Blunt, Emily Blunt's sister. They met at the Krasinski/Blunt wedding and were married at George Cluney's Italian estate. He is good friends with Ryan Reynolds.  Many recipes, stories, and cocktails make the book both mouthwatering and jaw-dropping.

I found the book fun and crisply written. It was delicious. 🍝 

I am Confused by What I'm Reading

This week I read a book by William Kent Krueger. I have read another book by him, This Tender Land, and I considered it excellent literary fiction. I thought that's what Krueger writes. This made Northwest Angle puzzling to me. I kept thinking, this is reading like a murder mystery of an extremely unlucky family. Several family members had died violently before this book even started. I was surprised to find out Krueger also has a mystery series centered around Cork O'Connor. In this book, he is a retired sheriff. I started reading at book eleven, and now everything is ruined. I might go back and start at the beginning because Krueger writes exciting, twisty plots with distinctive characters. Though I have to brag that I guessed an evil perpetrator. This is rare.

Also, Beloved Husband is a geography nerd. When I told him about the book title, I had to, got to watch several Youtube videos about this geographic oddity. watch

 

Beloved Husband gave me Axiom's End for Christmas. He knows I love sci-fi, and this book did not disappoint. It is a first contact story about alien refugees hiding on Earth from a hostile faction. It is clever in its tackling of the linguist problem and colliding cultures. I found myself admiring how Lindsay Ellis kept driving the plot with excellent turns. Several times, I muttered, "Oh no! That's not good."

 It is part of a trilogy. The second one is out, and I'm reading it now. Stay tuned for updates.