Takeshi Hiraide

Fiction 2001 (English translation 2014) | 140 pages

Our friend Pam, on her last night with our book club in late November, gave us each a book written by her favorite Japanese authors, and asked us to share them with each other.  She opened my eyes to some learning about cultural differences, as expressed in writing and story telling.

The Guest Cat is a beautifully introspective novella that explores love, loneliness, connection, and the nature of life through the lens of a couple's relationship with a stray cat.

The couple lives in a small, rented cottage in Tokyo, and find themselves visited by a cat named Chibi.  The husband and wife, both freelance writers, experience a deepening emotional connection as they care for the cat, which brings new joy and meaning to their otherwise quiet existence. The narrative is rich with imagery and reflects on the fragility of life and the beauty found in everyday moments.

Hiraide's writing is poetic and lyrical.  This is a serene and meditative book.  There is no real plot, and there is no drama, mystery, or thrilling components.  It is simply the story, as told by the husband, of their developing relationship with the cat who lives next door, but spends much of its time with the couple.  Interestingly, the only creature in this book who has a name is Chibi.

The gentle but beautiful prose is like reading a mindfulness meditation.  Every time I opened this novella and began to read a sentence, I felt my shoulders drop, my breathing slow, and my blood pressure drop (since I have low blood pressure, this MAY not be a good thing!)

Yes, I suggest you read this short NYT best seller.

I had an important insight reading The Guest Cat.  I am attending an eight-day writing retreat in February.  I have no specific goal for this adventure ... just thought I might learn something.  I realize now that I would like to learn to write in a manner that elicits similar feelings in others:  gentleness, calm, relaxation, going inward, finding a place of meditation.

December 2025

Stacey Abrams

Fiction 2025 | 419 pages

When NPR chose this as one of their books of the year for 2025, and I heard an interview with her, and, having loosely followed her political career as Georgia State Representative and as a candidate for Governor, and then discovering she has written 19 books, I decided I MUST give her a try!

Former Supreme Court clerk Avery Keene is featured in Coded Justice, the third book in a series.  Now working as an internal investigator for a prestigious DC law firm, she is requested to solve a mystery.  Elisha Hibner dies as a result of toxic chemicals in the air system in the lab he shares with two colleagues, O.J. and Isabella. Was it an accident?  Or murder?

These three highly educated scientists/engineers work for Camasca Enterprises, a technology company that uses Artificial Intelligence to revolutionize the medical industry by delivering cutting-edge personalized heath care and pharmaceuticals to veterans in the VA medical system.  The potential is staggering for the advancement of medical care.  But how safe is it?

Coincidentally, on the day I finished Coded Justice, I heard an article on NPR about the current use of AI in medicine. Though it appears we are not nearly as advanced as is hypothesized in this book, the fiction bears witness to what could, and is likely to, occur in the future.  To that end, Coded Justice is a thoughtful and informative read.

Avery and her colleagues, Jared, Ling, and Noah, are brought into this secretive company to investigate from the inside out. At the epicenter of a burgeoning, controversial industry, and with billions of dollars on the line, their task is simple: to determine whether Camasca’s technical troubles and rising body count reveal something sinister at work and what the moral and ethical considerations are beyond the artificial intelligence and medical consequences.

It sounds like an excellent plot!

I like Abrams' writing.  She is clearly smart, uses powerful big words, and writes in a cadence that I might beat a drum to.

And I don't like Abrams' writing.  Almost all of the book takes place in a conference room at Camasca, detailing conversations among Avery, her colleagues, the owners of company, the AI named Milo and Kayak, and others.  She writes in a style that I would call "tell, don't show."  Nothing ever happens!

Until page 316, when something important occurs.  I became quite engaged at this point, but soon Abrams fell back into conversation about what took place, rather than showing us.

I will not be reading other books by Stacey Abrams.  I wish her well in her political career, however!  I am glad to close the cover on this book.  Time to choose another read.  I have ten books waiting for me.  Can I read one each day over the holiday break?  Nah.  Stay tuned right here to find out what I DO read!

December 2025

Ken Follett

Historical Fiction 2025 | 704 pages

Circle of Days is Follett’s creative novel about the building of Stonehenge.  Though there is only a modicum of real archeological evidence of what occurred in the Neolithic Period in 2500 BCE, when Stonehenge was built, Follett has taken liberties to create the people who envisioned the Monument and built it, as he conducted significant research into the locations and archeology of the times.

Joia is a priestess who has a dream, and a practical vision, of what needs to be created, in order for the priestesses and the others living on the Great Plain, to build a monument that tells time, tracks the seasons, teaches numbers, and even predicts when the leap day occurs.

Joia’s sister Neem falls in love with Seft.  Seft is a talented flint-miner who becomes great friends with Joia and moves her dream from an idea into reality with carpentry, strategy, and creativity.

The great stone circle becomes Joia’s and Seft’s life work.  But the communities that live on The Great Plain – the herders, woodlanders, and farmers – after having lived side-by-side peacefully for generations, have entered into conflict over resource scarcity.  We witness an extensive drought, land seizing, pride, aggression, fear, worry, tradition, and retaliation as the various tribes enter into conflicts and wars with each other.  Much is driven by the aggressive, mean, fear mongering, non-empathetic Troon, also known as the “Big Man,” who reminds me of a modern-day politician with a similar name.

The book presents theories about how Stonehenge was built (e.g., moving massive stones without modern tech) as a central plot, acknowledging these are mysteries scientists are still unraveling.  Follett uses fiction to imagine the people and their motivations, such as love, power, and community, to bring this ancient monument to life, filling gaps where history is silent.

There is lots of romance, and deep character development. You don’t have to guess what Joia or Seft are going to do next – you have come to learn so much about them.  Fun and play and dance and love and the revel (you will read about this), as well as hard work to feed and raise their families, and then to build a stone monument, are pervasive.

I thought the middle section of the book, which is about the issues with the conflicts among the tribes, was a bit overdone, and felt like filler.  I think Follett could have communicated the same sense of calamity and tension by limiting his focus directly to the building of the great Monument.  But I am not Ken Follett!

While I adored the map in the book, it desperately needed a list of characters.  I went looking three times and only found character lists with 8-12 characters.  There are MANY more, as witnessed by 704 pages!  You may find it beneficial to download one of the character lists and then add other characters on your own as they show up, including who their love interest is, and whether they are a miner, a herder, a farmer, or a priestess.

I was excited when Dan Brown and Ken Follett both released books in September, and I requested them from my library immediately.  The wait was three months, but it was worth it.  These two authors take me back to a time, a number of years ago, when they were more central to my reading list.

I heartily recommend Circle of Days, and I will soon be reading The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown.  As soon as Brian finishes reading and enjoying it, and gives it back to me, that is.

December 2025

Marie Bostwick

Fiction 2025/ 372 pages

The Oxford Dictionary defines "troublesome" as "causing difficulty or annoyance."  I don't think The Book Club for Troublesome Women' quite lives up to its title.

Four women form a book club in 1963 and choose Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique as their first book to read.  Homemakers all,  we know they are about to have their heads turned sideways.  Though, it doesn't really happen.  For the first half of the book, nothing seems to change.  They have their book cub meeting and then go on to talk about their children, husbands, infertility, marriages, homemaking.  It is not until the second half that they actually take some action from their learning.  And then, I would hardly call it troublesome.  It is subtle, personal, feels meek.

Our primary character and ofttimes narrator, Margaret, does eventually get herself to write and earn a living at it.  I like Margaret okay, but I don't feel the author dove very deep into her personality, quirks, true feelings.  I feel as though I don't know her.  My favorite character is Charlotte, who is a little bit off center.  She loves to paint, but it seems she has little talent.  She is addicted to anti-depressant drugs.  She wears a full-length fur coat even in the summer.  She loudly and vocally pursues what she wants.  She does not know how(!) to clean her house.  She eventually finds a way to channel her energy and tap her passion.  Bitsy wants to be a vet but is seduced by marriage and thwarted by college counselors who would not write a recommendation for her because she is a woman. Vic is a nurse with six children, who does in fact somehow return to nursing.

I expected much more from the word "troublesome."  I expected them to march or protest.  Or to stay in their roles and disrupt and educate; to show what is possible when you release yourself from cultural handcuffs.  Instead, all we read about are slight, not earth-shattering results.

So, it may be worth a read, but it won't inspire you.  We are living many years later, and witness daily how profoundly the role of women has changed from what our characters experienced in The Book Club for Troublesome Women.

November 2025

Colum McCann

Fiction 2023 | 240 pages

I put down my unappreciated and unfinished romance novel and picked up Twist.  By the time I reached page nine, all the privileges of reading good books came back to me.  The book was making me think. I was wondering what was happening, who was who, what mattered and why.  My brain was engaged and my body relaxed.

Anthony Fennell, an Irish journalist and playwright, is assigned to write an article about the underwater cables that carry the world’s information. The sum of human existence ... words, images, transactions, voices ... travels through the tiny fiber-optic tubes. But sometimes the tubes break, at unfathomable depths.

When one such cable breaks, buffeted by an immense storm on the surface in the Congo, Fennell is able to join a cable repair ship, the Georges Lecointe, under John Conway, the Chief of Mission. Fennell’s journey brings him to the west coast of Africa, where he uncovers a story about the raw human labor behind the dazzling world of technology.

The author says it takes "many long days" to find the cable, but noting the story line, I would guess it is about six weeks.  Weeks during which he travels without seeing land, with 50 other men, all prepared to participate in the repairs of the undersea cable.  The cable is so deep ... as much as 26000 feet ... no human nor human-made capsule can go get it.  Instead, a tool called a "grapnel" is used to "hook" the cable.  Yes, there are cameras for grapnels,  Still, they have to find the cable before they can hook it!  The cable is a few inches to a foot in diameter.

Once they arrived at where maps thought the cable was, it took another eight days of back and forth and back and forth to find. And then at 4 am one brilliant morning, the ship"s whistle bows.  The cable has been hooked!  They haul it to the surface and repair it.  But there is more than one break it seems.

While the technology is fascinating, the journey and the depth of character McCann has created are even more so. We learn more about Fennell than I think I know about some people in my life.  And, to a lesser degree, the obscure Conway.

After the cable is repaired, Fennell leaves the ship and lives for a wile in a small town, writing his manuscript.  I don't quite know why this section has been included.  Personally, I thought I was jarring and not hugely relevant.  But then, in the long Prologue, the sea, the technology, and the people come together again in a satisfying ending.

For most of the book I wondered ... how did this idea for a plot ever come to McCann?  Very creative and unusual.  I quite enjoyed this book, and the mix of man and sea and nd technology.  I recommend it.  Thank you, dear friend Mary!

November 2025

Casey McQuiston  |  Fiction

2019, 422 pages

Listening to an article on NPR, I was fascinated to learn that, coming out of the pandemic, romance print-book sales more than doubled from 2020 to 2023. In 2024, despite declining sales in other publishing categories, romance fans bought so many books that they helped push total print-book sales into the black.

Romance writers, interestingly, see themselves as business people, as well as authors and artists.  Romance writers write fast, sometimes more than one book per year.  And they are not deterred by doing their own marketing, accounting, press releases, bookstore talks.

Having never read a romance novel, I was inspired to try one on for size.  In my research, I discovered many thought Red, White, & Navy Blue to be one of the best.  I made it nearly 100 pages.

The characters are as thin as tissue paper.  The plot makes me feel like I am reading a young-adult book (emphasis on young).  Looks like I will not become a romance fan.  My brain needs some stimulation.  I need to think, ponder, analyze, wonder, even get confused ... and so I am gone from the romance shelves.  (BTW, the book is about the relationship between the son of the U.S. President [FSOTUS], and the son of the King of England).

Clearly, I do not recommend Red, White, & Navy Blue.  If you have a romance novel you think I will like, please reply on my blog!

November 2025

Janet Evanovich

Fiction 2024/ 312 pages

It has been probably 10 years since I read a Janet Evanovich, but it was sitting on a table at the library calling to me, and so I picked it up!  Immediately I was transported back into the characters of Stephanie Plum, Ranger, Morelli,  and Lula.

The book opens with Stephanie bemoaning that fact that she said yes to two marriage proposals in the last week, and "celebrated big" with both of them!  But the book isn't about her romantic problems, even though she is facing a moral, ethical, physical, and emotional challenge.  It is still about her work, and she is still a bail bonds professional.

Some of the people she is trying to track down include Zoran, who, by all accounts,  seems to a vampire, and Robin Hoodie, who wears a mask and a hoodie whenever he commits a crime, and his crime is always to hijack a commercial truck and then drive it to a homeless encampment and open the back.  One truck was full of cookies.  One was filled with rolls of toilet paper.  Another was a soft-serve ice cream truck.  Another was a UPS truck, full of many different items (one homeless person scored a brand-new iPad!)

If you haven't read a Stephanie Plum novel, filled with mystery and lots of humor, don't start with this one.  I would go back to One for the Money and Two for the Dough.

(If anyone asked me, but of course no one did, I would have named this book Wedding Bell Blues or Fang).

November 2025