Caitlin Doughty

Nonfiction 2017 | 248 pages

This is a fascinating account of how different cultures have established different approaches to dealing with dead human bodies.   Interestingly, the people from various cultures, rituals, and processes believe other processes show disrespect. For example, cultures that prefer open cremation, where the family watches a body burn, believe that closed creation, which occurs commonly today, traps the soul in the crematorium, and does nothing to help the family come to terms with the death.  Among some other countries/cultures, we also explore cremation on a raised platform in the small town of Crestone, Colorado; and the FOREST project in Cullowhee North Carolina (Forensic Osteology Research Station) which has developed ways to speed up natural decomposition and facilitates the body returning to soil; and Joshua Tree California, where some renegades took disposal into their own hands.

Yes, Doughty writes about the experiences of her research and what she learned, but for such a topic as this, she does a good job of intersecting humor and lightness.  This is one of those great nonfiction books that teaches you about a topic you had known you were interested in!  And it makes you think about your own demise.

December 2023

Richard Osman

Fiction 2022/ 341 pages

One Thursday afternoon in the seniors' center, a decade-old cold case, the murder of Bethany Waites, leads the Thursday Murder Club to a murder with no body and no answers. A new enemy they call "Viking", wants Elizabeth to kill former KGB chief Viktor, or he will kill her best friend, Joyce.

This third "Thursday Murder Club" adventure ranges from a prison cell with an espresso machine to a luxury penthouse with a swimming pool high in the sky to the Thursday Murder Club meeting room at off hours, during the Jigsaw Puzzle Club.

I agree with some reviewers who call Osman's characters "quirky and fun." They are!  And that is delightful!  There are just too many of them, in too many complex relationships with each other.  Sorry, but I am going to quit Osman and not bother with the fourth book in the series.  I think one problem I had with Bullet is that there isn't a voice that ties the book together. In earlier books in the series, Osman had Joyce writing in her journal, creating a sense of flow and a pair of eyes from which to see the action.  Now, the point of view keeps shifting, from Ron to Pauline to Elizabeth to Ibrahim to Donna to Joyce to Victor to the Viking.  It is more like a disorganized box of Legos rather than Legos together that build a tower to a climax.

I am rating it three hearts because if you are a mystery lover, I think you may like this book.  Many people have!

December 2023

Mabel Seeley

Fiction 1941 | 385 pages

The Library is a restaurant in International Falls, Minnesota.  The walls of the restaurant are lined with shelves filled with books ... and you can take as many as you want when you go there to enjoy lunch or dinner.  This is where I acquired Chuckling Fingers. Yes, the plot summary on the back of the book intrigued me, but it was the title that caused me to place this next to my plate of fresh walleye fingers.

The Chuckling Fingers has a smart protagonist, a complicated plot, and a range of characters.  Published in 1941, this book was delightful to read in part because it was written 80 years ago.  The Heaton family, lumber barons, are together in their estate called "Fiddling Fingers" on Lake Superior, near the town of Grand Marais in Minnesota.   Ann Gray is our protagonist and narrator.  She is a stenographer in her real life, but comes to visit Jacqueline, her very good friend and cousin, when she learns something is seriously wrong.  And she turns into a detective.

"Tricks" keep happening .... Bill's suit develops holes all over, when he and Jacqueline are on their honeymoon.  And then there is a fire in their bed, a shredded bathrobe, a missing piece of blue chalk ... all these tricks and more are perpetrated by the villain, and the tricks soon evolve into murder.

I like this book because it is a real mystery, right from the start, with characters that intertwine, and lots of vexing action, a sense of tension in the writing, and a satisfying denouement.  Seeley was a well-known mystery writer of her time.

I have finished and I still chuckle (no pun intended) at the title.  You will find it refers to the noise made when dangerous waters crash against the finger-shaped rocks on Lake Superior.

I recommend this book ... it is fun and gratifying.

November 2023

Pema Chödrön

Nonfiction 2001/ 212 pages

If you read a lot of Pema Chödrön, there seems to be very little new in her books.  Useful reminders, but the content is just too repetitive for me.  Loving-kindness, tonglen, mindfulness, bodhicitta, etc. I know many who love every single of her books ... please continue to enjoy, if that is your pleasure!

November 2023

Lisa Gardner

 Fiction 2022/ 416 pages

Tim and his buddies go backpacking (with lots of beer!) for his bachelor party, into a remote section of the Wyoming mountains.  But Tim never returns.  Five years later, Tim's dad Martin is still searching for him or his body in remote wilderness areas.  On this particular journey, we have Martin; Tim's three friends who were with him that fateful night; Nemeth, a local guide for this remote section;  Bob, whose hobby is being a Sasquatch seeker;  Luciana and her tracking dog Daisy; and our main character and narrator, Frankie, who really calls no place home, but seeks missing persons as a unpaid profession of sorts.  Except Frankie has never been in the wilderness before.  She has done all of her tracking in cities, especially inner cities, where she finds the bodies of people who have OD'd, or are victims of violence.

Gardner's characters have depth and personality.  Unfortunately, it took the whole first half io the book to set the context and help us really get to know her characters. There are simply too, many, and some seem not necessary to the story line.  Of course, Frankie is a delight right from the start, with her adventurous spirit and total lack of knowledge about how to survive a week in the woods.

Halfway in, the mystery began to take over the plot, and things became exciting until the very end, when all is discovered.  Except the violence was too gruesome for me.

This is a good, solid mystery, with suspense, and terror, and humor.  But it was not my cup of tea.  I will not read another Lisa Gardner.  She spent too much time in context setting, sacrificing a bit of the actual mystery search and discovery of clues.  And I don't need her violence.

The story kept me engaged, especially the second half.  I recommend this with a grain of salt ... Mystery lovers may quite appreciate it!

November 2023

Kim Michele Richardson

Historical Fiction 2022/ 356 pages

I enjoyed this book, though it doesn't have the same complexity or depth of relationships as its predecessor, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. If you read that book, you will recall that near the end of that book, Bluet acquires a baby girl, who is also blue.  Honey becomes her daughter.

This book is Honey's story, as she follows in her mother's footsteps, experiencing similar discrimination while becoming the new "book woman."

If you have read and enjoyed The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, you may enjoy this as well.  Otherwise, I think you will be missing too much context to find this book meaningful or interesting.

November 2023