Joyce Maynard

Fiction 2023 | 404 pages

The Bird Hotel is a visual extravaganza.  Reading it, I can see the flowers, the birds, the lake, the volcano, and the 100 steps down to the hotel, La Llorona, that Maynard writes about so masterfully.  I am very moved by an author who can create such a visually compelling and clear narrative.

Joan is an American whose mother dies in a Weather Underground bomb explosion when she is six-years old.  Raised by her grandmother, she changes her name to Irene and receives a new birth certificate and passport, because her grandmother (correctly!) believed the FBI would be searching for the whereabouts of their terrorist daughter and mother.

Irene's life takes some very difficult turns, and she is followed by tragedy, until one morning, leaving her tiny apartment in San Francisco, she walks to the Golden Gate bridge to jump off, but does not do so.  Instead, she climbs aboard a green van with a pile of hippies, not caring where they are going.  Eventually, a number of days later, she finds herself in a small town in Columbia staying in a very quaint and small hotel where she gradually, somwehat unintentionally, begins to heal her life.

Irene is an exquisite character, as are the indigenous and gringo people we meet who live in La Esperanza.  Irene inherits the hotel eventually and lives out her days there, again through turmoil, but surrounded by the daily healing qualities of the land on which she lives, and the watercolor painting she does every afternoon.

I exuberantly recommend this book.  It is gorgeous and will capture your heart and your soul.

June 2024

Natalie Babbitt

Fiction 1975 | 140 pages

Natalie Babbitt conceived of the idea for her now-classic 1975 novel, Tuck Everlasting, from her four-year-old daughter. The girl was afraid of dying, so Babbitt wrote a story for young readers that faced death head-on. In it, young Winnie Foster comes to know a family, the Tucks, who have been granted the seemingly enviable but actually burdensome miracle of immortality after unknowingly drinking from a magical spring in the further reaches of their family’s property.

What a completely enjoyable book! It is a Young Adult book; a very easy read.  Winnie, at ten, is faced with the consequences of drinking from the spring and never aging a moment or letting her natural life progress.  The wise Tuck family advises her to wait until she is 17 or older to make this decision and admonishes her never to tell anyone about the spring.  Knowledge of the spring could certainly wreak havoc among the people.  It is actually an important and valuable concept to consider for all of us adults (and children) who are reading this in our armchairs.

I missed this book completely years ago.  It is listed on the “100 Best Fantasy Novels of All Time,” A New York Time’s publication that has informed a reasonable portion of what I have read these last few years.

If you have an afternoon to sit with a cup of tea, your feet curled under you, read this.  It won’t take you long.  It will make you think.  And it will delight you with excellent writing along the way.

June 2024

Robert Parker

Fiction 2011 | 336 pages

I thought I would read the last book Robert Parker wrote, Sixkill, which is in the Spenser series, as a tribute to Parker ... well, and to Spenser, too.  There is no premonition, no veiled hint of his impending death.  He died of a heart attack in 2010, sitting at his desk, writing his customary five pages per day.  He was otherwise in good health at 77 when he died.

Zebulon Sixkill is a very large Native American, the bodyguard to bad-boy actor Jumbo Nelson, who has been accused of rape and murder.  Spenser's job is to discover what really happened.  Spenser takes Z under his wing because, while big, he does not know anything about how to fight.  Some reviewers thought Z might be a new character in the Spenser series, but if so, he has been silenced by Robert Parker's death.

There are some really nice moments between Spenser and his main and only squeeze Susan.  I  recommend Sixkill to Parker fans.  And now, I am complete with rereading Parker's Spenser series, and am bypassing my beloved Boston ... until another excellent Boston-based novel appears.

June 2024

Niall Williams

Fiction 2019/ 380 pages

Sometimes a simple, dated story can be completely delightful!  This is the story of Faha, Ireland, a small rural town, in which the winter rains finally stop after months of grey, dampness and wet.  The first telephone arrives and then, god forbid, "the electricity" arrives.  The town is divided on whether or not they want to modernize to "the electricity" but once it is in, the Fahaens stridently object to 100-watt lightbulbs.  These bright and sudden disturbances reveal cobwebs have been hidden in the corners, help us learn that a woman with a gorgeous ruddy in fact uses red-colored makeup, and reveals to all that the resident with a handsome head of hair despite his advancing years, does in fact, wear a wig.

We follow Noe, who is seventeen as the book opens and coming of age, living with his revered grandpa Ganga and grandmother Doady, after leaving one year in the seminary. Christy is hired as the "electric man" to bring the town and the county up to speed and becomes a lodger in Ganga and Doady's home.  Christy and Noe, though about 50 years apart, become fast friends and drinking buddies.

Soon we learn that Christy didn't really come to Faha primarily to ensure that the electricity was installed, but he came to seek out Annie, whom he left standing at the altar 50 years ago.  He wants to seek her forgiveness, and Noe becomes engaged in facilitating their meeting and talking.  Noe himself falls in love with all three of Dr. Troy's daughters and has his first kisses.

I really enjoyed this book when it was about electricity and the cessation of rain, but once it shifted to Christy's love interest (and Noe's first love, Sophie Troy), somehow it became boring.  I struggled through the long second half.  Williams' writing and use of palpable mature delicious words, saved this book from being two hearts and three hearts won out. Nevertheless, I don't recommend it.

June 2024

David Grann

Nonfiction 2017/ 362 pages

"In the 1920's the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian Nation in Oklahoma."  (Back cover)

After oil was discovered beneath their land (and was specifically and surprisingly excluded from the contract the Indian Nations had with the US government) the Osage built mansions, educated their children anywhere in the world they wished, and were driven around in fancy automobiles.  By any standards, this Nation had come into extraordinary amounts of money delivered by the slimy black substance beneath their dry land.

And then, members of the Osage Nation began to be murdered.  At least 24 were murdered in a few short years, through guns, poison, tampered cars, and in one case, a devastating house explosion.  (Current researchers and scholars believe this number is woefully inadequate and that there may have been scores, even hundreds, of murders.)  As this blight was visited upon this remote part of Oklahoma, many of the dead were related to one another in this relatively small community.  And, bit by bit, land and untold fortunes changed hands.

In the same time frame, the FBI was being formed and was led by J. Edgar Hoover, who attempted to ferret out the murderers from his office in Washington D C.

The information, painstakingly researched by Grann, is astounding.  The majority of the book puts names, faces, history, and connections to the Indians (their word then) who were murdered and the family members who suffered as a result, emotionally, physically, psychologically, and financially.  I found the formation of the FBI and the identification of the investigators who traveled to Oklahoma to search for answers a bit boring, and this section moved my rating of Killers of the Flower Moon from four hearts to three.

What is shocking is how this critical, important, and essential part of our history was not (is not?) taught in our schools.  How could we (I?) not know about this blight upon our country?  It is important to learn of this time and to read this book.  Not a page-turning novel, but a true and accurate account of a truly devastating time in our history as a nation.

June 2024

Christine Reed

Nonfiction 2021/ 265 pages

I picked up three books at the library earlier this week that were on the shelf, waiting for me.  (All on the shelf under one of the few logistics I have not changed in my life .... my library card still reads "Beryl Rullman").  Though I only read about ten pages in Jane Eyre and in A Little Life, neither spoke to me right now.  They simply didn't feel like what I was wanting to partake of.  So, I cracked the spine on Alone in Wonderland, the current read in my "Solo Female Adventures" Facebook group, and was immediately transported to just where I wanted to be.

Christine Reed tells her true story of hiking the Wonderland Trail 93 miles around Mt. Rainer over 12 days.  But this isn't just a hiking story.  She intersperses it with details of her life that explain how she arrived at this trail.  She is fiercely independent, searching for her strong self, surprisingly insecure, living in a black Dodge Ram van.  She abandoned the Appalachian Trail while grieving her mother's death. She never was athletic or outdoorsy, nor does she have the ideal body for backpacking adventures, but still she feels called to finding herself by challenging herself in nature.

This is not the best book I have ever read, nor is she likely to go on to become a famous author, but hers is an interesting story, told with more depth and insight into her as a person than many hiking books.  It is an easy read, and enjoyable.

June 2024

Jonathon Stewart

Nonfiction 2018/ 329 pages

This is the only book I found by someone who hiked the Hayduke Trail, very different from the hundreds (thousands?) written by people who hiked the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail.  I was excited to get my hands on it!

First, the trail itself.  It isn't really a trail.  It is an approximately 800-mile route through the Southwest, including six National Parks. Most of it is not on existing trails, but rather you find your way through guides, maps, tales others tell. Not many hikers are known to have hiked the Hayduke (but the numbers do include two of my favorite hikers, Carrot Quinn and Erin Saver - Wired).  I can't find an accurate number of people who are believed to have hiked the Hayduke, but in 2019 some research was done by checking trail registers and permits, and the number then was believed to be about 40 hikers.  So now, what, 200 hikers perhaps?  A common phrase among Hayduke hikers is "figure it out."  Probably no two hikers have followed the same route.  There are challenges for getting up canyons, across washes, around waterfalls.

Named after George Washington Hayduke III, a fictional character in Edward Abbey's novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, the trail seeks to pay homage to Abbey for his tireless defense of these fragile and threatened public lands.

Though I loved this book, I must give it three hearts because I think many of my blog readers will not be enamored of it.  You must be a diehard fan of the Southwest geography and history to really enjoy Stewart's story, and be fascinated by ancestral Puebloans, red rock spires, deep rocky canyons, lizards, constant searches for water, the desert in all its glory and threats, box canyons, bitterbrush, ruins, extreme heat and cold, pour offs, and descriptions of ancient stone formation.

In addition to navigating a route, and in tribute to Abbey, Stewart mixes in many topics, which some readers may find fascinating.  The environment; the history of land preservation; water; uranium mining and contamination; climate and climate change; stock management of public and private lands; society's values; politics; endangered species; ATVs; guns; the role the Mormons played in "settling" the west; gates and locks and signs and barbed wire are all fair game in Plateau of Doubt.

The editing is atrocious.  Misspellings, missed words, repeated words. I decided to include this comment in my post when, on page 175, three glaring errors (on one page!) offended my eyes.  So, you must possess a high tolerance of errors such as these to enjoy this book..

All told, I can recommend this book to those who would be fascinated by hiking and a deep exploration of the geography of America's Southwest.

May 2024

Jodie Picoult & Jennifer Finney Boylan

Fiction 2023 | 480 pages

The first however-many pages of Mad Honey were all about beekeeping, as presented by the beekeeper Olivia, and were mesmerizing.  As always, Jodi Picoult did her extraordinary research.

Then, we transition.  Lily is found dead (murdered?) by her boyfriend Asher, both high school seniors.  Lily, Asher, and Asher's mom, Olivia, are the major characters in this mystery.  Told in the first person, each chapter is in Olivia's voice or Lily's voice. The tale moves back and forth in time but is quite easy to follow.  At the beginning of each chapter, we learn who is speaking, the date that person is speaking, and how many days, weeks, or months it is before or after the day Lily died, December 7, 2018.

Superbly written, we learn about love, friendship, abuse, transgender journeys, loyalty, secrets, passion.  Much of the book covers Asher's trial who, at age 18, is tried as an adult for first degree murder.  He is represented in court by his uncle Jordan, Olivia's older brother.

I am in awe at how seamlessly Picoult moves back and forth in time to create a coherent story.  And her character development is rich!  We learn about these three characters' pasts, their present lives, their feelings, their thoughts and how they think.  We truly get to know them as people.

I must highly recommend Mad Honey and am very grateful to Marian for recommending this book for book club.  I regret I will miss our book club discussion!

May 2024