An eleven-year-old girl is killed. A nine-year-old girl is sexually assaulted and then killed. A baby is sexually assaulted. Every conversation occurs over cigarettes, spilled food, and alcohol. And I am only on page 28. My heart and soul do not need this kind of depressing vitriol. I am reading no more Ian Rankin.
August 2024
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In 1979, seven women, ages 26 - 40, came together through their connections and interests, to canoe 172 miles on the Fortymile and Yukon Rivers in Alaska for 11 days, from the town of Chicken to the town of Eagle. This trip, when the women's movement and environmental movements were in their infancies, served as a foundation and mirror for the rest of their lives. When my friend Carol loaned me From Chicken to Eagle, I assumed it was a book about a thrilling, exciting all-women wilderness adventure. It was that, yes, but it was so much more.
Thirty years after the canoe adventure, the women decided to each write a chapter to create the core of this book. Each included their own perceptions, perspectives, and memories from the challenging canoe trip ... but they did so much more. About three pages of each chapter presents each woman's memories. But the mainstay of their writing is about the impact of this trip ... how it built their strength and self-esteem; how it informed their relationships with the wilderness; how it showed up in marriages and child-rearing in some cases; and mostly how it prepared them to launch into major careers at a time when the cultural belief was that women couldn't and shouldn't do much in the work world.
We have in this team of women a lawyer, a doctor, a business leader, non-profit founders and leaders, a writer, a professor, a public relations person, a public health officer. More profound and impactful, we have environmental and social justice activists. These women started day care centers, recycling programs, sustainable education initiatives, climate change strategies, mentoring, political and policy change. They also remain, at ages 66 to 80, canoeists, kayakers, hikers, bikers, explorers, tour guides, adventurers.
Though it wasn't what I expected, From Chicken to Eagle is a fascinating, empowering, and inspiring read. If you are anywhere near my age, it will also bring back memories and cast a new light on what we really did accomplish in our 20s and 30s, and how far we still have to go. Yes, I recommend this short book.
August 2024
I loved this book from page one. I don't know why books about superbly rich people keep showing up on my bookshelf these days but Lies and Weddings just seems to have none of the ostentatious excess of The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post.
The super-rich characters in Lies and Weddings have depth, unique characteristics, well-developed roles, and Kevin Kwan has subtle, wry humor, and a marvelous way with story.
The gargantuan Gresham legacy is flat broke, though the (not very likable) matriarch Arabella does not know this and spends millions and millions in the 437 pages of this book. Nevertheless, she wants to marry off her daughters to men with titles and significant fortunes themselves, and she especially wants to marry her (gorgeous) son Rufus into money. To that end, she keeps fixing him up with entirely inappropriate partners. He is a man with a kind heart and generous soul and the facade of these heiresses do not begin to interest him. And then there is “the girl next door” … a physician, Eden, whom Rufus asked to marry him when they were fourteen.
Because the characters are Chinese, or half-Chinese, or in some way connected to international Chinese culture, each new character is introduced to us with their educational pedigree: (pg 71) for example, “Laurel (Balboa/Thacher/Cornell/MIT) …”. This is delightful! It made me smile every time, though I didn’t know more than a third of the institutions. The introduction of the filthy rich addict Luis Felipe will touch your funny bone!
The fashion, the designer names, the costs of the dresses the women wear to various weddings and pre-and post-wedding events are not even comprehensible in my mind, as I sit here in J. Jill jeans and a long-sleeve t-shirt that is no less than 30 years old!
Yes, enjoy this novel! I started it Tuesday morning at camp and finished it Wednesday afternoon.
Another summertime read recommended by The Week.
August 2024
My friend and college roommate Janet suggested I try Laura Lippman after my last post, asking for mystery series. I just finished the first Tess Monaghan novel, Baltimore Blues. It is fun, fast and feisty. Tess has lost her job as an investigative reporter at a local newspaper that folded. At 29, she is trying to get her life together, knitting together small granny squares of jobs, such as working in her Aunt Kitty’s bookstore (Tess lives above the store for reduced rent), and doing administrative work for her uncle.
Less one think she is lazy (she IS accused of this on occasion), she also runs three (?) times a week, rows at 5:30 am six days a week, and lift weights three times a week.
And then her friend and rowing buddy Rock hires her to do some investigation into his fiancé Ava, who disappears at odd and frequent intervals. This begins a series of mysteries and murders that Tess finds herself compelled to investigate, under the radar screen, and mostly without much-needed compensation.
I loved reading about Tess trying to make her way in this new world of murder investigation, all on her own. I really like her as a person … free spirited, smart, and energetic. I will read the next book in the series, Charm City, and I recommend Baltimore Blues.
August 2024
Since it took me 30 pages to figure out what this book us about, I thought I would make the opening chapters easier for you. From Wikipedia:
"You Are Here is a 2024 romance novel by British writer David Nicholls. The novel centers on two middle-aged protagonists, who unexpectedly find themselves together on a long-distance walking trail across northern England after being brought together by a mutual friend."
Marnie is stuck in life. Stuck working alone in her London flat, stuck battling the long afternoons and a life that increasingly feels like it's passing her by. Michael, on the other hand, is coming undone. Reeling from his wife's departure, increasingly reclusive, taking himself on long, solitary walks.
A mutual friend invites them both on a walk across England, sea to sea.
The story is sweet. The writing is good. Yet, I fell asleep about every third page. I finally figured it out; it was simply a boring book. It moved too slow for me, with little adventure or intrigue. I am glad to be done with You Are Here and I do not recommend it. Suggested as a summer read by The Week magazine.
August 2024
I read and really enjoyed Ordinary Grace (see my blog post; 4 hearts) and then discovered that William Kent Krueger is a prolific writer, with 26 books to his name, 20 of them in the "Cork O'Connor Mystery series." So, I thought I would try the first book in the series, Iron Lake.
Scatter shot. Those are the words that come to mind when I think about how to describe Iron Lake. Too many characters, too many deaths, too much shallowness of characters. I really don't know what happened, including at the end where the author wraps the story up.
The main character, Cork O'Connor, is the former sheriff in the town of Aurora, near Lake Superior. Of course, he can't stop "sheriffing." The descriptions of the snow, the water, the freezing temperatures are vivid and compelling. Cork is the only character we gain real insight into.
I will not continue with the next books of the series. I just didn't care for Iron Lake enough to do so.
Which makes me want to ask ... the time may be upon us ... do YOU have a good mystery or time travel series to recommend to me? Cooler weather will come soon! (Even though it was 102 today.) Think Robert Parker’s Spenser series (mystery) or Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander (time travel).
I don't really recommend Iron Lake, but some of you might want to give it a try.
August 2024
The writing is staccato ... almost like a dictionary itself. Because it is played in a constant 4/4ths time, I find it hard to recall anything. I wish she had written about way fewer words and given more context. Then something might have stuck. Here is an example. On page 63 she talks about the etymology of tycoon, alligator, arena, dandelion, inaugurate, muscle, and pupil. Not well-organized nor categorized; too much information; not enough knowledge.
Janssen also tries hard to insert humor into her commentary, and I think she is simply not funny. Her humor feels forced. It feels as though it was added in afterwards.
I read 76 pages. My apologies, Nina, for not falling in love with this book!
Let's see ... what awaits on my shelf now?
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This is an amazing true adventure book. The author, Tracy Johnston, is part of a small group of people to raft the Boh in Borneo ... the first trip EVER down the Boh. It is such an adventure because there are no maps, no guides, no notes from those who have gone before. All they have are stories from native Borneo people who believe the river to be un-navigable and are fearful of the spirits who inhabit the Boh.
A few guides and a few experienced rafters have chosen to take on the Boh. What they anticipate to be a three-day trip turns into ten days. The rapids are much more difficult than anticipated, the rains can raise the level of the river as much as 20 feet in one hour, and the bugs! Oh my, the stories of the bugs! I will never look on a honeybee with quite the same eyes.
Tracy begins this adventure by losing her luggage. So, her well thought out boxes with medicines, salves, and various pills, along with her box that includes her sleeping bag, air mattress, shoes, underwear, flashlight, and all her clothes, end up in the LA airport when she arrives in Borneo. She has to beg, borrow, and steal all her supplies for this serious adventure.
The tale is a quick read. Johnston uses very short chapters which keep the pace moving. At times, the book drags a bit, because the rafting trip drags a bit. There are days when the three boats travel only yards instead of miles. The difficulty of staying kind and stable and compassionate in the midst of innumerable delays, and bodies that are constantly sweating and becoming the home base to numerous bugs, is unimaginable.
Tracy is in her 40s, which makes her story even more amazing. She us not a young super-jock.
Again, if you love real-life wilderness adventure stories as I do, you cannot go wrong with this one. It reads like no other. This won't be the fifth book you have read about Everest, or another tale of canoeists in the great north. Thank you to my friend Joanne for the loan of this not-very-well-known tale.
July 2024
The three pillars of PACT:
It is Cambridge, Massachusetts, just about a decade after PACT was passed by the House and Senate and became the law of the land. PACT was a reaction to the Crisis, an economic, social, familial, cultural, structural collapse of the American Society. No one actually knows what created this collapse, though within three years after it began, it became easier and easier to blame it on the Chinese, with no documentation or proof, just because a scapegoat was required.
Enter Bird, the 11-year old son of a Chinese-American woman, Margaret, and a Caucasian-American man, Ethan. As the book begins, we learn that Margaret left her husband and son three years ago, but we don’t know why. Ethan keeps telling their son to forget about her.
Of course, the consequences of PACT are fairly predictable to us as readers. People are arrested who participate in a demonstration, or even a conversation that is anti-PACT. Neighbors report neighbors for the slightest perceived infraction, or no infraction at all … especially if their skin has a yellow tinge. And perhaps most painful of all for society, children are continually removed from their homes and subjected to “re-placement” if a case can be made that the parents had any anti-PACT influence on them.
Bird begins to search for his mother without telling his father. This is much harder than today, because most books have been removed from the shelves and some burned, and the internet has been scoured “clean.” Bird comes to recognize that the absence of his mother, who is not only Chinese-American but verbally opposed to PACT, is actually to protect Bird and keep him united with his father.
Eventually he finds his mother, but I can tell you no more without giving away the plot.
This is a good read; an interesting read; a read that is steeped in world history and even present day. I do recommend you read it and I thank my friend Michelle for giving it to me!
July 2024
I guess it is my fault. I had heard about The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post and read about it also. I apparently misunderstood. I thought it was about a highly successful business tycoon, leader, strategist, dynasty. It is not. It is about a woman who plays a peripheral role in the company her father built.
MID-READ REVIEW. I am exactly half-way through, page 192, and Marjorie Post has not done a bit of business so far. It has been all about her love life, her children, her entertaining, her parties, her multiple homes, her money, her staffs, and a BIT about non-profit work. I am sorely disappointed. That is not what I understood this book to be about. I thought it was about a business success story.
The story covers a surfeit of money among the Posts, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, Roosevelts, and a score of others. I found the ostentatious excesses of the super-rich turned my stomach at times. (Do I have a bit of communism in my blood?) Yes, Marjorie Post gives away millions for health care facilities, to support our troops in the Great War, to provide food and shelter during the Great Depression. She uses her money well and for superbly excellent needs. However, the overabundance still upsets me. The last of many mansions she built for herself and her family had 125 rooms, with huge numbers of staff. And the art she collects is impressive. Not to mention all the custom gowns and clothing from Paris and other fashion hotbeds.
That all being said, the writing is delicious. Pataki writes a biography in first person; not always an easy feat to accomplish. The main theme of the books is about Marjorie and her four husbands. I thought these relationships were presented with depth, insight, sorrow, and aplomb. You may enjoy reading The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post. Many readers have. I cannot advise you to put it at the top of your reading list.
July 2024