Miss Benson's Beetle

 Miss Benson's Beetle by Rachel Joyce

A rambunctious tale about a reserved, middle-aged school teacher, Miss Margery Benson, who throws it all up one day in an uncharacteristic fit of pique and petty theft, to go searching for a golden beetle she's not entirely sure exists. Her love for beetles began in childhood when her father showed her a book of magical creatures, and when she came to the sketch of a rumoured golden beetle, she felt - she knew - it was her destiny to capture one and prove their existence to the world. After years of teaching girls domestic science, a career her recent actions rendered finished, it felt like time.

When Miss Benson looked for an assistant to travel with her, a most unlikely candidate, Miss Enid Pretty, got the job and off they set. Enid is a flighty, most unreserved young woman with a sketchy background that will come to light later, as will the mis-adventures of another applicant, Mr. Mundic, who refuses to accept that Margery does't need him to lead the expedition.

Through a number of entertaining troubles on the ship taking them to Caledonia in the South Pacific, getting through Customs, socializing with the wives of the Consul, and struggling up a mountain in search of the beetle, Margery and Enid share their personal stories and come to understand one another better, forming a bond of friendship neither expected.

These two women will have ridiculous and frightening adventures, and will both be changed in outlook and attitude beyond what they thought possible. Their comical, heart-warming journey is worth reading. 

The Impossible Thing

 The Impossible Thing by Belinda Bauer

A unusual story based on a real world crime involving the theft of a rare red guillemot egg. I had no idea what a guillemot was (a seabird of the auk family), that their eggs were considered collectable (because of their colours), or the lengths to which collectors (called oologists) would go to obtain them.  

At the Metland farm in Yorkshire, a young girl, Celie, and a farmhand, Robert, collect a valuable rare guillemot egg from a rocky cliff nest by dangerously lowering the girl through a crevice in the rock. There she hangs, suspended in a rope harness over the ocean, as she reaches into an opening to grab the egg. Once back up, there is an eager collector willing to pay a good price for this treasure. 

A century later, someone breaks into Weird Nick's house to steal a red egg he'd purchased as a curiousity on Ebay. He and his friend, Patrick, figure it must be valuable if someone wanted it that badly, so they set out to find the thief and get it back. This will involve them in a world they hadn't known existed, filled with obsessive collectors and sketchy characters who don't like to play by the rules. 

With dual timelines and engaging characters in both, the story moves along at a good pace and is just dramatic enough (I've read a few that overdid it recently and it gets old fast) to be realistic and make you eager to keep reading. And it was an entertaining introduction to the world of egg-collecting, which I had no idea was a thing. 

A good story with clear, uncluttered writing, an intriguing plot, and likable characters. 

Light From Other Stars / The Walking Drum

Light From Other Stars by Erika Swyler

This is the kind of science fiction I like - lots of credible sounding science, unnerving possibilities, and ordinary (mostly) people caught in the crosshairs. 

Eleven year old Nedda Papas, living in Easter, Florida, wanted her father to take her to the launch of the Challenger space shuttle but he's working in his lab on Crucible, an experiment to manipulate and slow down time, so she watches the launch on tv with her school class. When the shuttle fails a few minutes after takeoff, killing everyone on board including Nedda's hero, astronaut Judy Resnik, the force of the explosion has an unexpected effect on Crucible. The "sky looks weird" as Nedda and her best friend, Denny, are walking home from school, then they find an animal - I think it was a monkey - trapped in some kind of "bubble" they don't quite know how to describe. Before long the entire town of Easter is caught up in the strange effects of an experiment gone wrong.  

In an alternate timeline years later, Nedda has fulfilled her dream of becoming an astronaut and is now aboard the shuttle Chawla, one of four people heading to a distant planet to establish a colony there. When a crisis arises, Nedda realizes that data she gathered from the Crucible disaster could be the key to survival now. 

The science in this was riveting, as were Nedda's relationships with Denny, with her father, Theo, and her mother, Betheen. Her parents are both flawed characters but are written with grace that renders them lovely in spite of their flaws. Their love for Nedda and each other, the yearning in it, was so beautiful it hurt to read.

There were some great metaphors: "Time painted with watercolors". I've been thinking about that ever since. And this - when Nedda's mother tried to hug her - "Nedda stiffened at the touch. Like coat hangers trying to embrace." And "...Denny was part of Nedda too - a bone in her leg that held her up." The whole thing was beautifully written.  

Authentic characters, original plot, and enough suspense to keep you up late. Such a good book!  

The Walking Drum by Louis L'Amour

If I was a fifteen year old boy in the 1960s I might eat this novel up. The hero of the story is young, brave, strong, handsome, has a skill to meet every challenge, wins every fight, escapes every trap, falls in love with beautiful girls and they fall in love with him. What boy, or man for that matter, wouldn't want to be him?

Alas, I found him neither likable nor admirable, nor even credible. His attitude toward women is tiresome; he brags too much, even with the odd self-deprecating remark added in a failed attempt to make him a more balanced character; he improbably has the specific knowledge/talent/skill needed to get out of every predicament he gets into; and too many beautiful girls are quick to overcome their initial hesitancy about him and give them their hearts. All we ever learn about the girls is how beautiful they are, making them more like cut-out dolls than real characters. 

The plot pattern - go on an adventure, fall in love with a beautiful face, get into trouble, get out of trouble, escape leaving the girl behind, repeat - wore thin after awhile. On the plus side, it seemed well researched and had some interesting historical and cultural information. That's about the best I can say for it.        

Bach, the Learned Musician/Quartet in Autumn

 Johann Sebastian Bach - The Learned Musician by Christoph Wolff

This is a wonderful book but it was a bit more than I was looking for. I did want a biography of Bach but maybe not quite this detailed. His life is in there, between details about the churches he was employed with and the histories of those churches, the men who ministered there and their backgrounds, the organs in those churches and who built them, when and how they were built, even what type of wood they were made from and where the trees grew. Details upon details, and of course much about Bach's music. I did find it interesting and for a serious student of Bach it would be a great resource, but I'm still looking for something more about his personal life with less history of other people and places, if such a book exists. The library has one more I'll try later this year.  

Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym

I have mixed feelings about this one. Four people, two men and two women, work together in an office and are all close to retirement. It describes their interatictions working at jobs so unimportant that none of them will be replaced when they leave, and the routines of each one's daily lives. There's little plot, but is more a study of the characters and their relationships. Reading other reviews makes me think I should have taken more from it than I did, but it didn't reach me on as deep a level as it seems to have others. I wonder if it might be one of those books I'll appreciate more as I continue to think about it. I did enjoy the reading of it but am a little frustrated not to have seen more in it.

The Language of Flowers / Hard Times

 The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Victoria, raised in foster and group homes, turns 18 and is left to fend for herself. She'd had one good year, living with Elizabeth, a wise and compassionate woman who loved her and was going to adopt her until things went awry. Elizabeth taught her about gardening, the types and names of flowers, and what they needed to flourish, knowledge Victoria used to start a small garden of her own even while she was homeless and sleeping under bushes in parks. 

She replies to an ad for a florist's helper and gets the job working for Renata, who sees in her something special and worth mentoring. One early morning at the flower market she meets Grant who becomes first a friend and then something more. Though things are better for Victoria now, the behaviours and attitudes learned from long years of neglect and abuse have a way to throwing a wrench into her best intentions. 

The Language of Flowers is a grittier story than the title implies. Sometimes your heart breaks for Victoria, other times you want to shake her and tell her to stop shooting herself in the foot. She's her own worst enemy, but aren't we all, and you find yourself commiserating instead of judging.

The sad and sometimes harsh story line is relieved by the conversations about flowers, their care and various meanings. Bouquets and individual blossoms are often exchanged to communicate thoughts and feelings, enriching the story and lifting it from despair to beauty. It is a beautiful novel.

The Language of Flowers is about family and flowers and how any of us, no matter how rough a start, can with enough care and attention grow into what we were meant to be.   

Hard Times by Charles Dickens

Audio narrated by Frederick Davidson. 11 hrs 29 mins.

The story of a no-nonsense schoolmaster who insists that his students and his own children be taught a certain way: "Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts." But after he marries his daughter off to a man she doesn't love and then she falls for someone else, and his son does the unthinkable bringing shame to his whole family, he begins to realize that people may need more than mere facts to prepare them for happy and productive lives. 

Dickens is one of my favourites. I love the language of his times and his politely worded jabs at pretentious people, but this story didn't appeal to me even a little bit. It may have been partly the narration, but I couldn't get invested in any of the characters and found the plot dull, though it may be blasphemy to even suggest it. 

Sorry, Mr. Dickens. 

Klara and The Sun/Pack Up The Moon

 Klara and The Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Within the first few pages you get a sense of something being not quite right. Through a comment here and a description there, a picture starts to form of what is going on behind the scenes, and though you may want to laugh it off as just fiction, something in you knows we're not that far away from becoming the society the book portrays.

Klara is an AF, an Artificial Friend, a companion parents buy for their teenage children. Klara's teenager is Josie, whose mother is still working in spite of most jobs being done now by AI, and whose father lives in a community of those who have already been replaced. Klara's purpose is to be as much help to Josie as she can, at the same time obeying the instructions of Josie's mother. Josie is unwell and Klara wants nothing more than to see her get better and is convinced The Sun can heal her with its "special nourishment."

In this near-future society parents must choose by a certain age whether or not to have their children genetically enhanced to give them an advantage in education and in life, even though some of the "uplifted" children suffer weakened health as a result. Klara's sister died after enhancement so choosing that path for Josie was risky, but her parents didn't want to deny her the chance at a better future. They also couldn't face the loss of another child, but perhaps a way could be found to  keep Josie with them even if she did succumb to the illness. Cue eerie music here. 

Next door to Josie live Rick and his mother. Rick is not one of the lifted but he's smart and talented enough for his mother to try to get him into a school that usually will take only enhanced students. Rick and Josie are best friends with a long term plan for their lives together and one of Klara's responsibilities is to act as chaperone so the adults have that one thing less to worry about. 

I enjoy Kishiguro's writing, the spare, straightforward language and the uneasy tone he creates. The characters live the lives they must while the reader grows quietly horrified and yet can't look away; it's all too probable.  

This book and another of Ishiguro's, Never Let Me Go, have never let me go. Both left me wondering if it really must come to this, and isn't there something we should do to make sure it doesn't, knowing it's probably already too late to stop the AI avalanche now gathering speed and power as it thunders towards us. It's the matter-of-fact acceptance of it all, in the novels and in our own reality, that make these scenarios so chilling, yet both books are terrific and I wouldn't want to not have read them. Indeed I will probably read them again in a couple of years to see how much closer our reality has gotten to Ishiguro's fiction.

Klara and The Sun is a book you can't put down, an unsettling story about what it means to be human and how far we could, or should, go in our quest to make machines human, too.   

Pack Up the Moon by Kristin Higgins

A young husband, Josh, struggles with grief after losing his wife to idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. A few weeks after the funeral he receives the first of her letters - there'll be one for each month of his first year without her - assigning him tasks she hopes will help him get out and start living again. It's a terribly sad love story that will probably leave you in tears, but I didn't find it offered much beyond an opportunity to cry. If that's what you need - and who doesn't sometimes - you might love it.  

Away

 Away by Jane Urquhart

A haunting story of Irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine and building a new life in Canada, haunting in that it stays with you and in the supernatural aspect of it. 

Young Mary is so captivated by a sailor washed up on shore that she changes her name to his last whispered word: Moira. After he dies, he continues to appear to her. For a time she withdraws  into her own thoughts and imaginings of him, with the older folks saying in hushed voices that she's "away", a term used to describe someone who's been taken by the spirits or faeries or whatever it is they believe "takes" people.  

For a while she comes back from wherever she's been, marries, has children, and sets sail for Canada, but there the dead sailor calls to her from the water and she goes "away" again. In time, one of her children is also influenced by whatever force has his mother in its grasp. I think we are meant to find the spirituality in the novel beautiful but it had such a destructive effect on everyone around her that it was only tragic instead.  

The story covers several generations, going back and forth from Mary's time to that of her great-granddaughter, with the latter part of the book covering the years much more quickly. The writing is lovely and the story interesting in its portrayal of starting over in a new country with nothing - their first night in Canada was spent in the woods under a few branches for shelter - but I can't say I liked it. And yet there's something about it, a tone, a breathlessness the author creates by pulling you in and leaving you suspended there without answers, that tugs at me and makes me think about reading it again. 

Whether I do or not, I hope one of you will and then come back and tell me what you think about it. I'd love to hear your insights.

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum

One of the most charming origin stories of Santa I've read, rich in detail and filled with mythical creatures. 

In this tale of Santa Claus's life, he was abandoned as a baby, rescued by a fairy and raised in their beautiful, natural world among immortal beings until he reached an age where he was required to make a life for himself out in the world with his own kind. 

Grieved by the suffering he saw in human lives, he wished to do whatever he could to bring them a little happiness. He began making toys for the children nearby while teaching them the importance of being kind and helpful to those around us. More and more children came to his door as word spread until he was making so many toys that he needed a way of transporting them, especially to children who lived further away. So he built a sleigh.....and the story goes on from there until he is, at the end of many adventures, the Santa of legend.

Published in 1902, it seems this has been a popular book for many years but it somehow never appeared on my radar. I am glad it finally did because I wouldn't have wanted to miss it. A delightful read.   

Camino Island

 Camino Island by John Grisham

Just as I was finishing this one, I discovered it's the first in a series of three. I have got to start checking for that before I read; I've been caught too many times by a story that doesn't resolve because it continues in later books. I don't read series as a rule, or crime stories for that matter, but I saw this was about the theft of F. Scott Fitzgerald's original manuscripts and I couldn't resist.

It opens with the thieves locating the manuscripts in the library and some of them managing to escape, then shifts to a different scenario all together. 23 year old Bruce Cable, whose father has died leaving him only a portion of the money to which he believes himself entitled, quietly helps himself to a few rare books from his father's library and sets out to find a place to open a bookshop. 

Eventually he settles on Camino Island, where it happens that Mercer Mann's family has a cottage. Mercer, struggling to write a second novel after her first reasonably successful one, is trying to stay on top of her student loans by teaching high school students. She is approached by a stranger who works for a "company that specializes in security and investigations. An established company that you've never heard of because we don't advertise, don't have a website." 

They know about her property on Camino Island and would like her to stay there and get to know Bruce and his bookshop. Now, years after the theft, they suspect the stolen manuscripts are being hidden somewhere in Bruce's shop. In return for any information she can provide they will pay off her student loans, an offer she doesn't much like but cannot afford to turn down.

Grisham writes a good story - no news there. The plot is original (to me anyway, not having read much in this genre) and moves along at a fair pace. It's lighter in tone and therefore more fun than I expected from a crime story. The characters are interesting if not particularly deep, which I shouldn't expect in a plot-driven story anyway. Lots of talk about books, authors, bookshops and libraries - catnip for some of us.

I got quite caught up in the story, but am I'm interested enough to keep going through the next two books in the series.....maybe not, or maybe. Time will tell.

Call Your Daughter Home

 Call Your Daughter Home by Deb Spera

Three women in 1920s South Carolina tell their stories and form bonds, helping them weather difficult and disturbing circumstances. 

Retta works as cook for the influential Coles family, and with her husband, Odell, is still grieving the loss of their 8 year old daughter years ago. 

Miss Annie (Mrs. Coles), whose father left her money her husband can't touch, runs her own business, The Sewing Circle, providing jobs for a number of the local women. She, too, grieves the loss of a child, as well as her estrangement from two daughters who left home abruptly 15 years ago and haven't been in contact since. Her husband...well he's another story. I'll let you hate him...I mean meet him...in the book.    

Gertrude has a deadbeat, abusive husband and 4 young daughters who will soon starve if she can't find a way to provide for them. Her solution to the first part of that problem becomes clear in the opening line of the book "It's easier to kill a man than a gator, but it takes the same kind of wait." Desperate times...

The three women's lives intersect when Retta takes in Gertrude's very ill youngest girl to nurse her, then helps Gertrude find a place to live and to get work in Miss Annie's business. It's an uneasy situation with Retta's neighbours looking askance at her taking a white child into her home and moving a white family into their neighbourhood, but that will turn out to be the least of the complications in Rhetta's life. 

At our book club meeting some of us felt it was hard to say we liked the book because of the disturbing subjects dealt with, but there is no question it is a good, maybe even great, book. Solid writing, strong characters, and a gripping plot all make it worth reading. Instances of spousal abuse, racism, child molestation, and murder don't overwhelm other themes of friendship, family relationships, and women standing up for women. Highly recommended. 

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

 Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

With a slow start I wasn't at all sure I'd like it, but the pace picked up, I got invested, and then didn't want to put it down. 

Sam and Sadie meet as children in a hospital, Sam a patient undergoing a number of surgeries on a foot mangled in a car accident, and Sadie spending time with her sister who has cancer. They bond over video games then lose touch until they meet again as college students. Together with Sam's roomate, Marx, they design and market games, eventually setting up their own successful gaming company. 

The tech part of the story is fun but it's the relationships that are mesmerizing and the core of the story. The love - the incredible bond - between the three of them, particularly Sam and Sadie, is palpable, as are the bitter anger and resentment that often get in their way. When you tire of a character's bad behaviour you still can't stop wanting better for them. All three are brilliant and head strong and beautifully vulnerable, evidence of this author's gift for creating characters you love even when they aren't lovable.     

A great story, emotional but written with restraint. I just finished another novel unfortunately written with no restraint at all, wallowing in emotion on every page. Ugh. Restraint is greatly appreciated. 

Not a romance but a love story, unlike any I've read before. 

One of Our Thursdays in Missing

 One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde

In this sixth volume of the Thursday Next series, the action takes place inside a re-made Book World and the narrator is the written Thursday Next. The real Thursday is missing. And if that sounds confusing, hang on. 

The real Thursday was scheduled to appear at peace talks to calm down genres intent on war, but no one has heard from her or knows where she is. The written Thursday - the one in the book the real Thursday wrote about her work as a literary detective - sees a chance to live up to her namesake's reputation and determines to find out what happened to her and effect a rescue if that is needed.

This re-made Book World is very different from that of the first five books. I'm not as keen on it as I was the other, but still it was fun traveling through it and seeing how it operates now. And they give you a map! In the front of the book there's a detailed one of Fiction Island that I had fun studying and found myself referring to many times. I do love a book with a map.

One reviewer called the book "inspired lunacy" and I can't think of a better description. Book World is a weird and wonderful place, full of quirks and curiousities like these:

• a support group for the lesser-known siblings of famous characters. James Bond's brother, Harry Potter's sister, and The Great Gatsby's siblings, Mediocre Gatsby and Loser, all discuss their jealousy and inferiority complexes there. 

• written characters who get shot and fly apart in words, which then get stuck in walls and furniture like shards of glass.

• "met labs" where metaphors are made by stripping similes of their likes and as's. The quality of the product is low but they sell well on the black market because of the dearth of fresh metaphors.  

I don't know how he does it, and how he keeps doing it book after book, but Jasper Fforde's imagination is off the charts. If you're new to the series though, don't start with this one; jumping in the middle might cause you to doubt your own sanity as well as Fforde's. Begin at the beginning and just enjoy the whole wacky ride.

Silverview

 Silverview by John Le Carre

This was my first John Le Carre novel and from what I understand it was the last one he wrote, not being published until after his son (author Nick Harkaway) found it packed away in a drawer following Le Carre's death. I knew he'd been a prolific writer but thought his books were gritty spy novels, a genre I was never much drawn to. I don't remember how I came into possession of this one but gosh, it was good. 

The main character, Julian, leaves his high-paying city job to open a small town bookshop. A couple of months in, a man called Edward comes into the shop and and charms Julian into renovating the basement to sell old and rare literary works. He offers to do all the sourcing and Julian, to his own surprise, quickly agrees. 

Elsewhere, news of a leak within a covert goverment sector sends chief Proctor on a hunt to find the weak link. His inquiries into Edward's past reveal a complicated world of spycraft and an Edward who is much more than simply a charming, aging bibliophile.

It is indeed a spy novel but with a lot of heart and very little, if any, grit. Edward has a fascinating story, as does his wife Deborah (also a spy), and their daughter Lily, who doesn't know much about either of their secret lives and becomes the love interest for Julian. Much of the plot lies in the back stories but that doesn't lessen the intrigue; it was hard to put down. 

The characters are well constructed, vivid and realistic, touching in their unique ways. These are people you can root for; they aren't perfect but they are likeable and you want things to work out well for them.

Good writing, solid plot, and authentic characters. Excellent book. 

The Reading Life

 The Reading Life by C.S. Lewis

An audio book with less than stellar narration. I should have read a hard copy, and I seem to be saying that a lot lately. With audio books, so very much depends on the reader that I'm beginning to wonder if they're worth it. I've given up on a lot of them because the reader's tone, the attitude they gave the characters, or something in their approach to the story made me dislike the experience. The fault is mine much of the time because I'm guilty of not taking the time to listen to the samples offered, an oversight I will correct before I buy anymore of them. But certainly no more Lewis on audio. I need his books - his brilliance - on my shelf.

The Reading Life is a collection of Lewis's thoughts about reading gathered from his other books, essays, and letters. Some are brief quotes but there are longer passages, a few offering insights on Tolkien's Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books. Lewis and Tolkien are probably my two favourite writers so for me this book was pure pleasure. I appreciate how he can cut through to the heart of an idea in straightforward language, leaving me feeling I've learned something profound and usable in daily life. 

If you've read Lewis extensively, you won't find anything new here, but I have not and so found this collection interesting and worthwhile. I'll leave you with a couple of quotes:

“The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing.”

"...in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself”

Death Comes To Pemberley & A Severed Wasp

 Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James

From what I've read, I understand this to be P.D. James' tribute to her favourite author, Jane Austen. It's a sequel to Pride and Prejudice, similar in style and language and using the same characters. 

At first I was happy to be back at Pemberley and among old friends, but then I began to notice that my friends were changed. They were saying things that didn't seem to suit the personalities I remembered, and the whole tone of the book was different. Austen wrote a book light in tone with a little bite in its good-natured sarcasm. In James' book the tone is more melancholy and there is little of the witty banter between the characters that made Pride and Prejudice sparkle. That one was called a "comedy of manners"; this one is a tradegy about a murder. It's also about an unfaithful husband, an illigitimate child, and a suicide, topics Miss Austen tended to stay away from.  

The story takes place 6 years after Elizabeth and Darcy were married and they are now residing at Pemberley with their 2 young sons and Darcy's sister, Georgiana. The night before their annual ball, all is thrown into confusion when Elizabeth's sister, Lydia, arrives in a panic saying that her husband, Wickham, has been murdered. If you've read Pride and Prejudice you may think that's not altogether bad news, but murder is murder and some of the men rush out to find him. When they do, he is alive and kneeling over the body of his comrade, Denny, weeping that it's his fault and that he has killed his very good friend. The rest of the story tells about the investigation into what happened and how, who the guilty party is, and the secrets the investigation reveals.

I'm sure it's not easy to write about previously established characters and keep them true to the original author's intent, but this one goes a little too far off track. "Elizabeth knew that she was not fomed for the sad contrivances of poverty" didn't feel like something Austen's Elizabeth would think or say. And when Darcy concluded "The price he had paid in bribing Wickham to marry Lydia had been the price of Elizabeth", it sounded nothing like his Austen character. He had intervened in that situation out of his feeling of responsibility, not to purchase Elizabeth's affection. And the suggestion that Elizabeth's affection could have been bought is not at all true to her character. 

I do enjoy P.D. James writing and this one wasn't bad as a murder mystery, but it messed with the characters too much for me.

A Severed Wasp by Madeleine L'Engle

Beautifully written, as expected, but with enough secrets and tragedy to fill a season of soap operas. The main character, Katherine, a concert pianist, returns home in retirement to give out more wise advice to others than any one person could or possibly, should. Though I knew I should like and admire her, she was a bit too stand-offish to get close to. I loved the setting (a cathedral in New York City), and all the art and music references, but the pace was slow and the plot a little too much to be believed. All that said, it's not a bad story and the good writing alone is probably reason enough to read this one.

Flowers of Darkness

 Flowers of Darkness by Tatiana De Rosnay

Clarissa, an aging writer, has left her husband after finding out he has a double life, a second home where he lives with....I'll leave that for you to find out. Clarissa (and I) are shocked and disgusted in equal proportions and she begins a new life while I try to erase icky images from my mind. 

The more interesting storyline begins when she moves into a building designed for artists - painters, poets, writers, etc. The building's corporate owners are intent on providing a place where creative people can create without worrying about mundane daily things. Set a few years in the future, advanced tech takes care all that. Clarissa has named her apartment's AI housekeeper/overseer Mrs. Dalloway. 

"Mrs. Dalloway, turn on the kettle. Mrs Dalloway complied. Clarissa left most household matters to her. The heating, air conditioner, alarm, shutters, lighting scheme, automatic cleaning system, and all sorts of other tasks were under Mrs. Dalloway's expert supervision."

Before long she begins to suspect that not only is she being watched and recorded, but also possibly being drugged. During an inexplicable, middle of the night fire drill, a neighbour, Jim, mentions his apprehensions about the building and they agree to meet away from home to share concerns. A few days later Jim is missing, his apartment is empty, and Clarissa knows for sure that something is very wrong here.

Despite the odd secondary story line about Clarissa's husband, this was quite a riveting book that I read (too) far into the night. These days I find almost any story about the use of advanced tech for less than ethical purposes interesting, but this one had a few twists and turns that turned it into a real page-turner toward the end. 

Alas, once you get to the end it just fizzles out. I was left with so many questions that I was sure it must be followed by a sequel, but no, it's a stand alone novel. So I don't know what happened to Jim, how Clarissa gets out of her contract with the building, how or where she's going to live now, or if there will be any legal consequences to the corporation.

It's a good story, but I do wish I had more answers.

The Guest Book

 The Guest Book by Sarah Blake

Three generations of the Milton family, at their summer place on Crockett's Island, Maine, view the world from a position of privilege with a set of particular standards and values. They believe themselves generally good people, open-minded and kind, and so they are on the surface, but a time is coming when they will have to face the darker things beneath.

The book addresses a lot of different issues: racism, antisemitism, homosexualism, elitism and probably a few other isms I'm forgetting. It also raises the issue of American-Nazi sympathizers leading up to the Second World War. It won't give you any answers but it will help you ask questions, which I think is what good fiction should do. Some reviewers have complained of the book tackling too many problems at once, but life is like that isn't it? Problems don't come one at a time no matter how much we wish they would. If it was a bit of a stretch to have it all affecting this one family at this particular time, it made for an interesting story and good reading. 

Kitty and Ogden Milton and their children are the first of three timelines; then Moss, Evelyn, and Joan, the now grown children, are the second; and the third is Evie, Joan's daughter, and Evie's son, Seth. The list of characters is long, with some from different generations having similar names, so when the narrative changed from one timeline to another within a chapter and without any warning, it left me momentarily confused, but it sorted itself out after a few lines. I found most of the characters believable, if not particularly relatable. Life in a summer mansion on a private island is not in my experience, but, again.....good reading.  

The book is long - 559 pages in my mass market paperback edition - but the story was good so the length wasn't an issue for me. The only thing that was an issue was the size of the book. Because it was small and thick, my aging hands found it hard to hold open and were relieved to come to the end of it. I should stop buying these smaller editions, but they are so much less expensive than the larger versions that I get excited about the bargain and forget about the hands. But back to the book...   

Sarah Blake is a good story-teller and a beautiful writer. Some lines I found myself reading and re-reading just for the pleasure of the words and phrasing:

"Soundless, the year wheeled round on its colors. Summer spun down green to gold to gray, then rested, rested white at the bottom of the year, rocking the dark of winter; rocking, then rolling slowly, wheeling up again through a dun brown, a mouse gray, until one day the green whisper, the lightest green. soft and growing into the next day, then the next until suddenly, impossibly, it was spring again."  

Another sentence that particularly appealed to me was "The sun burned with a bright fervor, dismissing the fog and sharpening the afternoon." I thought of how I might have written that sentence and couldn't come close to anything so lovely. "...sharpening the afternoon" changes the way I look at sunny days now. It really is wonderful how reading can help you see things in a new way.

One last quote: "...the piano threw the music into the cavernous room, the notes tossed high and shivering down between the couples, onto the hair of girls and the shoulders of the men. This was one of those nights everyone would remember, it was clear to her even from here in the dark, one of those nights that spring, glistening and electric, upward through the surface of ordinary days: We were here."  So beautifully written, all you can do is sigh and recall summer nights of your own.

 The Guest Book is a good story to get lost in for awhile, and that's always a good thing. 

The Murder at Sissingham Hall

 The Murder at Sissingham Hall by Clara Benson

A country house murder mystery, the first in the Angela Marchant series. When Charles Knox returns to England after 8 years away, he is invited to a gathering at the elegant home of his ex-fiance, the beautiful Rosamund, and her much older husband, Neville Strickland. There Charles gets re-aquainted with old friends and tries to get used to seeing Rosamund as nothing more than that. 

The occasional tension arises but the visit moves along fairly well until, two days in, he awakens to the household in an uproar. Neville has been found dead in his study, apparently from falling and hitting his head on the corner of the mantel. Of course it wasn't an accident and each character is now a suspect.

I love stories set in English manors - the beautiful rooms and grounds, the elegant, well spoken characters - who hasn't dreamed of a life like that? The trouble is, I feel like I've read this story several times before. Different manor, different character names, slightly different circumstances, but basically the same mystery. And like those other ones, once the case was solved the who, what, when, where, and how were dumped in one spot, this time going on so long that I nearly lost interest. 

Pleasant reading but too similar to others before it, and Angela Marchant, who the series is named for, seemed to be only a minor character. I suspect things might get more interesting as the series progresses.

How To Know a Person

 How to Know a Person by David Brooks

This is another audio book I wish I'd read in a paper edition. I did take notes but it's not the same as having a well-underlined book to refer back to, so this one goes on my lengthening list of hard copies to track down. They're readily available at full price of course, but where's the fun in that? I'll look for a good used copy simply because I enjoy the hunt. 

It was the subtitle that first got my attention: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen. Who doesn't want that? In a culture where we spend more time looking at screens than at people I wonder if anyone truly feels seen anymore. Brooks believes the greatest gift you can give someone is to make them feel seen, and with gentle wisdom and generosity of spirit he teaches us how to begin. 

He talks about Illuminators and Diminishers. Illuminators are easy to be around, people who look for the good in you, show affection, tolerate mistakes, and don't try to fit you into a category. They want to know you, to illuminate you - who you are. They see you as a unique creation, a deep well of experience and capabilities, a treasure to be discovered. Diminishers tend to keep the light on themselves, tell you their stories, their opinions, their experiences. They want to be known but show little interest in knowing you; they listen to your story, then one-up you with theirs. Instead of using the opportunity to ask about your story they redirect the conversation back to themselves and miss an opportunity to get to know you better.

He's not saying we are strictly one or the other; at times we are Illuminators and at others we are Diminishers. His goal is to help us become more illuminating and less diminishing so we can help the people we encounter feel more fully seen. 

I don't think anyone could read this book and not gain something from it. Highly recommended!

Catching Up

It's been a difficult month. My brother passed away at the end of March - an unsettling death after a challenging and complicated life - and though I've been reading, I haven't had the energy or the focus needed to write and post about the books. Having been through the loss of several family members you'd think I'd be used to the way the mind goes numb and leaves you trying to remember how to put one foot in front of the other, yet it still takes me by suprise.Time is suspended and everything seems to happen in slow motion. It's like wading through a substance thick and heavy, but invisible. Usually, when the arrangement-making and all the activity is finished and you're settling back into your regular daily life, time resumes its natural flow and you move on as best you can, but nothing seems normal yet. Moving on feels unnatural, unkind, and unfair, but today I'll make a small attempt at a start by writing at least a few words about each of the books I've read over the past few weeks...     

How to Read a Poem and Fall In Love with Poetry by Edward Hirsch

This wonderful book reminded me why I love poetry and introduced me to some poets with whose work I was unfamiliar. One of them is Wislawa Szymborska, a Polish poet whose plainspoken words pack an absolute punch to the gut every time I read them. I'm hoping to have a copy of her Map: Collected and Last Poems on my shelf soon. 

This book taught to read more slowly and attentively to find deeper meaning in poetry and prose alike. It's a book that will stay on my desk and that I expect to return to often for reference and inspiration.  

The City Where We Once Lived by Eric Barnes

This was a re-read that I loved as much this time as I did the first time, which you can read about here. This story gets to me in a way that few do: the main character's awful, unrelenting pain, the slow climb from bleak despair to hopefullness for him and for the city, and the blessed thought that no matter how bad circumstances get, human beings can still be human and connect and care about, and for, one another. It remains one of my favourite novels. 

Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker

Another re-read, one I didn't enjoy as much the second time. I remembered it as having a lighter tone but on this reading found it to be quite serious, even dark at times, which can probably be put down to my own frame of mind at the time. Struggling with questions of life and death is apparently not the best condition under which to appreciate wry humour and irony. In less fraught circumstances I'd have received it differently, so I think it's best to stand by my original comments, found here.

Timeline by Michael Chrichton

A sci-fi book that takes you back to the 15th century and spends - for me - too much time there. A group of scientists and tech geniuses figure out a way to use quantum physics to travel to - not another time, but another dimension in which is it now another time. Splitting hairs, maybe, but I found the concept interesting. What I found a bit tedious was their all getting trapped in that other reality and taking a long time to get back. Their time there - then? - is filled with knights, sword fighting, and many frantic attempts to avoid being caught, all of which add up to a good Middle Ages adventure story for people who like those, but it isn't what I'm looking for in a sci-fi novel. Credit where credit is due, it gave me something to read that I didn't have to think too much about at a time when that was exactly what I needed. Michael Chrichton has done that for me a few times over the years with The Andromeda Strain, Sphere and Congo, so if you're looking for a page-turning escape from your own reality for awhile, this will probably do it.

Gentlmen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos 

I probably should have enjoyed this more than I did. It's meant to be comedic, but I was annoyed with the main character, Lorelei Lee, most of the time. She comes across as a bit of an airhead, but is, she insists, a woman of morals. She is also a master manipulator, charming men into giving her expensive clothes, jewels, trips, etc, and they let her manipulate them because she's a sexy blonde who looks good on their arms and strokes their vanity. Nothing is said about what they get from her in return for their extravagant gifts, but it seems the more obvious from not being stated outright. 

I finished the book unable to decide if she's really dumb, really smart, or some weird hybrid of both. In any case it seems to end happily enough for her, but this story of men and women using each other while pretending affection was more sad than funny to me. To be fair, this might not have been the best time to read it, but I liked it so little I can't imagine giving it another shot. 

Winter in Thrush Green

 Winter in Thrush Green by Miss Read 

This second in the Thrush Green series - the first three will show the same cover because they are all in one volume - finds Dr. Lovell and  Ruth married and expecting their first child. Ben and Molly, also married now with a child, are traveling, running the fair since Mrs. Curdle, Ben's grandmother, passed away a year earlier.

The town is in a state of excitement waiting for the new owner of the house on the corner to move in, and is highly gratified to find it is to be single man, one who can look after himself and has a charming personality to go along with that rare and much-admired ability. He will be a new friend for the rector and the source of much friendly gossip for the townspeople. And he will stir up further excitement with his suggestion of a statue to celebrate the life of Nathaniel Patten, a celebrated missionary who was born in Thrush Green. 

The Church warden, Mr. Piggot, is as grumpy as ever, but perhaps will mellow a bit now with a little grandson in the picture, and with Nelly Tilling, an old school friend, taking a new interest in his well-being.  

Ella and Dimity, two old friends who have shared a home for many years, muddle along as usual. Dimity's developing friendship with the local rector leads Ella to realize that she hasn't appreciated nearly enough all that Dimity does for her and puts up with. She would miss her terribly were she to leave for a different life. 

The ordinary doings of daily life in the picturesque village of Thrush Green fill this second book as well as they did the first. Settling into any of Miss Read's books feels like going home; it's cozy and comfortable and truly pleasant reading. 

Born a Crime

 Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

Trevor Noah was born in South Africa under apartheid when it was a criminal offense for blacks and whites to be together as couples. With a black mother and white father, Trevor's very existence was a crime, so his identity had to be hidden for the first few years of his life.

Too dark-skinned to be completely accepted by whites and too light-skinned for blacks, he didn't fit in anywhere when he was growing up. His parents lived necessarily separate lives, though Trevor was able to spend time with both for a while, until his father eventually left the country.

Patricia, Trevor's mother, was, is, an amazing - and not-a-little intimidating - woman. Strong-willed, independent, and fiercely committed to seeing her son rise above his circumstances, he credits her with making him who he is today. She's a fascinating character, about whom I'd love to read more. Please, Trevor, get your Mum to write a book about her own life. What a story it must be.

Born a Crime is a window into life in the waning days of apartheid and the turbulent first days of freedom, a time I knew almost nothing about. A good story-teller, Trevor kept me glued to the page even when I wanted to look away. The stories are sometimes hilarious, sometimes sad and frightening, but I came away admiring both Trevor and his mother for not only surviving, but thriving in often cruel circumstances. God bless you both!

The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar

 The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar by Roald Dahl

A strange little story about a man who learned to see through things - blindfolds, closed eyelids, etc. He practiced for years the art of concentrating on a single object until eventually he could read a playing card laying face down on a table. At first it seemed an easy way to make money so he went to casinos, winning every game he played but carefully limiting himself at each location so as not to arouse suspicion.

He found the mere accumulation of wealth not very interesting when there was no challenge to it, so he looked for a purpose and found one in establishing and funding orphanages around the world. He hired a financial officer to take care of the money and handle the business end of things while he took to wearing various disguises so he could continue to gamble and win the funds needed to support the cause. This is how he lived the remainder of his life.

I listened to a very good audio version (2 hrs, 16 mins) narrated by Martin Jarvis. It’s odd - it is Roald Dahl - and kind of mesmerizing. Henry is…or at least, becomes…an appealing character, the plot is truly unique, and the story is well told. I’m about to watch the short film with Benedict Cumberbatch in the lead role and am curious to see how he interprets Henry.    

Quirky and satisfying; it made me smile.