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!