The Christmas Hirelings & The House by the Sea

 The Christmas Hirelings by M. E. Braddon

A wealthy father disowned his daughter years ago when she married a man of whom he disapproved. He's had no contact with her for years, even though she is now widowed and raising her children alone. As Christmas comes around, a mutual friend of father and daughter contrives to acquaint the man with his grandchildren without his knowing their true identity. He successfully installs them in the man's house for a few days and I'm sure you can imagine the rest. It is predictable, but lovely nevertheless. It reminded me of Little Lord Fauntleroy in style and tone, a sweet story perfect for Christmas for adults and younger readers alike. 

The House by the Sea by Louise Douglas

Edie's mother-in-law, Anna, dies and wills her Italian villa to Edie and Tom, Anna's son, from whom Edie's been separated for ten years. Their marriage didn't survive the agonizing loss of their young son, Daniel, for whose death Edie blames Anna. They want only to get the matter settled and the house sold so they can be rid of each other again, but when they arrive in Italy things get complicated. There's a friend in need of protection from an abusive husband, a now elderly crime-syndicate boss living nearby, and someone who will stop at nothing to get them to leave. It's both a mystery and a family story of regret,  forgiveness, and reconciliation. I enjoyed listening to the audio book narrated by the articulate and expressive Emma Powell, whose charming British accent made it that much better.   

The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

How is it that I'm only now finding this book, 30 years after it was published? I've seen countless movies about the Viet Nam war, read books and stories, and watched it's ugly scenes unfold before my eyes on tv as they were happening, but somehow I missed this book, surely the best of them all.

The structure is hard to describe because it's unlike anything I've read before. It's fiction, but not a novel in the usual sense of the word, nor short stories as we know them. It's more a series of vignettes that tell a story, less as a progression of events than an array of sights, sounds, smells and emotions that come at you from everywhere.

Beyond simply telling us what happened, he takes us into the minds of the characters to share their thoughts and feelings while things are happening. He makes the experience so vivid, so immediate, that it settles into your memory as though you had actually been through it yourself, yet it's as beautiful as it is shattering. O'Brien bares the souls of his characters, and as we look into them, we find something of ourselves. It's exhilarating and terrifying and powerfully intimate. 

In and around all the war stories, he asks us to consider what qualifies as a true war story. Does adherence to the facts make it true or is conveying the right sensations the important thing? He skillfully blurs the lines between truth and fiction, leaving you to decide for yourself which stories are factual and whether or not it even matters. 

This is an amazing book, one that should be required reading for every adult on the planet.

12 Rules for Life, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and Glass Shatters

 12 Rules for Life

This book is packed full of information, and so, clearly, is Mr. Peterson. I picture his brain so stuffed full of knowledge and insight and ideas that it just sort of explodes out onto the pages of books. I'm sure there's a little more to it than that - I'm just saying the guy's a genius...and I have brain-envy. I wish I could think, and write, with such clarity. 

The book is wordy, but every word matters. It's well-written, readable, and makes more sense than is common presently. Anyone wanting to bring some order to their chaotic life will find a place to start here. Each rule is stated simply, then expanded upon with stories and indisputable logic that cement the rule into our psyches. I should have read this book in my younger years, but that would have been before toddler Peterson could read or write. On the other hand I'm so impressed I'd quite easily believe he was born reading, writing and speaking forth wisdom.

Read this book. 

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

I liked this, but less than I had expected to after reading reviews, 

Miss Jean Brodie is a teacher at a girl's school, a teacher with vastly different teaching methods than her employer considers appropriate. Each year she focuses in on a few select girls who become known as "The Brodie Set", girls who stay close to her even after they progress pass her grade level. Her remaining students she considers a little less worth her time and attention. 

Most of the other staff frown upon Miss Brodie and her teaching style because her students often move on to them with a considerable lack of academic knowledge. That they come with a broader knowledge of life, and specifically romance, fails to impress them. They don't like Miss Brodie much, and to tell the truth, neither did I.  

I think I'd get more out of this one if we discussed it in book club where the others could point out all the great things I missed. I found it only somewhat interesting and rather sad, but I am sure there's more to be gleaned from it than I've gotten. 

Glass Shatters by Michelle Myers

A man wakes up in a house he doesn't recognize, not knowing who he is, how he came to be there or why his head is bandaged. He stumbles out into the street and is recognized by a little girl who calls him Charles and tells him he's been gone for months. 

Memories - at first vague - of a wife and daughter who disappeared torment him until finding them becomes his obsession. When he's told he's a scientist who works at a genetics lab, other memories stir but he can't quite grasp any of them. Why isn't anything making sense? What is real and what isn't? Who is he?

The writing is quite good, the plot unusual and thought-provoking. It's a story of science being pushed to its ethical limits, which amounts to catnip for me.

The Trial / The Queen's Secret

 The Trial by Franz Kafka

I've never been so glad to finish a book. I don't know how to rate it in a how-much-did-you-like-it sense like GR's 5 star scale. I didn't like it at all, but I do appreciate what it's saying. I'm glad I read it, though it was anything but enjoyable.  

Joseph K. is told there is a court case against him but he is not told what the charges are, what law he has broken. Every effort to find out is futile. He talks to a few people who give him long-winded advice on the best course of action to follow, then tell him their advice will be of no help. They explain that they are merely lower officials of the court and they have no access to higher courts. K will also be denied access to the courts that judge his case and decide his fate. He has no rights. The Courts system is impenetrable, the law infallible.  

Questions go unanswered, but by the time I got to the end I didn't care. I didn't want the answers, I just wanted to get out of the suffocating atmosphere of pretense and contradictions, the madness that is the bureaucracy of a totalitarian government. K's hopes, and the reader's, in the beginning are soon worn down by relentless and senseless explanations that show no path forward or backward. It becomes horrifyingly apparent that there is no way out, there will be no way out, and yet the frail hope that common sense must surely prevail, and help come, survives until the last breath of life itself is given up. Painful to read, unnerving to contemplate.

The Queen's Secret by Karen Harper

Poor writing, repetitive, and sensationalized, with characters that would more accurately be described as caricatures. The dialogue feels contrived, almost theatrical. I wanted to like, or at least respect, the main character but she made herself preposterous with her bragging and repeatedly turning our attention back to her personal concerns from lesser matters like war and human suffering. The Queen, and she never lets you forget she is the Queen, has not just one but several secrets, and she never lets you forget those either. In every chapter she reminds us all about them and wonders endlessly if the King or the Prime Minister or somebody, anybody knows. It was awful. 

The Sense of an Ending, The Iliad, Slaughterhouse-Five

 The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

I read it too quickly the first time, so I went back and began again, hoping to find answers to lingering questions. There's much to think about here.

The narrator is Tony Webster. The story he's telling is his own history: the friends he had at school, his romance with a girl named Veronica, and later his marriage to Margaret and the birth of their daughter, Lucy.

Fast forward a few decades and Tony receives notice from a legal firm that Veronica's mother has left him an old friend's diary in her will. Tony has no idea how she came to be in possession of  the diary or why she left it to him. Getting answers becomes complicated when he learns that Veronica now has the diary and is not inclined to part with it. As he searches for answers he begins to realize that his memories of the past, the tidy picture of it he has created for himself, may not be completely accurate. It's possible his actions then affected other lives in ways he'd rather not face today.

This psychological drama is tightly written with flawed, messed-up, utterly human characters. I wanted to shake Veronica and yell at Tony, but mostly I just wanted them all to be ok. They would not be. I have to keep reminding myself this is fiction; it's all so vivid that surely it must be somebody's actual story. Do read this one. It's too good to miss.   

The Iliad by Homer

blood and gore,

long Greek names,

women as prizes

in war games, 

fighting and killing, 

crying and dying,

and a lot of useless gods.

Not a fan.

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

I read this because I thought I should. I left it almost to the end of my Guilt List books because I was dreading it a little bit - how could you not dread a book with such a title - but in the end I got through it and I'm glad to have read it. It isn't a book I can say I liked because the subject matter is horrible, but I can say I appreciated it - the writing and the message. It's about the inevitability of war, the unspeakable damage it does physically and psychologically, and it's ultimate uselessness. Not light reading, but the darkness is alleviated somewhat by the lead character, Billy Pilgrim's, seeming ability to time travel, and his kidnapping by aliens for a trip to the planet of Tralfamadore. It's weird, but it's good.  

Anxious People and Bird by Bird

 Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

The first few chapters seemed so silly I almost gave it up. I tried a few more (the chapters are very short, 74 in all) until one of the characters said something that finally made sense to me and convinced me to keep going. 

A group of people at an apartment viewing are surprised to find themselves being held hostage by a bank robber who never did manage to rob a bank. The hostages are a quirky group, competitive at first and determined to nab this great apartment by any means, fair or not, but then gradually, cautiously, they lower their defenses and get to know each other and their captor. 

The police officers on the case are a father and son who have different ways of doing things. One is by-the-book and easily frustrated, the other, with more experience, has learned that compassion offers a better solution in some cases than strict adherence to the rules. 

I liked the book once I had some understanding of what was happening. The early part was like putting together a puzzle without the picture, but in the end I enjoyed the story and found characters I liked and even wished I could spend more time with. 

The wrap-up reminded me of the last Backman book I read, Beartown. In both he shows us in little vignettes how life turns out for each of the characters, wrapping each short account up with a meaningful/dramatic sentence or two. I appreciated being told what happened in each character's life - I wanted to know that - but the repetitious structure became tiresome in both books.

Bird By Bird by Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott shares her writing process in hopes of helping others get started, or get back to it, or get unstuck from whatever point you're at. She shares some of what she teaches in her writing workshops, lessons she's learned in her own years of experience trying to get words on paper. There are chapters on plot, dialogue, characters, writer's block, finding your voice, and broccoli.....hmm. It's full of helpful information and encouragement, real stuff that has pushed me to finish some things abandoned long ago. She has a sense of humour and the confidence to use it well, making this a lot of fun to read. A good book to keep nearby for the writing help and for a laugh when I need one.