Becky's Books –

Powerful book! This is a novella which managed to make the Booker Prize Long List for last year.  It’s dedicated “…to the women and children who suffered time in Ireland’s mother and baby homes and Magdalen laundries.”  (That kind of sets a stage of sorts.) 

Small Things Like These
By Claire Keegan
2021 / 70 pages
Read by Aiden Kelly 1h 57m
Rating:  10 / beautiful literary novella
Read once and listened 2x

The setting is the small town of New Ross, Ireland in 1985, where it’s a few weeks shy of Christmas. The story is simply that of Bill Furlong,  a coal and timber merchant of “almost forty,” who remembers growing up in that same town the only child of an unwed mother. They lived with a retired school teacher who hired his mother out of sympathy and her need of a housekeeper to live in.  Bill was a bright child and went to school with kids tho taunted him to a certain extent. His mother died when he was 12 leaving him with nobody but the they were staying with and she died not too long after that.  He gets a job selling coal and timber, marries and has his own family. He climbs up the local ladder of success a bit. He’s not particularly happy but it’s better than it ever was before. He’s a good man but he wonders about his father who simply went missing and his mother never told him anything before she died. 

That doesn’t sound like much of a story, but the telling is careful, deliberate and simple. It touched my heart. 

There’s a little historical note, “A Note on the Text” in the Kindle version which has some enlightening details about the history but there’s more about the Catholic Church’s Magdalen laundries on the internet.  James Joyce uses them in one of the stories in The Dubliners.   

I enjoy short stories and novellas and it looks like I’ve read 2 this month and I have a set of 5 in one volume left to go. I might not make it through all that. I don’t usually read novellas because it seems like a whole novel gives me as a reader more room to breathe. A novel can space out the action and developments.  A novella or really good short story is condensed and they can be very rich, strong, powerful. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_Laundries_in_Ireland

https://www.npr.org/2021/12/22/1065780684/claire-keegan-book-small-things-like-these-magdalene-laundries

It seems that Winslow has changed again and this time he’s gone from a series of door-stopping tomes and the stuff of serious criminal thrillers to novellas of various everything including lengths.They’ve been put together into one volume called Broken and when I got Crime 101 I knew Broken existed, it was even on my Wish List, but I didn’t know Crime 101 was included in it.  So I got Crime 101 on its own.  It might have convinced me to get the full volume of Broken.  We’ll see.  

Crime 101: a Novella 
By Don Winslow
2022 /
Read by Ray Porter. 2h 5m
Rating A / novella

Anyway, Crime 101 takes place along California US Highway 101 (aka Pacific Coast Highway), mostly from Pismo Beach south but there is some venturing up north. But “Crime 101” is also what the jewel thief calls the set of rules he’s made up to keep himself out of trouble, like getting busted or dead. He’s been doing this awhile so the rules apparently work.

“There are no buts – there are only the basics.  Crime 101.”  

“There’s a word for people who believe in coincidences.  Defendant.” 

It seems over the course of many years quite a number of jewel heists have occurred around Highway 101, but they’ve been separated by time, distance, enforcement jurisdictions, retail dealers, couriers and even insurance companies. It seems that only California Highway 101 connects the robberies. This old and gorgeous highway goes all the way from south of San Diego (where it’s US 101) to Grant’s Pass Oregon where it becomes US 101 again) but the old crimes played out from Big Sur south.

Although it’s widely believed this is the handiwork of a Colombian cartel, Lou Lubesnick, a cop working out of San Diego has the feeling they’re they work of one man, a loner jewel thief. And Lou is out to get him. –

So this story deals with what could  be the last job of a guy named Davis, the lone-wolf jewel thief. But it’s quite risky as well as being a really big job. And he now has Lou Lubesnick, a divorcing cop from San Diego, tailing him because the case and cases caught his attention.   

The narrative mostly alternates between Davis the thief and Lou the cop but there are others involved. Money, the go-between, is definitely an interested party and has his “people” involved as couriers and so forth. Plus there’s Sharon, an insurance broker, because jewel thieves can’t really work totally solo. Even if the job is successful, they’ll be stuck with nice jewels and nowhere to put them and no where to hide.  

So Lou the cop has his hands full tracking all this down and finding out what’s going on and how to nab Davis.  Reading 101; pay attention. Yes – I’m getting Broken. “Crime 101” is only 1 of 5 or 6 stories/novellas.  

I got this book when I saw it available at the library because, I guess, I thought I “should” read it. I read quite a lot of minority literature. See Juneteenth by Annette Gordon Reed, Franchise by Marcia Chatelain and All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, by Tiya Miles or a few others in the past 3 months alone.  (The first was okay, the other 2 were brilliant.)

In a way it’s like going to church and the preacher wants to have those who are ready to give their souls to Jesus stand up – so everyone does. Huh? You did that several years ago – now it’s time to keep learning how to live. (But this is a “woke-“ing book – not a “still marching” book.)

And it’s a fine book – it’s my reaction which might have problems. The book itself consists of a pretty much chronological ordering of essays separated by some poetry or other short writings. A variety of authors contributed, all black, I believe, on a range of subjects dealing with black history and experience in the US. The title is the year the first Africans arrived in Virginia where they were pretty quickly turned into chattel.

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story
edited by Nicole Hannah Jones
read by a cast – 16h 57m
2021 / 539 pages
read by a cast
Rating – 9 / US history
(read and listened)

Then comes the subtitle, “A New Origin Story.” Is it according to Jones that US history begins with the Africans arriving in Virginia (an accident I might venture to add).

Is that not erasing the origins story and history belonging to Natives? Where is the Jamestown Colony starting in 1607 with 12 years of funding and organizing and working and sailing and setting up a little colony of their own? They were taking over from the natives and almost starving with Miles Standish, John Rolf, Poca- hontas and the others?

Fwiw, that same year the first women settlers arrived at Jamestown AND the Virginia colonists organized their “House of Burgesses” to act as their democratic government. Btw, I don’t know what “democratic” means at this point. It’s become one of those terms which is bandied about rather loosely. (Either Trump’s going to take it away from us or we’ve never had it anyway – I don’t know which.)

Maybe the US actually originated with the racism which apparently pervades the country today? The US started with the new black immigrants (stolen and re-routed Portuguese slaves)?

The principles Jones and Company, (under the appellation “Created by,” are concerned with include Democracy, Race, Fear, Capitalism, Inheritance, Medicine (2 times), Church, Music, and Justice plus several other things. The book is organized around them and they’re separated by poetry and short fictions by contemporary black writers.  I think there may be a couple pieces by white authors/poets, but I don’t know which.  Some of them are just flat excellent and oh so worth the reading – these, for me, were the historical ones. I’m not big on poetry for conveying information but it can be perfect for converting emotion.

It’s very nicely written.  I was quite interested until I got to the Medicine chapter. At that point I kind of fell like, “Oh dear, that’s too bad.”  What can be done about it? I’m way past horrified and “woke.” Nothing much can be done at this point, except may reparations? Will that fix it? No, not really? Okay fine.

In The Desperate Hours by Marie Brenner, I read about New York Presbyterian Medical Center during the Covid-19 pandemic and it seems that way more minorities died than anyone else. I felt so bad about that. And they were working there too, as janitors and body movers and other employees. But I couldn’t do anything about that and I can’t do anything about what is mentioned in 1619 and all that is undoubtedly interrelated. So what is it I’m supposed to do?

I’m not sure where my personal guilt comes in but I’m told it does because my family, who lost a son in the Civil War on the side of the North and settled in Dakota Territory when it opened, benefited in some way. (But the whole nation benefited from my family’s successfully homesteading the acres which provide wheat and potatoes and flax and corn down through the decades (and centuries now). My family wore wool mostly, no cotton purchases – even to sew with, so I’m still wondering how Aunt Sophie benefited from slavery.

Okay – I might as well accept that too – now what? Do I just wear my guilt on my sleeve like a banner? Do I concern myself more with that than with global warming?  More than about what’s happening today with our Democracy?  I can’t do that – care more about historical reality of slavery and racism than what’s going on today. Folks will always fear the “other.”

Also, what about the Native Americans who were here before the Jamestown Colony and Dakota Territory existed? I don’t want to think about that – about what blacks might “owe” the Natives for appropriating the land which is wherever blacks live and do business in this country. (Yes European-Americans are on most of it by a long shot.)

You’re bringing me a problem you say is my fault (my people’s fault) and telling me there’s nothing can be done to fix it.  Okay. I heard your story and I’ve even heard it before – several times. I’ve been to see what are now historical markers and tourist venues to show me what slavery was.

I’m considered elderly now and there’s not much I can realistically do about anything. I see no point in accepting a guilt trip for a situation I didn’t create or consciously do anything to worsen. Some people call it “woke.” Imo, if a white person gets woke, he’ll likely feel “guilt” and if a black person is “woke” he’ll might be angry.

After that? After I get all woke up and understand I am guilty-as-charged by those who, in some way, hope to profit by it? What is it that I’m supposed to do now?

I guess I’ll read it again in case I missed something. I’ve got the Kindle version because I would like to see the source notes – if there are any. Also, I’d like to give individual credit to some of the authors for their work if that’s possible.

I’d seen this advertised somewhere and stuck it on the Audible Wish List for later. It may have been before it was released.  Then when it did come out I had to finish reading  one book and found other books and Ali Smith got pushed back until I’d almost forgot until now, a couple months later, I finally pick it up.  This happens with a lot of books on the TBR Shelf. 

Companion Piece
By Ali Smith
2022 / (237 pages) 
Read by Natalie Simpson 4h 54m
Rating: 8.5 / 21st century lit

I first found Ali Smith with her novel Hotel World back in 2001 and went on to read a couple more as they were released but then fell away for awhile.  I picked back up on her in 2014 with How To Be Both and have stayed right with it until now with no real desire to go back the three I missed.  Smith’s series, “Seasonal Quartet,” was brilliant. 

Companion Piece is a 1st person tale again, this time in the era of Covid and Trump. Sandy is the lesbian daughter of an elderly man and earns her keep as an experimental author/artist using words and paint to create images of poetry. Her father doesn’t really approve of her in almost any way but, with her mother deceased, Sandy serves as his companion and cares for him when he gets ill. 

And then an old acquaintance calls and asks about a couple of words, “curfew” and “curlew,” a time limit and a bird. Sounds like Smith’s oeuvre themes. The next thing we know the woman’s two daughters are calling on Sandy, interrogating her, and appropriating her living quarters. It gets hard to follow but I think the curfews of Covid have made everyone about nuts being cooped up. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Smith

In an online discussion with a reading group the subject of Audio books came up. I virtually always listen to books, but ‘ll often read along in a Kindle version. I originally bought a Kindle in 2008 for travel and that’s how I used it. Lugging along an extra suitcase for books was no fun, but there were no good bookstores close enough for me to last 2 or 3 months in North Dakota. Shipping paperbacks there was awkward. Kindle was a whole bookstore at my fingertips although at first I had to drive out of town to get reception.  

So why the Audio? Originally, back in 2003 or so, it was to listen and walk at the same time  I had started listening to books with a Walkman using library audio tapes, but after a few years Audible sounded good and the little Otis device came with it.  I’ve not looked back -rather I listen via iPod and now iPad. Then I started listening when I was doing housework. Now, 20 years and a couple thousand books later I’m still listening to Audible and the public library is available online, too. The library doesn’t have as many good audio books, but I sometimes get older crime novels there like “The Women’s Mystery Club” by James Patterson and Maxine Paero, my new series.

After getting the Kindle I slowly but surely dropped the print books altogether due to aging eyes. That took about 3 years. Reading a few paragraphs was one thing, but trying to read pages and pages hurt my eyes. And after a few years I had only about 80 books remaining on my TBR shelf (To Be Read). I just quit trying to get them all read. (I could get the Kindle version later if I wanted to – or maybe Audible by now.) When I moved from California to North Dakota a couple years ago I left all my old books in California, but the Kindles and Audios came right along with me.  🙂 

My life with books is good these days because some books are better with Kindle while others are better with Audible. The first time I really noticed this was with Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston) in about 2007 (?) I’d had trouble reading the dialect in the paper book but Ruby Dee just blessed those words as they should be read.

Then I noticed it with classics in general; a good reader who knew the material could read it right!  Then several years later, I discovered reading ALONG WITH listening and got totally immersed in some books.  

With some books, crime books usually but also sci-fi and literary fiction)I don’t bother with the Kindle edition. There’s no depth beyond what the reader brings to thrillers, anyway.

And I dislike those audios where there’s too much emotion read into it. It’s the same with the monotone books via the Books for the Blind programs. (But those are free for blind people – I could get used to that if I had to.).

But my brain doesn’t do over-emoting when I am silently reading a regular printed book. Do the narrators think they’ve landed an acting job? They’re supposed to be, quite simply, READING OUT LOUD!!! I want a bit of emotion and some differentiation between characters but, please, try to make it sound like silent reading. (I love some narrators and others I’ll avoid if possible. (Audible producers take note.)

Then Audible added whole casts of readers and I don’t like that a lot, but I can tolerate it. Now lately they’ve added podcasts. No thank you.  I do NOT want to listen to something which sounds like an old radio show complete with sound room (echo chamber). Then they added whole musical scores and other background noises.  OMG –  NO!  This is really distracting! If I wanted to see a movie I’d go to one.  I want it to be like what’s in my head when I read a good book. 

What happened to the good old-fashioned narrator reading a John Grisham novel to me? Over the years even that’s been changed to “performed by” …  

Nonfiction books are usually better in the Kindle version because I get the photos and graphics and maps and source notes etc. Audible does put some select items on its site as PDF files to download along with the book.  

I tend to both listen and read along when it’s appropriate; best of both worlds, imo.

And I haven’t read a paper book since last summer when I finally caved and got a history book which wasn’t available in Audio format and the Kindle was missing the line drawings because it was an early Kindle version. That book, The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790 by Rhys Isaac, (Pulitzer in 1983) is published by the Omohundro Institute

I’m reading one “Kindle only” at the moment: the first Kindle only in years. It’s called The Darkening Age written by Catherine Nixey, It’s not available in Audible, but I really wanted to read it and it’s absolutely delicious for someone with my tastes in reading history.

That said, Audible has a LOT of books, including classics, the other sources don’t offer. I used to read between 15 and 20 books a month, mostly from Audible, but over the years that’s slowed down to about 12 a month. Sometimes I refer back to them or actually get caught up in a re-read (re-listen?) and that’s delightful.

So that’s why, here in my blog, there are many books I’ve listened to and some books are listened to AND read along with.  I look forward to reporting on The Darkening Age as a “Kindle only” book.  LOL!  

Happy reading!

This is a physically beautiful book even in the Kindle rendition with excellent organization, photographs and writing.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_Apocryphon

Forgotten Peoples of the Ancient World 
by Philip Matyszak 
2020 / 398 pages
Read by Michael Page 8h 3m
Rating: 9.5 / ancient history of the west

Matyszak tells the story of the “forgotten peoples of the ancient world” and in true US Western Civ style he starts out with “The First Civilizations” covering the Tigris and Euphrates rivers with Mesopotamia right there in the middle between the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf.  

There are several different cities in this area and they each have had their own histories and residents over a long period of time.. Starting around BC 2334 and going through 1200 BC  Matyszak shows the reader the lives of the Akkadians, the Ammorites, the Canaanites, the Elamites, the Hittites the Hyksos and the Sea Peoples in roughly chronological order while moving outward from the center of Canaan as they did. And that’s just Part 1.

And then comes Part 2  which continues the development of cultures in the Mediterranean area but spreading out “From Assyria to Alexander,” and as far as Sicily and Egypt.  Part 3 is called “The Coming of Rome” and includes another 14 groups or tribes or peoples involved,. After that is Part 4 “The Fall of Rome in the West” ending in the Mid-6th Century with some more peoples. Finally there is the Epilogue.  

The more I read the more I appreciated the book.  I loved reading about the Roman Empire and its relations with the local tribes.

Matyszak’s style is clear and engaging and the book (even the Kindle version) has beautiful maps and colored photos to enhance and clarify the tale. At the beginning of each Part and Section there’s a simple map of that specific area and a nice Introduction which is printed on colored background, It works – for me anyway.

Matyszakis proves himself a master of organization because in order to follow this narrative you have to know where you are in time and space and how they fit together. The thing is that those elements change often. At the end of each Section there is a little sub-section called Further Echos. on top of organization here so I’m going to be reading this again.                               

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Matyszak

https://www.matyszakbooks.com

So yes, I read this a second time.  I was blown away the first time and kind of promised myself I had to read that book again. (See my very minimal review at:
https://mybecky.blog/2022/06/29/no-one-is-talking-about-thisby-patricia-lockwood/ )

No One Is Talking About This
by Patricia Lockwood
2021 / (207 pp)
read by Kristen Sieh 4h 43m
Rating: 9.75

So I did.  But sad to say it didn’t quite live up to the expectations . I think there was the surprise factor the first time around.  No, it’s not a mystery in any way (except maybe what the heck is she talking about in the first half or so of the book).  I just stuck with the old rating on this new time.  

 Ducks, Newburyport (which I never finished but may work on it a bit more now) is stream-of-consciousness about death and dying and what to do in the meantime, “No One Is Talking About This” is stream-of-consciousness about life and dying in the 21st century and knowing just exactly what to do in the meantime.

Up to Chapter 11 everything is really social satire about bits of the internet, but nothing much happens at all. I was tempted to throw in the DNF towel, but I kept going and loved the book. At just about half way “something happens.”  The 1st person is told that a baby is being born to her sister in a far away town. She is asked to come because the baby is not at all ready and something is wrong.  

There is no “choice” as we think of it today. The baby was definitely wanted. But in that Catholic hospital with politics of the situation at the time, no one told the parents the child had problems and was likely to be seriously handicapped, might not even survive which would put Mom’s life at risk, too. (That’s as much of a spoiler as I’ll give and it might be too much.)  

If the baby survived the doctors had no idea what her life would be like, she would not live for long anyway.  And then the baby breathed. What is a human being?  

The Communal Mind
Patricia Lockwood travels through the internet
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n04/patricia-lockwood/the-communal-mind

Although it’s not without a few flaws, this is an incredible account of one New York Hospital systems battle with Covid-19. I heard about it on TV, found it at Audible, sampled, purchased and downloaded straightaway, it went right into the top of the TBR pile on my computer (not my Wish List!). And as soon as I was finished reading the book I had going and wrote a blog entry I started in on The Desperate Hours.

********
The Desperate Hours: 
One Hospital’s Fight to Save a City on the Pandemic’s Front Lines,
by Maria Brenner 
2022 / (487 pp) 
Read by Kirsten Potter 15h 41m
Rating 9.25  / medicine – current events
********

The author, Maria Brenner, is not any old off-the-street writer who had a good idea and set about investigating, interviewing, and writing it up. She has excellent hard-earned credentials via 7 prior books, various assignments as a regular investigative reporter for Vanity Fair and other high level assignments. That’s in addition to teaching journalism at Columbia University in New York.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Brenner#Bibliography

This book just grabbed my attention almost right away. It seems I was finally ready for an examination of the Covid-19 crisis which we lived through during 2020 and 2021. Of course no one book can cover that epic pandemic and all its threads. But from a medical perspective at one hospital system in New York City (the best hospital in NYC) this is a fine starting point. 

With origins in Wuhan China in 2019, Covid-19 quickly spread to the world including the totally unprepared US which lacked knowledge, resources, and even political will at first. But when people started dying attitudes changed and because some people said they were trying to prevent panic, things got worse. Simply put, enough attention wasn’t paid at first and then the information got mangled between all sorts of voices, President Trump. 3 government agencies, Fox News and on Social Media. 

Brenner’s book is an inside look at the unfolding events and seeming chaos at New York-Presbyterian, an academic health center and system. From the cleaning staff and morgue transport to top echelon administration Brenner outlines their challenges, disappointments and victories during the time between January of 2020 to April of 2021. Those were some long years and it still wasn’t over.  

At first, back then, from my news-tuned armchair, I was aghast at the creeping plague-epidemic-pandemic or whatever it was called. (I never called it the China anything). Then I was horrified as New York seemed to flounder in spite of all the warnings. And then came the mask problem and the shortages of beds, staff, ventilators and finally the body-bags. Brenner really focuses on the heroic efforts of that hospital – albeit after the fact – but pretty effectively dismisses (trashes might be a better word) the actions of Trump and Cuomo and other political people (CDC?) Brenner catches the spirit of the near panicking staff and public as well as those who remained focused and on task just trying to save lives however their job described.

A bit too much time is spent on backstories for some of the individuals, but I suspect Brenner was trying to inject some touching and really personal aspects.IT’s well done but there are a lot of “characters.” They’re listed at the front of the book but although I had good intentions, I rarely bothered to check because I just went with the flow and a few names stuck, Nathaniel Hupert, Karen Bacon, Roseanne Paso, Tomoaki Kato, Cleavon Gilman, Michael Fosina, Lorna Breen, Susi Bibi, Maeve Kennedy McKean, 

Very little is said about Anthony Fauci (The face of the pandemic to some of us) who is the head of the National Institute of Health. He’s kind of mentioned in passing, but I think he and his group had very little to do with NY Presbyterian who were more under the control of. Robert Redfield of the CDC,  

I was amazed at how various organizations and individuals navigated these times, how they improvised and created and adapted and survived.  But we didn’t exactly know the whole story – we didn’t know how frantically the hospitals and institutions were struggling to for “their brand” and its reputation. This gets ugly.  

But we all promised ourselves it would never happen again. This wasn’t 1918 so weren’t in the middle of a World War. . This time we’d remember the lessons learned. Right? And after the vaccines were available and the panic had subsided and the shut-downs were alleviated with the kids and workers going  back to offices or school the tensions eased. Did we forgot? Maybe not. Maybe we went into denial. Maybe this time someone in government is charged with keeping a disaster plan alive and with parts provided. Sad to say I don’t think this kind of disaster can be avoided when commerce and travel are necessary for our economies to survive. This may be a downside of globalization.

Now Chief Detective Inspector William Warwick and his wife Beth are on a cruise taking a break from the London scene where the Unsolved Murders Unit has established a particular batch of gang-style murders as a priority. Ross Hogan who is back in the unit and The Hawk who is in charge, really want these solved.

Over My Dead Body  
by Jeffrey Archer 
2021 / (354 pp)
Read by George Blagden 9h 40m
Rating B+ / thriller 
(4th in the William Warick series) 

On the cruise another murder occurs, this time it’s Frasier Buchanan, the patriarch of a wealthy shipping family in which there are some trust and relationship problems. 

Meanwhile, William discovers that Booth Watson, the old attorney, is still actively working for his old client, Miles Faulkner , who is supposedly deceased and buried in Brussels. Because Miles is NOT dead. He escaped from prison and is going somewhere to hide for awhile as part of an intricate play devised by his attorney. He’s also is marrying his wife for a second time because she knows he’s alive. 

And then there’s This is mostly a thriller with not a lot of police procedural or courtroom drama at all.  There’s the who-done-it of the family mogul and the gangland shootings of the unsolved cases, but mostly it’s globe-trotting chase scenes and high-end intrigue which make up this novel.

Oh what a marvelous novel.  I’ve read a few books by John Le Carré but it was a long time ago, a few in the 1980s I think, and then a couple more later.  I always enjoyed them but not enough to really pursue. His son, Nick Cornwall, finished Silverview after Carré’s death and it was published in 2021.  

Silverview: A Novel
by John le Carré
2021 (223 pages)
Read by: Toby Jones 6h 28m
Rating – 9.5/A; espionage 

This seemed different from Le Carré’s prior novels in that there’s a certain edginess missing. But that’s replaced in some way with a slight melancholy which is wonderfully well rendered. It’s the end of things, the winding up and closing for Carré as well as for certain characters in the book.

There is still that characteristic “moral ambivalence” which has been widely noted. Silverview is not your typical spy novel in which there’s a “good guy” and “bad guy” who chase each other around a needle disguised. The tricks and deceptions and secretiveness are all still there though. 

“Who do we find when we pull away the layers of disguise?”   

The 33-year old Julian Lawndsley left his lucrative job in the big city to move to a small town by the sea and open a bookshop. Then one day Edward Avon, a neighbor and retired academic who lives just up the road at the Silverview mansion pays a visit. As it turns out, that’s not all quite accurate. Edward is really a field agent for England’s MI6. But he’s a charming old duff who seems to know quite a lot about Julian’s family so without being aware of the reality, Julian is talked into opening a “Republic of Literature,” a special bookstore-within-a-bookstore and the two become good friends- kind of.

Meanwhile, Stewart Proctor, the chief of domestic security has received a letter telling of multiple leaks from his agency and he’s checking out leads. Edward Avon, and by association Julian, come within his scope. These three men are as different as they can be. Julian is innocence itself, almost a bystander, but sucked right into the vortex. Edward is like a chameleon who becomes whatever appearance is called for on the outside but always maintaining a solid commitment to his inner morals and convictions on the inside. And there’s Proctor who doesn’t understand Edward a bit, but is as much a “company man” as anyone. 

And there are women involved – Edward’s wife and their adult daughter as well as a beautiful and mysterious woman called Mary, and the married couple who were Edward’s prior handlers. So the tale becomes more complex although NOT as complex as many of Le Carré’s novels. It seemed perfect for me, for now.  And I may have to go hunt up some of the adventures I missed from long ago. 

This is fine addition to the Women’s Murder Club series. The whole gang is here, Lindsay, Claire, Cindy and the latest addition Yuki.  Lindsay might be my favorite fictional female detective these days and the group makes for a wonderful series as stories later move forward to book #22 in 2021. 

5th Horseman 
by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
2006 – (432 pages) 
Read by Carolyn McCormick 8h 5m
Rating:  A+ /legal-procedural thriller 
# 5 of The Women’s Murder Club series 

The story begins with a Prologue in which a woman patient in a San Francisco hospital dies. She’d had a heart problem while swimming with her young daughter and was taken to ER at Municipal Hospital. She’s dies as someone named the Night Walker watches, cleans up, puts coins with medical symbols on her eyes, bids her goodnight and leaves in the shadows. 

Also Yuki’s mother collapses and is taken to Metropolitan Hospital where it’s found she has had a TIA and will be kept there for a few days. The hospital is currently being sued for negligence and malpractice. 

But when Chapter 1 really starts Lindsay Boxer is at her desk and gets a call from Conklin and his new partner who are at a parking garage where they have discovered a dead woman in a new Cadillac. They go to check it out. 

And thus it goes with two main crimes for Lindsay to work on and the jury trial about the hospital.  Claire is there to help Lindsay with the medical bits, Cindy wants the updates and insights re the trial or anything else she can scoop,  But after her mother dies, Yuki wants help getting justice for her mother.  

As is often the case, I discovered The Women’s Murder Club series by reading a Christmas book, 19th Christmas. Okay – I enjoyed that and tried others. I didn’t much care for anything prior to Maxine Praeto so I continued after book #4, 4th of July.

The things I like about this series is that each book is both a police procedural and a courtroom drama. The action never really stops for more than a few minutes so the books are really hard to put down. And finally, the cast works so wonderfully together.  I’m not fond of Patterson on his own because he seems to get too edgy- violent. But with Paetro there’s an added element of a wee bit of softness. 

The narrator in this case was very good. the only thing I didn’t like about it was the music in the background. When I’m listening to a book I want it to sound like the story in my head when I rad it in a book. That is not at all like a movie!

 Gregory Van Dyke, a very rich industrialist of turn-of-the-century New York City, is killed in an explosion.  Frank Malloy, a city detective and a main character in this series, is asked by Teddy Roosevelt, the police commissioner, to find the killers. It’s feared they could be anarchists, but before too long there’s another murder. 

*****
Murder on Marble Row 
by Victoria Thompson 
Read by Callie Beaulieu 8h 12m
Rating B / hist fict – mystery 
*****

Sarah Brandt, the other protagonist of the series, is with her mother paying condolences to the Van Dykes family. She and Frank are surprised to see each other but Sarah will work with it and Frank, who is in love with her, will go along.  Sarah is normally a midwife who, years ago, had a falling out with her family, but there is an issue with pregnancy in the Van Dyke family as well.  

Brian, Frank’s young mute son, has a brief scene. 

The plot involves several suspects with varying motives involving wills and love entanglements and job security – the usual upsets. Nevertheless, the characters become endearing. 

Don’t even bother unless you’re interested in the subject matter – political philosophy in the 21st Century from a kind of “spiritual” point of view. 

Developmental Politics: 
How America Can Grow Into a Better
Version of Itself 
by David McIntosh 
2021 – 248 pages
Read by Josh Innerst 6h 55m
Rating 8 / contemp. political philosophy 
(Both read and listened)

I read this at least 2 times, some parts got 3 times. The last chapter only 1 time. It’s essentially a philosophy book so it’s written with extreme care making sure definitions are available and that the logic works there’s lots of organizing and review.  Still, although it made sense, what McIntosh is advocating is not going to happen. 

I was fighting the whole way through.  I was trying to understand and agree and there were times I actually did. But those were short-lived. What I kept coming back to was why did the higher purpose of community well-being not work during the Covid-19 scare? People wouldn’t wear masks or get vaccines even knowing their community depended on it.  We’re still fighting Covid as a result.  

The theory in the book is great and if you read carefully it sounds like it should work just like a Rube Goldberg  machine. Too bad. There are some sticking points. 

The polarity theory, not new, might be flawed these days because as it turns out males and females (for instance) are not necessarily polar opposites.  Some of our problems, like gun control, are not going to go away because someone on one side sees some merit to the values of folks on the others side. We thought Roe v Wade was settled – ha! What happened to our cultural evolution?  

To me the book deserved reading because someone knowledgable had taken the time and effort to put forth an idea which might work because something really needs to work here. We’ll be facing some serious problems, changes and havoc shortly what with unresolved global warming. And all we have is a widening polarization when what we need is some political will.    

Yes, I went ahead and read this again. I think it is really important to WWII history – and it extends into Cold War history and with Putin in play now – who knows?  

**********
Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin 
By Timothy Snyder 
2010 – 525 pages
Read by Ralph Cosham 19h 14m
Rating 10  / European history 
(Both read and listened)
**********

Although I rated it a 10 last time, it was better reading the second time around because I wasn’t so shocked at the atrocities associated with that short-lived partnership before the outbreak of war between Germany and Russia.

Getting access to Soviet/Russian archives after the 1989 fall, plus giving the historians time to study and develop ideas led Snyder to write Bloodlands which was first published in 2011 to much acclaim, but some criticism.  

Now with Putin wanting Ukraine back in Russia’s hands the time is right to remember the history rereading it with complete – or more complete – information.  

Much is new, or was new in 2011. The Soviets were not completely reliable allies in WWII, but we knew that. They fought to expand all along their eastern border from the Black Sea to Finland (to Lithuania is considered the Bloodlands).   And we helped the USSR win. That was fine at the time because Hitler’s desire seemed to be to take all of Europe, including Russia, after their infamous pact was broken.  

And so it was that the Russians and the Germans both ravaged the Blood lands.  

(finished some time in late June)

I got this one from the library because I really needed something to escape with and I enjoy what I’ve read by Paetro. (I am NOT big on Patterson alone.) So I started this morning but something seemed very familiar.  Huh??? –  Have I read this? I checked my blog – nope – not there.  (See how handy it is?).  

The 4th of July 
by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro 
2005 (400 pp) 
Read by Carolyn McCormick 7h 35m
Rating: A- / thriller 
Women’s Murder Club #4 

Then I remembered. I’d borrowed it and started but only got a few chapters – maybe 2 chapters and put it down due to other books calling. Now I figured this was a better time anyway because the title is 4th of July and that’s only about a week away.  I do like reading seasonal books. I like seasonal foods. I like seasonal decorations. When I taught I did a lot of seasonal lessons and activities. So this is just natural and I’ve been doing it now for probably a couple decades although it’s expanded from Christmas mysteries to other holidays and with various genres coming up. The 4th of July is a new holiday but it’s a common thriller.  I’ll read history books at Thanksgiving if I have to, or St. Pat’s Day biographies.  

Anyway – this is only the 4th in the series of 22 books now.  I’ve read 7 and guess what – my first of the 7 was the 19th book, The 19th Christmas.   That’s the way it’s been with others, too.  

For openers, Lindsay Boxer shoots a teenage girl in self-defense, is arrested and goes to trial in spite of the fact she had life-threatening injuries, too.  Meanwhile, the girl’s brother, an accomplice, was also shot and is barely alive in the hospital. Also, Lindsay’s partner, Jacobi, is shot and survives. 

 I love legal thrillers and this is a pretty good one even if the legal aspect isn’t as accomplished or well developed as I’ve read. 

Meanwhile, over the years there have been too many strange serial-type murders in Half Moon Bay and Lindsay is unable to participate in the chase and arrest of the suspects. She’s badly wounded and also on leave of absence resting with her sister in that community  This takes on the role of second story in the novel and the stories are only very loosely integrated but better at the end.  I suspect that Patterson wrote one and Poetro the other and they put them together.  the second feels kind of anti-climactic, but after you get into it it’s also quite good.  I think most of Patterson’s co-authored books have two story-lines going 

Anyway, in 4th of July we follow Lindsay as she tries to get back to work with the murders continuing. She reads about them and discusses them with her “club” of Claire a medical examiner and Cindy who is a reporter. Jill was killed in an earlier book.  

We also follow the guys who are doing the murders – although there may be two or even more. In the story they are “the Seeker,” and “the Watcher.”  Lindsay is supposed to “relax and keep a low profile,” but she is super anxious to DO something. 

Yuki becomes Lindsay’s attorney and also a part of the Murder Club in this book. 

I love these mysteries and imo, Paetro is the talent behind the series.  This one is a thriller to the max, it has a compelling story-line and the 

The narrator is quite good but the musical accompaniment is annoying in places.  I may be something of a purist in this regard.  I like audio books to consist of a narrator reading a book to the listeners.  I don’t want a lot of over-dramatizing, I don’t want sound effects.  I don’t want a movie or radio or podcast experience.  I want the book to sound pretty much like it sounds when I read it silently.  

I didn’t realize it until half-way through Bloodlands,  but I read All For Nothing back in 2018. I thought it was longer ago than that and didn’t check my blog but there it is and gave it a 9.5 which is an anticipated 10 if I read it a second time.
https://mybecky.blog/2018/09/01/all-for-nothing-by-walter-kempowski/

All For Nothing
by Walter Kempowski
(translated by Althea Bell 2006)
Read by Grover Gardner – 11h 20m
First published 2003 / 352 pages
Rating: 10 historical fiction
(Read and listened.) 

I only read it on Kindle back then because it wasn’t available at Audible as it is now. My opinion hasn’t changed and I think the reader, one of my favorites, adds to the mood, the ambiance. I read and listened this time. 

What was added was my knowledge of what was going on around the von Globig family and with their Georgenhof mansion on the road between Russia and Berlin. So Germans are refugees from their homeland which Russia is taking over.  I knew very, very generally but just recently read (and studied actually)the excellent book Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder (see review).  

I started, I thought, This is stupid!  I continued anyway not understanding more than a hint and a glimmer of maybe some kind of setting and a character. Slowly a bit more setting set in and then another character.  Very odd but it’s very nicely written, funny in places and very well narrated, I guess, but what is it? There’s something here which is compelling.

So it took time and some curiosity and I persevered. It’s a good thing the book is only 200+ pages long. 

No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
2021 / (207 pp)
read by Kristen Sieh 4h 43m
Rating: 9.75

And then it clicked. And it is totally timely. Almost too timely for comfort. And the tension in the last 1/3 or 1/4 of the book is way too high for me to go to bed.  

Our 3rd person female narrator (named 1 time as Linda) is browsing the internet (I think) and finds a wide variety of bizarity via “the portal.” There is natural scenery and politics and general harassment.  The Dictator, yes, they have one, is very funny to her.  She has no focus or concentration span.  Her profound thoughts are worse than ridiculous.  There is an Anonymous History Channel which shows footage of millions of people on the march. And the general feeling is that it’s “A great shame about all of it.”  This character, Linda?, sounds really stoned to me. 

She says that eavesdropping is a big problem. The women all have the same scar on their knee but it’s not the same because one white person is different. That one is whisked away. Maybe the portal caused the Dictator.  

No One Is Talking About This got many awards including a Short List spot on the Booker List.  And it got tons of rave reviews – check Amazon.
https://tinyurl.com/m6bd636y

I think you need to read this book. I should maybe read it again.