Becky's Books –

Obama has the nicest titles for his books. I think my favorite is “The Audacity of Hope” but they’re all good. But titles are one thing, lengths are another and this book is 730+ pages long in Kindle/hard cover format! That’s 29 + hours for the Audible. Good grief – sigh.

*******
A Promised Land
by Barack Obama
2020 / 730 pages
read by the authorRating: 8.5 / memoir
(Both read and listened)
*******

I’m not surprised to see the online ratings (Amazon and Audible) being either a 5 or a 1 because people loved or hated Obama – there are a few 4s stuck in there and they’re due to price or foreign reader. I’m an Obama fan so I expected my rating to be a 9 or more.  I was disappointed but I’m not sure why – parts were great, other parts were relatively boring.  (Michelle’s memoir was half the length! And Barack is going to do another volume! – LOL!)     

About the length – I suspect Obama loves the sound of his own voice, written or spoken.   Yes,  it’s thoroughly readable and mostly enjoyable being as well read as it is written.  The words aren’t really wasted because they all help set a total environment. This book took me a long time to read and I had to take breaks for crime novels – actually for all 7 Mick Herron Slough Horses spy mysteries. 

It’s basically a chronological overview of his 8 years in the White House and relates the daily tedium, the battles for legislation and the highlights like the killing of Osama bin Laden as well as some moments of personal life .  Obama includes some of his own reactions and responses, his thought processes but he never gets terribly insightful.   

There are no source notes – he probably used his journals and diaries and calendars.  My opinion of that is that this is a “memoir” which means it’s from the author’s considered memory and doesn’t have to cover everything. So much has happened since 2009 and this book only goes through September 11, 2012. 

 The photos in the end section are evocative and well-chosen.  But the events he covers are already history and will soon be of interest primarily to historians – it’s an interesting walk down memory lane though and I remembered most of the events as I read.  Obama’s attention to details is wonderful. Michele has her own memoirs and who knows, their daughters may write memoirs, too – it wouldn’t surprise me. 

This is the seventh book in the Slough Horses series by Mick Herron.  It may be the last book,  but I don’t know.  If another one in the series shows up, I’ll be reading it.

*******
Slough House
by Mick Herron
2021 / 247 pages
read by Gerard Doyle 10h 13m
rating: A+ / crime (spy)
(both read and listened)
*******

I went on a binge reading of them and read books 1-7 in about 10 days.  Why?  I’d wanted to do something like this for a long time but hadn’t found the books to do it with.  I’ve read 1 or 2 books in a series in a row but never 7!  
I tried to read book 1, Slow Horses, years ago but I wasn’t ready for it or something.  This time some people on a reading list (4-Mystery Addicts – https://groups.io/g/4MysteryAddicts -) were discussing the series with some folks being very positive about it so I thought I might try it again.  I did that and realized it was just what I’d been looking for – a good immersive mystery series which I could sink my teeth (my mind) into. And so, because the plotting, the characters, the language and the humor all called to me,  I determined I’d read the series.  And I did. 

From the publisher via Amazon:
In his best and most ambitious novel yet, Mick Herron, “the le Carré of the future” (BBC), offers an unsparing look at the corrupt web of media, global finance, spycraft, and politics that power our modern world. 

“This is a darker, scarier Herron. The gags are still there but the satire’s more biting. The privatization of a secret service op and the manipulation of news is relevant and horribly credible.”—Ann Cleeves, author of the Vera Stanhope series

At Slough House—MI5’s London depository for demoted spies—Brexit has taken a toll. The “slow horses” have been pushed further into the cold, Slough House has been erased from official records, and its members are dying in unusual circumstances, at an unusual clip. No wonder Jackson Lamb’s crew is feeling paranoid. But are they actually targets?  

With a new populist movement taking hold of London’s streets and the old order ensuring that everything’s for sale to the highest bidder, the world’s a dangerous place for those deemed surplus. Jackson Lamb and the slow horses are in a fight for their lives as they navigate dizzying layers of lies, power, and death.
*******Yes, I got tired of it at times, but nothing else seemed to be as compelling as the next book in this series. Right now if there were a #8 available I’d go for it because … well … just because.   There are a couple of novellas associated with the series and I haven’t read them because I don’t think they relate to the series as the regular novels.  I think I might go read them now – lol!   
There’s a list of characters somewhere online – I think on Goodreads – and it would be helpful to readers especially if they space the books out.  I didn’t use it but there were probably places I could have used it. I haven’t written little summaries or blurbs with my “reviews” because it’s too hard to avoid spoilers so I used the publisher’s blurbs.   

This is the 6th book in the Slough Horses series by Mick Herron and it was just as good as  the priors.  I do recommend reading them in order because they’re not like Agatha Christie series, Each book builds on the plot and characters of the prior book(s).  If you enjoyed the prior books you’ll love this one too.  They’re full of very interesting characters and twisty plots.  The language is not your normal run-of-the-mill genre book chatter and the humor is to lol for.  

Joe Country
By Mick Herron
2021 / 247 pages
Read by Gerard Doyle 11h 34m
Rating:  A / crime (spy)
(Both read and listened)

From the publisher via Amazon (to avoid spoilers): 
If Spook Street is where spies live, Joe Country is where they go to die. 

In Slough House, the London outpost for disgraced spies of MI5, memories are stirring, all of them bad. Catherine Standish is buying booze again, Louisa Guy is raking over the ashes of lost love, and new recruit Lech Wicinski, whose sins make him outcast even among the slow horses, is determined to discover who destroyed his career, even if he tears his life apart in the process. 

Meanwhile, in Regent’s Park, Diana Taverner’s tenure as First Desk is running into difficulties. If she’s going to make the Service fit for purpose, she might have to make deals with a familiar old devil….

And with winter taking its grip, Jackson Lamb would sooner be left brooding in peace, but even he can’t ignore the dried blood on his carpets. So when the man responsible breaks cover at last, Lamb sends the slow horses out to even the score.

Cool book. – one more time.  This was # 5 in the 7-book series about Jackson Lamb and his crew of misfit espionage agents, slow horses, demoted from the regular MI% service.  I’m reading them all in order as a binge-read which I started about a week ago.  I now have #6 set up to go but better get this off before I forget. (I’m skipping the two novellas which are in some lists and are certainly about MI5 but not really about Slough House as we know and love it.  I might read them later.)  

*******
London Rules 
by Mick Herron 
2018 – 
Read by Gerard Doyle 11h 27m
Rating: A- / crime (spy)
(read and listened)
*******

With Lamb as their rude, racist, sexist, etc leader. the rest of the gang is River, Shirley, Louise, Catherine, Roddy, and JK Coe.  Their supervisors at the main office are corrupt and dangerous. The politcos are awful and the official villains the misfit agents face are the same. Even Lamb can be dangerous and they’re none too safe themselves addicted as they are to various substances and activities – except for River, perhaps, who has a family history in the service.  The main rule of Slough House is “cover your ass.”  (It’s a spin from “Moscow Rules” by Le Carré.) 

This series has been called a farce and so it is in many ways, but Herron is a stunning writer with excellent insight into the psyches of his creations and the books have received the highest critical accolades as well as numerous awards.

I read and listen because the scenes and characters change quickly and I often go to check on the print format and get caught up in it, reading ahead. Then at some point I catch up in the audio and keep going from there.

London spy sites: 
https://londonist.com/2011/11/top-10-spy-sites-in-london

Oh I had such an excellent idea to binge read the Slough Horses series by Mick Herron.  It’s been a great way to spend this week of the pandemic, being retired and self-isolated as I am.  Now I’ve finished book #4, Spook Street, published in 2017.   I mention the date because the plots are very contemporary.  They go back to 2010, but it’s one book a year from 2015 on to 2021 with one in the works for 2022.  

*******
Spook Street
By Mick Herron
2017 /  320 pages
Read by Gerard Doyle 10h 32m
Rating:  A –  crime (spy)  
*******   

Exquisitely developed these stories have definite thriller as well as thinking aspects. The characters grow on you with their individuality  – especially the inimitable Jacob Lamb with his “stunningly inept collection of secret agents” as one reviewer called them.  The dialogue keeps me laughing out loud, sometimes until tears.  I am really hard pressed to consider which of his strengths, plot, characters, humor, or just plain story-telling (structure), gives place to Herron in my top 10 mystery writers.  I think it might be the humor which puts it over the top for me but I have a really warm spot for the characters and the writing is top-notch.

The chapters in this series are long, but comprised of smaller scenes which rotate through a number of characters and plot threads often having cliff-hanger endings.  I would recommend reading these in order because there is an overarching plot with a lot of character development.  

Spook Street opens with an outrageous and deliberate shopping mall explosion in which many young people are killed. Meanwhile, River Cartwright, one of the spooks of Slough House, is concerned about the well-being of his aging grandfather who was a top-notch agent during the Cold War.  

Lots of twists and turns here as well as some very intricately plotted thriller scenes but as usual the backbone of Herron’s writing is character and dialogue – his characters can be drop-dead funny as well as deadly.  

Praise for Spook Street
Winner of the 2017 CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for Best Thriller
Shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel 
An Irish Times Best Book of 2017 
The Guardian Best Books of 2017 
A Seattle Times Notable Book of 2017
​A Boston Globe Best Book of 2017 
Nominated for the 2018 Barry Award for Best Thriller 
Shortlisted for the British Book Award for Crime & Thriller Book of the Year
Longlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award
Winner of the 2018 CrimeFest Last Laugh Awar

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jan/15/mick-herron-i-look-at-jackson-lamb-and-think-my-god-did-i-write-that-my-mother-reads-this-stuff

Book #3 in this series and yup, I’m binge-reading!  (Actually, after I called it “binge-worthy” in one of my reading group lists an Audible reviewers said it was good for binge reading.)  I’m hooked on these characters and Herron’s wit. The plots are twisty and detailed while the language and tension are masterful.  There’s something to be said for getting into a series like this years after the first one was published.

*******
Real Tigers 
by Mick Harron
2013 / 443 pages
Read by Michael Healy 10h 53m Rating:  A-  / crime (spy)
#3 in the Slough Horses series
(Both read and listened) 
*******

She’s doing it!! I finished this book, the 3rd in the 7-volume series, and I’m about to pick up on the fourth, Spook Street.

Dead Lions starts off with Catherine, a long time Slough House spy, going missing and eventually found to have been kidnapped. That’s pretty simple, right? It gets hairier and much more complex.

I’m not going to drag out with my own words here (I want to get into my new book which I’m both reading and listening to again) so I’ll just paste the accolades it received.

A Telegraph Best Crime Novel of the Year
Shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel
Shortlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for Best Thriller
A Boston Globe Best Book of 2016

“[Herron’s] cleverly plotted page-turners are driven by dialogue that bristles with one-liners. Much of the humor comes from Herron’s sharp eye for the way bureaucracies, whether corporate or clandestine, function and malfunction. The world of Slough House is closer to The Office than to 007.”
—The Associated Press

“A pulsating spy thriller about a kidnapped fallen spy whose colleagues uncover a plot threatening the future of the security service.” 
—The Daily Express (UK)

“[Herron is the] le Carré of the future . . . The characters are brilliant.” 
—Patrick Neale on BBC’s The Oxford Book Club

“Heroic struggles, less-heroic failures and a shoot-out-cum-heist . . . with no let-up in the page turning throughout.” 
—Esquire 

“If you read one spy novel this year, read Real Tigers. Better still, read the whole series.”
—The Spectator

“[Reads] like an episode of Spooks written by Ricky Gervais . . . With his poet’s eye for detail, his comic timing and relish for violence, Herron fills a gap that has been yawning ever since Len Deighton retired.” 
—The Daily Telegraph, ★★★★★

Fun.  The whole series seems binge-worthy so I’ll go until it’s not.  There are only 7 books.  On the downside it’s narrated by Michael Healy rather than Gerard Doyle, but Healy is good and does a good job – I was just used to Doyle. That said,  the remaining 6 books will be narrated by Doyle.  Yay.   

*******
Dead Lions
by Mick Harron
2013 / 443 pages
Read by Michael Healy 10h 53m Rating:  A-  / crime (spy)
#2 in the Slough Horses series
(Both read and listened) 
*******

So book #2 concerns the same Slough House troupe without those who died in the first book. River Cartwright, Jackson Lamb and Catherine Standish spy onward along with some others. They’re still working out of Slough House which is probably a bit worse for the wear.  Actually, this is only a few months later.  

In this story aman is found dead on a bus in London and as it turns out, reading the clues correctly,  he was a Russian agent – an old Russian agent from Cold War Days. This leads to a bunch of other tangles which Lamb and his agents get busy on.  It’s a thinking woman’s spy novel if she also has a great sense of humor and can suspend that disbelief one more inch.
 
But the high rating is not about the plotting alone which is the best of spy-novel intricate and very satisfying.  And it’s not about the character development which is superb and also feels right on the mark for any contemporary novel, spy genre or not. And it’s not just about the language which is definitely Londonese/spyish and challenging in its own right.  It’s the combination of these is what will keep me going.  

Very helpful
Glossary and more: https://spywrite.com/mick-herron-slough-house/slough-house-glossary/

There are links to specifics on the other books here: https://spywrite.com/mick-herron-slough-house/slough-house-book-series-in-order/

 https://www.goodreads.com/characters/1016436-diana-taverner
Enjoy I’ll keep reading – #3 is next up.  

One word? Binge-worthy! I’m reading this first book in the series a second time with a certain amount of anticipation.   It came up on the 4-Mystery Addicts reading group in a general discussion of favorite authors from 2020. (These are authors the members have read in the last year and prior – not necessarily new authors or published in 2020.) I don’t remember it being particularly good novel but … okay – we’ll give it a try.

*******
Slow Horses
by Mick Herron
2010 / 336 pages
read by Gerard Doyle 19h 46m
rating – A+++ / crime (spy novel)
*******

Anyway,  I do remember having read this eons ago and it was still in my library of Audible books, but I don’t have a blog entry for it so who knows?  (Aha! It was published in 2010 so I probably read it then or shortly thereafter –  all is now explained.) 

Someone mentioned that the writing was beautiful and that there was lots of humor, but that the characters were hard to keep straight.  Yeah?

Whatever, I started again, just listening at first, but by Chapter 5 I was confused about who was speaking.  The first chapters contain back stories on quite a number of characters, spies, all working out of a place called “Slough House.” This is a kind of Siberia for M15 agents who screwed up on the job but aren’t fired. They’re “slow horses.” It’s figured they’ll resign the service before long if they are assigned to Slough House.

 Although I love listening, I think this may be one of those books which is better read. I ended up doing both. There are no easily discernible audio breaks for scene changes, rather there are many characters who simply pop in and out of various scenes as the tension builds. There is interesting background stories on several characters though.

This is a real spy novel where a college student who looks foreign is kidnapped by an unknown terrorist group which then announces their deed. The Slough House agents are called into action while their leader, Lamb, works things out in his own special way.

Yes, it’s a wonderfully well written book with fascinating characters and a nicely twisted plot. It’s absolutely hilarious in places.

I’ve got a new series to binge on!!! Yay!

This sounded kind of trite and cliche and an old story with a remake.  Then I saw there were oodles of great reviews listed at Amazon and some listed it as a feel-good book.  Ahhh… I was looking for something just like that. (This isolation is getting depressing sometimes; it’s been over a year now.)  

*******
The Midnight Library 
By Matt Haig
Read by Carey Mulligan 8h 50m
Rating –  8  – general fiction/fantasy
*******

So I got it.  

Oh my it is a very nice book. It’s not going to win many literary prizes although it did get the Goodreads Best Fiction Award for 2020 but feel good fiction rarely does.  The literary quality is not bad, it’s not smarmy or simplistic and as I really got into it and then finished, I realized that it is what it is, a wonderfully imaginative feel good novel.  

Nora Seed is hopelessly depressed – she decides to die.  But instead of actually reaching heaven or hell as a final destination – she goes to a library where one Mrs Elm, her old school librarian, is officiating.  From there, via books, she visits other possible lives and I won’t tell you the ending.  

A couple things you need for reading this is 1. a suspension of disbelief and 2. an open heart.  

The Nickel Boys was on my Audible Wish List for a long time and then off and then I found out it won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was on Obama’s recommended lists from 2019 so it went back on my own Wish List.  I read Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad and very much appreciated that book, but sometimes there is so much more to some books than I “get” and I wish I had the opportunity for a second reading. ( “SO many books and so little time” is so so true.) https://www.forbes.com/sites/adriennegibbs/2020/12/29/barack-obama-lists-his-top-books-of-2019/?sh=384c22674ed9 (mentioned in the text, not on the “list.”) 

*******
The Nickel Boys
by Colson Whitehead
2019 / 224 pages
Read by JD Jackson 6h 46m
Rating 9.5  / historical fiction
*******- 

The Nickel Boys was on my Audible Wish List for a long time and then off and then I found out it won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was on Obama’s recommended lists from 2019 so it went back on my own Wish List.  I read Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad and very much appreciated that book, but sometimes there is so much more to some books than I “get” and I wish I had the opportunity for a second reading. ( “SO many books and so little time” is so so true.) https://www.forbes.com/sites/adriennegibbs/2020/12/29/barack-obama-lists-his-top-books-of-2019/?sh=384c22674ed9 (mentioned in the text, not on the “list.”) 

It’s based on the story of the Florida State Reform School: ‘https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_School_for_Boys
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/08/16/boys-were-beaten-abused-florida-reform-school-now-colson-whitehead-fictionalizes-that-history/

 Elwood Curtis is an old about-to-be retired businessman living in New York City when we meet him in 2010 at the outset of the novel.  He comes across a news reference to a reform school he was assigned to in his youth and where there has recently been a scandal about a graveyard full of bones being dug up. Several of the boys, now almost old men, have come forward to validate the findings. Elmore finds that he has to relive those memories.  The main story consists of Elwood’s life in the “school.”
 
It’s set in the 1960s when Elmore was starting out in life as a poor but upstanding young man who has a job and makes good grades in high school.  He gets accepted into college, but while he’s walking there he’s given a ride by man who brings serious trouble and Elmore lands in the reform school. 

This was a Pulitzer winner (Whitehead’s second) as well as being on a number of “best of” lists.

 Well I finished The Guest List (which is either a movie now or on its way to being one), but that took some work and patience on my part.  I suppose my main problem was that it was so predictable until the ending, but the creepiness also disturbed me a bit. 

******* 
The Guest List 
by Lucy Foley
2020 / (320 pages)
Read by Jot Davies and cast 10h 22m 
Rating: B- / suspense 
*******

It starts really slowly and doesn’t really pick up speed for a long time – maybe 1/2 to 2/3rds of the book. Due to the non-chronological structure of the narrative some interesting things happen during those pages, so that you know there is something coming up. I expect the reader is supposed to be “getting to know” the major characters during this time, but for a long time none of them really stands out except for their “job title” in the chapter title. Sad to say that none of the characters is particularly likable at all.

At the pre-nuptial party the boys all get drunk and remember the old school days and stew about current relationships. 

The time frames switch around between the day before the wedding and the wedding day, all leading up to whatever is going to happen and then after that.  It’s kind of confusing – if it were a good story it might work but between characters and time frames, this has too many perspectives.   

Nice book.  Beautifully written.  Interesting story with major themes wound all through it.  I guess this is a fictionalized memoir.  It takes the shape of Akhtar’s life but anyone who seriously mistakes it for a straight memoir is missing some parts.  The first section, “Overture: To America” is probably straight.  

*******
Homeland Elegies
by Ayad Akhtar
2020 / 344 pages
Read by the author: 10h 19m
Rating: 9.5 / contemp US
*******

In several ways it reminds me of some of Salman Rushdie’s work. (This is a good thing.) “We are all mongrels.”  

Ayad is an American born of Palestinian immigrants who has a hard time feeling “at home” in the US.  For most of the novel, he’s on his way to becoming an award winning writer. His parents are both medical doctors.  But although he was born and raised here, Ayad doesn’t feel like at home in America. He doesn’t say this is the fault of the native white Americans. The way he understands it, his alienation is his own fault.  He thinks of and refers to himself as being Palestinian – an outsider.  That’s part of the main theme.  

Other parts are how his parents think of themselves as being so honored to be here but how he, Ayad, feels cheated.  (I think that’s pretty common for the immigrant generation to be grateful for the US and their children to feel cheated by not getting the whole “American Dream.”). 

And what is American?  Oh Akhtar opines for awhile on that one.  Perhaps it’s financial debt – he riffs on that a lot from his own debt to an auto mechanic to the transnational corporate regimes who operate unilaterally without anyone even voting.  And then there’s the matter of the stock market and short-selling with small towns being the victims.  

And it’s about families, especially fathers – one obnoxious father in particular – heh.  

There’s a bunch of sex in here, too – as I suppose would be appropriate in the memoir of a successful single male in his early 40s living in New York in the 1980s and ‘90s.  But his Muslim mother and morés are always just under the surface.  

Religion, usually in the form of Muslim vs Christian, comes up again and again -never for long – some of this is really well done.    

And of course 9/11 is covered,  Ayad was in New York at the time, on the streets, so that gets some play – he, his friends and his family were suddenly both suspects and victims. 

And Akhtar includes some economics and Black economics and Black rights and Black artists.  Actually, there’s a lot of economics as theme.
 
And there are scams and scandals sprinkled through as well – even a touch of the dark side. 

Akhtar meanders and drifts to the point he makes this tale a rather baggy, shaggy thing, but I really thoroughly enjoyed it.  

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3565413568

This is a strange book but if you can suspend your disbelief and accept that two kids spontaneously combust and then go with the flow of the story, you’re home.  It’s a really good book,  fun with a definite point to make.  (Yes.)

*******
Nothing to See Here
By Kevin Wilson 
2019 / 277 pages
Read by Martin Ireland 6h 40m
Rating:  8 / contemporary fiction 
*******

Lillian and Madison are best friends from private school days where Madison’s family pays her whole way and Lillian is a scholarship student.  They’re roommates and both love basketball and are both kind of weird, or so they self-describe. Madison’s father pays  Lillian to covers for Madison when Madison pulls something more than a stunt and is asked to leave the school.  A few years later Madison needs a favor from Lillian and asks her to be nanny to her two stepchildren whose mother has died.  There’s one twist – the kids catch fire and burn, spontaneously.  (Got that?)  

Madison is now the wife of a US Senator who has great potential and the mother of his third child.  It’s the Senator’s first two children who have problems with spontaneous combustion and their mother is deceased.  So the kids come to live with Madison and the Senator in their mansion outside of Nashville.  And Lillian is hired to care for them.   

This book deals with all the relationships; how Lillian manages her charges and how Carl, the Senator’s personal assistant, deals with the the situation,  and how rich-girl Madison deals with life and the Senator in his predicament.  There are more ways of responding/reacting and everyone has a different way.  

I loved the book.  No, it’s not the finest writing but there’s something about the story and characters that’s real.  The plot, with kids catching fire, may seem bizarre but that’s not the point – nor is the reason for their catching fire.  The point is how are the other characters responding and what works? Why? What do people care about?   I’m looking forward to more books by Kevin Wilson.

I read this last month for the All-Nonfiction reading group which discussed it this month so I read it again.  It is good but not exactly what I expected but maybe I should have.  

*******
Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World 
by Fareed Zakaria 
2020 / 308 pages, inc notes
Read by author – 7h 24m
Rating – 8.75 / politics and gov’t
*******

Zakaria is a journalist for CNN and a political author who specializes in foreign affairs and  American issues.  He likes talking politics as well as history and economics.  Medicine and technology are not really his fields of expertise although he’s very smart.  

So the book is more about the pandemic in terms of government response, financial markets, experts, and other things.  It’s not about how our lives will change but about how maybe our “systems” should change to meet the felt demand.  

He writes nicely and is generally well organized although he does digress.  I think the title was catchy and worked as an organizing principle so it stuck. But it feels more like 10 general issues connected to the pandemic than a list of things we really can learn.  He’s best in the chapter on how globalization is affected – this is big, imo, but that’s his specialty.  

Anyway – as usual I got more out of a second reading.  🙂 It’s a good book but don’t expect real answers.  

This book is not one of the several books Yashimoto is noted for but it is definitely a worthy addition to her oeuvre.  It’s comprised of 6 seemingly light and elegant short stories dealing  how young middle class urban singles in Japan of the 21st century find and love healing, while breaking away from a society of conformity and high expectations.

Lizard 
by Banana Yoshimoto   
1995 – 129 pages HC
(Translated by Ann Sherif) 
Read by Emily Zeller – 3h 34m
Rating:  8.75 / short stories 

The second and last stories really caught my attention.  In Lizard, the second story, the male 1st person narrator, a therapist, falls in love with a young autistic woman, an acupuncturist, with special healing powers.  His approach to her and their opening up to each other are very sensitively told.  

The last story, “A Strange Tale from Down by the River,” is about a young woman who has been running away from a difficult past and has found love but the man here has problems, too.  

** DNF means Did Not Finish **

Ready Player One was great – actually that’s why I checked this one out when I saw it available at the library and found the sample to be fine. But still,  I had not read good things about it.

Ready Player Two 
by Ernest Cline 
2020 / 371 pages
Read by Will Wheaton 13h 46m
Rating;  DNF –

So at first glance I was pleasantly surprised by how compelling it seemed.  So okay, Cline writes well and Wheaton is excellent with the narration. It starts out as a fairly good book. And then it slides. I understand it was the unplanned sequel to an amazing book, Ready, Player One, which I loved. WHich was made into a pretty good movie (I understand). But to me, this second helping seems seriously marred by the over-attachment of the author to the video games and movies of the 1980s.   Those are, unfortunately, two big strikes against it.  

In Ready Player One (2011) Wade Watts,  our first person hero, wins the big computer game contest and gets all the fame and fortune he ever wanted.  But as is revealed in Book 2, the winnings include a huge techie change to the world and a new riddle with a new prize for the winner. These are “game changers” for reals.  

Too bad –  when, at about halfway through, the movie Pretty in Pink became the latest 1980s cultural relic to be mentioned I caved, closed the book and said to myself – it’s a DNF, write it up and don’t count it because you just can’t finish this.  

Will Wheaton does a great job of narrating the book, but a good reader only goes so far… .  

Fwiw, I was 38 years old in 1986 and I don’t think I ever saw that movie as if I’d even remember, because that was 35 years ago and not in my impressionable youth.  

I have rarely not finished books I’ve started, but I usually purchase my books. I ‘ve just started using the library for whatever I can find there. I have been delighted with some but this time I was appalled and am really glad I didn’t pay money for it and don’t feel compelled to finish.

Omg – Wow!  I really didn’t expect much from this book, but half way through I found myself entranced by the story as well as by the first person narrator, Keiko Furukura.  When the book first came out it sat on my wish list for several months before I finally gave up on having time and chucked it out. Just lately it turned up in the “Free with Membership” (Premium Plus) part of the Audible site.  Okay – I put it in my this time and it sat there for another several days.  

Convenience Store Woman 
by Sayaka Murata 
*Translated from the Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori *
2018 – 176 pages (hc)
Read by Nancy Wu 3h 22m
Rating:  9.25  / contemporary Japanese 

Today, having finished House Arrest by Mike Lawson, (I need to read more of his books) I finally picked out Convenience Store Woman and started listening.  I was enchanted, enmeshed.  I don’t know why that didn’t happen with the sample but … right timing is important.  

When I got about 1/2 way I started looking for the info about the book, translator and pages and stuff like that.  Omg, I knew it was short but I didn’t know it had so many rave reviews until I looked at the Amazon site for it (not reading the reviews just seeing them there).  Wow!   It’s validating when you find that a book you’re really appreciating gets rave reviews from so many professionals – Google it yourself.    🙂 

Anyway,  there’s a 1st person,  Keiko Furukura, telling the story of her life.  She was born to average parents in Japan, but it seems she had some problems and people thought her a bit strange.  She sometimes didn’t understand what people meant when they spoke, so when her playmates screamed “Stop it!” to a boy who was harassing them, she bonked him on the head with a spade – and that stopped him.  In school she did a couple of similarly unacceptable things, but then she really tried to fit in.  After she finished high school she found a part time job at a brand new convenience store – (think 7/11) and a very small place to live on her own.  

The main thing about Keiko is that she loves her job and the convenience store itself.  The story unfolds and Keiko develops and has problems. It seems the world, and Japanese families in particular, have expectations of people and Keiko isn’t living up to them at all. (But this is NOT The Vegetarian by Han Kang!)

This book is so much fun – different and refreshing.  The book isn’t exactly up-beat, but it’s warm and friendly and as such makes an excellent break from the current negative left-overs of life in 2020.  It does turn serious after awhile, there is a theme which unfolds and a message of sorts.   At only 176 pages or 3+ hours you can easily do this in a day.
https://groveatlantic.com/book/convenience-store-woman/