******* House Arrest by Mike Lawson Read by Joe Barrett 8h 26m Rating – B+ / *******
“As Congressman John Mahoney’s fixer, Joe DeMarco has had to bend and break the law more than a few times. But when Representative Lyle Canton, House Majority Whip, is found shot dead in his office in the U.S. Capitol and DeMarco is arrested for the murder, DeMarco knows he’s been framed. Locked up in the Alexandria Jail awaiting trial, he calls on his enigmatic friend Emma, an ex-DIA agent, to search for the true killer.
I’ve read with enjoyment several prior novels by Denise Mina. This one was recommended by someone in a mystery book group and it’s a stand alone novel.
******* Conviction by Denise Mina 2018/ Read by Cathleen McCarron 9h/46m Rating: A / crime thriller *******
Conviction starts slow and then gets convoluted with back story and then turns into a page-turning thriller while the reader tries to unwind the coils of threads. Generally happy, the young, married- with-children Anna McLean is sitting in the kitchen of her suburban Glasgow home. She’s listening to her favorite true crime podcast with her morning coffee when she’s startled plum out of her wits when she realizes that this time, with this crime, she knows the people involved! OMG! (But what does that mean to the reader? – Good questions – we read to find out exactly.)
It seems that several years prior a luxury yacht exploded in a Scottish bay. On it were Leon Parker and his two teenage children and no one else – no staff, nothing. The absent chef was convicted but that’s only 10% of the story because #1 – he didn’t do it and #2 -who is Anna McLean anyway, to be remembering all this and apparently running away from her own past involving this crime? And! In Anna’s present, just that very morning, her husband is leaving her for the neighbor lady, Anna’s best friend. To make matters worse the neighbor lady’s husband has come over to Anna’s house. Which would be bad enough except that Anna has come unwound by the realization that someone is going to recognize her and come after her due to the explosion she was in some way a part of. The two leave town together.
And the rest of the book is a whirlwind chase with building tension and danger. Mina puts her superb wordsmithery and wry humor on display just right. Enjoy!
Okay – I finally really finished The Ministry for the Future and wrote up a review. Then I read a chapter in 10 Lessons for a Post-pandemic World by Fareed Zakaria because the All-nonfiction Reading Group is discussing it. Then I picked up A Promised Land, Barack Obama’s memoir and read another chapter there. Finally I got to Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden which I’d picked up on sale.
******* Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden 2021 Read by Darrell Dennis 8h 17m Rating – B / crime (Native American) *******
I expected an average crime novel taking place on a reservation similar to what I’ve read quite a lot of prior but this was far more imbued with Native American customs and lore. It gets very violent toward the end (be warned).
It takes place on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota where drugs have made unfortunate inroads and private investigators have to do law enforcement when the federal system doesn’t work. The fictional Virgil Wounded Horse is just such private detective who, when his nephew seems to be caught up in the problem, gets involved more deeply than he has prior.
There is a lot of accurate reporting mixed into the story.
Aaaahhhhh….. what a fine, fine book! Omg! This might be the best book I’ve read so far this year (but it’s only February so … ). I started this book maybe a week ago and was hooked almost immediately. It’s complex and dense in many ways and although I read quite a ways in there came a point where I knew I was missing something. There was some complexity I had missed. Then I was a little more than 100 pages from the end (77 – 80%?) and I realized that I wasn’t going to really understand the ending if I kept going like this. So I started over.
******* The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson 2020/ Read by a cast Rating – A+ / climate fiction / futurist *******
This time I was very satisfied. I found where I’d gotten confused and missed something (there was more than one place!) and just kept going with my head nicely straightened out. This time I was taking brief chapter notes and that helped me stay focused. There are long stretches of information and meditative type narrative broken by the more plot oriented stories of the characters. There are two basic characters, Frank and Mary, whose individual stories intertwine.
But the rest of the novel is mostly comprised of the monologues of various anonymous characters who tell us about their thoughts and lives. These are mostly short chapters and 106 chapters altogether. Most characters only appear one time but there are a few who reappear. The monographs of some characters are like stories, others are more meditative. And some characters are unlikely – they include a microbe and a phonton and a mammal, etc. They are beautifully done, very nicely arranged and the author uses them for a variety of functions.
Overall and very generally the book is about how our world today could get thrust and twisted and pushed and pulled and forged and fashioned into a new world of a peace and prosperity for all, top to bottom, with the earth and all its living parts participating. In other words, how we could become utopia. This is one author’s very intelligently imagined detailing of what that struggle might look like.
The revolution works via serious enforcement of the Paris Agreement and all that would entail. This enforcement starts after several serious climate disasters. The Ministry for the Future is instrumental in developing the program which affects all people all over the world. The head of this ministry is Mary, from Ireland. She has a committee which comes up with ideas and presents them to the various countries.
It gets a bit fantastical in some of the middle section chapters and some parts at the end are dragged out.
I’ve read in the reviews that there’s a lot of hard science in this book as well as real economics along with some nicely researched social and historical material. I want to mention that the audible version is fabulous with a large cast for the many little chapters and points-of-view.
I so looked forward to this book. I totally enjoyed both of Harper’s priors, The Dry and The Lost Man. Those were terrific and I loved the settings, characters, the plots and the tension. So the day The Survivors came out, Feb 2, I was downloading.
The Survivors by Jane Harper (Australia) 2/2021 – Read by Stephen Shanahan 11h 57m Rating A+ / crime suspense
First impressions? Alas – the reader’s accent is so thick I was mistaking Kieran for Karen. And Ash sounded like the nickname for Ashley, a girl. Wrong. To add insult to injury, the Prologue doesn’t give names and it’s only a fore-taste of something which happens much later in the book – it’s not really a Prologue. But Chapter 1 suddenly has about 8 characters at a restaurant and getting through Chapters 2 and 3 things seemed to get worse as the 8 were interacting. I kept reading but nothing cleared up. At Chapter 7 someone is killed and to prevent further confusion, when I got to Chapter 8 I just started over. This was still only about 10% – not bad. Anyway, in the second go at it I took out a yellow pad and started scribbling character names as I came across them, along with a tidbit of interesting information about them.
Kieran, age 30 and Mia have a new baby named Audrey and they have come home to a tiny town in Tasmania to see his parents and their old friends. Kieran’s parents are Verity and Bruce Elliott. Bruce has dementia and is about to go into a home. Ash an old friend of Kieran’s, is a bachelor boy who seems to flirt a lot – he runs a landscape business. Olivia is a waitress and a friend of the group, housemates with Bronte who is also a waitress but from out of the area. Then there’s Liam who is a youngish cook at that restaurant and also works part time for Ash. He tells Bronte that Kieran is a killer and killers deserve what they get. Chapter 4 introduces Sean, another good friend, a travel guide, and the housemate of Ash. There are other characters but those are the main ones.
So the friends, Ash, Kieran, Mia, Sean, and Olivia are at this seaside restaurant, talking and catching up while Liam and Bronte (neither of whom are part of the old clique from high school) are in the kitchen talking. Kieran overhears this and is very uncomfortable. “It was the day of the storm…” It seems everyone knows that Kieran killed Liam’s father (Sean’s brother) as well as his own brother. Few people hold grievances but Liam is unforgiving.
Later that night a body is found on the beach. – okay – Now I felt I needed to know who was who!
The narrative goes back and forth between the old days, a decade prior, and the present. I wouldn’t say it alternates because there’s not that much order to it. It just drifts back and forth with the memories of the group. The title has several meanings or references.
The characters are pretty well drawn if you read carefully. The setting is well done but it’s not The Dry. The story is wonderfully well plotted but it takes time to grow into its own. I stayed up very late last night finishing this It has a great ending.
Except for the last couple chapters, I was kind of disappointed in this. I know it’s a classic now but I think that’s because of the movie version. I don’t watch movies. That said, the book won a bunch of awards for the book and its author and the movie won some more. So my disappointment is probably more a statement about me and my proclivities right now. (“Justice and Redemption” are always good things to learn!)
*****
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson 2014 read by author Rating: 7.5 / true crime – memoir *******
The book (I don’t know about the film) is a memoir and although McMillian’s story is central, there is a lot of other material in it; children in adult courts and jails for crimes considered to be adult; police and courts which are essentially rigged by racist attitudes and a lot of white anger; the treatment of women in society and in jails. The jails seem to all be in the South but some of the laws are allowed by the US as a whole, fwiw.
This book is an indictment of Southern law enforcement from cops to juries (“polite society”) and on the archaic notion of life-imprisonment (or worse) for children. The death penalty in relation to the poor and African American of our society and is more than touched on. Long term solitary confinement continues, unfortunately. (And the Black community itself is not without sin – touched on in the last couple chapters.)
Stevenson, the author, started the legal aid group “Equal Justice Initiative” which continues to be his main concern and their early cases are the basis for the book. Life sentences for 14-year olds is now against the law in the US.
I very much enjoy true crime but that’s not really what this is. It’s more like a legal memoir with some Black history and sociology thrown in. Also, it’s basically about a decade old. I just couldn’t get into it. The author reading his own material might have been part of the problem. I’m sure the movie was great but it too would be dated – and that’s important with a subject like this because what it’s trying to do is to raise awareness and protest but for the protest part to happen the events described have to be more current.
Ahhh…. This is a good book for escapist decompressing, but…. a wee bit over the top with a seriously disabled FBI vet (as well as astro-physicist, professor and novel writer) going in for chasing down a bunch of run amok and sadistic bomb-makers. I didn’t really expect what I got because I thought it was going to be a standard procedural or who-done-it. The blurbs about the Guggenheim intrigued me. Ha! This is far more wreckage-creating and action oriented than most contemporary thrillers – the ones I’ve read anyway.
******* Under Pressure By Robert Pobi 2020 / (448 pages) Read by Will Damron – 11h 37m Lucas Page series #2 *******
Anyway – grab your map of New York City (the small Google map with restaurants and hotels will do) because the bomber strikes here and there across the boroughs as well as one place a bit upstate. This is to say nothing of the investigations being located in various places. Oh and btw, it’s Halloween so there are kids out and a few extra costumes.
But the writing is great for a thriller, the characters are good except for the lead good-guy, who stands out as being seriously disabled, brilliant, defiant and has a rather high proclivity for defiance and risk-taking. He stays completely sympathetic though.
To jump kick the plot there’s a Guggenheim blast which kills 700 people. And the investigation of that gets going quickly into a midnight-oil burning, page-turner. It’s all very contemporary and high tension, but definitely fiction. New York City and its crazies are out not excluding either the lowlife or the highly placed. After the Guggenheim mess there’s the old Western Union building and internet hub and various and sundry blasts after them.
Lucas Page is an astro-physicist, a bestselling author and a university professor. Also, he’s about 1/2 bionic (as we used to say), thanks to a tragic accident. He also works, as consultant at least, for the FBI because what he does, well, one thing he does, is he sees events and go back a few seconds in time to automatically comprehend whatever math is involved and then project what just happened, like wondering where a bullet came from so he instantly calculates the trajectory.
Another thing he does seems like reading minds, but it’s simply reading the expressions and body language and using awareness and logic on all the clues a savvy 21st century Sherlock Holmes might put together. The book gets deeply into his doing until it seems like sci-fi/fantasy super-powers but I don’t think so – he’s just extraordinarily talented at picking up on causes where most of us see only effects. He’s also married to a medical doctor and together they have adopted 5 children and live in a luxurious semi-estate as well as an apartment in Manhattan – this is mostly only good for an overarching plot line holding a series together.
If you enjoy thrillers this is a good one. I’ll probably get the next one in the series but I’m not going back to catch the first one because the narrator for that one is horrible. This reader, Will Damron, is great.
I read this for the All-nonfiction Reading Group discussion where I actually nominated it. I enjoy Fareed Zakaria on CNN anyway so I figured I might like the book. I was right – I very much enjoyed the book. It’s nicely organized and well thought out. But what would you expect from Zakaria?
******* Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World by Fareed Zakaria 2020 / 308 pages Read by author – 7h 24m Rating – 8.75 / politics and gov’t *******
Zakaria goes through the global political and economic problems associated with the Covid – or any pandemic – and what the world has not been doing right and why. It’s a hefty history compressed into 241 pages plus notes and so on. A couple of graphs.
It’s frequently billed as “Life After the Pandemic,” but it’s not really that. He does predict another pandemic before long though and that’s what spurred the “Lessons.” It’s actually a rather hopeful book and our past is very di we have to learn from a very changeable past. Does liberal democracy work better or do dictatorships?
Like Michael Lewis in The Risk Factor, which Zakaria notes, the deciding factors on how well a country will do in a global pandemic are competence and quality of government. Bigger is not necessarily better. More authoritarian is not better. How the financial markets are arranged and how well they work is important but that’s certainly not the whole picture. Expertise and technology help. And then there’s the fact that people are social beings – a whole chapter to that. Inequality doesn’t help but idealism certainly has some advantages. Meanwhile, nothing is written (in stone).
And the book is packed with info, dense but readable, so I have to do that again. lol.
David Adams, up from poverty and newly graduated from law school, has found a position working in a pricy and very high-pressure law firm. He works harder than he should and is rewarded. But before long a couple people are suddenly dead – another lawyer is dead by hanging and a street person David has got involved with is dead by gunshot. There are definite thriller elements to the tale.
******* An Equal Justice by Chad Zunker 2020 / (222 pages paperback) Read by Christopher Grant – 6h 40m Rating – B+ / suspense thriller #1 in David Adams series *******
The book has an interesting set-up and the idea is well developed. Oddly perhaps, but not necessarily, there are quite a lot of religious aspects to the “good” characters. The author has it set up for making an interesting series – nothing hot like Michael Connelly probably but entertaining.
“As literature, Edward Rutherfurd’s historical novels are not successful. They judder slowly along ill-made roads, like carts with square wheels, and the beauty of the scenery through which they pass does not entirely distract the passenger’s mind from his aching bottom and tired eyes. As vehicles for delivering the fruits of research, however, they are not only efficient, but might truly be called works of art.” – The Independent – 2003
That about sums it up. They’re also very long.
******* Russka By Edward Rutherford 1991 / 946 pages Read by Wanda McCaddon 39h 53m Rating: 8 / historical fiction (Both read and listened) *******
Yes, the strength of Russka is definitely the history. Oh there is a long twisted fictional story concerning several generations, and their own stories, but the emphasis is on a broad overview of the history of central Russia including what is going on from the oldest days of “Steppe and Forest” to 1990 and just before the fall of the USSR.
“Russka” is a fictional settlement not too far south of Moscow, but the setting moves to St Petersburg or further into the Ukraine when appropriate.
Because the history is so broad there’s not a whole lot on any one era, but I found tidbits which were totally new to me and I studied Russian history in college and have read some in the close to 50 years since so I know the general outline. This is one of the reasons I’d been attracted to the book for so long and even started it once.
Bottom line I very much appreciated the book, but didn’t love it. It’s very similar to the some of the early works by James Michener and I’ve read probably a half dozen of those. I might have read a couple of Rutherford’s books as well but I don’t quite remember how many or how much of them.
Anyway, Rutherford starts with a boy standing near a forest and watching some armed and mounted horsemen ride by. As you can see by the genealogical table in the front of the book this boy is the ancestor of one family of people while another person from the same general times is the ancestor of another group of people. The table puts these family lines next to each other to keep the chronology – yes, they live near and know each other well. Overall there are four families involved.
The changing laws, the Catholic Church, the Tsar and his doings, the organization of society and so on are all examined from the points of view of fictional characters in the the generally upper classes (no aristocracy) and lower ones (no homeless people).
The writing is usually mediocre at best although there are places where it sings. But had Rutherford used heavy prose or insightful themes the whole thing might have gone on overload. The scope of the generations and the plot lines of each “era” make for plenty of filling.
Only a few of the characters are well defined and individually drawn although this might be expected as I think they are meant to be “types.” There is no real over-riding theme except the history and general class conflict as seen through the eyes of various levels concerned, the plots of each section/era are pretty good and the world building is wonderful – engrossing and the language furthers that effort. https://u.osu.edu/waitelit3356iip/elements-of-historical-fiction/
The narrator/reader of the Audible version does a wonderful job, her tone and accent pleasant with appropriate speed and rhythm.
This book but Orhan Pamuk, of whom I am a fan, is long and slow and if you’re new to Pamuk then I suggest you read one of his earlier books before this one. My Name is Red is excellent but The Black Book or Snow would be okay, too. There is little plot in A Strangeness in My Mind, it’s mostly a character study of the protagonist and possibly Istanbul itself. But it really all comes together in the end. Most of Pamuk’s more recent books have a tone of what is called “hüzün” in Turkish, a kind of melancholy. It’s most prevalent in Pamuk’s non-fiction book Istanbul: Memories and the City, but it’s also heavy in the novel, The Museum of Innocence as well as A Strangeness in My Mind.
******* A Strangeness in My Mind By Orhan Pamuk Translated by Ekin Oklap 2014 / 624 pages Read by John Lee 21h 56m Rating: 9 / 21st century lit *******
A young man named Melvut arrives in Istanbul from a smaller Turkish city in 1969 at the age of 12 and lives there until 2012 when he’s 55. During this time he marries and has daughters and continues to live in the city, witnessing the changes. The city generally grows and grows but also goes downhill into a big, vibrant and corrupt, modern city while Melvut muddles along, selling his homemade boza, a grain based alcoholic drink, and doing other things while raising his daughters.
The story is told from variety of 1st person views as well as a 3rd person point of view. The first person points of view include those of Melvut and a few relatives so the reader gets Melvut’s input about his occupation and marriage as well as those of his wife, father and a couple cousins – also, there may be some differences which work into the themes or shows that the characters are somewhat unreliable.
There are themes of change and differences in people, and of acceptance and aging and forgetting and faith and so on as Melvut’s life goes on. Kismet (fate) and memory are always a part of it.
One long plot/idea which threads its way through the book at times involves a letter Melvut wrote to Rayiha, his first wife at the beginning of their courtship. Was it really intended for her, or was it intended for Samiha, her more beautiful sister and his second wife? Was there some confusion at the time of writing? It all winds up at the end – in its own strange way. There are many things contributing to the strangeness in Melvut’s mind. The ending is really lovely.
It took me a long time to get this read – I bought it in April of 2020 and it’s now January 2021. (Cutting myself some slack, this isn’t the kind of book that’s going to grab your attention during times of troubles – and 2020 was a time of troubles.) The narrator in the Audible version, John Lee, does an excellent job but I both read and listened – sometimes I needed to see how a name was spelled. Other times I wanted to go over a nicely written passage again and maybe highlight it. Also, there are a few nice little graphics strewn around as well as an index of characters, a chronology and a reading guide.
If this is your thing go for it. And enjoy Pamuk’s other books, too.
I don’t know why but I didn’t really get involved in this book until close to the end – when the bail bondsman shows up at Ree’s house. Then it kind of took off for me, became real somehow. The story, which is fairly good in concept, is that of a teenage girl who is left to fend for herself and her two young brothers along with her mentally disabled mother. This happens when her father, who ran a meth lab, goes missing while being out on bail. Now the family will lose their home if he doesn’t show up for court. It all takes place in the back country of the Ozarks which was probably settled by the Scots-Irish of Kentucky bringing their ways and family feuds with them. (I just sense this from the language and the family ways.)
****** Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell 2006 Read by Emma Galvin 4h 53m Rating – 6/B – literary crime *******
There are lots and lots of rave reviews on Amazon – mine’s not that. Maybe it was bad timing for me. It’s called Faulknerian and Homeric – omg. I think I missed something or it was bad timing for me – whatever. I’m not interested in trying again. (It might have been partially due to the narrator.)
Anyway, Ree has to find Dad to get him to court so she can keep the house which was used as bail. This is the story of her search. But in the Ozark hills folks don’t talk much, and they certainly don’t snitch and they certainly especially don’t snitch on family! So she gets little or no help from her extended family. It appears his whereabouts are unknown by anyone – or at least they all say they’re don’t know until … There’s a lot more involved here but that’s the gist.
The book has been compared to Faulkner and I do see the huge effort gone into a kind of Southern, Biblical, Faulknerian gothic with highly descriptive passages. Faulknerian Southern Gothic might be appropriate for the geographical area and its people, but the narrative doesn’t quite get there because the author tries so hard. And that interferes with the flow of the plot which should be front and center in a genre crime novel. Literary crime is very hard to do well.
Also, the subject matter is often too gritty for Faulkner. Faulkner’s characters don’t deal with meth labs and he doesn’t often deal in the serious mistreatment of women. Besides, Faulkner’s women don’t say things like, “It seemed like one day she sprung a leak and all her gumption drained out.” (Is that trying to be Kentucky funny?)
Between the ignorant, arrogant, snotty, mean, language of most of the characters and the nasally sound of the narrator for those same characters I was turned off. I had no sympathy in any way at all for most of them – I could barely tolerate them and it certainly didn’t fit at all with the lyrically descriptive passages which were juxtaposed in the same pages.
I understand the movie was excellent – I suppose that’s possible, although it’s hard to imagine a Faulknerian narrative in a movie. Imo, the book suffered from an overreach on the part of the author.
I now have several books on my systems (Kindle, Audible on Mac and iPad) which have been sitting there for awhile (more than 3 months) and I’d like to get them gone. I’d like to get rid of 1 book a month. Mostly they’re long books but I have started them all. These are the books and the order I’d read them going from most to least anticipated. They’re about 1/2 and 1/2, fiction and nonfiction and they are all Audible except for 3 for which I also have Kindle versions. Meanwhile I’ll keep up with my regular reading but one of my 12 or so books will be an old one from the TBR file.
The Transformation of Virginia by Rhys Isaac (K & PB) – currently reading slowly A Strangeness in My Mind by Orhan Pamuk (K & A) Russka by Edward Rutherford (K & A) The Dying Grass by William Vollmann (K & A) The Frontiersmen by Allan W. Eckert (A) Histories by Herodotus (A) Crashes and Crises by Connel Fullenkamp (A) The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton (A) All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque(A)
I’ve had a TBR pile since Amazon did free shipping for 5 books (before Kindles) – I’d buy extras. Then, after I got started on Kindle and Audible, I didn’t have a TBR file for a long time because I bought as I read. Then came the sales and I was good for awhile but the last year or so it’s caught up with me and now – voila – me too. (Note – I still have about 85 books in my old hard cover and paperback TBR pile – they just sit over there and collect dust. I don’t count them as a TBR pile because I know I won’t read them – they’re DNGT (Did Not Get To).
This was on sale and it was okay for a book about hunting old Germans and their missing Nazi treasures plus going a bit further. But the reason I bought it was that mountain range on the cover and the blurbs highlighting Colorado.
******* The Last Monument by Michael C. Grumley 2020 Read by Scott Brick 9h 6m Rating: B- / crime – thriller *******
Whatever – two old geezers die in a Colorado plane wreck and the protagonist, Joe Rickards, finds the wreckage. It turns out that the deceased were both involved in chasing Nazis. Angela Reed is the niece of one of the old men who was a good friend of the other. Angela wants to know what happened and why. So with the assistance of Joe Rickards, a suddenly unemployed FBI agent, she sets out to travel to Peru where the trail gets mixed up with old tales of gold and ancient, treasure-filled cities along with some mystical possibilities. It seems that someone does not want them putting too much together.
The plot sometimes gets a bit contrived and complex to the point I got lost a couple times, but it straightened out for me pretty quick. There’s plenty of conspiracy stuff and action-packed thriller scenes. And then there’s Scott Brick narrating which just ratchets up the tension – unnecessarily at times (imo).
Overall, the book held my interest for several reasons. First, there’s the historical background which I’m almost always interested in (and I did Google some names, places and events). Second the three main characters are well drawn and likable. Finally, the tension and thriller parts were masterfully handled. Grumley has a fan club for a reason.
Shuggie Bain was the Booker Prize winner for 2020. I bought the Audible fairly early because I knew the Booker Prize Reading Group would be reading it. Still, I really kind of didn’t want to read it. For some reason I had it in my head that it was similar to Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life, a Short Lister from 2015. That was a really rough book for me.
******* Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart 2020 / read by Angus King 17h 30m rating: 8.5 / contemp fiction – Scotland *******
Shuggie Bain is a little like Hanya Yanagihara’s A Short Life in a couple ways, but it’s not got the ugly roughness – the horrible stuff. Instead in the middle of poverty and alcoholism it has a lot of love and acceptance.
After we meet Shuggie in a frame story in which although still a teenager, he has left home and is living on his own. Within the story itself he starts off at 5 years old and dealing with an alcoholic mother and an older brother while his sister has left home. His parents are not getting on too well because Dad works nights and has adulterous affairs.
We follow this dysfunctional family for about ten years during which time Shuggie slowly realizes he is different from other boys and is teased for it. Also his mother struggles with men and her alcoholism in different ways but in the long run she gets worse,
The alcoholism is presented very realistically as is the plight of Shuggie struggling with friends and school life vs home life. The story is tragic, not gritty. But it does get a bit explicit in some places.
I was disappointed in this book up until about half way when it started to slowly gather some steam. After that I’d got accustomed to the pace and the way the story unfolded with tenderness and occasional lyricism. This might be my best for the month although …
This is a long book and it seems longer, but like so many novels of India it is immersive with loads of background and history. It’s also a debut novel but won the 1st Crime Novel Award given by Minotaur books and Mystery Writers of America last year.
******* Murder in Old Bombay by Ne March Read by Vikas Adam 16h 2m Rating 7.5 / historical fiction/mystery *******
Jim Agnihotri is a badly wounded captain in the Anglo-Indian forces who leaves the hospital where he’s been reading the new Sherlock Holmes novels. The year is 1892. He also reads the newspapers and becomes interested in a the double suicide of two young women in Bombay. He writes to the husband of one of the women and then goes to personally investigate their “suicides.” The reports in the newspapers have been laden with inconsistencies. And therein lies the origins and crux of the tale.
Jim gets involved with the powerful Parsee families of the deceased girls and his investigations take him to other cities and adventures which involve befriending several children along the way. So the investigation gets delayed and turns dangerous and the book turns into a thriller at times. Meanwhile he falls in love with Diana, a close relative of one of the deceased women.
There are some problems – he’s half native Indian and half English, and his native Indianness is not the right kind for Diana’s family. But first he has to solve the mystery of the girls’ deaths have a few adventues and then he can become really invovled with Dian. The book turns into an adventure romance. I’m not fond of romance –
Gone are the days when I made serious reading resolutions. A lot of readers say they want to read 100 books this year or they want to start a reading log. Those were my goals for many years until I retired and I had a lot of time with life being pretty stable. Then after a few years the count jumped to 180. That’s enough. More than 15 a month and I get confused. Actually, more than 12 a month is a bit too much for me, although it does depend on what I’m reading. This past year the total was 125 (about 10 a month and think I can stick with that pretty easily. although anywhere 10-15 is fine.
About the blog – back in the 1980s and ’90s I did so want to keep track but every time I tried I would either forget or lose the darned notebook. Then in 1998 or so I found websites. I devised a “library” page and kept my little notes there. Not called blog yet. That was Geocities and it was HTML I blew it and the whole site crashed. A few year later I went onto iWeb and that worked nicely even if it was WYSIWYG but Apple got out of the web business. So I moved again to WordPress in 2011 and I’ve been here since.
Now? I’d like to keep reading about 10 – 12 books a month and continue to keep track of them via my blog.
But in addition I’d like to do a clean up of my TBR “pile.” Pile is in quotes there because I have almost no physical books. I have one going at the moment but that’s only as a supplement to the Kindle (becuase the Kindle doesn’t have the beautiful photos.) I don’t read from that book. I have about 8 “To Be Read” Audio books and I’d like to get about 6 of them read without acquiring more – although if I acquire a couple new ones that’s fine. I don’t want the old ones hanging out and making a permanent home in that folder. I mostly read as I buy.
I want to finish The Transformation of Virginia by Rhys Isaac. I wanted that book for years and finally got it in both the Kindle version and the paperback. I got the paperback first because I knew the graphics weren’t included in the Kindle version. BUT, the trouble with the paperback is that the font is too small to read comfortably and it’s a physically large book. So I read along in my Kindle and when it shows a graphic should be there I check my paperback.
I also really want to read The Children of Ash and Elm by Neil Price but I’ll not make it into a resolution because I haven’t bought it yet, but I think it really needs reading,
Becky's Books - 