Becky's Books –

Men Explain Things To Me
by Rebecca Solnit
2014/ 130 pages
read by Luci Christian Bell  2h 48m
rating – 8 / nonfiction – feminist essays

I haven’t read anything by Solit for many years and then I wasn’t too thrilled by  Wanderlust,  her book about walking,  but really about other things – the wanderings of a woman’s mind.   Men Explain Things To Me came up on one of my reading lists and I got tempted and got it from Audible.

This one is pretty good even if I’m not all that interested in feminist theory these days.  It seems this book has become a standard in 3rd wave feminism – or 4th? – http://www.pacificu.edu/about-us/news-events/four-waves-feminism

In seven essays, some previously published elsewhere,   Solnit expounds on the fact that although things are getting better,  and not all men are bad guys,   women are still not taken seriously in the world which is dominated by the male point of view (“mansplaining”).  We are still too physically vulnerable,  are “disappeared” from the patrilineal genealogies and life,  are  benefited by marriage equality,  should try embracing the unknown (about themselves) and all we can do is go forward – it’s too late to go back in the old traditional boxes.   >>>>MORE>>>> 

Elizabeth is Missing
by Emma Healey
2014 /  320 pages
read by Davina Porter 11h 9m
rating A /  literary crime

A very interesting tale in which our first person protagonist,  Maud, an 82-year old woman who lives alone with the assistance of her daughter, Helen,  is losing it – she has dementia.   She doesn’t remember things – like why she’s digging a hole in the yard – what was she looking for?   Or that her usefulness as a volunteer at the local thrift shop has ended so it’s not necessary when she appears there on her “usual” day.  And she doesn’t know what has happened to Elizabeth,  her good friend of many years whom she hasn’t seen in a long time.  So one major thread is Maud’s search for Elizabeth.

What she does remember is when her older sister Suki went missing almost 70 years prior – 1946 – and that second plot thread is intertwined with Maud’s search for Elizabeth in both the chapters and Maud’s mind somehow.  >>>>MORE (no spoilers) >>>> 

The Dead Key
by D.M. Pulley
2014 / 470 pages
read by Emily Sutton-Smith 13h 42m
rating  B  / crime-suspense
(debut novel)

I really didn’t know what I was getting into with this one but I think someone in a reading group gave it a high rating so I checked it out,  enjoyed the sample, was intrigued by the synopsis and put it on my Audible wish list.   Then,  Dear Reader,   it went on sale.  lol –  What is a good girl to do?

It’s a debut novel and flawed in many ways,  but still,  I enjoyed it.   The characters and suspense kept it going and the premise of the bank abandonment  was interesting.   The reader, Emily Sutton-Smith,  is excellent – I need to see what else has narrated.

The story starts out with a Prologue which I had to go back to later and re-listen because about Chapter 8 I thought I’d missed something.  Nope – that aspect is deliberately ambiguous although there are clues.   This lack of specific information adds a certain suspense to the first half or so after which it definitely clears up. >>>> MORE (no spoilers) >>>>

Diamond Solitaire
by Peter Lovesey
1992 / 327 pages
read by Simon Prebble 10h 47m
Rating:   B+  / crime – police procedural

Peter Diamond, working as a security guard after retirement from the police department,  finds a young Japanese girl abandoned in the department store where he is now employed.  Diamond takes an interest and a short time later is found working with the girl who has not been claimed and is apparently autistic – she’s living at a home for special needs children.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the US, a pharmaceutical company is going through some changes.  The eldest son does not want to take over the business but goes to Vienna to negotiate and ends up with the business. >>>>MORE (no spoilers) >>>> 

The Skeptic’s Guide to American History
by Great Courses / Professor Mark A. Stoler, Ph.D.
A lecture given by Professor Mark A. Stoler, Ph.D.
2012 / 12h 01m
Rating: 8.5

This was my third Great Courses lecture – the final one on my e-shelves.   I bought all 3 on sale and was quite happy with the first two after I got used to the reading style of a lecture rather than that of a book – they’re different.  It’s taken me awhile to get through it but today,  after Justice Redeemed it seemed like a good time.

Actually,  I was bored for the first few chapters probably because I majored in US/European  history a very long time ago and have kept reading it as a layman for over 40 years.   So although the work is entitled “The Skeptic’s Guide”  it’s *basically*  the same info I’ve come across over the years.   I suppose that would have been okay but Stoler gives the lecture as though what he’s saying should be an incredible surprise to his listeners – well maybe it is for folks who read American history  for a mandated class 20 years ago and haven’t touched it since.  >>>>MORE (no spoilers) >>>> 

Justice Redeemed
by Scott Pratt
2015/ 314 pages
read by Nick Podehl
rating:  A+ / crime / legal thriller

Well I needed this –  a good fast-paced crime novel in legal thriller mode (my favorite).  And this one is so suspenseful  that although I usually listen to books from iTunes on my computer or iPod,  it was getting late last night so  I downloaded it to my iPad (Audible app) and listened in bed.  I never do that – or never done that before I should say.   Yes,  I eventually fell asleep, as expected,  but picked up this morning while still on my first cuppa and then later left the oatmeal on for a few minutes through the dinging of the timer – ah me.

The premise is that a couple years prior to the main action of the book, a young criminal defense lawyer named Darren Street revealed the rampant corruption in the district attorney’s office and unseated the DA.  This earned him the profound enmity of the department and the ex-DA. >>>>MORE (no spoilers)>>>>

House of the Rising Sun
by James Lee Burke
2015 / 448 pages
read by Will Patton
rating 6 / historical fiction

This may be the most “Arthurian” of all Burke’s works and I’m  disappointed.  It’s also  one of the grittiest books I’ve read since Blood Meridian but has nowhere near the style or substance of anything Cormac McCarthy ever wrote and not even of what Burke himself has written prior.

Burke’s style is as it’s ever  been – lush and heavy with rich metaphors,  but it seems like that sort of thing is somewhat out of place here on the semi-desert and more at home among the live oak trees and critter infested swamps in southern Louisiana where Burke’s more popular Dave Robicheaux lives and fights gritty crime. >>>>MORE>>>>

Breathing Water
by Timothy Hallinan
2009 / 368 pages
read by Victor Bevine 11h 43m
Rating: A

I’ve been so meaning to get back to Poke Rafferty in Bangkok,  but 1. these are a bit grittier than most of my favorite crime novels and 2. I don’t usually read books in the same series back-to-back.   Or so I thought until I realized I’d got all caught up with Tara French and Jussi Adler-Olsen and those are fairly gritty  – to say nothing of Don Winslow’s The Cartel and Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings.   So having a bit of time to read my own choices (I’m so addicted to reading group choices) here I am!

As those familiar with the series know,  Poke Rafferty is an American travel writer living in Bangkok and in books 1 and 2 married a Thai bar girl and adopted a street urchin.   These threads continue in Breathing Water.  >>>>MORE>>>>

Marriage of Opposites
by Alice Hoffman
2015/ 384 pages
read by Gloria Ruben and others 13h 26m
rating 6  / historical romance

Once in awhile I need a book which just does NOT cut it.  It makes me appreciate the good ones more.   So let’s hope this is it for awhile – I’ve had my fill in the last few weeks.

Anyway,  the Inquisition resulted in many Jewish people leaving Spain and some of their descendants got to the Danish colony of St. Thomas in the 17th century.   That’s the setting for the largely imagined life of of Rachel Pissarro – historic mother of Camille Pissarro, the important French impressionist.

Too many lost mothers, some odd and unbelievable magic with the descriptions of realism,  forbidden love across generations,  and completely 21st century attitudes except for the witchcraft spells and fortune telling.  “Haint blue” is a light turquoise green – it wards off evil – it’s important in A Marriage of Opposites.  >>>>MORE>>>>

Alias Olympia: A Woman’s Search for Manet’s Notorious Model & Her Own Desire
by Eunice Lipton
1992 / 192 pages
rating – 3 / feminist memoir

Lipton writes about Édouard Manet’s notorious model Victorine Meurent and pads it out with  autobiographical material from her own life as well as completely fabricated sections from Meurent.  Lipton implies that she is looking for herself.

• Pay attention to the whole title – this is NOT a book of art history – it’s a feminist memoir about her search for information about a painter/model woman who is not even named in the title.

To me Meurent looks a bit haughty there on the cover, softly defiant and beautiful.  Fr0m the paintings and very little else, Lipton thinks she sees similarities of character but she’s obviously looking for them in order to resolve her own issues – historians don’t work like that – they try not to work like that –  but Lipton wants to call herself that for some reason.   If the painted evidence is accurate,  Meurent was physically beautiful and she was also a modestly talented painter. >>>>MORE>>>> 

History of the Rain
by Niall Williams
2014/ 368 pages
read by Jennifer McGrath 11h 29m
rating – 8 / Irish humor – fiction

This is a story about tales,  folk tales, biographical tales, literary tales, make-believe tales and historical tales,  etc.  There’s some realism and some magical realism here,  there are jokes and tall tales.   It’s kind of lovely in a ways,  but  I had to get in about 100 pages to appreciate it.

Actually,  I got started and I listened and listened and finally realized that this was probably a really excellent book which was going straight through my ears.   So at about half way,  I restarted the whole thing.  –  There’s something going on here about salmon and fishing and water and Ireland and so on that just wasn’t clicking – in all likelihood because I’m not the least bit Irish. >>>>MORE>>>>

The Story of Human Language
by  Dr. John McWhorter (Great Courses)
read by  Dr. John McWhorter 18h 15m
rating 9 / nonfic. – linguistics

Very interesting lecture – (I’m treating these Great Courses audios as “books”).  I have a good background for it due to ESL theory and I thought it was kind of basic for the first several chapters,. but then McWhorter got into language families and language diversities  in Chapter 8 through 11.  My background was as needed for effective ESL teaching.  This is a lecture so the tone is a bit different from a normal nonfiction reading and McWhorter has an excellent voice for a lecture.

The discussion includes the myriad of ways all languages change and htat writing is its own language. Listening to a Shakespearean play can be difficult because English has changed,  furthermore there are no recordings from the 16th century. All languages change like this and have done this over time and sometimes very quickly.  Language is basically oral communication first and foremost.  >>>>MORE>>>>

The Rose Hotel: A Memoir of Secrets, Loss and Love
by Rahimeh Andalibian
2012 / 328 pages (Kindle)
Rating ___ / memoir
(Published by National Geographic)

Rahimeh Andalibian is a US citizen now,  a doctor of psychology  practicing systemic psychology and specializing in trauma for over 20 years.

But she  had her own story to tell about families and secrets and revolution – also of love and resilience.

There is no particular literary value here – nothing to note except perhaps that the tension builds very nicely and includes a couple or more unexpected twists. Much of this is due to the story itself but there is some literary feel to it because of a very light use of backstory – mostly it’s in chronological order though.  The style and structure,  the literary elements pretty well fit the subject – it’s a nice memoir of a really terrible time and I think it helped me to understand a bit better what refugees go through.   >>>>MORE>>>>

The Lake House
by Kate Morton
2015/ 512 pages
read by Caroline Lee 21h 24m
rating:  B /  historical crime-romance (literary?)

Morton has 6 books out now,  a couple of them have been best sellers and she has a strong fan base.  I’ve been tempted ever since The House at Riverton (2007) because going by the blurbs,  the novels sound like they’re suspense-filled mysteries, but for some reason I’ve been put off.  Perhaps the narrator in the sample is a bit difficult for me to understand easily – a strong British accent (to my California ears).  Anyway,  after seeing several exuberant posts about the book on a couple of my email lists,  I succumbed.

The frame story involves Sadie Sparrow in 2003 as she investigates an old crime she comes across while on forced leave from her job with the police department somewhere. The case just intrigues her curious mind.  In the same time frame are the characters of Sadie’s grandfather with whom she stays,  Alice Edevane, a prominent 80+ year old author of best-selling mystery tales,  Peter,  Alice’s well-educated assistant and  a police detective who remembers the old case.  >>>>MORE (no spoilers)>>>> 

The Unexpected Professor: An Oxford Life in Books
by John Carey
2014/ 384 pages
rating: 8.25 / biography-lit crit

Carey is a highly acclaimed English literary critic, professor and writer in London.  This is a memoir of his going from a fairly normal middle class child to all he is.

Really mixed reaction to this book – in some places it is so fine and I was so excited reading it.  In other places I was bored almost to skimming – but then check out my rating.  lol

The first couple chapters were semi-fascinating but in Chapter 3 I got bored – this is the life of a normal kid in England circa mid-20th century.   Fortunately in Chapter 5 the whole sense of the book changed when Carey started to get into analyzing literature –  that’s what I wanted.  >>>>MORE>>>>

Down Among the Dead Men
by Peter Lovesy
2015 / 384 pages
read by Simon Prebble 10h 41m
rating:
(15th in the Peter Diamond series)

I’d not read any of Peter Lovesly’s books prior to this one  and I enjoyed it.  Actually,  I’m coming to enjoy non-US crime novels more and more.  I’ve read English, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Icelander, Italian, Russian, Irish, Scottish, Canadian, South African,  Botswanan,  French,  Japanese, Australian, and likely others – depending on the term “crime.”

The group 4-Mystery Addicts (4-MA) chose this to read for December and I decided to try it.   Never read a book by Peter Lovesy before (so this completes my new-to-you authors challenge.)
>>>>MORE (no spoilers)>>>> 

Rogue Lawyer
by John Grisham
2015 / 352 pages
read by Mark Deakins 11h 18m
rating A+ /  legal thriller

Sebastian Rudd defends the indefensible – those criminals who have no other recourse, the “untouchables,”  the bottom of the barrel,  the scum.    As a result he’s not a beloved man – not by the good citizens,  not by the judges,  not by his clients and not by his ex-wife, mother of his son.   But he does what he’s been trained to do,  what he says he has to do.  So the title is apt – Rudd is not a nice, up and coming, idealistic and clean cut guy.  He actually calls himself a “fringe lawyer” who sometimes plays with the boundaries of ethics.”

In this,  Grisham’s 30th non-series novel,  Rudd is working with different cases which are almost like short stories rhey are so distinct but which become somewhat interwoven by the end.  This is a bit of a twist on the normal legal thriller in that most fictional detectives handle one case at a time – Rudd is handling at least 3 including his own custody battles. It might be more realistic – I’m not sure it works as a novel.  >>>>MORE (no spoilers)>>>>