Becky's Books –

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
by Erik Larson
2015/448 pages
read by Scott Brick 13h 4m
rating:  8.5  /  popular history
* both read and listened –

This is the 100th anniversary year of the sinking of the Lusitania so I suppose there is a bit more information being published.  I know barely the basics about the sinking of the Lusitania,  a fast and luxurious Cunard cruise ship destroyed by a German submarine in the early days of WWI – many, many people killed.   Larson says in the “Note to Readers” that he was surprised when he started delving into the details- there is a lot of info,  some of it “deliberately muddled.”   He also states in those Notes that “…this is a work of nonfiction.  Anything between quotation marks comes from a memoir, letter, telegram or other historical document.”  No matter how Larson has styled this book,  with an emphasis on suspense,  I rather enjoy that sometimes.   >>>>MORE>>>> 

Dreamers of the Day
by Mary Doria Russell
2008 / 288 pages
read by Ann Marie Lee – 11h 26m
rating:  5 / historical fiction

I was so prepared to enjoy this –  I’ve read all her other novels,  including the latest one,  Epigraph,  and I’ve enjoyed them all – until now.  Russell’s main claim to fame is her first novel,  The Sparrow of 1996 (link to Wiki article) and she’s not achieved those heights since although the writing is equally good – the originality of that marvelous book is missing.  (Maybe I would have liked this book better had I not had the expectations of another The Sparrow.)  I think all of her awards have been for that book.  >>>>MORE>>>>

Everything I Never Told You
by Celeste Ng
2014 / 304 pages
read by Cassandra Campbell
rating 7 / contemporary fiction

I’m not sure what, specifically,  this book is really about – either that or I’ve been beat over the head with a “message.”   Lydia Lee, a teenage girl from a bi-racial family,  goes missing and is found dead in a boat in the pond.   Her brother suspects the neighbor boy who was “courting” Lydia had something to do with it.  Suicide is the main direction the narrative suggests as the reason for the death.  >>>>MORE>>>>

My First Murder
by Leena Lehtolainen (Finland – translated)
1993/ 2012 Eng. –  251 pages
read by Amy Ruminate 7h 23m
rating: B+ / crime –  police procedural/”who-done-it”
(both read and listened)

Although it was chosen by the 4-Mystery Addicts reading group I was interested in this book because I’m of Finnish ancestry and have cousins there,  have visited there, etc.   Also,  as is evident from this blog,  I really enjoy non-US lit.

Still,  it took me awhile to get into it,  mostly because of the breathy, almost little-girl voice of the 1st person narrator who is working,  if only temporarily, as a lead detective.  It’s like,  “huh?” –  That may be a part of the book, though – young pretty women are often not taken seriously in some jobs.  But what is this,  “soft-boiled”?   She doesn’t “sound like a cop!” lol
>>>>MORE>>>> 

The Burning Room
by Michael Connelly
2015/ 400 pages
read by Titus Welliver 10h 11m
rating:  B+ / crime (police procedural)
#19 featuring Harry Bosch

I suspected I wasn’t going to be all that happy with the newest Harry Bosch novel – the reviews were mixed and  I don’t like the narrator’s’ deep, deep voice.  But I’ve kept up with and mostly enjoyed the tales of Michael Connelly for many years, so now is not the time to quit.

Anyway – this time we have a newly dead man who was the victim of a shooting occurring over 10 years ago – the poor guy just finally died of blood poisoning from the gunshot.  Fortunately,  there is surveillance footage of the crime scene – a Latino nightclub –  which Bosch and his new partner,  a rookie named Lucia Soto, check that out carefully.   Bosch is not too sure about Soto.  She seems to be hiding information and,  oddly enough, the shooting had something to do with a fire which affected Soto’s old neighborhood and friends. And there are anonymous phone calls tips.  >>>>MORE>>>>

1177:  The Year Civilization Collapsed
by Eric H. Cline
2014 / 253 pages
read by Andy Caploe / 8h 3m
Rating:  8.5  / ancient history-anthropology

I’ve read only a wee tad about Ancient Egypt and the Late Bronze Age,   certainly not enough to be able to really get right into and up to speed in this fascinating book. I’d never even heard of the “Sea Peoples.”  But this intriguing tale is  about  how Egypt’s civilization in the times of of Ramses III was overwhelmed by  the “Sea Peoples”  which added to other catastrophes of the times resulted in the end of the Bronze Age.  Reading the book was both challenging and enlightening and it took me awhile to get comfortable with the multitude of names and places.  >>>>MORE>>>> 

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
by Atul Gawande
2014 / 282 pages
read by Robert Patoff  9h 3m
rating:  9 / nonfiction (health – medicine)
(read and listened)

Medicine is a mess with many many parts- one is death and dying which affects everyone from the highest echelon doctors to the lowliest patients.  Doctors are trained in how to keep patients alive and with all the new technology, they can can certainly do that for extended periods during which time more and more surgeries and procedures and medicines are used hoping to make a big difference – but they’ll really make only a 10% difference.  The sole purpose for hospitals is to keep patients alive – a given minimum. >>>>MORE>>>> 

Those Who Wish Me Dead
by Michael Koryta
2014/ 400 pages
read by Robert Petkoff – 10h 30m
rating:  C+ / thriller

Can’t really call this a crime novel because this all happens well after the crimes have been committed – it’s just all about what happens to the young man who happened to witness the murder.  –  Well – he has to go into the Witness Protection Program and he’s hidden in a survival camp in Montana.

The book is a page-turner and the characters are very nicely done.  There are some disbelief problems though –  I won’t go into them but … >>>>MORE>>>>

Epitaph: A Novel of the O.K. Corral
by Mary Doria Russell
2015 / 592 pages
read by Hillary Huber 19h 33m
rating: 8.5 / historical fiction

Epitaph:  a phrase or statement written in memory of a person who has died, especially as an inscription on a tombstone.

This is a kind of sequel to Russll’s “Doc” (2011),   but explores in fiction the story of  how Sadie Marcus (aka Josephine Earp)  a sweet young actress runaway from an immigrant  Prussian Jewish family in San Francisco,  came to “marry” Wyatt Earp the famous lawman and gambler who took part in the gunfight at the OK Corral and how the other players in that little number got involved.  >>>>MORE>>>>

Dept. of Speculation
by Jenny Offill
2014 / 180 pages
rating: 9.5 / contemp fiction (experimental?)

Contrary to some of what I’ve read about this book,  it has a plot.  Stuff does happen to interesting characters in chronological order and it fits – there’s a certain tension about it and the reader wonders how is this going to turn out.   It’s just that parts of the plot are missing and the fictional characters are without names.

No, although I was tempted,  I’m not going to annotate  a 180-page novel which is basically about a woman whose desire is to create monster art  but ends up side-tracked by marriage and family.  Offill included a lot of interesting things in it though.  Sometimes the references are just names, other times there’s a whole quote by someone usually associated with science and space or philosophy and religion – or psychology maybe.  It’s a very literary novel – experimental in some ways.

The World We Found
by Thrity Umrigar
2012 / 336 pages
rating – 6.5  / contemp. fiction (love story)

Armaiti, Laleh, Kavita and Nishta, 4 women all around 50  years old,  bound by old  friendship and idealism from their college days in India’s version of the 1970s.  Memories, love,  politics,  loyalty,  love,  death and dying,  love.   –  yup – it’s  a love story – lots of different kinds of love in the world – and these 4 women end up with very different lives.

The magical group based on radical politics which they had in college days split up for some reason and decades lapse before Armaiti , who by now is divorced and lives in the US is stricken with some kind of terminal cancer in her brain – she is refusing treatment.   >>>> MORE>>>>

The Woods
by Harlan Coben
2007 / 528 pages
read by Scott Brick / 12h 31m
Rating:  A- / crime

Scott Brick can make the phone book sound suspenseful so when he reads something by Harlan Coben the result is pure page-turner.  Coban writes just barely this side of my graphic violence limit  – the specific deeds are not related in gory detail,  but the stories usually involve the resolution of some seriously unpleasant past crimes.

So too with The Woods in which Peter Copeland, now the Prosecuting Attorney of a city in the New Jersey is involved in the trial of a couple of young rapists who have powerful fathers.  Those fathers, or one in particular,  are determined to bring the Prosecutor’s past to light and shine the worst part on Copeland’s part in it.  >>>>MORE>>>>

Consolation
by Michael Redhill
2006 / 466 pages
rating: 8/ historical fiction
>>>>NOTES (Spoilers and photos) >>>> 

The book seems long but it reads quickly enough.  It’s basically an homage to the city and history of Toronto and an interesting take on history, photography, love, guilt and loneliness.

In August of 1997 David Hollis, a noted historian, has died leaving an unresolved mystery behind him.   He contends in a monograph written shortly before ALS almost completely disabled him,  that there is a diary and other artifacts beneath the harbor land to be used as a hockey stadium.  But he won’t produce the source.  Believe him or no – he is certainly convinced.  >>>>MORE>>>> 

On Such a Full Sea
by Chang-rae Lee
2014/368 pages
read by B. D. Wong 11h 8m
rating: 9  / dystopian fiction
(read and listened)

I had to read this one again!  It woudn’t let go of me.  I kept thinking about it and couldn’t get into another book  due to the impact of Wong’s story.  That meant I had to revisit and get my confusion sorted out, the episodes straightened out,  the themes highlighted,  etc.  So I got the Kindle version and a good chair and settled in to read and listen,  both, and from the beginning.

Yes,  I reread books occasionally,  >>>>MORE>>>>

Darned If You Do
by Monica Ferris
2015/ 308 pages
read by Susan Boyce 8h 25m
rating A / crime (traditional/cozy)
(Needlecraft series #18)

As readers here know I have a deep fondness for a couple of rather light-weight crime series.  One is The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series (now 15 books) by Alexander McCall Smith which I’ve been following since the first book came out in 1998.  The other is Monica Ferris whose books I just found a couple years ago and quickly caught up on and now follow as they come out.

If you’re a fan of these traditional/cozy mysteries,  Darned If You Do does not disappoint.  Betsy Davenshire, the owner of a needlecraft store in Excelsior,  a small town near Minneapolis, gets involved in a murder investigation.  How did this come about?

One dark and stormy night (my words) old >>>>MORE>>>>

Arctic Summer
by Damon Galgut
2014/352 pages
rating: 6 /fiction – fictionalized biography

Nonfiction which “reads like a novel”  is fairly common and I’ve read a fair amount,  but a novel which “read like a biography” is rather unusual – in fact this is the first I’ve ever come across and, for the most part,  it’s not a great experience.

What is wrong????  –  Unless we’re talking textbooks, most contemporary nonfiction tries to infuse a bit of tension if not suspense,  whether it’s in the finding of a cure or the outcome of a true crime.  Fiction is supposed to create it somehow in the use of foreshadowing and immediacy and other devices.  >>>>MORE>>>>

On Such a Full Sea
by Chang-rae Lee
2014/368 pages
read by B. D. Wong 11h 8m
rating: 8  / dystopian fiction

“Don’t sanctuaries become prisons, and vice versa, foremost in the mind?” asks the unnamed Narrator in Chang-rae Lee’s  On Such a Full Sea as he tells the story of Fan and her quest for something – her own self?  I think that’s one basic thematic type question in the book.

The Narrator, in the rare tradition of  Julie Otsuka in The Buddha in the Attic,  >>>>MORE>>>>