What are you reading the week of April 9, 2022?

I finished The Judge's House and Signed, Picpus by Georges Simenon this week. Very clever mysteries. The last several books that I've read in the series were all written during the Second World War although there is no indication of the occupation in the novels. However, Signed, Picpus seems to have a subtext about the occupation. I won't go into the specifics since it would reveal too much of the plot.

I'm about a third of the way through Robert Conquest's The Harvest of Sorrow. It's forcing me to reappraise Anne Applebaum's book on the same subject, Red Famine. Applebaum's book is more readable and emotionally draining, but Conquest delivers an incredibly detailed and careful analysis of the Soviet policies toward Ukraine in the 1920's and early 1930's. It is definitely the superior history of the era. If you're going to read one book on the subject, then The Harvest of Sorrow is better choice.

I'm about 80 pages into the thought-provoking, alternately compelling and didactic, The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson.

Enjoying this hoopla audio this weekend ~

A Late Frost: An Orchard Mystery by Sheila Connolly, #11
(Granby, MA in my locale is Granford in this cozy series!)

I'm at various stages of Operation Don's Left Wing, Escape from Yokai Land, and Blood Runs Coal.

Was in striking distance of finishing these books last Saturday so I started The Early Chinese Empires.

I'm back to reading Skeleton Crew by Stephen King. I have less than 200 pages left, so I hope to finish this week. The stories have been chilling and thrilling, but it's very long so it's taking awhile.

Still reading Memory's Legion and In the Name of Truth.

In paper-bound books, I'm reading Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End by Leif G.W. Persson, as well as working through the thought-provoking essays in Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia.

I'm also listening to an excellent book on Scribd. It's a novel called Sankofa by Chibundu Onuzo. It's about a woman searching for her father, and it's sweet and interesting and the narrator has a voice like honey and a beautiful accent.

The Guide
Peter Heller
4/5 stars
Jack, who was also the main character in Heller’s book The River, gets a job at a retreat as a guide to visitors to help them find the best spots to fish. However, nearby is Kingfisher Lodge, cordoned off by a huge fence and frequented by the visitors’ that go there for treatment. When he hears screams coming from the Lodge, he questions why is it so barricaded and guarded and what treatment are these people receiving. Heller is one of my favorite writers and I think this is the first fiction book I read that has the Covid epidemic as part of the story. Fascinating!

Finished reading the disturbing Naomi.
Next up for reading is The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski.

I’m reading Anne Tyler’s latest, French Braid. It’s a typical Tyler story and I think it’s just the book I needed at the moment.

Just finished The Healing of Natalie Curtis for my F2F group read, and enjoyed it even though it sent me down the rabbit-hole to find out more about many of the things mentioned in passing. It's historical fiction about a classically-trained musician who travels to the American southwest in the early 1900s, determined to collect and record Native American songs before they disappeared under the weight of the U.S. government's assimilation policies.

Will probably pick up the last Diney Costeloe book from my TBR stack. A friend gave me three of them, and so far I enjoyed one (The Lost Soldier) and DNF the other (The Throwaway Children), so it will be interesting to see where this one (The Married Girls) lands.

Listening to this cozy audio via hoopla this week ~

Easter Bonnet Murder (latest Lucy Stone Mystery)
by Leslie Meier

Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops?: The Lost Toys, Tastes, and Trends of the 70s and 80s
Gael Fashingbauer Cooper
3/5 stars
The authors talk about the bygone products, TV shows, stars and trends of the 70’s and 80’s. If you grew up in that time period you will probably get a kick out of this book. Anyone up for a candy cigarette?

Finished listening to the marvelous, heartrending Edgar and Lucy.

Next up for listening is Heaven by Mieko Kawakami.

Out Stealing Horses – Per Petterson
Book on CD performed by Richard Poe
3.5***

From the book jacket:
Out Stealing Horses tells the story of Trond Sander, a sixty-seven-year-old man who has moved from the city to a remote, riverside cabin, only to have all the turbulence, grief, and overwhelming beauty of his youth come back to him one night while he’s out on a walk. From the moment Trond sees a strange figure coming out of the dark behind his home, the reader is immersed in a decades-deep story of searching and loss.

My reactions:
I remember when this book was launched and all the buzz around it. It’s been on my tbr ever since but somehow, I never got around to reading it … until now.

Petterson has crafted an atmospheric, character-driven story of one man’s looking back on his coming-of-age summer when he was almost 15 and living with his father in a remote cabin on a river in eastern Norway, just on the border with Sweden. The story moves back and forth between the present day, when Trond is a retiree, alone, and facing the last leg of his journey of life, and the summer of 1948 when he was a young man who idolized his father and relished in the joys of nature, exploring with his friend Jon. But as the novel goes back in time to Trond’s youth, it becomes clear that he is facing the truth of those events – events that he was not fully aware of or prepared to deal with as a fifteen year old.

I loved the many literary references, because Trond is quite the reader, and the young Trond is particularly fond of American Westerns. The title refers to the escapades of the horse rustlers of many a Western-genre novel. And both Trond and Jon are eager to give in to their vivid imaginations. But as Trond grows he comes to realize that adventure isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be, and there can be a very real human toll to giving in to desire and youthful exuberance.

A movie was made, though I’ve never seen it. I imagine it was cinematically beautiful, but this is such a contemplative book I can’t imagine it would translate well to film.

Richard Poe does a fantastic job of narrating the audiobook. The shifts in time are not easy to handle, but Poe manages to give the young Trond and the mature Trond different voices, which helped this reader make the transitions.

Finished the heartrending Heaven.

Next up for listening is the newest Maisie Dobbs installment, A Sunlit Weapon by Jacqueline Winspear.

>16 hemlokgang:, I read the Maisie Dobbs series has been optioned for TV and film rights!

Chuck Amuck: The Life and Time of an Animated Cartoonist
Chuck Jones
4/5 stars
Chuck Jones who worked for Warner Brothers, discusses his life growing up and his career in animation, drawing Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pigs and many more toons. This book contains lots of his sketches and drawings. I enjoyed it and all the sketches, cartoons and pictures.

Rachel To the Rescue – Elinor Lipman
3.5*** (rounded up)

Rachel Klein works for the White House Office of Records Management (WHORM), taping together the pieces of official documents that # 45 has torn up (despite being repeatedly told that all official documents must be kept for the National Archives). When she sends a drunken tweet voicing her frustrations but accidentally hits “reply all” she is unceremoniously fired. As she exits the Executive Office Building, she’s struck by a speeding SUV … which, she learns later, is being driven by a “close personal friend of the President.”

This was a fun, fast, joy of a rom-com to read. First, Yes, there really is a WHORM and someone (or a team of someones) really did have to tape back together the pieces of documents torn up by # 45. But the rest is pure fiction, and delightful fiction at that.

In addition to the very likeable Rachel the cast of characters includes her new boss, a muckraking journalist given to writing nasty books about # 45, Rachel’s parents, who own a paint & wallpaper store in NYC, her roommates, a lesbian couple who are both attorneys working for DOJ and unapologetic matchmakers, and the met-cute boyfriend Alex. And, of course, COVID eventually arrives to further complicate matters.

I’ve had numerous books by Lipman on my tbr over the years, but I’ve never gotten around to reading any of them. I’m gonna fix that!

Stowaway – Karen Hesse
Book on CD read by David Cale
4****

In the summer of 1768 Captain James Cook set sail on H.M.S. Endeavor for a major expedition to explore the possibility of a new continent. In addition to the ship’s crew he carried aboard a naturalist, Mr. Joseph Banks, and his assistants, who would record the flora and fauna encountered on the journey. He also had aboard one Nicholas Young, age 11. All this is known from the public records which have been preserved, and it’s interesting to note that Young doesn’t appear on the ship’s muster until April 18, 1769, eight months after the ship left England. Scholars have speculated about how he might have boarded Endeavor; this is Hesse’s imagined scenario.

I’ve read several of Hesse’s books for children, written in verse, and all based on some historical event. This book is the first prose book I’ve read by her. I was immediately drawn into the story of this boy escaping a situation he hated. (His father had apprenticed Nick to a butcher to “toughen him up.”) He had some education, so Hesse has Nick keeping his own journal of the voyage, and these journal entries are the way in which the story of Endeavor’s first three-years-long voyage is told.

It's a great adventure, and a believable coming-of-age story. Nick is bright, enthusiastic, hard-working and observant. There are crew members who are his champions, and others who are bound and determined to see him fail. He makes some friends and suffers along with others through storms, attacks by native peoples, hunger, damage to the ship and an illness that decimates the crew.

Hesse includes an afterword that explains the history behind the novel, a list of all the people aboard (taken from public records), and a glossary of terms.

David Cale does a fine job of narrating the audiobook. He really brings these characters to life.

Finished listening to excellent A Sunlit Weapon.
Next up for listening is The Wrong End Of The Telescope by Rabih Alameddine.

>15 BookConcierge:
Out Stealing Horses one of my favorites.

Just finished The Married Girls by Diney Costello. ~meh~ A friend gave me three of her wartime-era novels, and I won't be seeking out any more.

Next up is an LTER, The Ascension of Mary.

Going in for hand surgery tomorrow (was supposed to be done yesterday but got bumped), so I should have lots of reading time!

Had to set The Wrong End Of The Telescope aside due to narrator.

Next up for listening is The Love Songs Of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honore Fanonne Jeffers.

Finished In the Name of Truth by Viveca Sten. Didn't like it as much as the last one. Added My Evil Mother by Margaret Atwood to my rotation.

Finished The Ascension of Mary, an LTER. It manages to be an engaging read, despite flirting with a too-good-to-be-true heroine and dragging some tortuous coincidences into play as it looks at family secrets and the possibility of miracles along the way.

Will probably start The Cat Sitter's Nine Lives tonight, as something light seems in order.

The Gardens Of Light by Amin Maalouf
Born in a Mesopotamian village in the third century, the son of a Parthian warrior, Mani grows up in a volatile and dangerous world. As battle rages for control over the Middle East between the great Roman and Persian empires, as Jews and Christians, Buddhists and Zoroastrians fight for ascendency, Mani- painter, mystic, physician and prophet- makes his way through the battlefields to preach to his incandescent doctrine of humility, tolerance and love, a doctrine that comes to be known as Manicheanism.
A vivid glimpse of the ancient world in all its perfumed splendour and cruelty, an elegantly philosophical discourse on the fall of man, THE GARDENS OF LIGHT is a story of great beauty and resonance, exquisitely told.
https://www.amazon.it/Gardens-Light-Amin-Maalouf/dp/0349108714/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_i...

Just finished Hamnet. First third was slow a going for me but I finished the rest today. Eager for something else. Well done. I guess I just wasn't in the mood.

The Wedding Date – Jasmine Guillory
Digital audiobook performed by Janina Edwards
3.5***

From the book jacket: Agreeing to go to a wedding with a guy she gets stuck with on an elevator is something Alexa Monroe wouldn’t normally do. She’s definitely not the spontaneous type. But there’s something about Drew Nichols that’s too hard to resist.

My reactions
What a fun, fast romantic read. I loved Alexa, who’s an attorney working at Berkely City Hall and trying to make a difference in the lives of the residents of the Bay area. I also really liked Drew, a pediatric surgeon who lives in Los Angeles. But they both have issues. Drew is commitment phobic, and Alexa lacks self-confidence, especially when it comes to her body image. Their path to Happily Ever After is complicated by their geographic distance, their own issues, and a few missteps common to many new relationships. But they approach all these obstacles as adults, which I found very refreshing!

Janina Edwards does a marvelous job of voicing the audiobook. She sets a good pace and sufficiently differentiates the characters so that even when two females are talking I’m not confused about which character is speaking.

The new thread is up over here.