May was a very good reading month overall for me. I was busy with trips and a great visit with my granddaughter and daughter, but still managed to get 16 books read. (I am counting one book that I skipped a few pages, but read most of it, including the end.) From the books this month I highly recommend "Swimming Lessons." It was the last book of the month and by far my favorite. There are several good ones to choose from this month and I'm looking forward to continuing the trend in June. Happy Reading!!
This is a wonderful book to help understand how to go about with a personal Bible study. Ms Wilkin lays out a great approach that anyone of any level Bible knowledge can use to learn more. Very simple to understand. If you are struggling going a little deeper in your study of the Word, please check this book out. Useful for men and women.
This is classified as suspense and thriller, but I consider it more of a mystery. The patient, Alicia Berenson, is in a psychiatric hospital after being found guilty of killing her husband, Gabriel. Alicia has not talked since the night of her husband’s murder. Theo is a psychotherapist who seeks a job at the hospital with the goal of becoming Alicia’s therapist, to be the one that loosens her tongue and gets her to talk again. As Theo works on this, he does what is more or less detective work under the guise of trying to understand Alicia. The mystery is “who dun it?”
This was an easy read – the chapters are all very short so easy to find a stopping place when needed. Mr. Michaelides is a screen writer and I think it showed in this book. Not in a bad way, just a little different writing style. The story flowed and was interesting as it unfolded. While I tried to figure out if Alicia was actually guilty or not, it wasn’t the all-consuming thought while reading. My only issue with the writing is a small one. Alicia kept a journal and when I read those chapters I often thought that it wasn’t written as most people would write in a journal. Too many actual quotes for dialogue. I know that’s a small thing, but for some reason that bothered me. But not enough to stop reading. This was a good start to the month of May.
The synopsis drew me to this book about sisters named for Hemingway’s wives. The summary stated this was done because of their mom, Rachael Hemingways, love of his stories. This is barely addressed in the book – from what I recall one line. So really no connection made between the girls and Ernest Hemingway. The synopsis also states that the girls are learning what happened to their mother and their sister Mary. No mystery there. The prologue covers that as Rachael and Mary were killed by a tornado and everyone knew that. So, the two things in the synopsis that drew me to the book were both red herrings. My synopsis is – three sisters, one in a loveless marriage to a senator, one who has been unemployed from her prestigious job for a year, and one a famous country singer who is divorced from her country singing husband and who recently got out of rehab for alcoholism, are reunited at their family home due to the death of their aunt. This is the first time the sisters have been together in years and the secrets of each of their current lives and the emotions from their shared past shape their time together. Add a mystery of sorts concerning their aunt and the family homestead that they have inherited, plus of course some love interests and you have the story.
I may have enjoyed this book more if I had known what it was really about. Instead I was a little disappointed by the end of the book since it wasn’t the story I expected. For a character driven book, the characters were a little shallow – I would have liked a little more depth to each. The mystery of the aunt and the house were both fairly easy to predict and the love stories were the same. This is a very light read and would be a good beach read.
This could have been a really good, thought provoking book. And some people probably view it that way. Not me. Perhaps because it is satire and I just don’t think that genre is for me. The setting is the future where racism is an accepted part of society. The narrator is one of the lucky few African Americans as he has a job as a lawyer. Even though he is in the lucky 10% - it is at a cost to his dignity as he has to portray the stereotypical old south black to rise in the firm. His concerns though center around his son. His son is mainly white, but he has a black birthmark that the father knows will condemn him to the life of a black man. The father’s goal is to have enough money to pay for a procedure that will basically bleach his son.
I did not like the writing style, the setting, the characters (except the son) or just about anything about the book. I ended up reading 219 pages then skipped a little over 100 pages and read the last part. I just couldn’t take any more but was curious to see how it ended. If you like dystopian satire, then you would probably like this book.
Still Life by Louise Penny
The first book in the Inspector Armand Gamache series – a popular detective series set in Canada. The case to be solved is a maybe murder, maybe accidental death of a woman in Three Pines. Jane Neal was found in the woods, killed by an arrow that could have been shot intentionally or it could have been a wayward hunter’s arrow. The citizens of Three Pines are introduced in this book and there are plenty of suspects, even though Ms Neal was a well-liked retired school teacher.
I started this book expecting to love it and was a little disappointed. I expected more of a sitting on the edge of my seat read, but instead got as much of a story about Three Pines as I did about the mystery. If that is what my expectation had been, I would have enjoyed the book more. I will probably read the next book in the series as I’m not ready to give up on it, but this one was an average read to me.
After visiting Hemingway’s Key West house, I decided it was time to pull out some of his books. I don’t think I have ever read this one – his fifth published book. Like I remember from other books of his, this is just a story of life as it was for some people. It is a story of trying to survive and doing whatever you can do to provide for your family. There is an overall depressing tone to the book – but I kept cheering for things to improve for Henry, a man who loved his family and friends. It is well written, as you would expect from Hemingway. I particularly liked the 24th chapter where Hemingway describes what was going on in various yachts/boats docked. That scene was a great reminder that life goes on in normal ways while others are experiencing great tragedy and loss. This book reminded me of why I enjoy Hemmingway stories.
My Book club read for this month and a good one. The topic is dissociative fugue. This is a condition often caused by extreme trauma. It is a form of amnesia that usually fades away with time. Lucy, with the help of her fiancé, Grady, and her Aunt Helen, pieces together what has happened in her life to cause this to happen to her. Along the way, Grady is also dealing with not knowing his fiancé.
This is a well written story and it develops in an interesting way. It made me think about what it would be like to be on either side of dissociative fugue. If it were me, how would I adjust to a world that I couldn’t fully remember? If it were a loved one, how would I handle our life basically starting over? And then in both cases, what would life be when the fugue faded away? My Book Club won’t discuss this until the second Saturday in June and I am looking forward to hearing their perspective on it. For me, it was one of the best of the month.
There is a fire coming, a couple of fun loving drinking Texans and an explosive married couple all sharing the river with Jack and Wynn.. You can tell this mix makes for a calm, river floating story. Mr. Heller does an excellent job of telling Jack and Wynn’s stories – about their families, their friendship, and their personalities. There were times when I felt as if I were floating down the river with them, enjoying the companionship and even the challenge of the approaching fire. When things become more serious, it was interesting to see the personalities and how they played with and against each other. All of it fits together in the different situations they find themselves in. Another good one that is well worth the read.
After 2 really good books, I decided to read a memoir as a break from fiction. I wish I had chosen a different one. This memoir looked interesting – a woman who on a lark sends DNA to Ancestory.com and discovers her dad is not her biological dad. Ms Shaprio finds it easy to piece together the story of her birth as far as her biological dad being a donor to an IVF program and sets about finding who this donor was. This is a book that I finished, but would have been ok not reading at all. I just cannot relate to Ms Shaprio and her reaction to this news. She feels as if she has lost her heritage as a Jew, but her mother was a Jew and the heritage is passed on that way. She also speaks of her dad not being her dad, even though she finally does seem to come to the realization that he was the one who loved her and raised her. She also feels as if she no longer has any family on her father’s side, but that is reconciled too.
Ms Shaprio had previously written some other memoir books that I wish I had read. She speaks in this book of never feeling as if she fully belonged in the family and of longing to know who she was. However when she gives examples, I often thought that it sounded normal. For example, she has an older half sister with whom she never felt close. It also struck me that she grew up feeling closer to her dad than her mom. Her mom was very self centered and a social climber according to how Ms Shaprio saw her. With a mom like that, you would have conflicting feelings. The one thing that makes sense is her blonde hair and light coloring compared to the others in her family with dark hair and complexion. But outside of that, I just didn’t get it.
I kept thinking maybe it would get better, but overall just a meh from me.
“There once was a music shop” is the opening line in this light, easy read. Most of the story takes place in this music shop where Frank is the owner, a man who was raised by a single mother who loved music and loved to share not only the music but the stories of music with him. Frank is a little awkward and is surrounded by workers and other shop owners on his street who are too. Each of them together forms a family union of sorts. Things get interesting when a woman in a green coat faints outside of the shop. She then becomes a mystery woman at first but then part of the “family.”
The story is told alternating between “current” day and Frank with his mom learning about music. Each chapter has at least one song in it which would make for an interesting play list. In fact there is one on Spotify – “The Music Shop” - but it is not all inclusive. I would classify this book as another summer read type book. Nothing too heavy, but an interesting story.
After a lighter read, I dove into this book about cultural/religious oppression of women. In fact, oppression that in some cases bordered on slavery of women. There are 3 Palestinian generations covered in this story and through each generation we see from a woman’s point of view how they are treated and how they desire to be treated.
This is not a summer read book as far as something light that you do not have to think about. The man being the boss, even if it meant taking out his bad day on his wife by beating her was accepted and almost expected. Each generation of the women had to decide how to live their life – some being willing to go against the known while others couldn’t step out of the life that made them miserable and some even seemed resigned and had worked through it. As the story developed, it was interesting to see how the oldest man in the family seemed at times to be softer than his wife when it concerned the younger women. An overall depressing book but definitely a “make you think” one.
Imagine going completely off the grid in the woods of Maine – no electricity, phone, car, not even a fire in the winter – in a place that nobody knows. That is what Christopher Thomas Knight did from 1986 until 2013 when he was caught stealing food from a camp. Mr. Knight lived in the woods that long, stealing from summer cabins and the camp and staying hidden after he drove up to the area one day and abandoned his car. The reason? He doesn’t even know. Mr. Finkel developed a relationship of sorts with Mr. Knight – not a friendship exactly because Mr. Knight does not want that. Through their relationship we learn of Mr. Knight’s life in the woods and afterwards when he was forced back into society. It’s an interesting story but I never felt like it developed into what it could have been. When I finished reading, I had the feeling of only scratching the surface, but honestly that was all that Mr. Knight would allow. So an interesting “what” story without the “why” and I wanted the why.
I seem to find myself falling for a synopsis expecting more than a story offers. From reading the synopsis, I expected “More Than Words” to be a mystery with a little romance thrown in. Instead it is a romance with a little of mystery. The book is another one that I would recommend in the summer read category, which is ok, but not what I expected. There’s a bit of a lot of things thrown in to this story. Society, wealth, politics, business, love, family, friends...a lot. But none on too deep of a level. It’s an entertaining, light read.
The Phenomenon: Pressure, the Yips and the Pitch that Changed My Life by Rick AnkielI’ve had this on my shelf for a while and finally got around to reading it. As a Cardinal fan, I remember when Rick Ankiel got the yips. Suddenly his pitches were sailing to the backstop and the rookie pitcher who had done so good suddenly couldn’t even hit his catcher, much less the catcher’s mitt. His story goes back to his life growing up in a dysfunctional family where the fun in it was found on a baseball field. Basically raised by a single mom, with a drug addict/dealing abusive dad that was in and out of his life. Ankiel had seemingly overcome to be a major league pitcher and all was well until suddenly it wasn’t. Ankiel talks candidly about the things he did to try to combat the yips, none of which was a real solution. Ankiel was a good hitter and fielder so he was able to return to the baseball field but not as a pitcher. (No spoiler here for any of you baseball fans.) The book is well written and even though I knew the story, it was worth the read.
Growing up watching Wizard of Oz once a year, I had to read the story of L Frank Baum’s wife, Maud. And of course since it was about the wife, it also gives a glimpse into L Frank Baum too. Maud’s life story is told in between chapters about the making of The Wizard of Oz, particularly how Maud wanted the movie to stay true to her husband’s vision and how she felt protective of Judy Garland.
Maud was a quite impressive woman in her own right. She grew up with a mother who was very active in woman’s suffrage, a contemporary and friend of Susan B Anthony (Auntie Susan) and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Maud reflected her mother’s personality in that she not only was an independent woman, but she also was willing to fight for others. Frank, with his imagination and creativity, caught her attention and her heart. Their life together was not easy, but their love was always strong. It was based on that love that Maud approached Louis B Mayer with the desire to be a consultant on the movie. While she was never an official consultant, she did have access and through that was able to be there to help Judy Garland a little as she navigated Hollywood as a young girl.
A well written book that made me often feel as if I were the fly on the wall taking it all in. It showed life’s good and bad and the importance of love and hope. One of the top for the month.
I’ve had this book on my TBR list for a while and am glad I finally bumped it up. Gil, a college lit professor, pursues and wins over Ingrid, one of his students. Gil has quite the reputation – not in a good way – but Ingrid ignores the rumors and the advice of Gil’s good friend, Jonathan and her roommate, Louise. This was in 1976. In 1992, Ingrid disappeared, supposedly drown even though her body was never found. She left behind Gil, their 2 daughters, Nan and Flora and also letters to Gil describing how their marriage went wrong. Gil, by then a famous author, had collected books through the years. Not so much for reading or the story, but for the things left in books as bookmarks, lists, notes, etc. plus what had been written or drawn in the books. Ingrid left the letters in various books for him to find. Flash forward almost 12 years, Gil thinks he has seen Ingrid and falls off of a walkway trying to get to the woman. This sets the stage for Flora and Nan to be home.
Through these events and the letters the story unfolds. This is such a well written, character driven book. Ms Fuller used the alternate chapter style in the perfect way to make it all fit together. It made things understandable as far as their life went. At the end of the chapters that were the letters, there is a note of which book the letter was hidden in, including author and publication date. I am considering going back and making a list just to check them out. The books that I am familiar with matched with the subject of the letter which was an interesting twist too. Flora and Nan and their personalities were such that I think I could be friends with each, even though they are very different, and each have a different perspective of their family life.
This book hooked me in early on with these lines from Gil to some of his creative writing students, “Writing does not exist unless there is someone to read it, and each reader will take something different from a novel, a chapter, from a line.” “A book becomes a living thing only when it interacts with a reader. What do you think happens in the gaps – the unsaid things, everything you don’t write? The reader fills them from their own imagination. But does each reader fill them how you want, or in the same way? Of course not.”
Those words expressed one reason I love to read so much. My mind fills in the blanks, the unsaid part of the people and the story. My favorite books are the ones that after they end, they are not over in my mind. I fill in the blanks of the “and then.” And my “and then” will probably be different than yours.
The wonderful world of books!! My favorite one of the month by far.
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