The Cue Card

Hi Bookworms. What a stormy weekend. While we are getting our first light snowflakes of the season this weekend, I’m reading news about others who are dealing with Hurricane Isaias in Florida’s Panhandle and beyond and Tropical Storm Rachel in Southern California. Much destruction is at hand unfortunately. Flooding is going on in coastal communities. On Friday at high tide, the ocean broke through into the seaside towns in SoCal, whoa. That hasn’t happened … since long before I grew up there … and where we are planning to return for Christmas. I’m crossing my fingers, the constructed sand berms from yesterday can hold back the ocean as the storm passes through.

I will likely stay on the cozy couch and watch snowflakes float down here. You might have seen that the National Book Award finalists were announced this past week, which celebrates the best lit published in the U.S. over the past year. Here are the fiction finalists:

• Paradiso 17 by Hannah Lillith Assadi
• Dèy by Edwidge Danticat
• Pretend You’re Dead and I Carry You by Julián Delgado Lopera
• Beginning Middle End by Valeria Luiselli
• Mad Eden by Morgan Thomas

I have not read any of these (above) yet — have you? I would like to read Danticat’s novel Dèy and I’m looking at Paradiso 17 by Hannah Lillith Assadi. We will see which novel wins when the awards are announced on Nov. 18. I like how the nominees are completely different than the other literary awards have.

Meanwhile here are the books (above) I picked up from the library recently. I’m currently reading Brawler by Lauren Groff and Paul Yoon’s novel Etna (and listening to The Sunflower Boys by Sam Wachman on audio. Switzy is in the wings. And Tina (at Turn the Page) and I just finished a buddy read of the nonfiction book Thirty Below: The Harrowing and Heroic Story of the First All-Women’s Ascent of Denali. This book started slowly but was a page-turner by the end as the group of six pioneer women climbers in 1970 took to climbing North America’s tallest mountain at 20,310 feet. I will review it next time. Till then here are a couple reviews of what else I finished lately.

Good People by Patmeena Sabit / Crown / 386 pages / 2026

3.75+ stars. Yay, this unique debut novel just was shortlisted for the Giller Prize, Canada’s top literary award. I have not read the others on the shortlist yet, but I’m sort of hoping this wins on Nov. 16. The novel caught my attention early in 2026 when it was getting high praise including from Ann Patchett who said it was “a thrilling tour de force” and Kite Runner author Khaled Hosseini who called it a “spectacular triumph.” Tina at Turn the Page read it along with me and it was good to talk over.

It’s one of those much discussable novels that are great for book clubs … because it entails opposing views over what caused a tragedy that happens within an immigrant Muslim family (the Sharafs). It’s unique in that: the story unfolds from a series of interviews of various people within their community, along with cops and journalists.

From a large cast of perspectives, you get a picture of the Sharaf parents who fled Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion in the 1980s and settled in Northern Virginia outside D.C. They had no money at all but then over the years the workaholic father built up a business … eventually becoming rich and able to buy his family a large mansion. Their teenage daughter Zorah and son attend a top high school and they have two younger kids as well.

The parents have sacrificed much for their kids though are strict in their old traditions and religion. Their kids, especially Zorah is popular at school and interested in more … like fashion and boys. She’s like a regular teenage girl in America who doesn’t want to be held back, but her parents have certain beliefs about her future. It’s a contrast that snowballs down a troubling path.

I found the interviews that the novel consists of — from various neighbors on their street and others they know from the immigrant Afghan community — to be well done and compelling. They flow right along and you get caught up in the cultural biases toward immigrants and what they face as well as the tragedy. There are all sorts of pressures at play here: economic, cultural … and sexist. The American dream is tough on this immigrant family from outside and within their family. Whoa.

It’s best to go into this novel blind not knowing much (don’t read Kirkus’ or PW’s reviews as they give too much away). I have left it out purposely. And while the novel might have gone on a bit long in a few places with the various perspectives, I was impressed overall by how it was done. The pages turned easily and I was quite invested to know the outcome. I’ll look for what the author writes next.

The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin /Hanover/ 307 pgs /2021

3.75 stars. I enjoyed this immersive story of life in London during WWII and the Blitz. Thanks to Jane at her blog for reviewing it favorably last year. Grace Bennett is an endearing protagonist who’s parentless and at first not a reader … she’s too busy slaving in her uncle’s homeware shop in the country. But once she’s forced out and moves to London with a friend in 1939, she later learns the magic of books and reading and transfers her enthusiasm to others.

I liked how she comes to live with the kind Mrs. Weatherford, her late mother’s friend, who finds her a job at a musty old bookstore — Primrose Books — owned by the grumpy-ish Mr. Evans. Within months, Grace seems to turn the place and him round. And during the interim she’s charmed by a dazzling customer George Anderson — who gives her his battered copy of The Count of Monte Cristo before he leaves for the Royal Air Force. It’s the Monte Cristo that sends her down a path of reading … with her quickly turning after to the novels of the Brontes, Austen, and various others.

Later Grace comes to be a safety warden in her neighborhood and sees a lot of destruction and loss during the bombing of the Blitz. There’s some tragedy that Grace faces – fyi. And she takes to reading aloud publicly in the tube and bomb stations, which helps keep up the moral of people in the community. Former customer George gets a brief military leave and they get more acquainted (wink wink) and begin faithful letter writing thereafter.

The author is a good storyteller … and I liked tagging along to see how Grace would fare next. The audiobook narrated by the wonderful Saskia Maarleveld is an enjoyable listen. The novel might be a bit cliched and predictable about the Blitz, or sentimental in ways … but a novel that espouses books and reading like this one does in a celebratory, immersive way is good with me.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read these books and what did you think?

PS. My husband just reminded me that I forgot to mention that Canadian poet and essayist Anne Carson won the Noble Prize for Literature this past week. Oh man sorry, Congrats to Anne! That’s big news for Canada. She’s only the third Canadian to have won the Noble Prize for Lit behind Alice Munro in 2013 and Saul Bellow in 1976. So I need to find out more about her work! She was unknown to me before, but apparently used to be a professor of Classical Studies, and Literature at U of Michigan.

Hi Bookworms. I hope you had a nice week. It went by in a flash, didn’t it? I’m trying to get things done out in the yard before the colder weather sets in. And I have a few more golf and tennis outings left. As you can see, some of the trees and bushes have turned color here and others are still green. So things are midway into their turning and it feels like fall. Actually we woke up this morning to our first overnight frost. Brrr. We should have picked our last vegetables from the garden yesterday but hopefully some are salvageable. Summer is officially over now, argh.

Which raises the question: does fall weather make for better reading days? Perhaps so I think … as I might not be as busy when things shut down. We will see. I have posted my Fall TBR list below. It’s not edged in stone or anything— so things can change, but I wanted to make a reading list nonetheless since I enjoy list-making, lol. Are you a list maker?

Anyways you probably saw that the Booker Prize shortlist came out last week. I have read two that made the list: Elizabeth Strout’s novel The Things We Never Say and Douglas Stuart’s novel John of John. Both are good, but I sort of think Marlon James’s novel The Disappearers might be favored to win when the prize is announced on Nov. 9. There’s been much critical fanfare surrounding that book.

Still what about the others? I’ve added Rebecca Perry’s novel May We Feed the King to my TBR. It’s supposed to be good historical fiction — a debut novel that made the shortlist! — about a museum curator who becomes absorbed in the medieval world of a reluctant monarch. I don’t think I will add Luke Kennard’s novel Black Bag or M. John Harrison’s novel The End of Everything for now, but I might change my mind later. I was sad and a bit surprised to see that Emma Cline’s novel Switzy did not make the shortlist. Hmm, what a bummer!  But I still plan to read it. 

And now it’s time to peruse my Fall TBR list … in which I’ve tentatively chosen to read 10 new releases over the next three months (Oct., Nov. Dec.) to be mixed in with several older backlist books that I want to read. For now, I won’t list or name the backlist books as those might be subject to change. Of the new releases, I have read and liked most of these authors before. What are your thoughts on these (below)? 

• Switzy by Emma Cline (out in Sept.) — I liked her previous two novels. This one is said to be quite different – about a man with dementia.
• Solace in Winter by Mary Lawson (out Nov. 10) — from a wonderful Canadian author who now lives in London. This novel is set during a Canadian winter in 1969.
• Stations by Louise Kennedy (out Nov. 3) — from a wonderful Irish author whose first novel Trespasses was a hit. 
• May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry (out Sept. 29) — this historical debut novel (!) is on the shortlist for the 2026 Booker Prize.
• Shadow Before the Flame: the Hindenburg Disaster and the Prelude to War by Catherine Grace Katz (Sept.) – her first history The Daughters of Yalta was a knockout.
• Brawler: Stories by Lauren Groff (Feb. 2026) — this was on my summer list and I still haven’t gotten to it yet. 
• The Radiance by Ayad Akhtar (out Sept. 29) — there’s much hype surrounding this autofiction book, a followup to his debut Homeland Elegies. I must try this author.
• Partita by Barbara Kingsolver (out Oct. 6) — her first novel since her award-winning Demon Copperhead. I will be hearing Kingsolver speak later in October, woohoo.
• Every Story Is a Story by Imbolo Mbue (out Oct. 6) — Her first novel Behold the Dreamers wowed me but her second not so much. This is her third.
• Dodge City by Patrick deWitt (out Sept. 29) – another Canadian author I can’t skip … a novel about a U.S. man fleeing the Vietnam War draft for Canada in 1967. 

Possible subs:  Sunrise by Tea Obreht, The Barman of the Ritz by Phillippe Colin, Peck & Peck by Bonnie Garmus, The Birthing Tree by Amanda Peters, The Pirate Queen by Ariel Lawhon, and Taipei Story by R.F. Kuang.

And lastly a quick review of a book that made its way onto my summer list.

The Shampoo Effect by Jenny Jackson / Pam Dorman Books / 347 pages

3.6 stars. This beachy kind of read turned out sort of to miss its mark with me … as I didn’t care too much for this group of friends based in Greenhead, Mass., but I did appreciate that Jenny Jackson adds some zest and funny lines to her characters’ lives who are all going through some changes in their relationships.

Caroline Lash, a young writer, 28, meets eco-scientist Van Whitaker on the train over a jelly donut … who she ends up falling for … but then Van learns his ex-girlfriend Bailey is pregnant which complicates things. Not to mention, Bailey has gone thru her share of guys and sees Van as just a close friend, or is he? There’s also Augusta and her husband Colin (parents of three), whose matters are delved into when Augusta finds some unknown underwear in their couch; and Fran and her husband RJ (parents to two boys) who’ve never bothered to get married but then hit the rocks and reassess their commitment to one another. This group of friends is plenty for one summery beach read …or headache, whichever you might feel more. You’ll need to apply some sunscreen accordingly to get through these tangled relationships.

The author Jenny Jackson is vice president and editorial director of fiction at Knopf publishing, so she knows a thing or two about books. Though maybe it might seem a bit surprising that she has written this breezy kind of beach read, a followup to her popular debut Pineapple Street. Some parts of The Shampoo Effect were funny which saved it a bit for me along with Marin Ireland narrating the audiobook, and it does end on endearing notes for the characters, but I might need to air my beach towel for a while before trying her again.

That’s all for now. What about you — do you know any of these books and what do you think?  Cheers.  Ps. The Virginia creeper plant on the post above turns the reddest color we get in the yard and alerts us that our days of warmth are numbered, lol. Also be careful to those on the East Coast who are in the path of the nor’easter storm. That’s a deluge.

Hi Bookworms. I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying beautiful fall days. It’s been amazing outside. We got back this week from Mexico City where we had a lovely time at my nephew’s wedding and exploring the area. We took an informative guided bike tour of the city — thanks to Luis — across multiple bike lanes and saw various monuments, churches, and old ruins. From there, you could see that the city was built on a drained lakebed (first by the Aztecs then by the Spanish) and that parts of it are sinking and some buildings are tilting. One tilted church we saw was closed due to possible cave-ins. No wonder earthquakes are so dangerous there.

It’s such a large city with a metropolitan area of about 22 million people, and it reminded me slightly of being in New York City … perhaps because of the traffic density and because we found it quite walkable amid the neighborhoods and we first stayed near a large city park —Chapultepec Park — which is said to be three times as large as New York’s Central Park. The park is nicely filled with big Mexican cypress trees and is perfect for cycling.

Near there, we went to a couple museums including the Anthropology Museum where we saw the famous Aztec Sun Stone created sometime in the early 1500s, which they believe was used as a ceremonial sacrificial altar. You could feed the Sun god and hopefully keep the universe moving. Here I am proudly standing next to it.

We also took a guided tour of the pyramids at Teotihuacan about an hour away, which are roughly 1,800 to 2,000 years old. There are two main big ones — the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon. They were built before the Aztecs arrived and found them abandoned by some ancient unknown civilization.

As you walk around the large site you can imagine the sacrifices to the gods that were being performed there. It’s a bit daunting … as hearts could be taken from live bodies and perhaps put on the altars, yikes. Here at left is the view that my husband took from the top of the Sun pyramid … as I did not go up it as I am not good with heights nor with climbing up small steep steps.

Anyways it’s whetted my appetite to seeing more, but for now we must get back to books. I wanted to recap my reading this summer and the 15 books on my Summer List. From the original list I read 9 but then I added two subs (marked below with *) so it came out to be 11. I tried to put them in some kind of order of how I liked them, but the first five novels on the list below (all being over 4 stars) were all so strong and good reads that I found it hard to weigh a top favorite. These authors reigned supreme for me this summer. After those, two eye-opening nonfiction books followed and then a couple debut novels by promising authors and then the two last ones. So all in all it was a great summer. And with the fall lineup ahead, I feel it’s been a strong year in books.

• Land by Maggie O’Farrell / 4.5
• Kin by Tayari Jones / 4.3
• The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout / 4.3
• John of John by Douglas Stuart / 4.5
• Whistler by Ann Patchett / 4.3

• Strangers: A Memoir of a Marriage by Belle Burden / 3.75
• Family of Spies * by Christine Kuehn (nonfiction) / 3.75

• Dominion by Addie E. Citchens (debut) / 3.75
• Under Water by Tara Menon (debut) / 3.75
• True Crime: A Memoir by Patricia Cornwell / 3.65
• The Shampoo Effect * by Jenny Jackson / 3.5

And now I’ll leave you with a couple reviews of what I finished lately.

Strangers: A Memoir of a Marriage by Belle Burden/ Dial / 256 pgs / 2026

3.75 stars. This bestselling blockbuster was a buddy read with Tina at Turn the Page. Did you know there’s 40,223 reviews of this book on Goodreads and 334,372 ratings of it? In comparison, the bestselling Ann Patchett novel Whistler has 24,774 reviews and 194,506 ratings. And that was big this summer! So you can see that Strangers has struck a nerve with folks. People either liked it and were moved by it … or others disliked it and were critical of her and that she would write the book.

I guess I’m more in the first group. Hell yeah. This happened … and she wanted to talk it through or write about it more than be silenced. It surprised me in that way since I’m more internal, but I had to give it to her particularly since I thought it was pretty well done.

For those who don’t know …. this is a nonfiction book about the dissolution of a marriage. One day while at the start of the Covid pandemic in 2020 … the author learned in a telephone call that her husband was having an affair. The next day he told her he wanted a divorce and was leaving her and their three teenage kids after 20 years of marriage. She was blindsided to put it mildly with no warning or explanation. She was left during Covid with two of her kids while quarantining at their secondary residence on Martha’s Vineyard, leaving their main residence in New York City.

She was thrown for a loop and man was she affected. During the months after she seemed to hit rock bottom … over losing her husband and identity. It’s all spelled out here in the book … her agony at the time, and her and her husband’s story of how they met and their history and that of her family’s. Much has been made about how privileged and well off she and her husband were. She was rich from old money and he worked at a hedge fund, they didn’t have to worry, or did they? It seems for a while she thought her residences and private club on the island would be taken away but then they settled right before going to court. And she took main custody of the kids. He kept his accrued earnings from when they were married, which was what was in their prenup.

Still despite the differences I might have with Belle, I was moved by her journey over the dissolution of her marriage and a bit of her re-discovery. I thought she wrote it well and made good points. It was a bit eye-opening as I had not thought of the particulars over such a hardship. Everyone is different … as is every marriage … we might not be totally similar to Belle but we can understand and sympathize. I thought it took courage and much fortitude and I applaud her for that. It’s worth reading.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia /Del Rey / 320 pages / 2020

3.5 stars. I remember how popular this novel was when it first came out in 2020. It took off and really brought the author to a new level of recognition. For whatever reason, I did not read it back then, but later I read another of her novels The Daughter of Doctor Moreau which is loosely a follow-up of H.G. Wells’s 1896 novel The Island of Doctor Moreau. I liked it and thought I’d read more … even though I’m not usually a reader of the horror genre or the supernatural. Though to be fair I think Moreno-Garcia is a bit of a literary savant who seems to be able to write across multiple genres.

So I took this atmospheric novel on our trip to Mexico City and it was good for that. It is set there in the 1950s where Noemi, a college student, is a bit of socialite who goes to various dances and events, stringing men along in her wake, and who’s flighty about what she wants to pursue. She’s recently changed her attention to the study of anthropology. But then her father asks her to go check on her cousin Catalina who has sent him a worrisome letter from outside the city.

Noemi sets off for High Place, a crumbling old mansion high in the hills, to see Catalina who not long ago married into the prominent Doyle family, who once owned and managed a profitable silver mine before a strange epidemic killed so many of the miners. But when Noemi arrives all is amiss and not exactly what it seems. Plus the family is strange and acting poorly, restricting her on what she can do and where she can go.

High Place is a spooky place filled with strange fungus, mold, and a deluge of rain. After various nightmares, sleepwalks, and odd happenings, Noemi begins to investigate what is truly going on there — and whether she and her cousin are being poisoned … and whoa it is something to behold. Moreno-Garcia does well to bring to life the dilapidated, eerie mansion of High Place and the cemetery out back where many are buried. Mexican Gothic has some similarities with her other novel The Daughter of Doctor Moreau … both with strong female protagonists dealing with spooky places and sticky situations. I liked it for a quick atmospheric, escape read.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read any of these and what did you think? Oh and I forgot it’s my birthday today, lol. I guess it’s another year of mischief and adventure, ha.

Hi Bookworms, happy Labor Day weekend. I hope it’s fun and relaxing where you are. We are having three days of rain here. Bahhh, I had hoped to get yard work done before our trip this week to Mexico City for my nephew’s wedding (woohoo).

Here’s a shot from the end of the road.

I’ll be bringing Mexican Gothic in the travel bag … the 2020 novel by Silva Moreno-Garcia. I’m hoping it might add to the atmosphere. We plan to explore the city.

Now September is upon us. Can you believe summer is about over? Yikes, it’s definitely cooler in the mornings here, but fall should be nice, and this month — my birthday month — is usually one of the prettiest of the year. I hope my tennis and golf playing will still be possible into mid-October.

I’ll be recapping what I finished on my Summer List next time. I just finished Belle Burden’s memoir Strangers about the collapse of her marriage, which was a buddy read with Tina at Turn the Page. I’ll review it next time.

Until then there’s much to discuss about what’s coming out this month. So many notable authors have new novels releasing including: Marlon James, Kate Atkinson, Robert Harris, John Green, Ariel Lawhon, R.F. Kuang, Emily St. John Mandel, Patrick deWitt, Jodi Picoult, Min Jin Lee, Hernan Diaz, and John Boyne. There’s also new mysteries by Ann Cleeves and Richard Osman and popular reads by Deesha Philyaw, Elin Hilderbrand, Amanda Peters, and Chloe Benjamin among others. I’m looking at these and a few others highlighted below.

First is Emma Cline’s novel Switzy (due out Sept. 8) about a retired man with dementia who’s on his final journey to Zurich to accept his fate. On the way he plans to see his daughter in London and an estranged boyhood friend in France. But what is evident is his mind seems to be unraveling.

This novel sounds moving and sad, but I’m not totally sure it’s advisable for me to read considering past losses … though Emma Cline is quite a young talent and I’ve read and liked her other two books. Switzy has been longlisted for the Booker Prize and we’ll have to see if it makes it onto the shortlist when that’s announced on Sept. 22.

I’m also curious about Philippe Collin’s translated debut novel The Barman at the Ritz (out Sept. 1), which has been a big bestseller in France, about a bartender in Paris during the Nazi Occupation who is trying to hide a secret about himself while also helping the Resistance. Apparently the story draws on the real life of Frank Meier who served Nazis at the Ritz Hotel during WWII.

Kirkus calls it a “compelling story of entrapment and survival,” and Shelf Awareness says it’s a “sensitive portrait of a man forced to make impossible choices.” I have read several WWII novels set in Occupied France, but this one sounds like I shouldn’t miss it.

Next is Tananarive Due’s novel Mazywood (due out Sept. 22), which the publisher says is a literary thriller that follows the grandson of a famous Black actress who returns to his grandmother’s cabin retreat in the California mountains only to encounter a legacy of rage and secrets that has haunted his family for generations. The novel explores their family’s history while the grandson tries to piece together the true story of his grandmother who brushed shoulders with the stars of Old Hollywood.

I meant to read the author’s prior novel The Reformatory, which received much praise and now this book is doing the same. Both books are lengthy and apparently have a touch of the horror genre about them. She seems like an author who can spin an enticing yarn. She also teaches at UCLA.

Lastly I’m looking at Ayad Akhtar’s new novel The Radiance (out Sept. 29) about a writer who undergoes a startling transformation after being involved in a hit-and-run accident. Later he reaches out to a friend who teaches at the local college and then finds himself being pulled into a scandal there that threatens to destroy them both.

The novel — like Akhtar’s debut Homeland Elegies — is autofiction, which is genre I’m not usually a big fan of … whereby the author plays a main part in his or her own novel. Still the book has received an assortment of high praise so I’m going to check it out. Is it as profound and unforgettable as some are saying?

In what to watch this month — there’s Season 6 of the spy series Slow Horses with Gary Oldman as the grumpy chief spymaster starting on Sept. 16 on AppleTV, which is said to be bringing back some former characters, so stay tuned for that.

As well as there’s a new comedy-drama series Youth (starting Sept. 20 on HBO) starring Sharon Horgan as a 50-year-old divorcee literary agent who juggles dating life while taking care of her parents and adult son. Horgan, an Irish actress and the show’s creator, is funny in these types of roles and many liked her in the 2015 series Catastrophe and the more-recent series Bad Sisters, which was a fun spoof that features the five (bad) Garvey sisters who just might have covered up a crime.

I’m also eager to see the miniseries Trespasses (on PBS starting Sept. 20) about Cushla, a Catholic schoolteacher who falls dangerously in love with Michael, an older, married Protestant barrister in 1975 Northern Ireland. Cushia lives with her mother a widow and alcoholic (played by the great Gillian Anderson). It’s based on the 2022 novel by Louise Kennedy, which I reviewed here and was shortlisted for the 2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction. Check it out if you get a chance.

Lastly in music this month, there’s new albums by Beck, Miley Cyrus, Neil Young, Susanna Hoffs, and Leon Bridges among others. I’ll pick Leon Bridges new studio album Happiness Anytime (out Sept. 25), which is his fifth. Here’s the sounds of the smooth and delectable single Talk It Over. Enjoy.

That’s all for now. What about you — which new releases are you looking forward to? Happy September.

Hi Bookworms, what say you? It’s a bit hard to believe but August has gone by the wayside and only a few weeks of summer remain, though some say it’s over after next week’s Labor Day. In the news you might have seen the devastating flooding in Nepal and Tibet. Please give to international efforts to help if you can. It looks totally horrific and scary what happened to communities there.

I didn’t post last weekend as I was waiting to finish a couple books, which I did, so you can see the reviews below. We took Willow to the river where she enjoyed a swim and was able to cool off in the hot weather. Next weekend, I’ll likely post a September Preview of what’s coming out, and then my husband and I will be away for a week in Mexico City for my nephew’s wedding, woohoo. We will explore and check out the sights. We have not been before. Have you?

Meanwhile there’s a lot of fall books coming out soon, and Kirkus has put out an enticing list of the 60 Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2026. Of these I’d like to get to: Emma Cline’s novel Switzy (on the Booker Longlist), Bonnie Garmus’s second novel Peck & Peck, Chad Harbach’s novel The Brightness, Barbara Kingsolver’s upcoming novel Partita, and Imbolo Mbue’s Every Story is a Love Story among others.

Also, I plan to go to the book festival Wordfest in October here, where such authors as Tayari Jones, Jenny Jackson, Emily St. John Mandel, Bonnie Garmus, Ruth Ozeki and debut author Larissa Pham will be speaking. It should be good. Do you have any big books of fall or author events that you’re looking forward to?

And now I’ll leave you with a couple reviews of what I finished lately.

John of John by Douglas Stuart / Grove / 400 pages / 2026

4.5 stars. This is sort of a squirm-worthy family tale set in the 1990s about a closeted gay son Cal Macleod, age 22, who returns home after art school in Glasgow to a remote island off of Scotland where his strict Calvinist father John and profanity-loving grandmother Ella live and keep sheep.

His father is a deacon at the church and weaves wool to sell, which Cal is now expected to do in their small community (Falabay) of around 26 people. His father is no longer with his mother who lives a ways off. From the beginning you know that the son hides his gayness because he thinks he will be disowned if it comes out, but there are also things his gruff father and grandmother are not telling him.

Whoa the father is violent at times — he tries to force Cal to cut his long hair and change his weird clothes after his return from school — but he doesn’t want to lose Cal, and the grandmother is close to Cal and tries to ease his way. There are the neighbors: his father’s best friend Innes, who doesn’t speak with his estranged brother Sorley in the same house; the pub and inn keeper Flash Calder who gives Cal’s some work shifts; and Cal’s friend Doll Macdonald who shirks him upon his return.

You soon see this is a rocky, isolated place full of guarded people and little economic prospects and it’s no wonder Cal didn’t want to return. It has an old world feel of Gaelic speakers, church dwellers, sheep herders, and rough sea fisherman. There are some turns the story takes between Cal and his father and some of the others in the community, but it’s best to find out for yourself. It has secrets that unfold … and going into it blind is best.

I hadn’t read Douglas Stuart before, but I was compelled by his storytelling of Cal’s family and their home on the rocky, isolated island, which apparently the author based on his 2019 trip to the remote Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides (Scottish isles). Not perhaps since Charlotte McConaghy’s Wild Dark Shore has an island setting been so vivid in the story. It transports you to their world hook, line, and sinker.

You might recall the author’s debut novel Shuggie Bain won the Booker Prize in 2020, but I haven’t picked it up yet since I heard it’s a pretty brutal story of alcoholism and its effect on a family. Though I want to read it sometime — now that I’ve read John of John, which is up for the Booker as well. Like Shuggie, this novel has some intense moments and gay male sex … so perhaps that’s good to know before picking it up, but it’s not overly brutal.

Oprah picked John of John for her book club in May 2026 … and she has an interesting interview with Douglas Stuart about the book, but I would definitely read it first as the show gives away some secrets in the book … so watch it after you read it.

Douglas Stuart continues to be a great writer to watch. And since he now lives in New York City, I wonder whether his next novel will be set there? Or will he return to his Glasgow roots? We will have to wait and see.

True Crime: A Memoir by Patricia Cornwell /Grand Central /464 pgs/2026

3.75 stars. Cornwell has had quite the whirlwind life from rags to riches. Half the long book shines the light on her troubled childhood … in which her father left and her mother had a couple mental breakdowns requiring hospitalizations. Patsy (as she was called) and her two brothers wound up in foster care with a harsh foster parent that made life a bit hell.

Then months later they got back with their mother who relocated them to Montreat, N.C., where she took Patsy to the estate of evangelist Billy and Ruth Graham’s. Ruth became a benefactor to young Patsy and a friend for life. Later Cornwell ended up going to Davidson College, which opened up a world to her … with books and meeting influential professors, one of which would later become her husband for some years. Afterwards, Cornwell first worked in journalism and then at the morgue in Richmond, which lead to ideas for her fictional crime books.

It seemed to me this memoir spends a lot of time on her hard childhood … over half the book and then speeds it up in the second half when she becomes a well-known crime author. I was ready to find out more about her writing life earlier. She touches on much adversity including: the early life with her unstable parents; a date assault while with the Charlotte Observer newspaper; the end of her marriage; a hair-raising car crash in 1993; and being outed as bisexual in an affair scandal in 1996-97.

It makes for a pretty dramatic read, which is interesting to hear Cornwell narrate the audio for. She seems fairly candid in various parts. And late in the book she writes about the book and screen projects she took on and drops names of all the celebrities — actors and politicians — she’s known. I thought some name dropping was all right to make it dishy, but it seems overall the memoir could’ve been streamlined and edited shorter. It becomes a lengthy and slightly tiring journey.

In it, she mentions she’s been the highest paid female author (other than JK Rowling) which I guess I didn’t really realize … all her millions. I haven’t read her Scarpetta books since the very early days, but it is nice to hear about how she got her start and how her career came together.

I’m not exactly sure why this memoir was on my Summer List as I haven’t been a big reader of her crime books or seen her new Scarpetta TV series on Prime Video, but I guess she has had quite a roller-coaster life in which she’s experienced a lot. I didn’t realize how much the evangelist Billy and Ruth Graham had been in her life, or that she was married once to her professor Charlie, and is now married to neuroscientist Dr. Staci Gruber. Her life and career have been a bit here, there, and everywhere it seems.

That’s all for now. What about you — do you know these authors and what did you think?

Hi Bookworms. It rained for three days this past week so that helped with the wildfire smoke and drought. My golf and tennis were canceled but at least things are looking greener. The sun came out and we biked in a Granfondo ride event yesterday, which went well. Meanwhile we’ve had a Mama deer and her two fawns staying around our place for the past couple weeks. I haven’t been able to get a picture of the little fawns with their spots but the Mama deer (pictured here) has been more available.

These deer — along with others who visit — are eating machines. I told them they could have the bird seeds from the feeders that fall on the ground but not to eat the plants, trees, and bushes near the house. This talk with them was only partially successful and I need to get the anti-deer spray for a few essential plants. Generally we give them quite a bit of leeway and don’t scare them off .. as the fawns are cute little things and Mom is hungry. But occasionally we have to draw the line.

In book news I’m making good progress on Douglas Stuart’s novel John of John in hardback and Patricia Cornwell’s memoir True Crime on audio. Both seem pretty good and hopefully I’ll finish them next week for a review.

Till then I thought we could discuss the New York Times’ recent ranking of the 50 Best Thrillers of the 21st Century, which came out a few weeks ago. A few other bloggers have also talked about the list, which is interesting to look at and see which ones you’ve read. Granted, I often say I don’t read many “thrillers” but as go through the list I actually see I’ve read quite a few of these and/or seen the screen adaptations. I’m not generally a big mystery reader but I occasionally will read crime fiction.

And I agree a lot of these on the list are quite good. Gillian Flynn, S.A. Cosby, Liz Moore, and Dennis Lehane are pretty go-to authors for me when I’m in the mood for a whopper. I still need to start into the books by Tana French (!) and Attica Locke. I’ve put asterisks by ones on the list (below) that I’d like to read and I’ve put parentheses besides books (below) that I’ve either read or seen the screen adaptation for. Some I’ve read and seen.

A few on the list I don’t really consider thrillers … Donna Tartt’s epic The Goldfinch (#23) and Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer (#30), both of which I’ve read … seem more like great literary fiction in my estimation. They have crimes or secrets that are found out by the end … but in a general sense they are more literary epics and less fast-paced thrillers. Sarah Waters’s novel Fingersmith might also be a bit like this, but I haven’t read it yet. The list makes me want to read more of these …. and some I haven’t thought of in years.

All have their own thriller style or formula. Some of them are super intense like: Emma Donoghue’s Room, or Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin, or William Landay’s Defending Jacob … and others are twisty crazy (Gone Girl! The Girl on the Train) … and others start more subtly and then explode in some surprising way, like Blacktop Wasteland and Shutter Island.

Apparently the books on the list were voted on by 291 crime novelists, editors, booksellers, librarians and other book lovers. I think they did a pretty good job placing these. If they want to put crazy Gone Girl as #1 and dark Mystic River at #2 … I think I’m okay with it, lol. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any recommendations?

The New York Times’ List of the 50 Best Thrillers of the 21st Century

1. Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn (book & movie)
2. Mystic River, by Dennis Lehane (movie)
3. In the Woods, by Tana French *
4. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson (book & movie)
5. No Country for Old Men, by Cormac McCarthy
6. My Sister, the Serial Killer, by Oyinkan Braithwaite (book)
7. The God of the Woods, by Liz Moore (book)
8. Razorblade Tears, by S.A. Cosby (book)
9. Slow Horses, by Mick Herron (TV series)
10. Bluebird, Bluebird, by Attica Locke *
11. Blacktop Wasteland, by S.A. Cosby (book)
12. The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins (book & movie)
13. Case Histories, by Kate Atkinson (book)
14. We Need to Talk About Kevin, by Lionel Shriver (movie)
15. Dare Me, by Megan Abbott
16. The Lincoln Lawyer, by Michael Connelly (TV series)
17. Shutter Island, by Dennis Lehane (book)
18. 11/22/63, by Stephen King *
19. Sharp Objects, by Gillian Flynn (TV series)
20. Broken Harbor, by Tana French *
21. Room, by Emma Donoghue (movie)
22. The Constant Gardener, by John le Carré (movie)
23. The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt (book & movie)
24. The Dry, by Jane Harper (book & movie)
25. Winter’s Bone, by Daniel Woodrell (movie)
26. The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown (book & movie)
27. Big Little Lies, by Liane Moriarty (TV series)
28. The Perfect Nanny, by Leila Slimani (book)
29. The Plot, by Jean Hanff Korelitz (book)
30. The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen (book)
31. Defending Jacob, by William Landay (book & TV series)
32. Notes on an Execution, by Danya Kukafka *
33. The Witch Elm, by Tana French *
34. The Likeness, by Tana French *
35. All the Sinners Bleed, by S.A. Cosby *
36. The Silent Patient, by Alex Michaelides
37. Your House Will Pay, by Steph Cha (book)
38. I Am Pilgrim, by Terry Hayes
39. Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters *
40. Dark Matter, by Blake Crouch
41. Tell No One, by Harlan Coben
42. You, by Caroline Kepnes
43. Lush Life, by Richard Price
44. Jar of Hearts, by Jennifer Hillier
45. Mexican Gothic, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia *
46. Before I Go to Sleep, by S.J. Watson (book)
47. The Push, by Ashley Audrain (book)
48. All the Colors of the Dark, by ChrisWhitaker
49. Magpie Murders, by Anthony Horowitz
50. None of This Is True, by Lisa Jewell

That’s all for today. I hope you all are enjoying your Sunday. August is flying by and sadly I’m not getting to the beach this month. I hope you are. Cheers.

Hi Bookworms. Can you believe August is passing by so quickly? We had friends visiting from Richmond, Virginia, this week, so were busy catching up, showing them around, and going to the mountains for a couple hikes and lunch afterwards at the golf course.

It was a nice visit … though sort of smoky here from the wildfires in British Columbia and around Spokane, Washington. I managed to get this shot before the gray air set in. We are hoping to get rain this week that will hopefully help the situation. It’s been dry as dust during July and early August.

We should have a couple quiet weeks now before September kicks in. We are starting to get our salads from the vegetable garden, which is nice, and I’ll be playing two days of both golf and tennis this week, and riding in another bicycle event next Saturday. So I’m staying active while I can before fall and cool weather set in.

Here’s another fuller picture of the vegetable garden, which my husband is doing a good job staying on top of. Notice the high fence to keep out all the deer and critters.

Meanwhile I don’t really have any good book news this week, but I’ll likely be starting Patricia Cornwell’s memoir True Crime in print and the novel Five by Ilona Bannister on audiobook. These two are on my Summer List, which I am still focusing on. I also have the novel John of John in the wings as well as the nonfiction book Thirty Below about the first women climbers of Mount Denali, which Tina at the blog Turn the Page and I plan to do a buddy read of soon. And now I’ll leave you with reviews of what I finished lately.

Land by Maggie O’Farrell / Knopf / 400 pages / 2026

4.5 stars. This is a long epic novel that follows each member of a family in Ireland in the 1860s after the Great Famine. There’s the son Liam (age 10) who accompanies his father Tomas, a talented map-maker, on an excursion to a secluded peninsula working for the hated redcoats (the British army). Tomas finds a mystical spring while out there that changes him … and he moves the family to a ruined cottage on the peninsula.

His wife Phina doesn’t know what’s come over him, nor his son Liam who turns away from him and goes off to become a missionary. Older daughter Enda, a fiddle player, sneaks away too on a ship bound for Quebec but is naive to what awaits her. Younger daughter Rose helps at home with their loyal wolfhound Brith, while the youngest child Eugene is a quiet child connected to the land and its history. The family parts ways and also comes together … while experiencing tragedies and challenges along the way.

I was caught up in all their stories and the beautiful language and prose that O’Farrell uses to spin the tale. I think I liked the novel, which I listened to on audio, perhaps even better than her novel Hamnet, which is saying a lot. That novel was filled with the tragedy over the loss of Shakespeare’s son and this novel also has its share of tragedy … but has more to it, and I liked following the different characters.

I am just flabbergasted that Land did not get a Booker Prize nomination. What the heck. Apparently O’Farrell, who was born in Northern Ireland, has never received a Booker nomination … which begs the question: what does it take? I’ve only read two of O’Farrell’s historical novels but man she can write! I only wish her tales had less tragic elements to them — various of her characters seem to die at particular points during the story … just when you come to connect with them, bahhh. That’s my quibble.

I’ve now finished 4 women authors’ books on my Summer List that have been top-notch; they are: Maggie O’Farrell, Elizabeth Strout, Tayari Jones, and Ann Patchett … with two other females’ promising debuts by Tara Menon and Addie E. Citchens. It’s been a line-up hard to beat … and I still have the latest from Lauren Groff and Lisa See to come. Though the next great whopper on my Summer List could be John of John by Douglas Stuart. So we will see.

Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor by Christine Kuehn / Celadon / 272 pages / 2025

4 stars. This is the true story by a woman who was living in suburban Maryland with her family in 1994 when she received a letter out of the blue asking about her family’s Nazi past, which she was unaware of. The letter writer was researching the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and wanted to talk with her father about the role of German spies in the attack. Stunned, Christine called her 72-year-old father Eberhard at the time who finally came clean to her about the German family he grew up in and their past. Whoa, this is an unreal wild tale … that’s hard to even believe.

It reveals how back in the 1930s the author’s father grew up in a prominent Berlin family — with parents Otto and Friedel Kuehn — who became involved with the Nazis. His brother Leopold worked for Joseph Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda and stepsister Ruth was even said to have an affair with Goebbels before he found out she was half-Jewish and sent the family packing (except for Leopold who stayed in Berlin). Eberhard’s parents were offered jobs as spies in Hawaii where they were paid by the Japanese to monitor military movements around Pearl Harbor among other things. It’s all quite eye-opening. You can’t make this stuff up.

The Kuehns spent lavishly with the salary they were given, though the FBI seemed to be watching them. They weren’t very careful and were arrested after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. You have to read on to the end to find out more … but the author’s father Eberhard turned his back on his parents and enlisted in the army at 18 fighting for the American side.

It’s all very curious. And how the author researched and pieced together for 30 years her family’s hidden background is a bit of the story. It’s quite a feat that she was finally able to put this book out in 2025 … about her paternal grandparents being German spies for the Japanese and taking the family with them down that road … and how her own father never told her any of it … until she confronted him in 1994. The book is carefully constructed and follows the family’s path and WWII chronologically, capturing some of the author’s surprise, horror, and shame about her family’s past along the way. I thought it was well done … and I was caught up in finding out about this tragic and unusual story of this particular family.

It sort of reminded me of Irmgard Hunt’s 2005 memoir: On Hitler’s Mountain: Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood … which is another chilling read but important to know about … involving dictators and indoctrination.

That’s all for now. Do you know any of these books above and what did you think?