The Cue Card

Hi all, happy last day of May! We’re having some major rain event going on here through Wednesday, which I guess is good since the land around here was dry as a bone this month, but getting two to four inches of rain all at once might get a bit crazy. I hope this horse will be all right. I met this Black Beauty while walking our dog down our street yesterday. We have cows and horses along here, so I guess I’ll start taking their pictures and maybe interviewing them, lol. They like to be fed.

This past week we saw the movie Devil Wears Prada 2 at the old theater in the small town to our south. When we arrived there, a film crew was setting up on the sidewalk out front, which I think was for Heartland, which is a long-running Canadian show that often films around here. After investigating that, we got into see Prada 2, which I thought was fun and entertaining while my husband thought was a total chick flick, lol. Regardless it was great that the main cast was back for the sequel after 20 years with Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci, and Emily Blunt … along with cameos by various fashion designers and Lady Gaga.

The original movie came out in 2006 and I remember seeing it with my mother-in-law who loved seeing movies at the theater. We laughed, and it was special with her. You might have heard that Anne Hathaway has secured the screen rights to the adaptation of the novel Yesteryear, (reviewed last week). I sort of see Hathaway as the goody Andy Sachs from the Prada movies, so I wonder if she can she pull off the calculating, narcissistic Natalie of Yesteryear? She’s not really the actress I envisioned for Natalie, but then I’m not sure who is … perhaps Lena Headey who was Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones, lol. Then again Natalie is in her early 30s and has had six kids. So we might need another actress pick.

I seem to have skipped my June preview post in lieu of my Summer Book list, which took a while to compile. I had about 25 possible choices — involving mostly recent and new books — and then I cut those back to 15. Some stayed, while others fell off the list. AnnaBookBel is hosting the 20 Books of Summer reading challenge, which I like to do for fun, and you can also choose 15 or 10 Books of Summer depending on what you think you can get to. I plan to extend the challenge from June 1st to Sept. 15 in order to help me get to more of these. So without further adieu here is my Summer Book List of 15 below.

(The brief synopses below were cobbled together from Kirkus Reviews, the NYT, publishers’ files, and Publishers Weekly.)

• Whistler by Ann Patchett. After a chance encounter, Daphne and her former stepfather re-establish their relationship and reflect on the choices that separated them.
• Land by Maggie O’Farrell. In 1865, while documenting Ireland’s Great Hunger, a father and son stumble on an ancient sacred site, with lasting consequences.
• The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout: A chance incident sparks a powerful realization in a beloved teacher’s life.
• Strangers: A Memoir of a Marriage by Belle Burden: The story of a woman’s surprising divorce and her attempt to build anew.
• Under Water by Tara Menon: A woman navigates the aftermath of the Indian Ocean Tsunami as Hurricane Sandy bears down on New York City.
• Kin by Tayari Jones: About two lifelong friends from Louisiana whose worlds converge after many years apart in the face of tragedy.
• John of John by Douglas Stuart: In Scotland’s Hebrides islands, a closeted gay man returns home to an insular community, where complications and secrets await.
• Dominion by Addie E. Citchens: A Southern drama of secrets and sin, revolving around a Baptist preacher, his family, and the shocking violence that erupts around them in their Mississippi town.
• Daughters of the Sun and Moon by Lisa See: The story of three Chinese women whose unexpected friendship helps them survive despite the odds in the turmoil of post-Civil War Los Angeles.
• Good People by Patmeena Sabit: A kaleidoscope of perspectives weigh in on a young Afghan American’s suspicious death.
• Brawler: Stories by Lauren Groff: Nine stories that range from the 1950s to the present day and move across age, class, and region … that speak to the human predicament.
• Thirty Below: The Harrowing and Heroic Story of the First All-Women’s Ascent of Denali by Cassidy Randall: The true adventure tale of the 1970 summit of North America’s highest peak.
• What We Can Know by Ian McEwan: A pair of scholars look back on the present day from a future Britain radically transformed by climate change.
• True Crime: A Memoir by Patricia Cornwell: The surprising tale of the crime writer’s rise to literary fame.
• Five by Ilona Bannister: The story of five lives randomly waiting for a train to London but one will die in minutes. But first their stories. Who will it be?

What do you think? Have you read any of these, or are any on your list?

That’s all for now. I need to get started on one of these ASAP, quite a stack to manage. Have a great week and happy reading.

Hi. Happy Memorial Day weekend … for those in the States. Are you at the beach or a lake? How are you honoring it? We had Canadian long weekend last weekend, which essentially means we are safe now from frost and can plant the garden, yay. The temps went from 30s to 80s in a week’s time (quite a whiplash), and I have been doing much lawn mowing, weeding, and planting. I’m trying to get this place into shape after a lengthy winter.

Also this week I might get in a bit of tennis, golf, and a bike ride … if my new knee permits. Such is retired life when the weather warms up. Above is a photo taken on my way to the golf course, which is about 20 minutes away. Among other things, I need to practice getting my ball out of sand traps, which looks easy on TV but never seems to be in reality, lol. 

In book news, I see that Taiwan Travelogue written by Taiwanese author Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translated by Lin King won the 2026 International Booker Prize this past week. Apparently it is the first work translated from Mandarin Chinese to win the award, which celebrates translated works of fiction into English that are published in the UK and Ireland. Set in 1930s Japanese-occupied Taiwan, Taiwan Travelogue is said to follow “the relationship between a well-meaning Japanese novelist touring Taiwan and her secretive Taiwanese interpreter that navigates issues of power, identity, colonialism, and desire through a culinary tour.” It sounds good and I’ve put my name on the library wait list for it.

Among the award’s other short-listed nominees, I tried Daniel Kehlmann’s novel The Director but didn’t get too far before becoming distracted and putting it aside. It sounds like a good premise though and I might return to it … about a filmmaker who in the 1930s returns to Europe from Hollywood and finds himself forced into directing propaganda films under the Nazi regime. Have you read this one or any of the other short-listed nominees? I hope to check out Taiwan Travelogue sometime later this year. 

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

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke / Knopf / 400 pages / 2026

4.3 stars. This novel only came out in April but has sprung up everywhere since. It’s safe to say it’s taken off like gang-busters and seems to be the most popular novel this spring … which will likely continue into summer. The author has been fielding many interviews and appeared on Seth Meyers’ Late Show on May 7 where the host said as of then the book had 742 holds at the N.Y. Public Library with a wait time of 10,402 days, Whoa!

I feel lucky to have gotten a copy of both the audiobook and ebook from the L.A. Public Library. I think I put in my hold for them in early April and got them by May. Tina at Turn the Page was kind enough to do a read-along with me of this topical read. 

Make no mistake: Yesteryear is a doozy … provocative and scathing in a darkly satirical way. It’s something like a train wreck that I had trouble turning away from. At the heart of it is Natalie, in her early 30s, with five kids and a sixth on the way with her handsome husband Caleb. She’s a tradwife “influencer” on social media espousing her rustic large family life on a farm near the mountains in Idaho. At one point she reaches millions of followers with her posts … about the joys of baking bread and raising kids the wholesome Christian way. Online Natalie is a wonder (and a success at making money from Instagram), but offline Natalie has secret help from two live-in nannies raising the kids and a producer named Shannon who gets the best shots to post of the images Natalie’s trying to project. But her followers – Natalie thinks – don’t need to know about that. 

This is the last day of the life I imagined for myself, Natalie says at the beginning. 

Then one day Natalie wakes up and it’s 1855 … and her family and husband don’t seem the same. They’re different and her farmhouse has changed too. What’s going on?  Is this some time travel event or Natalie’s new reality? One thing is for certain … real pioneer life in 1855 is way more than what Natalie bargained for. It’s not some acting performance for Instagram in today’s world. Natalie soon finds being a pioneer woman is very hard, boring, and at times scary for a woman too, and she’s unsure of the people around her. And “For what it’s worth: I do not recommend giving birth in the pioneer days,” Natalie says. Oh my, is this the life she’s been touting on Insta?

The reader is left toggling between two timelines: the present with Natalie and her family’s farm life on Instagram and how she came to live that idyllic life after her student days at Harvard and her early wedding … and the other time in 1855 with her doing chores and submitting to how pioneer life is like back then. The perspective in both is from Natalie and she is one unlikable protagonist! Be forewarned to spend time with her. She’s portrays herself as a good Christian woman but she’s all about herself and her morals are mean and skewed. She’s not nice to her kids, her husband (“a nice dumb rich guy”), her sister, parents, in-laws, or those who work for her. She’s a piece of work, and is so negative that she’s also a bit funny in a darkly comical, cynical way. I found myself laughing at times about her thoughts and dialogue. 

Of course I can’t say too much more … because the story takes some turns especially at the end. I liked the whole topsy-turvy-ness of it, but it won’t be for everyone since the characters are quite unlikable and the plot includes one negative bombshell after another … but I admired how the novel’s put together — its cleverness — and the issues it raises about today’s online culture, consumerism, and fundamentalism. It’s sort of a page-turner which I had to see through. Now done, I can try to put Natalie, her biting voice, and her family behind me and take a breather, but it might be a bit hard to forget her anytime soon.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read Yesteryear — and if so, what did you think? Next post I’ll be looking at June releases and hopefully post my summer reading list.

Hi all, how’s everyone doing? Did your April showers bring May flowers? We were having a very dry month here until yesterday when we had a slushy snowstorm hit. I kid you not. I was at a friend’s house and took this photo out the window of their pretty back yard.

Good thing we hadn’t planted the vegetable garden yet … other than a few rows of potatoes and onions, but they’re safe … despite the overnight frost warning, which has confused me. What month are we in? Is this a time travel thing? I guess the novel Yesteryear is on my mind lately as Tina and I are continuing our buddy read of it. And there is an element of some hocus pocus going on. It seems the main character Natalie has bit off a bit more than she can chew.

Meanwhile, we still plan to plant the vegetable plants later this week when it heats back up (you can see from the photo it was nicer earlier last week). And I’m starting to think about which books will go on my summer reading list this year. I’ll likely post my list on Sunday May 31. Usually it includes mostly new releases — from the present to the past eight months or so — that I hope will be captivating. New books by such popular authors as Elizabeth Strout, Ann Patchett, and Maggie O’Farrell will likely “make” my summer list but then I’ll be looking for others I want to include. Do you have any books — old or new — that you’re looking forward to reading this summer?

Also you might have seen that recently the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper put out its list of the 100 greatest literary novels ever published in English, as voted on by authors, critics and academics worldwide. Many classics dominate the list but a few contemporary authors have made it on as well. Though it’s George Eliot’s long novel Middlemarch from 1871 that has the #1 spot and I never have read it, but there’s still time to get to it and some others.

I’ve read about 25 books from their list but others were so long ago that I couldn’t recall if I had read them or not. So this list is a good reminder of what to revisit or pick up for the first time. I like lists. And it might remind you of the list the New York Times put out in 2024 titled “The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.” Perhaps if you cross-reference both lists it’d be interesting which books made both and at what number. Though many of the considered best books came long before the 21st century.

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

The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff / Simon & Schuster / 288 pages / 2025

3.6 stars. This debut novel is cut into three parts each told by a member of the Bright family … first the mother Lillian narrates telling of her up and down marriage and life — starting in 1979 Texas — with Ryan, an artist, who after she divulges a secret to him, carries on with his father’s alcoholic tendencies; then their daughter Georgette narrates detailing tragic circumstances of what happens next as she’s growing up; and finally the father Ryan narrates the last part in a letter to his granddaughter.

I’ve tried purposefully to be vague so you can read and find out the ins and outs of this strained family drama. Alcoholism plays a part and missed years and opportunities and how that affects each of them. The story of the family kept me engaged as it went along, though the characters come to annoy at certain points. The last part with the father Ryan’s narration and character seems the weakest developed part .. and at that point you want a bit more from the story and him. Still I’m glad to have found out what the commotion over this novel was about. It reminded me slightly of Patrick Ryan’s novel Buckeye since I finished that recently and it also involves a broken family and its various members.

That’s all for now. What about you — are you making summer reading list plans and what’s on it? Enjoy your week.

Hi all. Happy Mother’s Day. I hope you’re having fun celebrating somewhere. I am thinking of my Mom and plan to enjoy some gardening on a partly sunny spring day.

Last week was pretty good — it included my first round of golf for the season with my ladies league, yay. Of course I was sort of rusty but that’s to be expected since I haven’t played since last September. It was good fun nonetheless, and on the way home I stopped off to visit a farm that has seven miniature donkeys … the sole boy of the group is a sweet runt named Holger. I befriended the owners a couple months ago and now they sometimes let me come and brush the donkeys and feed them. They are very cute and I’m learning about how to care for them. Apparently the donkeys always need straw in addition to hay but can’t over-graze. They must watch how much they eat, which is key … and for us all, lol. I will try to get some better photos when I visit them next time. 

Meanwhile last night we watched the movie adaptation of Remarkably Bright Creatures on Netflix based on the novel by Shelby Van Pelt and it was quite heartwarming and better than I thought it’d be. The filmmakers did a good job making the octopus Marcellus look real and captivating, even though he’s mostly computer generated. They were able to do that by using interchangeable footage of a real-life Pacific octopus named Agnetha, who lives at the Vancouver Aquarium. And the actors did well, with Sally Field giving a good performance as Tova, the cleaning lady at the aquarium who befriends Marcellus. The movie brings the story to life in almost a better way than I thought the novel did … but see what you think. 

We also finished watching Season 1 of the Netflix comedy series A Man on the Inside starring Ted Danson as a man who is hired to go undercover at a retirement home in San Francisco to solve a theft. It’s enjoyable and we liked how it’s light and funny and also manages to touch on real themes of aging, loneliness, and connection at the retirement place.

Apparently the show is based on a true 2020 documentary about an 83-year-old man who went undercover at a Chilean nursing home to investigate potential elder abuse. In the U.S. series, Ted Danson is his usual charming, suave self and has gained attention in the role. The show has been a success apparently and has already been renewed for Season 3.

And now in book news you might have heard last week that author Daniel Kraus, a writer of the horror genre, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel Angel Down, which was a New York Times Best Book of 2025. According to the Times, it’s a World War I novel, told in one sprawling, 285-page-long sentence, about a failed draft dodger who finds an angel on the battlefield.

The novel seems rather unusual with its structure and is said to be very graphic of its depiction of the war in the trenches. And apparently it marks the first time a horror-tinged novel has won the award since Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road in 2007. I’m curious enough to want to investigate after listening to Daniel Kraus be interviewed about it on the New York Times podcast and seeing Carmen’s favorable review of it too on Goodreads. 

Now here (above) is a photo recap of the books I finished in April. I enjoyed most — if not all of these — so it’s hard to pick a favorite, but Tina and I had a good discussion while reading Buckeye, so I’ll go ahead and choose that one. Meanwhile, the outlook for May reading is looking much slower as I’ve taken on a very long fall novel to review for Publishers Weekly. This undisclosed novel will likely consume me this entire month, alas. But in the meantime I will try the audio of Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke, which will be a buddy read again with Tina at Turn the Page, who has the print version. We will see what all the fuss is about with this bestselling new novel.

• A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar (audiobook, dystopian novel) — 2025
• Buckeye by Patrick Ryan (hardback, a buddy read with Tina at Turn the Page) — 2025 
• Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson (audiobook, novel) — 2025
• 107 Days by Kamala Harris (hardback, ghostwritten by Geraldine Brooks!) — 2025
• Cape Fever by Nadia Davids (audiobook, novel) — 2025
• A Bad, Bad Place by Frances Crawford (paperback, crime debut novel) — 2026

And now I’ll leave you with a couple reviews of what I finished while I was away in California.

Cape Fever by Nadia Davids / Simon & Schuster / 240 pages / 2025

4.3+ stars. I was quite impressed by this Gothic tale set in a colonial town in 1920 about a young girl, Soraya Matas, who lives in the Muslim quarters part of town and comes to work as a maid for Alice Hattingh, a British widowed settler. Alice is a snooty lady, who is quick to set Soraya straight about what she wants done about the house and tells Soraya that she’s required as a live-in maid and can only go home once a fortnight to visit her family, much to Soraya’s disappointment. 

Soraya finds the cleaning work pretty dull and repetitive but is happy at first and is able to commune with a couple ghosts in the house. Then Mrs. Hattingh starts putting more demands on her and longer stays as she is expecting her son’s return from London, who was injured in the war. To appease Soraya, Mrs. Hattingh offers to write letters for her to Soraya’s betrothed young man since she’s led to believe Soraya can’t read or write. It’s during these letter writing engagements between maid and employer that things take a turn. 

It’s a good cat and mouse kind of Gothic tale, with subtly tense chess moves between the two — maid and employer — to figure out what the other is doing and how to subvert them. The publisher notes that the novel is “reminiscent of works by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Daphne du Maurier” and I think that’s a good comparison. This book has put author Nadia Davids on the map for me in a good way, so I will look for whatever she writes next. She grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, and is a notable playwright in addition to writing fiction. She is now said to live in California.

A Bad Bad Place by Frances Crawford / Soho Crime / 353 pages / 2026

3.75 stars. This is a coming-of-age, crime debut novel set in 1979 Glasgow, Scotland. It alternates chapters between 12-year-old Janey Devine, who finds a dead body while out walking her dog, which turns her young life upside down … and her 66-year-old grandma Maggie, who is trying to raise and protect her. It turns out the victim was the 22-year-old daughter of a local crime boss, who now wants to know more from Janey (since she found her) as do the police. 

Meanwhile Janey is full of bad dreams about the dead girl and is anxious about the killer trying to get her. She’s a mess, and her grandma, who’s raising her, is doing her best to keep a waitress job and ease Janey’s fears and get her life back to normal. But Janey is keeping something from the police and her grandma that she knows about the murder that is keeping her on edge. As  the viewpoints of Janey and her Grandma alternate, the case unfolds and the hunt for the murderer ratchets up in their tight-knit community. 

I found the first half of the novel pretty strong amid the characters in their working-class, gritty neighborhood — I liked young Janey and sympathized with what she’s going through — and her loss of innocence in this coming-of-age crime tale. There are a number of shady types who could have committed the murder. The second half dithers around a bit – with some repetition – and loses some pacing, but still I was patient to find justice as Janey wanted. Written in a bit of a Glasgow dialect, it’s a debut with plenty of atmosphere of the neighborhood and crime. You can pretty much feel its tough circumstances through your fingertips. 

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read any of these novels mentioned — and if so, what did you think?  Have a great week. 

Hi. How is everyone doing? I’m away this week in Southern California visiting family, so I will leave a briefer post than usual today. I took this picture of sailboats, which were just a few of the 76 boats competing in the annual Newport to Ensenada sailboat race that spans 125 miles over a couple days. This is a race that my father enjoyed doing with a crew for over 30 years, so watching the boats go by from the pier brought back various memories. He loved sailing and would’ve appreciated the wind on the day, though it was blowing as a headwind from the direction they were going.

So far, it’s been a good trip seeing family I hadn’t seen in a year … and I still plan to make it to the desert to visit a friend and my hometown before returning to the North next weekend.

Currently I’m reading the debut crime novel A Bad Bad Place by Scottish author Frances Crawford about a young 12-year-old protagonist who, while out walking her dog, stumbles upon a dead body and pretty soon folks in her tight-knit community in Glasgow are looking for answers. It’s a bit of a coming-of-age tale and a whodunnit.

I’m also listening to the audiobook of the novel Cape Fever by Nadia Davids about a young Muslim maid in 1920 who comes to work for an enigmatic widower (Mrs. Hattingh) in a decaying manor. She starts seeing some spirits in the house and perhaps all is not what it seems. Both books appear to be good ones though I still have a ways to go with them before deciding how good they are.

Meanwhile, you might have seen that the shortlist of the Women’s Prize for Fiction was announced this past week with these six novels (above) making the list. I’ve read two of these: Virginia Evans’s novel The Correspondent and Lily King’s Heart the Lover and I need to investigate the rest. I know about the novels Dominion and Susan Choi’s novel Flashlight, but the other two: The Mercy Step and Kingfisher I hadn’t heard of before. Have you?

You might recall that the Women’s Prize is awarded annually to the author of the best full-length novel of the year written in English and published in the UK. So even though Virginia Evans, Susan Choi, Addie Citchens, and Lily King are American writers, since their novels were also published in the UK, they qualify. Which of these do you think will win when the Prize is announced on June 11? Hmm, I need to read a couple more before deciding.

Also the shortlist for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction was announced … with these five books (above) making the list. Of these, I listened to the audio of A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar, which was very good, and I’d also like to get to The White Hot by Quiara Alegría Hudes. I’d say either of these two are favored to win on June 2 as I don’t know of the others … but who knows if they will pull an upset.

You recall that the Carol Shields Prize is an English-language award that “celebrates creativity and excellence in fiction by women and non-binary writers in Canada and the United States.” So we will see which comes out on top. Have you read any of these up for either prize?

And now I will bid you adieu. Last night we had some hard rain at the coast, wow it came down! I hope you are enjoying the end of April along with some good books. Happy reading.

Hi Bookworms. I hope all is well and that if you’re in the U.S. you got your taxes done this past week, argh. It marked the second year since my mother’s passing, which still feels sad along with my dad’s a year later. I plan to visit the cemetery when I go to California this coming week.

I will also see my sister and niece who is running in her second Boston marathon this Monday! Just last year she had her first baby, so it is exciting she is back racing and that her baby daughter, husband, and her parents will all be there cheering her on. I’m pumped that she’s running. It reminds me back in 1991 when I ran the Marine Corps Marathon in D.C., so I can relate to the excitement. It’s quite an experience in those big races. I once was an avid runner in my teens through my thirties, but later in life switched to cycling, which is a bit easier on the body, lol. 

Meanwhile this week we had a surprisingly big snowstorm on Wednesday night into Thursday and got like six to eight inches of snow. It was crazy. Above is a photo of our front poplar trees after it was over. The wind was blowing and there were actually snowdrifts piled up in places. But now the forecast is expected to be in the 60s F this week, so it’ll be a big melt-athon. Instead of a marathon here it’ll be a melt-athon, ha. See how the times have changed. 

In book news, I’m a bit bummed to be missing the L.A. Festival of Books this weekend, which I’ve always wanted to go to. I never seem to plan my SoCal visits right. But be on the lookout this coming Wednesday as the shortlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction will be announced. The longlist of 16 books will be paired down to just 6 books. Some of the authors I’ve read whose books are on the longlist include: Charlotte McConaghy, Megha Majumdar, Katie Kitamura, Virginia Evans, Lily King, and Susan Choi (though not that title). And I still want to read Addie E. Citchens’s debut Dominion, which is on the longlist too. So we will see which books make the shortlist. Then there will be time to read more before the winner is announced on June 11. So we will see.

And now here are a couple of reviews of what I finished lately.

Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson / Ballantine / 368 pages / 2025

3.5 stars. Synopsis: This follows the daughter of a prominent African American New England family whose trauma over a violent home invasion when she was 10 years old still affects her life many years later.  

Near the novel’s beginning, Ebby Freeman, an editor, is around 30 when she’s jilted at the altar by her white fiancé, who’s unsure if he can continue to contend with her inner trauma. Later, Ebby flees to a rural place in France to find solace only to run into her ex there and his new girlfriend. Yikes, talk about an unfortunate coincidence. There, her thoughts meander to issues surrounding the long ago unsolved home invasion tragedy and a prized heirloom that was broken then, which was made by an enslaved ancestor. 

The narrative alternates between Ebby’s present dealing with her recent wedding heartbreak and long ago trauma … and the past about her enslaved ancestors’ lives who made the stonework jar and passed it along. The antique jar means a lot to Ebby’s family … but after the home invasion in 2000 they put it away so as not to be reminded. But now Ebby is trying to write something about those who had the jar. Soon more information comes to light in the midst of her being jilted, surrounding the jar and the home invasion. And as Ebby returns home there are some resolutions that come about within her family. 

My Thoughts: I liked some of the storytelling and issues that this novel touches on … about legacy and an enslaved ancestor’s stonework passed down among generations of their family … and trying to overcome the harsh trauma of a past violent attack. There is some good soul-searching … although somehow I found the plot didn’t fully come together in its execution. It seemed at times repetitive and the pacing slow. It needed some action or a bit more of something to propel things forward. Still I think I’d like to go back and read the author’s first novel Black Cake, which was more popular and well-regarded. 

107 Days by Kamala Harris / Simon & Schuster 320 pages / 2025

4+ stars. One would think this would be too painful to read and re-live … those scramble of days when President Biden dropped out of the presidential election after his disastrous debate performance, and Vice President Harris tried her best to assemble a campaign that would win the election in the 107 days left.

I thought it would be too hard for me to revisit, but instead her book was worthwhile knowing … perhaps even for my own continued attempted recovery after the election loss. And though the end election result was the opposite of what I wanted for the country, there are some takeaways from reading her book (even a few good ones) to glean from it. For one, it’s a pretty good behind-the-scenes look at what happened during the presidential campaign … the mistakes and obstacles along the way … the people and strategy … and what was going through the VP’s mind during various turns.

And though Harris is critical of the Biden circle for various reasons and also castigates her opponent, it’s not exactly a blame others kind of book. I know people will think she’s just making excuses for her loss, but it seems mainly she lays it on the line of what went down in a pretty down to earth way. It’s not all PR glossy kind of junk of what she accomplished or thought she could do. I usually hate political books for that reason. But this felt a bit more real and personal … in what she was trying to do and in looking back trying to come to grips about such a huge fateful chance and turn in history. Whatever you might think of her, it seems she gave the campaign her all.

The structure of the book … in which it briefly counts down day by day what happened and the days left till the election works well. It even gives the narrative a bit of suspense even though our minds well know and dread what happened. If only we could change it. What a terrible blow to the country … which will likely never recover or be the same ever again.

Perhaps we can blame the election result on the nearly 90 million Americans, roughly 36 percent of the eligible voting age population, who did not vote. Which is a greater number of people than who voted for either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. Did the non-voters think it wouldn’t affect their lives and concerns? Did they think they could just sit it out? How crazy.

Kamala writes at the end: “One hundred and seven days were not, in the end, long enough to accomplish the task of winning the presidency. But we accomplished other things, as I learn every day.” Such as inspiring young people and others.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read these and if so, what did you think? Happy reading.

Hi Bookworms, Happy Easter. I hope you’re having a wonderful weekend full of chocolate bunnies, Easter eggs, and spring flowers. I’m holding down the fort with the dogs since my husband is away on a trip.

We had a wild snowstorm here a couple days ago that left about six inches of heavy white stuff on the ground but then within 48 hours it was gone as if we’d never had it. The earth just soaked it up. Meanwhile I’ve been going through a surge of spring cleaning, paring down things in closets and drawers, and taking unwanted things and clothes to the thrift shop. It feels great once you set your mind to it. Nothing is safe from the purge, except perhaps books, lol.

Afterwards Willow and I got some reading done in the sunroom (see photo). She was snoozing a bit more than reading, but we hadn’t been in there all winter since it’s not heated. We enjoyed our inaugural sunroom siesta, yay. Do you have a special spot or place where you like to read?

And now here (above) are a couple novels that came in for me at the library. Will I get to these? Time will tell. I hope they are good.

• The Golden Boy by Patricia Finn —about “a disgraced TV executive and his wife who retire to Maui, where their life of leisure is interrupted by news that they’ve been named guardians to a late friend’s four grandchildren,” according to PW. And:
• Upward Bound by Woody Brown — that “delves into the lives and minds of the disabled residents of an adult day care center in Southern California.”

And now below are a few reviews of what I finished lately. All three were audiobook listens, while I’m currently reading Buckeye as a buddy read with Tina at Turn the Page. We’ll be done this week, so I’ll review it next time.

A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar / Knopf / 224 pages / 2025

Synopsis: In a near future Kolkata, India, with intense heat and food scarcity, a woman referred to as Ma, the manager of a local shelter, is gearing up to leave on a flight in seven days with her two-year-old daughter Mishti and her father Dadu to join her scientist husband in Michigan. But in the morning she finds that her purse is missing and has been stolen with their passports and special climate visas. She has less than a week to find the thief and their coveted documents. It’s a desperate search, and along the way their lives and the teenage thief Boomba’s backstory is revealed and his attempt to care for his family in need.

My Thoughts: 4 stars. This turns into a compelling doozy. Which leaves you with the sick feeling: never to lose your passport and visa in the days before your flight, especially when you’re trying to flee a collapsing city. The police won’t help you, and the consulate will need a police report which you can’t get. Poor Ma, she battles on in desperation with her father Dadu helping … trying to find the thief. Meanwhile her husband occasionally calls, but she keeps him in the dark, without telling him what’s happening. He’s more clueless than even baby Mishti, who senses the troubles and is given sweet onions to eat since that’s what there is.

I admit I wanted to strangle the young thief Boomba for his series of transgressions though the plot throws some sympathy his way. And Ma, who’s taken a bit from the shelter in the past, is not too squeaky clean herself. Ma and Boomba are trying to do what they can to get by and help their families. Still mostly you hope beyond hope that Ma, Dadu, and Mishti will be on that damn flight … get on the tarmac and lift off. Down the stretch you’ll be navigating some twists and then the ending will hit down like a hammer. It’s a short novel that packs a punch.

Train Dreams by Denis Johnson / FSG / 116 pages / 2011

4.5 stars. I loved the storytelling and earthiness of this novella … the depictions of the natural world and the oddities Robert Grenier sees living out West during the first decades of the 20th century. Robert is an adopted orphan who grows up in Idaho in the 1890s. He works in lumber and for the railroad then takes a job in Washington state repairing the Gorge bridge, only to return home later to find his valley up in flames.

What happens to his wife and child early in the book and the sadness he goes through is very hard and touches down to the bone. He struggles with his own guilt, which almost overwhelms him, yet continues on to have an array of experiences, seeing the world in ways that you come to know. There’s even a bit of humor or whimsy to the characters and animals he comes across working as a wagon driver. Like he almost saw Elvis Presley at a train stop once but he was hung up and didn’t. Though he did see the fattest man in the world when he came through town on an exhibit.

Robert’s grief makes him see wolf creatures too at times … and he wonders if one is his daughter. All around it’s a good short almost mystical tale at times that I wished had been made into a full-fledged novel about Robert Grenier. This was my first Denis Johnson book but now I’d like to read his others.

The movie adaptation of Train Dreams with Joel Edgerton is good too. It’s a quiet film that gets across Robert’s struggles and his life in the West. It received an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, and Original Song but didn’t win any in the end. Interesting too — is that Will Patton, who narrated the audiobook so well back in 2011, also does the voiceover narration in the 2025 film. 14 years later, wow! He should win an award for his impeccable narration. It gave me a real feel for Robert Grenier’s life.

Tinkers by Paul Harding / Bellevue / 192 pages / 2009

3 stars. This is a hard one to know what to think. It has some beautiful descriptive poetic writing to it, but the structure and piecemeal ramblings were a bit hard at times to follow and stay engaged. I’ve always wanted to read it since the novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2010 and is a deathbed story in which the character George reflects back on his life and father, which I thought I’d like, but it proved sort of tough to get through despite it being short.

The story follows George Crosby in the days before he dies and his memories from his childhood. It looks at George’s life as well as his father’s, Howard, who was a traveling peddler in 1920s Massachusetts. George fixes clocks for a living and Howard in a parallel narrative struggles with epileptic seizures. He bit George as a youngster which his wife commits him to a mental hospital for, but he later flees. George grows up pretty penniless but has an affinity for clocks, which there are some lyrical and metaphorical passages about.

I admired the author’s latest 2023 novel This Other Eden but Tinkers proved to be harder to fully engage with even though I was ready and willing.

That’s all for now. Have you read any of these — and if so, what did you think? Have a great week.