Sailing Away

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.