Hi ho, it’s been a quick week. First off, thanks to those who participated in the No Kings peaceful protests yesterday, so good to express one’s first amendment right to free speech against what is happening under the current U.S. administration. It looked to be a great turnout!
We didn’t have any near us in Canada, but we do support the sentiments. It’s been a while since I flew to Denver in January 2017 to participate in the Women’s March, and if I had more notice, I’d like to have done so again. I was just in D.C. and I missed the march this time, argh. But my brother shared some protest photos where he was in Pasadena, Calif., and my sister in San Francisco. All and all it seemed a great day.
It was a bit quieter here. Our snow from last week has melted and we’re back to fall again. I’ve been walking our younger dog Willow down our road. Stella is too old now to go too far.
And I’m gearing up for a knee replacement surgery I’m having the second week of November. Sigh. I’ve been through this before — two years ago I did the first knee, now I’m doing the other. It’s quite an ordeal … but after three months I hope to be back walking okay and feeling fairly normal. And the good news might be: I’ll be ready for activities come spring and summer next year. Yay.
In book news, I don’t think I ever pictured the Booker Prize shortlist so here it is above. The prize will be announced on Nov. 10 and I would be a bit of a fool to pick which one will win since the judges seem to like to trick us at the last minute. I have only read Katie Kitamura’s novel Audition so far but I’d like to particularly read Flesh and Sonia and Sunny when my copy at the library comes in. I think the winner will be likely one of those three. Though then The Land in Winter or Flashlight will get it right? I’m slightly leaning towards Kiran Desai’s novel Sonia and Sunny for the win, but I haven’t read it yet, so what do I know. Katie Kitamura is certainly a beguiling kind of writer with her odd/lone protagonists and I’ve read and liked all three of her books. So your guess is as good as mine.
And now I’ll leave you with a couple reviews of what I finished lately.
The Death of Us by Abigail Dean / Viking / 336 pages / 2025
Synopsis: This novel follows the lives of a young married couple in their 30s in London (Isabel and Edward) who struggle in the aftermath of a violent home invasion that changes their lives. Twenty-five years later, divorced and in their 50s, they find themselves (along with the other victims) gearing for the upcoming trial of the arrested perpetrator. Told in alternating chapters by Isabel and Edward you get their differing views on the case, their faults, and struggles, but also their connection to one another and love.
My Thoughts: 4.0 stars. I don’t often read crime novels but this one was hailed very highly when it came out in April and I added it to my summer list. It’s a pretty potent crime story … of a serial killer/rapist on a spree, so trigger warnings abound. But it also unfolds quite convincingly and effectively and you come to know and root for the married couple Isabel and Edward. What happens to them impacts their lives and marriage in ways that catch you up and propel you through the story.
The story swirls around quite long with small developments in their case and in their marriage as it crumbles a bit. They get to know a few of the other victims as well as the detective Etta Eliogu closely and Isabel makes a fateful decision when the case goes cold that she hopes might yield some more information.
It’s a different kind of crime story — not really a whodunit since you come to know that — but more of a victims’ story. The novel has a couple ebbs and flows in it and maybe a couple confusing transitions — since it jumps non-chronologically between the timelines — that I had to go back for in the audiobook. Still it’s easy enough to follow and you really get a sense of the characters of Isabel and Edward as real people … and root for their marriage and an arrest of the South London home invader.
The Fact Checker by Austin Kelley / Atlantic Monthly / 256 pages / 2025
Synopsis: This novel follows an unnamed protagonist who’s an obsessive fact checker at the New Yorker magazine circa 2004 in NYC. His job is to check every little detail on articles to make sure they’re the truth. He’s handled various serious pieces on terrorists, but then later he gets tripped up on an easier article he doesn’t expect to have any problems with …. about an organic farm that brings produce to the farmer’s market in the city.
He spends time (and a night) with a woman named Sylvia who works there who says something “nefarious” is going on but then she disappears the day after. He becomes worried and goes on a quest to find out what happened to her and if allegations about the place are true.
My Thoughts: 3.7 stars. I’m bucking the trend of the book’s low ratings on Goodreads (it did receive critical praise elsewhere). Austen Kelley deserves more love for this quirky, amusing novel. I too dabbled as a newspaper copy editor for years and I had to laugh particularly at the start of this debut. Then parts of it get a bit weird, other parts are amusing as he eventually makes a trip to the farm (a cult like place) to find out what’s going on.
Along the way the protagonist comes off as a pretty endearing bar-going, baseball-loving, factoid-loving mess of a nerd … who can’t let things go. He must get to the bottom of it and his search for truth and the facts and to help Sylvia. And he will … probably by mistake one day into the future. I think I could have a drink with him, but I don’t know either where Sylvia is. You’ll find out a little at the end. Note: the novel has one trigger warning for an odd scene of a sheep being killed, which I didn’t care for, so that was my quibble. Otherwise thumbs up.
That’s all for now. What about you — have you read either of these and what did you think? How’s your reading going?
My experience with the Booker list is that I usually don’t like the winner but do like some of the als0-rans. I haven’t read any of them yet, but will probably read Sonia & Sunny.m
Like Mae, I haven’t read any on the Booker shortlist. I might get to some of them later. “The Fact Checker” also sounds interesting to me, maybe because I’ve been married all these years to a (now retired) editor. He still makes his editing opinions known to me! I love the fall colors of your pictures. We don’t get much of that here. For the most part, the leaves just turn brown and fall with the first frost, which usually comes in December.