The Cue Card

Hi everyone. We still have about 10 days left before Christmas and I hope you’re enjoying the holiday season whether it’s Christmas, Hanukkah, or your own tradition, I hope it’s great. On Monday, I picked up our tree and we just decorated it, listening to traditional holiday songs, which helped me get into the spirit.

Will you be having a white Christmas or a green one this year? We’ve had pretty good snow so far this winter, and next week it looks like a huge cold front with Arctic temps will be moving in, yikes! There’s nowhere to escape, so I’ll be staying right in front of the fireplace, hopefully with a good book. 🙂 

And during this time of year, I just want to thank those who visit this blog and comment on my site. You all are really wonderful and I appreciate it very much. I’ve enjoyed discussing books with you and hearing about where you live and your thoughts on what you’re reading and a host of things. So thank you for being a blog friend and visitor here. 

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

Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout / Random House / 304 pages / 2022 

Thankfully Lucy Barton is back. This time her previously divorced husband William, a scientist, whisks her away from New York City in the early days of the pandemic to ride out what turns out to be months in the seaside town of Crosby, Maine. Lucy is still mourning her second husband David, a cellist, who died the year before. But soon thoughts of the pandemic and the lockdowns take over their lives and Lucy and William navigate as best as they can staying isolated and watching the news late at night. Lucy walks the beach sometimes with their friend Bob Burgess and talks on the phone with her two grown married daughters Chrissy and Becca — who have problems of their own as the pandemic goes on.

It’s a place we’re all familiar with — those early chaotic days of the pandemic before the vaccines came out, and it seems Strout captures it very well with the character of Lucy. Her wide-eyed disbelief of what is happening and the deaths she hears about. She replays the thoughts to a T. There’s a bond with Lucy, the person she is, and the conversational way the novel is written. 

I continue to follow her, and the characters of her family and their problems: William and the two daughters have bigger roles in this story. I won’t say how the story plays out exactly. Though since Lucy and William go to stay in Crosby Maine — I immediately thought of Strout’s other character Olive Kitteridge who’s always lived there and is mentioned in this book. Wow the two heavyweights: Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge spoken about in one book! 

Of all the Lucy novels, perhaps this one is my favorite so far. And Kimberly Farr reads the audiobook like no other. She becomes the character. And with the writing and story, we can all feel like we’ve come to know Lucy so well.

River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile by Candace Millard / Doubleday / 368 pages / 2022

Ever since seeing the movie Mountains of the Moon in 1990, I have been fascinated by the late British explorer Sir Richard Burton — his talents as a linguist, knowing 25+ languages, and his appreciation for other cultures — as well as his expedition with John Hanning Speke to search for the source of the White Nile. This book includes the epic adventure of Burton’s East African Expedition that took place in 1857, which had much hardship and drama. Not only did they confront continual fevers and diseases, but dealt with desertions, not enough provisions, storms, drought, and each other’s egos and personalties. 

Millard does well capturing the two explorers who were vastly different, the African terrain, and how their African guide Sidi Mubarak Bombay and others really helped them along their arduous 650+ mile journey from Zanzibar Island to Lake Tanganyika and beyond. Burton and Speke were the first Europeans to get there, but it took quite a toll on them. I was particularly aghast at how debilitating their afflictions on the journey were: Burton became nearly paralyzed and Speke temporarily blind and also deaf from stabbing a beetle with a penknife that had crawled into his ear.   

What happened when they returned to England was quite a falling out. Speke had many pent-up resentments toward Burton, who was the captain of the expedition, and believed Lake Nyanza was the Nile’s source, while Burton said he hadn’t proved it and thought Lake Tanganyika might be. Speke was able to mount another expedition to East Africa without Burton, while Burton married, worked at a couple consulates, fell into despair, and took up translating ancient erotic texts. 

It’s quite a tragic story since the two explorers really became adversaries, though were still close from their years together on that epic trek. Millard details what became of each of them: Burton, Speke, Bombay (whose life and travels were amazing), and the quest for the White Nile’s source. I enjoyed finding out what happened to them all.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett / children’s classic / 1911 

I haven’t read this 1911 children’s classic since I was very young — when I was enthralled by the garden on the other side of the wall. This time I listened to the audiobook read by actress Helena Bonham Carter and it was lovely to revisit the tale whose details I’d sort of forgotten over many decades. 

But you remember: the surly orphan Mary Lennox, age 10, from British India who comes to live on her uncle’s estate on the Yorkshire moors in England. And eventually comes to find an old buried key to a locked away garden. Soon after, she befriends Dickon, a boy in tune with nature, and Colin, the uncle’s neglected son whose mother had died and thinks he’s a hunch back that will die soon too. Ahh but Mary brings them to the secret garden that gives the children such joy and healing. And you know the rest.

I had long imagined this secret garden as a kid. What it looked like and how they cultivated it. I had my own garden growing up where I grew vegetables. It wasn’t exactly secret, but the rest of the family didn’t really care, so it was my own space, which was wonderful. I grew cantaloupe and lettuce and such. Every child could use a secret garden, which makes this classic novel so relatable. But this time around, the novel surprised me a bit in how it sort of turns from Mary’s secret garden story to the sick kid Colin’s. I guess he’s the heir of the estate in a patriarch society of the early 1900s. Still Mary is the cog in the wheel that gets it turning.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read these books and what did you think? Have a wonderful holiday and I’ll chat with you later. 

Hi all. Happy Remembrance Day, or Veteran’s Day to others. Here’s a toast to all who’ve served their country and those too who voted and stood up for democracy.

I was glad to see this week that many of the crazies didn’t win in the U.S. midterm election, which is quite a great relief. As Liz Cheney said the losses by far-right candidates and election deniers were a “clear victory for team normal.” Hooray. Though votes are still being counted in a few key locations so keep hope alive that the trend continues. 

Meanwhile we had a very cold week here with some single-digit days (see the steam coming off the river), but now we’re back into the 30s, which feels completely balmy in comparison. And my book club met on Zoom to discuss Nita Prose’s debut novel The Maid, which was a quirky and entertaining-enough mystery that I think everyone enjoyed. We might pick Sarah Winman’s novel Still Life next, but we will see if everyone agrees.  

In other book news I noticed that Calgary author Suzette Mayr just won Canada’s top literary award — the Giller Prize — this week for her novel The Sleeping Car Porter. Wow, that’s big for us here in Calgary! The novel just came out at the end of September so I haven’t heard a lot about it yet, but the publisher describes it this way: When a mudslide strands a Canadian passenger train in 1929, Baxter, a gay Black sleeping car porter, must contend with the perils of white passengers, ghosts, and his secret love affair.

It sounds good and I just put my name on the library wait list for it along with 515 other readers. Oh my. There’s going to be a long wait, though I’m sure the library will buy more copies.

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

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield / Flatiron /240 pages / 2022

Synopsis: This is about a gay married couple (Miri and Leah) who seem very committed to each other, and then Leah, a marine biologist, goes on an underwater dive research mission in a submersible (with a crew of two others), which is only supposed to last a few weeks but then something mysterious goes wrong and Leah’s out there for about six months with no communication or power at the bottom of the ocean — so her partner Miri doesn’t know what’s happening back at home.

My Thoughts: 

I listened to this as audiobook, which I almost put down after the first couple sections thinking the story (mostly about their relationship) wasn’t holding me much, but then I stuck with it and by the last section called Hadal Zone I was totally invested and gripped. 

The chapters alternate between the two women Miri and Leah, and from Miri you come to know about their relationship, how they met, their backstory, and how much she is missing Leah, and from Leah emerges a picture of what is going on during the underwater ocean mission. I seemed to gravitate more to Leah’s chapters because I wanted to know what the heck was going to happen on the submarine.

Later Miri’s chapters delve into the mission and how things begin to change for Leah. Whoa. I don’t want to say too much, but it gets a bit freaky and mysterious and I was glued to the last few chapters. Not everything is resolved or explained at the end but you learn enough. Throughout the novel, the story has a lot of heartfelt words … about love, grief, and life in the oceans. You could underline probably a lot of her lines if you wanted to. It’s a weird novel but quite good too.

Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson / Penguin / 256 pages / 1952

Synopsis: This is a memoir of sorts published in 1952 by the author who died in 1965 and is still famous today for her various spooky tales. Many of the chapters apparently were taken from magazine articles she wrote back in the ’40s and ’50s and then were stuffed together to make this book.

My Thoughts: 

I’m intrigued by Shirley Jackson — who she was and how and why she wrote the tales that she did. She seemed a whiz and a huge talent. And I try to read one of her books around Halloween time each year. So far, I’ve read two of her novels — The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in a Castle — both of which I admired as well as her short story The Lottery, which is a chilling classic. 

From this memoir, I was hoping to get a glimpse of Shirley — the writer, who wrote spooky tales, but most of this book is about her and her husband and their lives raising their children. It’s a very domestic look … and you might never suspect her creative darker sides if you read this. She’s all light and humor with her kids and husband. Parts of it are indeed funny and other parts get a bit tedious about the antics of her young kids and their everyday lives at school and home. Everyone thinks their kids are cuter than perhaps anyone else wants to hear — so you get a lot of tales of them. 

 Still I was glad I finished this one, though it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. Shirley seemed a very patient and caring Mother … to her three kids, the fourth one is born at the end of the book. The good thing about this domestic memoir … is that we find out that Shirley had a funny sense of humor. And at one point she says she believes in ghosts and later says she wasn’t about to mess with a broken furnace and get electrocuted. But you can’t glean too much of her fiction writing from this book. In fact, I really wonder how she got all her writing done while raising her kids and the amount of cooking — which she seemed to enjoy — doing for them and for her apparently unfaithful husband. But I’m glad she did.

After finishing the memoir, I looked up Shirley Jackson’s children who seem to be well and all close to their 80s now, and one son Laurence Jackson Hyman put out a book of her letters in 2021 and an early short story of hers just this year. Wow, so her writings continue to come out. 

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

Hi. Are you gearing up for Halloween? I admit I haven’t read anything spooky lately, but we had a crazy week weather-wise that reminds me of Halloween-time. I think one afternoon this past week reached a golden 75F degrees and then just days later — today — we had our first snowstorm of the season! Wow we got dumped on — maybe 10 inches, it’s still coming. I think all the wet snow could break branches so I’ve gone out to knock the snow off our trees.

Good thing I just put away the tomato plants for the year. I’m sure the snow will melt away this coming week, though it reminds me winter is just around the corner. I used to avoid winter but now I try to embrace the fun things about it like cross-country skiing, hot coco, and happy dogs, lol.

In book news, I see that Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka just won the 2022 Booker Prize for his novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, which is his second novel that came 10 years after his first, Whoa! The judges called it “a searing, mordantly funny satire set amid the murderous mayhem of a Sri Lanka beset by civil war.”

I’m going to put it on my list for sometime down the road. The Booker has a way of introducing me to new authors. And I might try his first novel called The Legend of Pradeep Mathew as well — which I hear is about an aging sportswriter who goes on a madcap search for a famous cricket player. It sounds like the author has both humor and depth to him, which is usually a winning combination. Congrats to Shehan!

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

Natural History: Stories by Andrea Barrett / Norton / 208 pages / 2022

I was most interested to check out this book because author Andrea Barrett is known for writing so eloquently about the natural world and her focus on the early women in science is much to be admired. Yet I’ve only read her novel The Voyage of the Narwhal from 1998, which I recall liking quite a bit. So I snatched this one up as an audiobook and liked parts of it but was looking for a bit more.

This book is a collection of six interconnected short stories that includes various characters from her fiction over the years, which I hadn’t read so there were times I was a bit confused by who was who and how they were related. I was most interested in following the woman Henrietta Atkins, a school teacher and butterfly/moth collector who has a long friendship with the notable science writer Daphne Bannister and tells a lie that ends her ties to a close male friend.

Henrietta seems to be the main character in this collection with some stories moving back and forth throughout her life, following her friendships, regrets about her life choices, and those related to her. Most of them are set in a small community in central New York state.

There were glimpses for me of wonder and interest in these science-natural history-related stories and some great writing … but just as I was getting hooked on one then sometimes it would change to someone or something else without fully completing for me the event or character’s resolution to it.

So while I liked how it linked the stories of Henrietta’s life and those who knew her, I found there were a lot of characters and she lost me on some aspects of all of them. Still I liked how she showed the admirable legacy of women passing along their career interests in natural history and science to the next generation.

Thanks to the publisher W.W. Norton for giving me an advanced copy to review.

Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid / Ballantine / 384 pages / 2022

This novel was on my summer list. Remember summer? My poor summer list … I only read 5 out of 10 novels on it as I snuck in a few others. Paltry I know, but I haven’t given up on those novels. They’re still on my radar.

As for this one, I picked it up because I’m a huge tennis fan, player, and even officiator … but I found the main character tennis champion Carrie Soto to be a pretty unlikable character the whole way through until the very end where she lightens up a bit. I know she’s supposed to be flawed as a tough, brash “battle axe” who knows what she wants, but she makes for a pretty cold fish.

Sure I can admire Carrie’s slice backhand, natural athleticism, and her will to come out of retirement to give the tour and the Grand Slams one more shot at age 37, but her personality and mind left me pretty flat. I like a little more spice and thought to my sports heroes.

Granted the novel is a fast read — it’s light fare — so it’s about as easy going down as pudding on a spoon, but it stays pretty much the same the whole way through — one match or training session after another. I can watch pro tennis for hours … but in this novel — not so much. The dialogue is pretty perfunctory and most of what happens is sort of obvious — as well as a few things in the story about tennis are a bit of a stretch, like her being able to beat a guy pro player (her training partner), or a graphite racket breaking after a shot, or coming back from ACL surgery like she does etc.

But I went with those things. And I admire TJR for writing a tennis novel as I love sports novels generally — and tennis even more. (I’m not against strong female characters or competitive ones — it’s just that Carrie Soto seems pretty mean — winning is everything! — most of the way through this.) But I liked how TJR inserted the band’s name Daisy Jones & the Six into the narrative (from her earlier novel) when Carrie is reading an article about them, which was fun. I guess I liked that TJR novel about Daisy Jones — which had more to it — more than this one … though I might be in the minority about not totally loving Carrie Soto.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read these authors and what did you think? Happy Halloween week.

Hi, how is everyone’s October going? All is well here and today we will celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving. It’s hard to believe, but it’s here already. It always has me confused to have Thanksgiving before Halloween (being an American) but that’s how things are done up north.

And we’ve been having some of the prettiest days of the year lately and it’s nice that many of the trees are full of golden leaves and the air is crisp and clear. Here is a photo of Stella on a recent morning walk as we head into the trees.

We’ve been spending some time at our new house in the countryside on weekends, which has been a lot of fun. We will go there later today with the dogs and a picnic. It’s still empty so we will use lawn chairs for seats, lol.

We’ve been making decisions on renovations and interior decorating, which will start later this month. So we won’t be moving in completely until maybe December. Still it’s fun to go — as there’s much that needs to be done … as well as to see in the country. Yesterday while bicycling — not far from there — we saw a lone moose on a hillside. Such an awkward and interesting animal. This one was fairly young and didn’t have much of a rack on his head but he looked serene and still. 

And now I will leave you with reviews of what I finished lately. 

The Maid by Nita Prose / Ballantine / 304 pages / 2022

This debut novel by a Canadian author came out in January and was quite a hit early on so I’m a bit late to the party about it, but like others, I found the story entertaining and an engaging audio listen. I picked the novel for my book club, which was looking for something light and fun to read …. as opposed to all the deep and depressing stuff we usually discuss, LOL. So this novel I think fits the bill well and was actually much better than I expected.

As many already know, it follows the story of Molly Gray, a 25-year-old girl who was raised and lived with her dear Grandmother before she passed away, and now Molly works as a maid at the Regency Grand Hotel. Molly seems to be somewhere on the autism spectrum and is a bit unique. She’s a neat freak and likes order and being a maid, but often takes things completely at face value, which leaves her a bit vulnerable to being taken advantage of and being conned. In time Molly becomes entangled in a murder case after she finds a guest dead — the wealthy Mr. Black — in a hotel suite. The police come to believe she’s a suspect and Molly finds herself in a heap of trouble.

What follows is a light mystery and a murder trial of the case. The story might have a couple wobbles towards the end as it links all the dots, but still it’s quite enjoyable thanks to Molly being an endearing protagonist along with some turns and clever writing along the way. It has a way of making perspectives about truth and justice, and similarities of the human condition between the haves and have-nots become visible and important — just like Molly. 

The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka / Knopf / 192 pages / 2022

This was my first Otsuka novel and at first in some places her style of listing things at length as part of her storytelling — such as all of the swimmers at the pool and all of the things the elderly lady Alice remembers — sort of tried my patience. It also took me a little while to get used to her collective narration in this book. But after awhile I was drawn in by the relatability and the perceptiveness of what she describes as well as the sound of her poetry-style of prose, which is read expertly for the audio by Traci Kato-Kiriyama. I became so captured that I listened to various chapters several times over. 

At first is the story of the pool and a group of committed swimmers who use it … and then a crack in the pool develops. It becomes almost mystical or alien: what the crack is or means for the swimmers. Later the story transitions to the life of the elderly swimmer Alice and her estranged daughter who witnesses her dementia and decline and seems too late in trying to get back into her life. For anyone who has experienced a parent going through this … this novel will hit home right into your heart. 

Early on, the novel seems to have some tongue and cheek humor to it and parts were a bit funny as described. I laughed at parts. Towards the end, dealing with Alice’s dementia the tone is quite direct and doesn’t shy away from the awfulness of the disease, which so many elderly seniors go through. It’s sad and rings true. I see now what an Otsuka novel can do. She is a unique writer and I haven’t read anyone quite like her before perhaps. I will have to go back sometime and read her earlier novels. 

On Animals by Susan Orlean / Avid Reader Press / 256 pages / 2021

I’m an Orlean fan … of her writing, her humor, her sensibilities, and her love of animals. My husband and I listened to this nonfiction book as an audiobook read by the author while we were on an eight-hour road trip to the lake in September. 

Fourteen chapters of these are journalistic essays that were written over the years about such things as: chickens, mules, dogs, oxen, pandas, orcas, tigers, rabbits, lions, donkeys, and taxidermists. I had no idea Orlean, a writer at the New Yorker, had written these essays or that she was such an animal person, but I’m glad she is.

Her journalistic essays are pretty factual pieces, which include some nuggets of solid reporting and enlightenment to her readers on her subject matters. She seems to have the perfect eye, fascination, and skill to conveying incredible things about these wonderful creatures. My husband liked Orlean’s journalistic pieces best … and while I liked some particularly well such as the chapters about: chickens, pandas, the lost dog, the orca, and the donkeys, I sort of liked her personal chapters best such as her introduction about how she came to be an animal person, and her concluding essay about the farm and animals she once had in the Hudson Valley. 

In those, her lovely personality and humor shine through as do her feelings for her fellow companions. I can relate to many of her sentiments for animals and enjoyed much of the book, but for those who aren’t as keyed into the details of certain animals and their owners this book will likely not be for them.

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

Ahoy. Did you watch the Queen’s funeral today? Wow we had it on, which is saying something since my husband and I have been away this past week with the dogs at Kootenay Lake outside of Nelson, BC. It’s a beautiful area (just about four hours north of Spokane, Washington) and has been a perfect getaway from our house being on the market and the current destruction of our street going on back home. The City is putting in new pipes apparently, but the timing couldn’t be worse. So it’s been a great time to flee. 

We had planned this trip back in the spring and it’s worked out well. Is there anything better than a fall (or almost fall) getaway? Probably not. The air feels clear and cool. And a heavy rainstorm seems to have squelched the smoke from the wildfires for the time being. We are enjoying some walks and bike rides around the area and have watched the Kokanee salmon do their spawning in the creeks. The bears are out and about, but we have mostly steered clear of them, though one left paw prints on the deck overnight and the dogs didn’t even wake up. I guess they are too tired from all their swimming. And now I’ll leave you with reviews of what I finished lately. 

On Java Road by Lawrence Osborne / Hogarth Press / 256 pages / 2022

This novel is set in Hong Kong around 2019 during the time of the civil unrest, protestors, and the Chinese crackdowns, which adds a large intrigue factor. The story follows Adrian Gyle, a British reporter in his 50s living on Java Road, who’s been in Hong Kong 20 years, as he finds his career on the way down and crosses paths with his old Cambridge friend Jimmy Tang, the son of one of Hong Kong’s wealthiest families. They are socioeconomically very different — Adrian was a scholarship boy in college from a place no one had heard of and Jimmy rich and foreign, but they bonded over their studies of Chinese poetry and language. 

These many years later their friendship still includes a complex, enticing exchange of banter, privilege, and class, and at first you don’t know where the story’s headed. There’s a tense atmosphere on the streets of Hong Kong as those, like Adrian, side with the young pro-democracy protestors and others, like Jimmy’s billionaire family, with the Chinese authorities wanting to put them down. Either way, many like Jimmy, see these protestors on a suicide mission and that revolution will never happen there in a hundred years. 

Then Jimmy, who’s married, gets secretly involved with a 23-year-old-whip-smart protestor Rebecca To, whose wealthy family the Tangs have long known. Adrian also seems drawn to Rebecca, and you wonder if he will get involved with her, but then Jimmy’s affair with Rebecca suddenly gets exposed and she goes missing. Soon Adrian begins trying to find her and to investigate if Jimmy had anything to do with her disappearance.

It’s an intricate, slow-burn story that poses questions about their friendship, trust, and life in Hong Kong. This was my first novel by this author and I was impressed by how much the Hong Kong setting and the main character’s struggle to keep a moral compass become apart of the story. You have to be a bit patient letting it meander and unwind where it wants – but those who like foreign-based novels with some intrigue I think will be well-rewarded in the end. I was caught up in it and hope to read more of Osborne’s books set in other far-flung places. Currently he’s based in Bangkok and seems like one of smartest novelists we have writing today. 

The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar / Morrow / 336 pages / 2006

Whoa. Author Thrity Umrigar is always a wonderful storyteller but man her novels can have a lot of very hard and sad things happen in them that will slice you open and leave you to bleed. I have read two prior to this that include: The Story Hour and Everybody’s Son. This one, which came out back in 2006, was no exception. I listened to the audio for a book club discussion, and sometime I will go on to read her 2018 sequel The Secrets Between Us, which I’m sure will leave me another incomprehensible mess. 

Umrigar’s stories have a way of accentuating the cruel inequalities between people and comparing their worlds. In this novel, Bhima is a 65-year-old illiterate servant to an upper-class Parsi woman named Sera Dubash in Bombay, India. They both have girls that are pregnant — but Bhima’s granddaughter Maya (who she has raised) is unwed and has brought shame upon her house. She was the first to be attending college in her family (thanks to Sera paying for her) and now this catastrophe has happened and she has had to drop out. 

Sera’s daughter Dinoz, on the other hand, is newly married to Viraf and they are expecting soon. During the crisis over Maya’s dilemma, both Bhima, who has always been poor, and Sera reflect back on their family misfortunes and tough marriages, which turn out to be not good. In fact their husbands and other males in the novel are humans that will make you want to twist their necks in two … they are terrible and the source of much misery. But Bhima and Sera persevere and rely on one another over the years, and Bhima and Maya become like family to Sera’s even though they are not in the same class. Their trust seems firm. 

Then towards the end Bhima learns something that rocks her world and will have repercussions far and wide. It’s a twist that I didn’t exactly see coming but then wasn’t too surprised by it either. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire so to speak. So the novel ends soon after with a rift that hopefully will be resolved in the sequel. 

The storytelling and writing in this one are excellent and the author really gets into both of the women’s shoes, alternating chapters and scenes from their viewpoints. I felt for both of them and liked both. The book made me see that India is well behind in women’s rights, but sadly it’s a story that can still happen anywhere. 

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