The Cue Card

Hi. How is your October going? It’s been a beautiful month here, quite dry and warm for this far north and this late in the season. The leaves are mostly down and I need to get raking.

I got behind with things so I didn’t post last weekend and now it seems like it’s been a long time. Do you ever feel like you miss one week and you feel like you’re out of the blogging book loop? Usually I like to post once a week on the weekends and visit other sites too, but when life gets busy it can go by the wayside. How many times do you post a week?  And how do you manage it? Granted my middle age life is fairly mellow compared to others. I just juggle two part-time jobs, two dogs, 1 husband, 1 bungalow, and tennis, gardening, and biking hobbies. Ha. Though sometimes they all converge. Such is life. 

As I turn on the TV news, they’re talking about Adele’s new single out today (Friday) called Easy on Me from her upcoming album 30, due out Nov. 19. Wow the video and song seem really good. The video was filmed in Quebec! You can watch it here. I’m sure her new album will be another blockbuster smash. It appears to be about her divorce.

I liked her previous ones. But it’s been 6 years since her last. And now she’s got a whole new look, right? She got into working out apparently. I’m not sure I can even remember being 30, ha. It was long ago and far far away. (Adele’s actually 33 now.)

Lately we’ve been watching the series American Rust with Jeff Daniels on HBO. It’s okay, though not totally great. Pretty seedy and depressing. We’ve also been watching Season 2 of The Morning Show (on Apple+) but for whatever reason, it’s not grabbing me like Season 1 did. Perhaps it will down the line; I’ve only watched a few episodes.

Then awhile ago, we finished the series The Widow (from 2019) with Kate Beckinsale on Prime. Did anyone see this? It’s about a woman whose husband apparently is killed in a plane crash over the Congo and years later she thinks she sees a man on the news resembling him so she goes to the Congo to try to find out more. It’s a fairly decent suspense drama, though I think my husband picked it more for Kate Beckinsale, right? It was filmed in South Africa, which is cool and is meant to look like Kinshasa.

I can’t think of any other show we’re watching at the moment, but I’m in the midst of the audiobook of Nella Larsen’s excellent novella Passing since I’m looking forward to the movie coming out Oct. 27. It should be good. And now I’ll leave you with a couple reviews of what I finished lately. 

We Run the Tides by Vendela Vida / Ecco / 272 pages / 2021

I listened to the audio read by Marin Ireland and was taken away by the story to the Sea Cliff neighborhood of San Francisco and this nostalgic coming of age tale set in 1984 of Eulabee (age 13) and her small group of friends at the Spragg School for Girls. Her best friend is the beautiful and popular Maria Fabiola. But then Eulabee has a falling out with Maria and her group over an incident they say happened but Eulabee say didn’t … and then Maria disappears. But is it for real or what?

This story seems to capture the cliques and lies among teenage girls and their relations with boys during that young adolescent stage. Eulabee is an earnest and book smart protagonist and there are some funny lines in this novel, often about the dopey adults and teachers she has to deal with. I laughed at some of her thoughts about them even though the book is mostly a coming-age drama that ramps up and gets better in the second half. 

It seems Eulabee is a youngish 13-year-old and she learns the hard way … that people aren’t always nice or what they seem. Her friend Maria is quite a conundrum. The final chapter jumps forward to 2019 when Eulabee is age 50 … and runs into Maria Fabiola again and they look back on their lives a bit. It’s a good way to get perspective on this tale about friendship and growing up in a particular affluent neighborhood while having less and being on its edges. I gave it around 3.5 stars. 

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson 

I’m not exactly sure why I picked this one up but I guess I was looking for a short classic during Halloween month. I hadn’t read RLS before, but he seems to have led an interesting life, growing up in Scotland and traveling widely despite his ill health. He wound up in the South Seas (looking to improve his bronchial problems), and eventually settled in Samoa, with his American wife Fanny, who divorced her previous husband to marry him in San Francisco in 1880. (Wow RLS spent time in Monterey and Napa too.) Kidnapped was first published in a magazine in 1886.

I enjoyed the audio version read by Frederick Davidson Case. The gist of the plot: Set in 1751 outside Edinburgh, Davy Balfour, age 17, is given short shrift in life when his parents die and he goes to his Uncle’s place to settle up … and the next thing he knows he’s in the hold of a ship bound for Caroliny … his Uncle having sold him into slavery. Uh-oh. Luckily the ship crosses paths with Alan Breck Stewart’s, a Jacobite, who befriends David … and they fight off the bad guys, but then get shipwrecked on the rocks … and become separated for awhile and Davy has to survive on an island. Later they reunite and must flee across the heather. 

I like how there is justice for David at the end against his Uncle … and his friendship with Alan Breck survives though there’s quite a quarrel between the two that almost undoes them, with Alan having gambled away Davy’s money. Still David and Alan make a good duo and I enjoyed spending time with them and their swashbuckling adventures and all the Scottish words. It made me slightly think of a Scottish smash-up of the tales of Oliver Twist, Robinson Crusoe, and the Count of Monte Cristo. Hmm all good. I gave it about 3.5 stars. 

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

Hi all. We were in the mountains last week, and it was gorgeous and clear. The doggies came with us and we stayed at a cabin. We had plenty of good hikes and fresh air and all in all it was a great break and birthday week.

Now we are back home, and according to the news, the latest surge in Covid cases here has just about filled all the hospital ICU beds in the province … as well as cancelled most of the non-urgent surgeries. Apparently a hundred percent of these Covid cases in the ICU are of non-vaccinated people. What are we to make of this? It seems mind-boggling really. Not sure why more aren’t following the science, but it’s not fair to others who need other surgeries and wish for an end to the pandemic. At this point, I’m all for mandatory vaccinations. It’s frustrating, right? Doctors at the packed hospitals seem to be at their wit’s end here and I don’t blame them.

Nothing much else of note. I’ve been reading Canadian author Thomas King’s novel Indians on Vacation for my book club, which is meeting this week virtually, and I plan to look at October releases for a preview next weekend. While in the woods, I finished just one audiobook last week. It was a title from my summer list, so here’s a review of that. 

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz / Celadon Books / 336 pages / 2021

Short Synopsis: An author named Jacob “Jake” Bonner is teaching at an MFA program when he comes across a student with a great story he’s in the process of writing. Though a year or so later when Jake hears the student has unfortunately passed away, he takes the story’s plot for his own and has much success … which is all well and good for him until he starts receiving emails from an unknown source that threaten to divulge his theft … and leads him to investigate who’s behind it. Hmm … Uh-oh. 

My Thoughts: I know I’m in the minority about this one — as most on Goodreads raved about this novel, but for whatever reason it wasn’t completely for me. Though I liked the HBO miniseries The Undoing based on the author’s previous novel and I really wanted to like this one a lot too. But perhaps it was due to the wooden delivery of the audiobook narrator, which I listened to, or the dull male protagonist – Jake? Or was it because it’s a slow burn that takes its own long sweet time? 

Granted the issues the novel raises about the writing world and creative appropriation and plagiarism are interesting stuff and the ending is clever. And I liked, too, how it included — Jake’s story as well as it alternates with chapters of the novel he put out — so it’s a story within a story that gets quite entwined. But the execution at the beginning particularly drove me sort of crazy. For a thriller, it just seemed sort of long-winded, repetitive, and spinning its wheels. But man, at the very end it turns pretty twisted. Quite a chilling ending, which sort of snuck up on me, despite the clues being there. So I’ll give it points for that. 

That’s all for now. Have you read this one and if so what are your thoughts, and how are things where you are?

Hi. Book addicts. What’s up?!  How is your September going? Are the days passing too quickly?  Mine seem to be. This month is going fast. And we plan to be away this coming week with the dogs at a cabin in the mountains, doing some hikes. We’re trying to use some of my husband’s vacation time while the weather is still good. It should be a hoot as our new pup Willow is just 10-months-old and she’s full of energy (and licks) but luckily she has learned a lot since we got her last week. She’s figuring things out, and has some puppy training coming up in October. Here is a picture of her zonked out after a day’s activities.

In book news, I see that the Booker Prize shortlist was announced. Whoa. Here are the fiction finalists below. I put their Goodreads ratings beside each of them just to see what some readers thought. 

• The Promise by Damon Galgut  (4.12) 
• A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam (3.79) 
• No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood (3.69) 
• The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed (3.87) 
• Bewilderment by Richard Powers (4.30) 
• Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead (4.16)

I still plan to get to Great Circle, which was on my summer list, as well as Bewilderment and perhaps A Passage North. Maybe I’ll get to No One Is Talking About This, though I don’t know if its internet style or subject matter will be for me. What do you think of the finalists? Have you read any of these? And which do you think will win? I guess I’m leaning towards Bewilderment to win, but they all seem to be very different in style and scope, so who knows.

As for the longlist of fiction books for Canada’s Giller Prize check here and for the U.S.’s National Book Award look here. Both of these will have their shortlists come out on Oct. 5, so that will be interesting. You also might be curious to check out the virtual events this week at the National Book Festival in D.C. (Sept. 17-26), which looks to have a lot of authors speaking, so here’s the schedule for that. I hope to catch some of it, if I can. 

Lastly this past week, I heard that the great QB of the Green Bay Packers — Aaron Rodgers — now has a Book Club. Ha. It’s not really a book club per se … but he’s announcing one book per week on the Pat McAfee show (available via YouTube) that he recommends reading. So far his two recommendations have been: Paulo Coelho’s novel The Alchemist and Jon Krakauer’s nonfiction book Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey Of Pat Tillman. I have not read these but I’m an Aaron Rodgers fan, so wherever Aaron goes, I will go. No offense to his fiancee Shailene Woodley. But isn’t that sort of an odd pairing anyways? Apparently she has never followed football … or watched it? Hmm. While he’s Mr. MVP. But regardless, I think it is great he is emphasizing reading!

That’s all for now. What about you — what are you reading?

I know it’s quite a somber day today on this 20th anniversary of 9/11. It lives in our memories. It’s hard to believe it’s been 20 years. I was living at the time just 4 miles from the Pentagon and went there on my bike that day and saw the fiery destruction. It was a sad and scary day.

A friend in my Hains Point tennis group worked at the Pentagon and told me that in the section and “ring” where he was sitting the whole building shook heavily and the lights went out (the plane smashed through three of the five rings of the building).

Luckily he was able to get out and only then from outside did he see what had happened so close to him. Meanwhile the burn victims were sent by ambulance to Arlington hospital. It’s still chilling these many years later, the loss of lives in D.C., N.Y., and PA. 

Anyways I won’t go on at length about it — as everyone knows where they were and how awful it was and the lives it changed. Every 9/11 is a reminder of that terrible day and the aftermath that followed, especially on the East Coast and to those affected.

The good news is this past week we were in the mountains in Banff National Park for a few days enjoying some hikes and bike rides and when we came home we picked up our new Labrador puppy on Friday. We had been planning this since July so it wasn’t a sudden decision. She is close to 8-months-old now and is named Willow from the breeders who had her. She is a sweetheart girl and gets along well with our 9-year-old Labrador Stella, though none of us can believe the energy this pup has. She’s a hurricane of energy, so we are full-on now helping her acclimatize, exercise, and learn.  

I don’t have too much book news this week. I’m just reading a long-ish novel for PW. But three books came in for me at the library that look good.  Do you know these ones? 

a) Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang — A memoir by the author who came to the U.S. with her family from China in 1994 as a 7-year-old undocumented girl and found her way through years of hunger and poverty in New York’s Chinatown.

b) Fight Night by Miriam Toews — Set in Toronto, the narrative alternates between a 9-year-old girl (Swiv) who’s been suspended from school and her grandmother who fights for their family. 

c) American Rust by Philipp Meyer — A gritty drama set in a Pennsylvania steel town about an act of violence that changes the lives of two friends and their families forever. 

Thanks to those of you who told me about the novel American Rust, which came out originally in 2009. The Showtime TV series of it is starting tomorrow night with Jeff Daniels as the chief of police. Let me know if any of these books appeal to you. We plan to start watching American Rust (I think we get it?) … meanwhile we recently finished watching Bosch Season 7 (a series we liked a lot) … and we’re in the middle of the series Nine Perfect Strangers, which is pretty nutso, but just a fun dark thing too. 

What do you think of these? Cheers.

Happy Labor Day weekend to everyone. Ugh, is it already the end of summer? I admit summer here was a bit of a bust this year as July and August were chock full of smoke and gray days from wildfires west of us, but now that September is here it’s turned beautiful and blue. So perhaps fall is the ticket. It’s cooled down in the mornings and there is already a bit of crispness in the air. We are headed to the mountains for a few days this week and will be loving the hikes and bike rides around Banff. It should be gorgeous. 

How did everyone do on their summer reading lists? I finished 8 of 12 novels on my list, while also reading for PW and my book club. So I guess I did all right and still plan to get to the other books in time. But now it seems fall book lists are upon us. Fall reads usually go a bit deeper and longer than those frivolous summer beach reads, right? They tend to be more literary. We will see. I have not picked up a fall novel yet, but I’m on hold for many at the library. I wonder what will be the big fall novel this year? Will it be Amor Towles’s novel The Lincoln Highway (due out Oct. 5), or will it be one from September, or will it be something else? Hmm. I guess time will tell. And now I’ll leave you with a few reviews of what I finished lately. 

Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy /Flatiron /272 pages /2021 

Synopsis: This novel is what I would call a bit of an eco-thriller set in the Scottish Highlands … about Inti Flynn whose project with her team of wolf biologists is to reintroduce 14 wolves back into the wild there without upsetting the local sheep and landowners too much.

She lives with her twin sister Aggie who has gone through some type of trauma and has gone mute. While Inti has something called “mirror-touch synesthesia” in which she feels the pain of other people/animals when she sees them being afflicted. The plot involves a mystery when a local villager is killed and Inti is afraid the community will think the wolves did it, so she tries to solve it on her own. Meanwhile she gets involved with the chief of police in town. 

My Thoughts: I liked various parts of the story — the idea of “re-wilding” to save areas of the world that have been affected by climate change and about the wolves themselves and their packs, which are stunning animals. The murder mystery parts too had its moments of drawing me in … as did the Scottish Highlands setting … though the plot is sort of entwined too with her sister’s trauma, which comes to light in due time. Towards the end it gets a bit crazy and there are some elements that seem to stretch one’s believability. Some of it seemed a bit over-the-top, like a thriller can get. I think I wanted less of that and more of a deeper burn of what comes to pass. Still it’s a fast read and it has an interesting subject matter in the wolves, I wasn’t as into the trauma angle in this one and I liked the author’s previous novel Migrations better.  

When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain / Ballantine / 384 pages / 2021

I listened to this novel as an audiobook read by the talented Marin Ireland. The story has considerable talk of trauma in it and sex abuse to minors – so just a warning about that. It’s also a slow burn of a mystery (not a thriller) about a detective (Anna Hart), who after suffering a loss from a tragic accident, returns to her childhood town of Mendocino, Calif., to recuperate, and then happens to get involved in a missing girl case, teaming with her childhood friend Will, now the chief of police. 

It’s set in 1993, around the time (the real) Polly Klaas went missing and that case runs parallel to their case of the missing Cameron Curtis, age 15. The narrative alternates between the missing girl case and the detective Anna’s past, growing up with her foster parents and things that happened with a missing friend Jenny. 

I was a bit stunned by the amount of trauma in the novel, but I eventually persevered and it turned into a worthwhile mystery. I liked how the detective Anna is able to perceive people — witnesses and suspects — so well. She seems to have great intuition about their lives and intentions. As well as I liked how she gets a dog (Cricket) who is a great companion to her during the case along with Will. There’s a lot of talk in this book between the cops trying to figure out the clues and the case … so it is not a quick mystery. Some of it you could figure out — but still Paula McLain writes with some nice touches and observations, which made it a decent audio listen even though it doesn’t have a lot of plot twists.

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata / Grove Press / 176 pages / 2018

Keiko lives for her job at a convenience store in Toyko. She’s never felt “normal” or fit in exactly with society but has excelled on her shifts at the store. At age 36, after 18 years there, people around her worry she’ll never get married and get a “real” job. So she makes a sham arrangement with a former co-worker that appeases them and begins to look for another job … but it throws off her feeling of herself … and well-being… so she takes matter into her own hands. 

I know this slim novel makes good points about spoofing societal norms … and gender roles, which I thought was good, but I couldn’t get overly excited about the story. Also her former co-worker, who Keiko gets together with, is quite harsh and repugnant in what he says to her … so giving him a platform or big role was tough. I also wondered if Keiko was on the autism spectrum, but that angle is not addressed by her family or those around her, which puzzled me a bit. Are we meant to wonder if she is, or is that not relevant?

That’s all for now. Have you read any of these? And if so, what did you think? 

Well I hope everyone is enjoying their last weeks of summer. I just returned from Southern California and it was a good trip visiting my parents and seeing two of my siblings.

My folks are doing okay and we celebrated my Dad’s 86th birthday. He still plays a good game of golf twice a week. It was a special visit, and it’s always bittersweet leaving, but I hope to be back to see them at Thanksgiving time. 

I was at the beach for a bit, but I didn’t get a lot of reading done. Go figure. I was on the go. Still the ocean felt terrific. After months of smoke in western Canada, it was nice to take a swim and be able to see the sky.

Now I’m back home and things are looking up here. We had some rain, which has helped with some of the wildfire situation. It’s hard to believe summer is almost over, but I’m really looking forward to September and October, which are usually really beautiful. 

In other news, I was very sad to see that folk/country singer, musician Nanci Griffith passed away on Aug. 13 at age 68. She was a great songwriter and grew up in Texas. Her music crisscrossed my life in the late 1980s and ’90s, and I saw her in concert many times when I was living in the D.C. area.

She had so many great songs and albums so it’s hard for me to pick a favorite, but One Fair Summer Evening was my first album of hers in 1988. It’s a classic. While I’m stunned Nanci is gone, her wonderful music and legacy live on. Thanks for all she did and left us. And now I’ll leave a review of the novel I finished lately.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro / Knopf / 320 pages / 2021

Short Synopsis: Taking place in the near future, the story is about an Artificial Friend, or robot, named Klara who comes to belong to an ill teenager (Josie) whose mother buys her as a companion for her daughter. Josie has a close friend named Rick and they plan to have a future together. But when Josie becomes sicker, Klara must think of a way to save her, even while agreeing to a plan — the mother has come up with — in case she doesn’t. 

My Thoughts: I tried not to give too much away in the paragraph above as its best just to let the secrets of the novel unfold. What is okay to know is that: the story is told from Klara, the AF’s point of view, and it captures Klara’s child-like, robot simplicity and keen observations as she comes to navigate the unfamiliar human world outside the store she’s purchased from. Klara wants to be the best friend she can be to Josie and the two bond quickly. Rick, too, the British teenage neighbor who’s infatuated with Josie, becomes part of their world. 

I especially liked Klara and Rick, who are bright, keen observers and always seem to have Josie’s best interests at heart. While there’s not exactly a lot of action in the novel, it has a mysterious, foreboding nature about it and what will happen to Josie and the rest of them that kept me closely dialed in. I liked the part where Klara, who’s solar powered, is beseeching the sun to help Josie get better. It’s an intriguing scene … as is the scene of when Klara asks Josie’s father to help her kill the polluting machine, which blocks out the sun’s rays. 

It’s scenes like these and how the author Ishiguro melds the themes of what it is to be human and the nature of love that make him a master of storytelling and writing. Some of the themes reminded me of his earlier novel Never Let Me Go for those like me who loved that dark novel. Klara and the Sun does not have a hard-core sci-fi kind of plot so don’t let that deter you. It does have some vague dystopian details of the grim world they’re living in … that give the impression that the future world is one based even more on privilege than today … with more hardships for the rest.

I listened to the novel as an audiobook read by Sura Siu, who should win an award for how well she narrates the different voices and truly gets Klara — Josie’s special Artificial Friend. Devoted and loyal Klara is someone we all could use. 

That’s it for now. What about you — have you read this novel or any others by Kazuo Ishiguro — and if so, what did you think?  

Hi. I hope everyone is doing great. August is now upon us, and it already seems to be passing too quickly. We need to hold on to summer. Last weekend I went to the mountains in British Columbia with a few tennis friends and we had fun — despite all the wildfire smoke in the air — with some hikes and tennis doubles. We rode the gondola to the top, which is not exactly my favorite thing since I’m a real chicken when it comes to heights. I’ve always had a terrible phobia for being high off the ground, so basically I had to close my eyes to get up there. Somehow I managed thanks to my friends’ constant chitter-chat and luckily I’m still in one piece. 

This weekend I’m flying to California to visit my parents and siblings and hopefully see some beach action too. Woohoo. What novels would you recommend for me to throw into my beach bag?

Granted, I still have much summer reading left on my list to do. But I checked this month’s new releases just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything fantastic. Actually two novels releasing this month (noted below) have already been on my summer reading list so they might be good to pick up now.  

• Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy (out Aug. 3) — I really liked McConaghy’s first novel Migrations last year so I’m keen on this one, which is about twin sisters who go to Scotland to lead a team of biologists that are reintroducing fourteen gray wolves into the remote Highlands. Then a farmer is found dead and the townspeople look to blame the wolves, which sends one of the sisters out on a limb to protect them and find out what happened. 

• The Guide by Peter Heller (comes out Aug. 24) — I’ve liked Heller’s other outdoorsy novels so I’m game again for this one about a young man (Jack) who is hired by a lodge as a fishing guide for clients in a pristine Colorado canyon. It’s a second chance for Jack whose life has been filled with loss, but then he finds out something about the lodge’s operations that isn’t so good. Uh-oh. Judging by Heller’s other novels, I’m guessing Jack will have to fight for survival in the wilderness … and I’m planning to be right there with him, ha.

Other August releases that might also appeal to me are tennis player Billie Jean King’s autobiography All In (out Aug. 17) about her life story … and Rebecca Donner’s biography of Mildred Harnack called All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days (out Aug. 3). Harnack apparently was an American getting a PhD in Germany in the 1930s when the Nazis rose to power. This true story of her life and the underground resistance group she led in Berlin sound quite incredible. Check these books out if they interest you. And now I’ll leave you with a review of what I finished lately. 

The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris / Atria / 368 pages / 2021

The first half of this debut novel is darkly funny, scathing in places, and has an interesting and sympathetic protagonist in Nella Rogers, a black editorial assistant working long hours at a renown New York publishing house called Wagner Books. Nella hopes to be promoted to an editor, but after two years there a new black girl (Hazel) arrives at their predominately white workplace and starts getting all the attention. Nella is excited about Hazel being hired to have another black girl in the office, though after awhile she senses something is off about her … and that Hazel is not exactly an ally to Nella in dealing with the office politics going on. 

For instance, when Nella tells her boss and a top author that his novel along with the black character in it are full of tropes, Hazel leaves Nella out to dry in front of them… even though she had encouraged Nella to speak her mind and raise the issue. In addition, Nella starts receiving anonymous threatening notes telling her to quit her job and anxiously tries to find out who is doing it. 

Towards the end, the novel takes a twist that confused me a bit initially, but later I figured it out. Apparently the author was inspired by the Jordan Peele 2017 movie Get Out. If you liked the fantastical elements of that movie, then this one might also be for you. For me, I liked the novel better before it changes and the characters turn so to speak … but that’s mostly near the end and it adds something jolting to think about. 

As a whole, I thought the writing and dialogue were sharp, the tension good, and I was rooting for Nella and her best friend Malaika to figure out what the heck was going on … so I could find out too. The novel’s explorations of racism, black culture, and its rebuke of the white-only world of book publishing are strong stuff. It might not be for everyone, but I’m glad to have found out what all the fuss was about over this debut novel, which I listened to as an audiobook. The audio reader Aja Naomi King does a great job voicing the part of the conflicted Nella and her doubts and vulnerabilities amid her unsettling workplace.

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