Socked In

Posted on May 16, 2023 by Susan

Hi All. I hope everyone is well. Here we need to stay indoors this afternoon as the air quality is hazardous from all the wildfire smoke coming to us from north in the province. The trouble is the southern wind that had been pushing the smoke away from us changed direction overnight and now has pushed all the smoke into our area and beyond. It’s very grey and the visibility is low. Whoa it looks like the apocalypse outside. It’s best to stay inside and avoid the smoke and any possible zombies.

Early over the weekend it was still clear out and we took the dogs to the Bow River, where they swam like there was no tomorrow. They love swimming; unfortunately I didn’t get a good shot of it. We also put in our inaugural vegetable garden at our new home, which was fun. We planted a wide range of things including: radishes, carrots, onions, potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, peas, green beans, and corn. We plan to put in some zucchini as well. Do you plant any veggies in the summer and what do you like best? Do they grow well where you are?

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

I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai / Viking /448 pages /2023

Synopsis: This novel is about a film professor and podcaster named Bodie Kane who gets swept up in a murder case decades later that happened when she was at boarding school in New Hampshire. She had been a senior there when her roommate Thalia Keith was murdered, which she hasn’t been able to entirely put behind her. Years later when Bodie’s asked to teach a course at the school, she begins to analyze whether the man arrested for the crime was wrongly convicted and whether other suspects were overlooked.

My Thoughts: Much of the novel I liked, especially Bodie’s younger years at the high school, along with the writing, but then other times the minutiae of going over and over, analyzing the crime and all the suspects a hundred times over sort of exhausted me. Sure it was a horrific crime and an injustice that a more thorough investigation wasn’t done when it happened, and as a young teenager I’m sure it haunted so many students at the prep school forever, but man, it really turns the case inside out till I was blue. It’s a slow-burn and then some.

Granted, the author brings up many issues in the story along the way: including sexism, racism, sexual abuse, harassment violence, bullying, and adolescence that make the re-examination of the case quite worthwhile. There’s a lot to digest. And the victim Thalia seemed a promiscuous girl, which opened up the possibilities of various motives and suspects. Several people could’ve done it, which Bodie finds out in due time.

Mostly I think I liked the novel for its look back on adolescence and the school and Bodie’s time there — how she viewed things then versus what she thinks about it now, her friends there, and how Bodie was a bit of an outlier back in high school and what she was going through with her family then and now. Those personal parts interested me. Also the fact that the author made Bodie and the characters feel very real throughout the journey. So perhaps the novel was a bit of a mixed bag, but still it was worth 4 stars.

I listened to the audio read by Julia Whelan, who I thought did a terrific job.

Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You: A Memoir by Lucinda Williams /Crown / 272 pages / 2023

I have long been a fan of Lucinda Williams’s songs and music, which I first started listening to around 1992 when I was living in Seattle and her album Sweet Old World came out. I was wowed by her poetic lyrics and raw folk-country-rock sound. Her next four albums: Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (1998), Essence (2001), World Without Tears (2003) and West (2007) were especially stunning. So I jumped on her book when I heard that it was out.

I listened to Lucinda’s memoir read by the author for the audio. In it, she’s raw, she’s real, and she lays it on the line. She tells of her background, her family, where she came from (Louisiana, and Arkansas mostly), and how she got into music. She includes many great stories of her life and how she stuck to her guns about her songs and direction when the record companies didn’t know how to place her music. She was told for many years she was too rock for country and too country for rock, and she struggled at first to get a record deal.

Luckily she kept at it. She tells of playing guitar and singing from age 12 to 70. She’s an American treasure and I was thankful just to hear a bit about how she accomplished what she did and what she’s like offstage … and how she wrote the wonderful lyrics and tunes. This book is quite insightful about her life … foremost about her parents who had their problems (her mom had mental illness and her Dad moved the family around a lot for work) … and all the men she had relationships with. Holy smokes there’s a lot! She’s quite candid and just a couple times I thought maybe it was a wee bit oversharing about her sex life. But still I was glad to know where her songs came from, many were based on real relationships or people she knew.

My only qualm with the memoir is that it stops abruptly around 2007 around the time of The West album and her marriage to Tom Overby in 2009. The memoir is a bit too short. She does talk about her parents passing away around 2014 and 2015, which had a huge sad impact on her. But I wanted to know more from her recent years (she had a stroke in 2020, which she doesn’t really talk about). So perhaps that is the sign of a good memoir, hoping that she’ll write another and add the remaining years.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho / HarperOne / 208 pages / 1993 translated

This was Book One for quarterback Aaron Rodgers’ book club, so I was curious to check it out. Not that Aaron is one I really follow, but he just talked it up quite a bit. I had missed the novel or fable when the translated edition first came out in 1993. So this runaway bestseller has now been out 30 years.

And yes it’s a fable-like story about a shepherd boy (Santiago) in Spain who sells his sheep to undertake a self-discovery journey to find a treasure, which he dreams about being among the Pyramids of Egypt. He goes through various stages on the journey, following omens and trying to realize his “Personal Legend.” Along the way, he meets an old king, a crystal merchant, an Englishman, and finally an alchemist who help him and he learns from on his way. He also falls for a girl named Fatima who will wait for him while he searches for the treasure.

The fable is endearing in certain aspects of a young person being on a quest and trying to find one’s destiny and journeying around through the Sahara Desert. Though at times it was a bit like reading pop-philosophy or psychology, and I wasn’t too sure if it went deeper than: following or listening to one’s own heart, which always seems wise to pursue. I liked some of the images in the book: the places and people, the desert and sheep, though a few parts dragged: some of the pseudo-philosophy parts perhaps. But luckily it was a relatively short read and I bid adieu to Santiago the wandering shepherd who seemed to find his happiness.

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

Posted in Books | 30 Comments

May Preview

Posted on May 9, 2023 by Susan

Happy May. As usual lately I’m behind in putting up my start-of-the-month post, but it’s been busy. Much to do this spring. And already May has started off with dryer and hotter conditions than normal and the threat of wildfires caused the provincial government on Saturday to declare a “state of emergency.” Yikes it’s so early in the season. Apparently more than a hundred fires are burning around Alberta — about 28 of them are uncontrolled and are mostly in the north and to the west in the mountains. But we’re hoping rain and cooler temps this week will help the situation. Crazy eh? It went from snowing to burning in a very short time. 

Meanwhile in book news I see that the novels Trust by Hernan Diaz and Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver both won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It is first time there’s been a dual winner. Though it reminded me of when Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo both won the Booker Prize in 2019. I sort of would like it if the judges could settle on just one winner. I’m not sure why, but they need to make a judgement call, right? Is this two-winner choice setting a new precedence? Regardless I’m looking forward to reading Demon Copperhead this month for my book club. And I need to snap to it quick.

Also congrats to debut novelist Fatimah Asghar for winning the inaugural Carol Shields prize for fiction for her novel When We Were Sisters, which came out in October 2022. Apparently it’s a moving coming-of-age novel that follows three orphaned Muslim-American siblings left to raise one another in the aftermath of their parents’ death.

It sounds poetically written and experimental too (the author was a poet prior to this). I’m not exactly sure what to expect, but I’ve added it to my list. I think it’s based on the author’s own life about losing her parents early on, and the sisters are all forging their own paths. Now let’s see what’s releasing this month. 

First off, Abraham Verghese’s new novel The Covenant of Water (out May 2) can not be overlooked. Sure it’s a long, epic saga clocking in at around 736 pages that will take a big commitment, but then again it’s Abraham Verghese! Spanning 1900 to 1977 and set on South India’s Malabar Coast, the novel follows several generations of a family as they search for the roots of why they are afflicted by drownings. Apparently it pays homage to the progress of medicine and human understanding.

So what are we waiting for? Verghese’s writing first came to me by a luminous memoir of his I read called The Tennis Partner about a tennis friend of his with an addiction. As a tennis player, this story of Verghese’s earlier years as a physician practicing in El Paso with an unraveling marriage went down like ice cream on a deserted island. It was tense and poignant. And I still need to read his other three books! 

Next up, I’m curious about French author Anne Berest’s novel The Postcard (due out May 16 from Europa Editions), which is described as thus: “When Anne, the protagonist of the novel, finds an anonymous postcard among the usual holiday cards from her maternal great-grandparents who died in Auschwitz, she sets off to discover who sent it and why. Her journey leads her through the history of her family and exposes the secrets her ancestors hid for generations.”

Whoa. From all I’ve read about this bestselling novel in France, it sounds very powerful and moving, and a mystery that Anne not only solves but gains her identity in the process too. It’s probably one not to be missed.

Also Luis Alberto Urrea’s novel Good Night, Irene (due out May 30) looks enticing about two women who become friends as members of the Red Cross during WWII. They run snack trucks called Clubmobiles at the front lines, which I hadn’t heard about, but which sounds pretty courageous. From the Battle of the Bulge to the liberation of Buchenwald, the two become embroiled in danger in this novel that paints a portrait of friendship and valor.

I know I’ve selected two WWII novels this month but sometimes you got to go where the good reads lead you. Apparently this novel is inspired by the author’s own mother and her Red Cross service during the war. 

As for what to watch this month, the six-part series A Small Light, beginning May 1 on National Geographic (and Disney+ and Hulu) looks to be a moving drama about the Dutch woman Miep Gies who risked her life to shelter Anne Frank’s family from the Nazis for more than two years during World War II.

If you haven’t read Miep Gies’s 1987 book Anne Frank Remembered: The Story of the Woman Who Helped to Hide the Frank Family, I think you’ll find it compelling. Gies was a remarkable hero, and she’s played in the series by British actress Bel Powley, whom I first saw on The Morning Show series. A Small Light was filmed in Prague and Amsterdam and I’m hoping to catch it. 

Another series that looks intriguing is the four-part espionage thriller Ghosts of Beirut starting May 21 on Showtime about the manhunt for Imad Mughniyeh, the elusive Lebanese terrorist who eluded capture for over two decades. He was implicated in the Hezbollah attacks of the 1980s and ’90s. Apparently the drama includes a mix of documentary elements and interviews within the show. I think sometimes that works and other times it takes away from the flow. We will have to see.

My husband and I enjoy spy shows and have liked: Slow Horses, Homeland, Jack Ryan, The Looming Tower, The Night Manager, among others. So we will have to see about this one, it looks scary. 

For movies this month, the Canadian film BlackBerry (due out May 12) looks quite good about the epic rise and fall of the world’s first smartphone. It seems pretty satirical and funny and perhaps also an expose of the tech world. Remember the BlackBerry? Some people were so addicted. I still had the flip phone back then, LoL, so I was never a BlackBerry aficionado.

As well as Julia Louis-Dreyfus has a new comedy-drama coming out May 24 called You Hurt My Feelings that looks a bit fun. She’s plays a novelist whose marriage is suddenly upended when she overhears her husband giving his honest reaction to her latest book. Uh-oh, that’s awkward. Louis-Dreyfus is a gem; we see her sometimes when watching early reruns of Curb Your Enthusiasm … in between nights of Succession Season 4. You got to mix it up. 

And finally in music this month, there’s new albums by Dave Matthews, the Smashing Pumpkins, Matchbox Twenty, and Graham Nash among others. But I think I’ll pick country singer-songwriter Brandy Clark’s new self-titled album due out May 19. I don’t really know her music too much yet, but I think I might be turning a little country since moving to the country, LoL. We’ll see. 

That’s all for now. What about you — which new releases are you looking forward to?  

Posted in Top Picks | 28 Comments

Blooms and Silver Alerts

Posted on April 27, 2023 by Susan

Hi. We had a nice visit in California and are now back home. There was a trace or so of snow last night and that’s how I know we’re back in the North, ha. But the days have been warm in the 60s, so it’ll be gone soon. It’s nice to be home and there is much to do at our new place. But first I will share a few photos from our trip. We traveled through Palm Springs where it is always great to see the San Jacinto mountains. There’s been talk of the superbloom around parts of the state and mostly I saw that the canyons are quite green and filled with yellow mustard weed flowers, which are invasive, but other places I saw in the news had pretty wildflowers. My Dad’s rose garden is sure going bonkers right now with many in bloom.

Meanwhile, I’m wondering how many of you have joined the online platform Substack? I just joined it and I’m perusing the offerings on there. I am a newbie. Do you follow writers on there, and if so, which ones? Or are you sticking with Instagram and Twitter?

It seems Substack is full of writings from bloggers, journalists, and authors, and I am sort of wondering whether it will take the place of many individual blogs in the future? Or did talking about books on Instagram and books podcasts already do that? It seems there’s still a bit of space left for each platform and doing one’s own thing, yet I wonder if individual blog sites are starting to erode away further. What do you think? Are they still viable?

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

Silver Alert by Lee Smith / Algonquin Books / 224 pages / April 2023

Synopsis: This story has its charms and a generous heart. It stars two unlikely protagonists in Key West: one a man named Herb Atlas, age 83, who is caring for his third wife, Susan, who has Alzheimer’s, and the other, Susan’s manicurist who does wonders for her and goes by the name Renee. Renee’s real name it turns out is Dee Dee Mullins and she’s running from a dark past from where she grew up in the mountains of NC. She hopes she can turn over a new leaf in Key West working for people like the Atlases and a poet guy she meets and falls for there named William.

Meanwhile Herb is running from the future and what lies ahead as his family wants to put Susan and him in a senior care facility, which he doesn’t want. He gets a diagnosis of prostate cancer, which gives him little time to figure out what to do. Along the way, Herb and Dee Dee earn each other’s respect and take a joy ride in his Porsche towards the end, which influences what turn their personal lives take. You’ll want to see what happens to them.

My Thoughts: I liked the two different perspectives of Herb and Dee Dee: one is privileged and older with memories of his past loves, and the other is in her 20s, poor, not formally educated, and trying to restart her life with a new job and love. They might be at times a bit cliched — Herb calling women “honey” frequently and Dee Dee in her naiveté, but I saw quite a bit from their shoes and hearts. They are different, but they also share common ground with their fears and secrets that touch their lives. I found the story went by pretty quickly with wanting to know what would happen to each of them. Kudos to Southern author Lee Smith for her notable fiction these many years. I’d like to read more of her novels.

Thanks to Algonquin Books and NetGalley for an advance copy to read and review.

Suspect by Scott Turow / Grand Central Publishing / 448 pages / 2022

I hadn’t read Scott Turow since his 1987 novel Presumed Innocent, which was very good all those years ago, so I tried this one as an audiobook. I thought the lead protagonist Clarice “Pinky” Granum, a private investigator for a law firm, was all right and interesting enough — she’s an outsider-mohawk type with a pierced nose who once failed out of the police academy for substance abuse — but the case she is on turns out to be quite sordid, icky stuff and perhaps more than I bargained for.

Synopsis: The female police chief in town is accused by three cops of soliciting them for sex in exchange for promotions to higher ranks. She hires the law office Pinky works for and the more Pinky delves into the case the more sordid it gets. Whether the chief’s guilty remains unclear as she did seem to sleep around with cops in her county, so that’s a no-no. Then during the court case, one of the chief’s accusers is murdered, which opens another can of worms.

My thoughts: I liked how there were a few possible suspects for a good portion of the novel, and Pinky seems not to be the typical private investigator, yet she has the street smarts to solve the case, so that was good. But the case itself was just pretty icky and I’m not sure I cared too much by the very end. I had to push myself to finish this one, which I was not expecting with the notable author Scott Turow. Apparently this is his twelfth legal thriller in Illinois’s fictitious Kindle County, but I don’t think I’ll be picking up the next one.

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

Posted in Books | 30 Comments

Spring Break

Posted on April 20, 2023 by Susan

Hi all. I am away this week visiting with my parents in my hometown in lovely Southern California, so I’m taking a short blogging break. I plan to be back next week to talk about all things books and to see what everyone is reading.

In the meantime, I will leave you with these photos of the A.K. Smiley Public Library, where I grew up in Redlands, California. This beauty of a building was built in 1898 and paid for by philanthropist Albert Smiley, whose twin brother Alfred brought plans for the library to his attention. The Smileys did a lot for this town during its founding at the turn of the century. And the library has been designated a California Historical Landmark. 

And now – what I’m reading: After finishing a novel for Publishers Weekly, I’m about to start Lee Smith’s novel Silver Alert due out April 18. I’m also listening to the audiobook of Rebecca Makkai’s latest novel I Have Some Questions for You, which I’m enjoying so far. It’s a bit of a prep school murder-mystery at a slow-burn pace, looking back on it many years later.

Also unfortunately I will miss the Los Angeles Times’ Festival of Books this coming weekend, which looks to be really good and I’ve always wanted to go to, but we plan to visit the beach and enjoy the warm weather and sunshine. So I’ll check in with you soon. Happy reading and Earth Day!  

Posted in Books | 12 Comments

April Preview

Posted on April 10, 2023 by Susan

I hope everyone had a nice Easter. It’s been windy and warmer here and most of the snow has melted away. We went for our first bike ride of the season despite my having remnants of last week’s head cold, sigh. It was nice to get out and then watch the final holes of the Masters golf tournament. Afterwards, I did a bit of raking and yard work. It feels like the early stages of spring, yay. Next Sunday we’ll be flying to visit my parents in California for a little over a week so that should be a good break. We’ll go to the desert and the beach and do some biking there. 

I’m a bit behind for April as here is it the 10th and I’m just now posting my Preview. So let’s dive into new releases and see what looks good this month. It appears there’s new novels by such notable authors as: Charles Frazier, Curtis Sittenfeld, and Dennis Lehane among others. I reviewed Susanna Hoffs’s debut novel This Bird Has Flown last week that came out April 4, and I have a copy to review of Lee Smith’s Silver Alert due out April 18, so stay tuned for that. And here are a few of my other picks.

Ramona Ausubel’s new novel The Last Animal due out April 18 looks fun. I first heard about it on AJ’s blog Read All the Things and found it got starred reviews from both Kirkus and Publishers Weekly. It’s about a scientist mom who takes her two teenage daughters on summer vacation to the permafrost of Siberia, where they stumble upon a preserved woolly mammoth baby. Therein they engage in an experiment with the species and discover themselves in the process.

I’m a sucker for prehistoric awakenings and Kirkus says there’s an amazing amount of humor, wisdom, and wonder in this novel, so what are we waiting for. 

Next is Brendan Slocumb’s new novel Symphony of Secrets due out April 18 that comes after his successful debut The Violin Conspiracy. I liked his first one, and various sources are saying his second novel is even better. It’s about a music scholar who finds out a shocking secret about his favorite American composer, long since deceased, that he tries to uncover, all the while the composer’s foundation is trying to quash.

I like how Slocumb, an accomplished violinist, has been able to blend music, mystery, and race into engaging, twisty tales, so count me in for this as well.

Lastly in books is a tie between Karl Geary’s novel Juno Loves Legs (out April 18) and Isabella Hammad’s novel Enter Ghost (out April 4). These are more serious-minded novels than the above choices. Geary’s novel is said to be a heartbreaking coming-of-age tale about two young outsiders who become friends and are unable to conform to the confines of 1980s Dublin. It’s said to be in the vain of Shuggie Bain and A Little Life so likely prepare yourself for sadness and abject poverty.

While Hammad’s novel Enter Ghost “follows a British Palestinian actor who travels to Israel, where her sister lives, and is pulled into a production of Hamlet staged in the West Bank, prompting a deeper look at her own political and artistic values.” Ahh. I like the sound of that. Both are new to me authors.

On the screen this month, the movie Air, out April 5, about the basketball player Michael Jordan and how he was pursued by a Nike shoe salesman, is getting favorable reviews. Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Viola Davis star among others.

We just saw Matt Damon in a 2021 movie called Stillwater and he was good as usual. He’s also in the upcoming big Oppenheimer movie, directed by Christopher Nolan, coming in July. Damon, it seems, still has the goods, whether he’s Mark Watney on Mars, or Jason Bourne on the run. He’s still getting top roles.  

There’s also the new eight-episode TV series Tiny Beautiful Things, (out April 7 on Hulu) based on the book by Cheryl Strayed, about a struggling writer who reluctantly takes over an advice column during a period of turmoil in her life. It’s a comedy-drama starring Kathryn Hahn, who’s said to give a soulful performance as the woman whose life is quite a mess.

I think I last saw Hahn in the 2018 amusing movie Private Life opposite Paul Giamatti. We don’t get Hulu here, but apparently her new series is on Disney+ in Canada, which we might have to splurge on someday. 

Next up to mention is the seven-episode TV series The Last Thing He Told Me, which is on AppleTV+ starting April 14. You remember the 2021 thriller by Laura Dave right? It’s about a woman who forms an unexpected relationship with her stepdaughter while searching for the truth about her husband who has mysteriously disappeared. Jennifer Garner plays the woman who works together with her stepdaughter, played by Australian actress Angourie Rice.

It was filmed on location in Sausalito, Calif., and San Fran, and I’m hoping it holds up to the book, but we’ll have to find out.

Also there’s the movie Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (due out April 28) based on the 1970 novel by Judy Blume, about a 11-year-old girl whose family moves to the suburbs and she must navigate new friends, feelings, and adolescence. I don’t think Judy Blume has ever let her books be made into films before, so this is a big first. And apparently Blume says the movie, which stars Rachel McAdams as the Mom and Abby Ryder Fortson as Margaret, is better the book. Really?

I recall the novel being sort of taboo when I was a kid because it was too dicey or embarrassing or something or other. I think I was too chicken at the time to find out, lol.   

As for new music in April, there’s new albums by Feist, Rickie Lee Jones, Natalie Merchant (!), and I’ll pick the new one from Canadian folk rock band — the Great Lake Swimmers. It’s called Uncertain Country and comes out April 28. The band is still terrific after all these years. They formed in 2003 and this will be their eighth studio album. Here’s a new song from it called When the Storm Has Passed. Enjoy. 

That’s all for now. What about you — which new releases are you looking forward to?

Posted in Top Picks | 28 Comments

This Bird Has Flown

Posted on April 3, 2023 by Susan

Hi. How is everyone doing? Happy April. This past week I was busy officiating a national U12 tennis tournament with a team of refs. We had as many as 300 matches in three days so it was long days but a good competition. I’m glad it’s over now and I can rest up from a head cold I picked up there, argh. I hope to catch up on visiting blogs this week and to see what all of you are reading.

Meanwhile we are closing on the sale of our prior city house on Monday, so we are done with that, which is a big relief, and we can move on with country living, yay. The only trouble is that with the new address I lose access to the city public library system and they don’t allow non-residents to check out ebooks and audiobooks, argh. The city inventory is far larger than rural libraries have. So my question is: what sources do you use to get ebooks and audiobooks? Is Audible worth getting or something else? I appreciate your suggestions, and now I will leave you with a couple reviews of what I finished lately. 

This Bird Has Flown by Susanna Hoffs / Little Brown / 368 pages / 2023

I thought this novel was good fun and ripe for springtime reading. I wasn’t going to miss out on Susanna Hoffs’s debut novel. I remember her days as a rocker with the group the Bangles back in the 1980s, yay. This story — about singer, Jane Start, age 33, who scored a hit song ten years ago and is left trying to find her way musically and after a bad breakup — has plenty of charm, romance, and musical atmosphere that makes the reading go down as quickly as maple syrup. Along the way, there’s many song references and literary ones too that make it feel like cultural catnip for those with youths in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s.

As it starts out, Jane is a washed-up singer, having once had the one-hit wonder back in the day, but now is left to sing at a bachelor’s party in Vegas to earn money, when her manager offers Jane her place in London to stay and try to work on some new songs. Along the way, Jane meets an Oxford professor, Tom, who gives her heart a whirl and she gets back on the musical radar when an iconic star asks her to play the old hit song onstage with him for an upcoming concert at the Royal Albert Hall. She must contend with her inner stage fright demons as well as hidden baggage about Tom that she finds out about long after she moves in with him. Will she fall apart onstage and hit the skids in her love life offstage? You will have to check it out to see.  

It’s an entertaining story that blends romance with musical creativity and ambitions. There’s also various side characters that keep it lively from Pippa Jane’s manager to a heartthrob pop singer named Alfie. I’m sure parts of it and a couple characters might seem familiar or cliched, but there was enough for me with its turns and heart that kept the story appealing. It slightly reminded me of the movie Notting Hill with its U.K. relationship … mashed up in a blender with a bit of the musical angst of Daisy Jones but with the undertone fun of Tom Perrotta’s The Wishbones. Kudos to Hoffs for adding an entertaining one to the musical genre mix. I always love these rock-‘n-roll stories, and apparently Hoffs recently discovered she loved writing fiction, which she talks about in the Acknowledgments, so perhaps we’ll see more.  

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Little Brown for giving me an advance copy to read and review. This novel comes out Tuesday April 4. 

The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr / Coach House / 224 pages / 2022

I was impressed by the telling of this story about a Black closeted-gay porter (RT Baxter), who is working on a train trip across Canada in 1929. All the details of his job — how he must serve the array of needy passengers and has little moments for himself or to sleep — play out and make this feel authentic.

Baxter, originally from the Caribbean, is trying to save enough money working as a porter to be able to go to dentistry school, but he must pay his employer for the meals onboard and calculate any demerits he might get while on the train, such as three missing towels will be marked against him. He’s trying to keep his job, but it’s not easy. 

The cast of other porters is colorful; they kid him and have his back, while the passengers are an assortment of people, looking for all kinds of help. Baxter puts up with a lot from them, along with the everyday racism from people of those calling him George — and to get this and do that. A few though take to him and tip him, which helps his chances to go to dentistry school. 

Baxter is a gay man who remembers fondly relations he had with Edwin Drew, a porter instructor he knew, while he also has two other gay encounters while on the trip (just a slight warning). It is an interesting character study, but sometimes it seemed a little episodic and like glimpses of Baxter more than a full tale. Still what I liked most perhaps was the details of the trip, the historical aspects, and the authenticity with which the author makes us feel this character’s life at this moment on the train as an overworked Black porter. Kudos to the author for winning Canada’s Giller Prize in 2022 for this novel. We are proud that Suzette Mayr lives and works and grew up in our home province of Alberta. 

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

Posted in Books | 20 Comments

Flying Into Spring

Posted on March 21, 2023 by Susan

Hi. How is everyone doing? March is going by quickly. It’s officially spring now, Yay! Over the weekend we went to a large restored wetland area called Frank Lake, which is a protected habitat in southwestern Alberta to hundreds of species of birds (mostly waterfowl) about a half hour from our house. Most of the lake is covered over with snow right now and the area is flat for miles out on the prairie. 

I should have taken a picture (next time!), but there was not much to see at this point except a large flat area covered with snow. Most of the birds will arrive and nest in the next couple of months. So we will be back to see the trumpeter swans among other birds and the wide variety of ducks. A path runs adjacent to the lake for a mile or so out to a viewing blind, where I saw this waterfowl chart. Before April 1, you’re allowed to walk your dog on the path so our two Labs enjoyed the fresh air with us. I mention all this since I know a few of you are more serious birders and might appreciate Frank Lake. 

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

Hang the Moon by Jeannette Walls / Scribner / 368 pages / March 28, 2023

I was expecting a lot after loving the author’s 2005 memoir The Glass Castle and I liked the main character Sally Kincaid quite a bit — along with the the plot’s historical bootlegging aspects, though the storyline got a bit over-the-top for me in places. 

Synopsis: Sally grows up in a powerful and well-to-do family at the turn of the century with her father, the Duke, who’s running the Emporium store and the town in rural Claiborne County, Virginia. Her mother has died and her stepmother doesn’t like her and thinks she’s too adventurous and dangerous for their young son Eddie. So young Sally is cast out early on to live with an aunt in the mountains for nine years. When she finally returns, Sally goes through a tumultuous period with various family deaths and those power-hungry in charge running the town into the ground. 

Then her pious half-sister Mary and brother-in-law try to rid the town of its whiskey-making in adherence to Prohibition, but that only makes matters worse. Violence breaks out and people and the town hit hard times. Finally through happenstance, Sally becomes in charge of the family empire and starts to lead the town back through bootlegging. She becomes “the Queen of the Rumrunners” with a posse by her side, but she must battle the rival Bond Brothers who are at odds with her family over long-ago lost land. 

My Thoughts: I liked how in the Acknowledgments author Jeannette Walls mentions that the novel was inspired by a female bootlegger in Virginia who piloted liquor caravans down from the mountains. It’s a fascinating, fractious era, which the novel bears out and evokes in good measure. And Sally Kincaid is a strong, independent likable character in the novel — who tries to right wrongs within her family and the town and find romantic love with the good-looking Lieutenant Rawley, but all her family relations almost derail her. Her father’s marriages include four wives and secret liaisons and kids. And it seems there’s enough cheating, inbreeding, and secrets to go around in the family to last a lifetime. It’s a bit of a soap opera that would make J.R. Ewing of the show Dallas proud. This plot distills whiskey and a whole lot more. 

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Simon & Schuster Canada for giving me an advance copy to read and review. 

Memphis by Tara M. Stringfellow / Dial Press / 272 pages / 2022

I was taken with the storytelling of this novel set in Memphis about multiple generations of a Black family. The perseverance of the women in this family after each suffers trauma and tragedy is quite moving and alluring. There’s grandma Hazel’s story (in the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s) and her husband Myron’s building of their home in Memphis; and later their daughters August, who lives in their home in the 1990s with her son Derek, and Miriam, who flees her violent husband and comes to live with August and Derek with her two young daughters Joan and Mya. 

But there’s something disturbing that once happened between August’s son Derek and Miriam’s daughter Joan that is revealed early on. Much more about each of their lives becomes revealed as the narrative goes back and forth in time over decades among Hazel, Miriam, August, and young Joan. I found Joan’s narrative to be particularly enticing as she begins to find her way out of what happened through her portrait paintings, which show promise of taking her to a notable art school.

Sometimes it gets a bit confusing listening to the audiobook switching often between the different time periods and narrators, though they are clearly labeled at the start of each chapter. And while the plot lines might have a hole or two, the storytelling I found as enticing as the butter pecan ice cream they enjoy eating. The story entails some violence in the city of Memphis over the years, but it also sings the city’s Southern beauty and praises. This is a notable debut novel and I will look for whatever Tara Stringfellow puts out next. 

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

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March Preview

Posted on March 13, 2023 by Susan

Hi everyone. How’s it going? Are you dealing with the time change all right? It’s been a bit disorienting, but hopefully things will fall into place after awhile. And it will stay light later, which is nice. Spring is coming!

Meanwhile we watched the Oscars Sunday night and the movie Everything Everywhere All At Once certainly cleaned up the awards. I actually haven’t seen the full movie yet but have seen many of the others. In any regards, it seemed a big win for diversity and immigrant stories in film, and I was pleased for actress Michelle Yeoh and actor Ke Huy Quan, who genuinely seemed euphoric after their wins.

Though I was a bit more thrilled that Canadian director Sarah Polley won Best Adapted Screenplay for the film Women Talking and Canadian filmmaker Daniel Roher won Best Documentary Feature for the film Navalny. These were huge wins for Canadian films and seemingly well deserved. I saw Polley’s film recently and it’s strong and moving with solid performances from its large cast. And I hope to see Navalny soon.

I was also pleased that Brendan Fraser won Best Actor for his role in The Whale, though Austin Butler was also excellent in the movie Elvis. I was moved by Fraser’s performance, though it’s not always easy to watch. I hope you enjoyed the Oscars, there were no major mishaps this year, but it was quite long, wasn’t it?

Now let’s move on to what’s releasing this month. I finally have my March book picks ready. I realize we’re already halfway through the month, but it’s still helpful for me to see what looks good. I’ll start by saying I read an early copy of Irish author Sebastian Barry’s novel Old God’s Time (due out March 21) last year.

It was a solid 4-star read for me about a retired policeman, a widower with a faulty memory, who’s questioned about a decades-old case that was never fully resolved. Little by little, parts of his past begin to be revealed. Irish writers — like Sebastian Barry, Donal Ryan, and Claire Keegan among others — are certainly putting out excellent novels these days and are ones to watch.

I’m excited too that author Jeannette Walls has a new novel — Hang the Moon — (due out March 28) about a young woman in post-World War I Virginia, who rises to the top of a bootlegging empire. Yay, it seems like an interesting premise and I am just now reading it.

I’ve been a fan of the author’s ever since her 2005 memoir The Glass Castle, which was astoundingly good. I think it was on the bestseller list for more than eight years! I also like that Jeannette Walls lives and writes in rural Virginia, where I once lived long ago. I’m hopeful about her new novel, which seems to feature a cinematic cover.

Next up is Margaret Atwood’s new short story collection Old Babes in the Wood (out March 7) that apparently features 15 stories that “look deeply into the heart of family relationships, marriage, loss and memory, and what it means to spend a life together.” It sounds good. And since I was taken with Atwood’s last story collection Stone Mattress in 2014, especially the title story, which was nice and creepy, I look forward to her new book.

I typically don’t pick up short story collections, but Margaret Atwood is an exception. Though didn’t she announce she was retiring from writing awhile back? Well apparently not yet … she’s got plenty left to write!

Also in March books, Rachel Heng’s novel The Great Reclamation (due out March 28) looks quite good. It’s a sweeping historical coming-of-age tale that takes place in Singapore during WWII and thereafter about “one boy’s unique gifts and the childhood love that will complicate the fate of his community and country.” Author Nathan Harris says it’s “a story of an entire nation reckoning with its past combined with a heart-wrenching love story.” What more do you want?

I was a fan of Min Jin Lee’s novel Pachinko, and if this is anything like that, then I’m in for a rich treat. Apparently the author Rachel Heng grew up in Singapore and now teaches at Wesleyan University. I have not read her other novel Suicide Club from 2018, but I hope to try out the new one, and it features a pretty cover too.

There also looks to be a couple good thriller-type reads this month, which could be thrown into the mix. William Landay’s new novel All That Is Mine I Carry With Me (out March 7) seems to have a mouthful for a title, but if you liked his 2012 crime novel Defending Jacob, which I did along with the TV series, then you might want to check this one out. I don’t want to say too much, but it seems to be about a family that is forced to take sides over their mother’s death.

And the second book, is Victor Lavalle’s novel Lone Women (out March 28), which apparently mixes horror and suspense to great effect, about a young woman who flees to Montana as a homesteader in 1915, hiding a horrifying secret. Hmm. I have not read Victor Lavalle before (or the genre of horror much), but many think his writing and spooky plots are excellent.

As for what to watch this month, there’s a slew of TV series coming out, notably Season 3 of Ted Lasso (starting March 15 on AppleTV+) and Season 4 of Succession, starting March 26 on HBO. Both will likely be final seasons of the shows. Succession is positively a decadent series but also satirically fun to watch.

Also Perry Mason Season 2 has started (March 6 on HBO) for those who like Matthew Rhys from The Americans spy series. And in debut shows, Daisy Jones & the Six (March 3 on Prime Video) hasn’t received great reviews, but you might check it out to see if the characters and songs from the novel are what you thought they’d be.

In British shows, there’s debut seasons of The Confessions of Frannie Langton (March 8 on BritBox) and A Spy Among Friends on Prime Video March 12, which we’ve started. It doesn’t seem to be as good as the book by Ben MacIntyre, but we will stick with it for awhile to see if it picks up.

You might also try The Great Expectations series (March 26 on Hulu) based on the period drama classic, featuring orphan Pip and the infamous Miss Havisham. Unfortunately I don’t get Hulu here, but I will keep my eye out for it elsewhere. I have seen various versions of it as a movie in the past.

Lastly in music this month, there’s new albums by Van Morrison, Lana del Rey, and of course U2’s Songs of Surrender, which consists of re-recorded and reinterpreted versions of 40 songs from the group’s back catalogue. It’s a companion album to Bono’s memoir from last year. Truth be told, I like the original versions of the songs much better, but there might be a gem or two somewhere in the mix.

That’s all for now. What about you — which new releases are you looking forward to?

Posted in Top Picks | 28 Comments

Second Chances

Posted on March 6, 2023 by Susan

Hello. We are into March now. Yay. Usually it seems we get more snow in March, though typically it’s pretty snow and meanwhile the days are getting longer and eventually warmer. I have yet to post my March Preview of new releases as I’ve been busy with my part-time jobs lately so I will try for next week with that. All in due time I guess. And the good news is: it looks like an offer on our previous house will likely go through so we are pleased with that. I’m sure we will be sad to see it go but pleased that another family can enjoy it as much as we did for many years. 

Of course March brings to mind college basketball and “March Madness,” which starts March 14, so it’s almost a week away. Time is flying now. Also the Academy Awards is on this coming Sunday. We have seen some of the nominated films including: Elvis, The Fabelmans, The Banshees of Inisherin, Tar, Living, The Whale, and Top Gun: Maverick. But we haven’t seen Everything Everywhere All at Once, which has gained a lot of momentum over the past month. Will it win Best Picture? Perhaps it will.

So far I don’t have a particular movie favorite. I liked all the nominated films I saw but not sure any are my pick for Best Picture. Hmm. This week I still hope to see Women Talking (nominated for Best Picture) as well as Navalny (nominated for Best Documentary Feature Film). I wish Mr. Navalny had not returned to Russia in 2021 after being treated in Germany for being poisoned. Ugh, now he remains in Russia imprisoned for being an activist against Putin, and who knows if he can ever get out. The film on him will hopefully draw more attention to him and other protestors. So what about you — do you plan to watch the Oscars? 

And now I’ll leave you with reviews of the books I finished lately. 

A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson / Knopf Canada / 304 pages / 2021

I agree with others who gave this novel a 5-star rating. Canadian author Mary Lawson is a natural-born storyteller and her sensibilities with this one are right on. I had read her 2002 debut novel Crow Lake, which I recall being pretty sad and grim (though good) years ago, but this story was more endearing to me and pulled at the heartstrings. I was surprised at first how easy reading it is – almost perhaps like written for a middle school reader though it’s also beautifully-wrought and transportive. 

It took me to its setting of a very small town in Northern Ontario, Canada, in no time at all. The story’s chapters alternate between three characters: Clara, age 7, whose sister (Rose, age 16) goes missing; Elizabeth, an elderly neighbor of Clara’s who goes into the hospital; and Liam, a newly divorced man in his mid-thirties who moves into Elizabeth’s house. Soon enough, you find out how their troubled stories intersect and what happens to the dilemma of Rose’s disappearance. I liked each of their stories but perhaps Liam’s and Clara’s best, then Elizabeth’s. Clara is worried about her sister; Liam is down about his divorce; and Elizabeth is thinking over an event from her past. Down the road, they all intersect in an interesting way and the mystery over Rose is solved. 

I don’t know why it took me so long to pick up this novel, but apparently it was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2021. I was touched by this tale, which went by quickly, and was pleased that it didn’t get overly dark and grim. It’s just a quiet, heartfelt tale all around. Author Mary Lawson is a gem of a writer, and along with Alice Munro and Michael Crummey, she’s a Canadian favorite of mine — and likely many others.

Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life by Delia Ephron / Little Brown /
304 pages / 2022 

Synopsis: This memoir follows the author’s life from 2015, right after Jerry, her husband of many decades, dies and she tries to pick up the pieces.  She ends up finding new love but then is diagnosed with leukemia, the same kind her sister Nora Ephron died from in 2012. 

I loved the author Delia’s courage in undergoing a bone marrow transplant (in her 70s!) to try and save her life after finding new love at age 72 … to a seemingly wonderful man named Peter who remains by her side through the harshest days of cancer treatment. This memoir is at times harrowing but also life-affirming too. I was holding on as best I could and rooting for Delia to pull through. I especially liked the author’s reading of the audiobook. In it she seems quite open and honest about her life, like she’s telling you personally about her story in your living room. It’s very conversational. And what a rollercoaster story it is. 

After suffering through the deaths of her famous sister Nora Ephron in 2012 and her husband Jerry in 2015 to cancer, she finds new love with Peter, a Bay Area psychiatrist, only to get a leukemia diagnosis several months later in 2017. Whoa Delia is dealt a very heavy deck of cards. But with the right doctors and friends and support, she manages to find a will and a way. I’m still not sure how. In this memoir, she’s witty at times, grateful, candid, and also a dog lover, which makes her telling all the more endearing. It’s quite tragic Delia got the same cancer as her sister Nora … and whereas Nora decided against the agonizing bone marrow transplant, Delia went through with it after finding a donor match. I had no idea she had gone through all this agony — I remember reading her 2016 novel Siracusa and liking it. Her memoir is a pretty gripping listen and a testament to second chances and being close to those you hold dear.

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

Posted in Books, Movies | 32 Comments

The Displacements

Posted on February 25, 2023 by Susan

Hi. I hope everyone had a great week. We had a very cold one here, but we’re starting to come out of it now after getting about a foot of new snow. It made things look all pretty and white and should be good for the ski trails. I heard that even Southern California where my parents are received a few snowflakes — how rare is that?! But can you believe we will start March this week? Wow spring is not too far off now. Have we turned a corner on winter? I think pretty soon … just knowing March is about to start is good news. 

You might like to see the Live Web Cam of the eagles nest in Big Bear in the mountains of SoCal. Jackie, the bald eagle is sitting on the nest with two eggs about to hatch, and Shadow, her spouse is nearby. I hope they will be all right. The big storm there has watchers worried. Apparently 15,000 viewers are tuning in to see when the eggs will hatch, while Jackie is doing her best to incubate them during the snowstorm and winds. She’s a tough bird so I’m hopeful and pulling for her. Her eaglets could appear this week, fingers crossed for all.

In book news, lately I’ve been reading about the controversy over a decision in the U.K. to edit hundreds of words in Roald Dahl’s children’s books in order to update them for today’s world and make the stories and characters more inclusive. Have you heard about this? Well, apparently it’s caused such a firestorm that now both versions in the U.K. will be available — the edited one and the original version, so you can take your pick.

I think in general most people are troubled by the idea of censoring previous literary works, even if the books seem offensive or out of touch with the times. Perhaps people can just bring their own context to them, or decide to read them less. It seems if you start editing and trying to fix books from decades ago, where do you stop cleansing them? What do you think about this recent controversy?

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

The Displacements by Bruce Holsinger / Riverhead / 448 pages / 2022

I must be on a climate-change disaster binge this year after earlier reading The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton and now listening to this one on audio. I don’t think I’m doing it purposely or am I? Both novels take aim at Florida falling apart, and man, does it ever. Sorry to all who love and live in the Sunshine State. For you especially, these books might be hard to take. And Houston, too, is rocked in this one. 

The Displacements is a lengthy novel about a hurricane disaster — a Category 6 (!) that lays waste to Miami and Houston — and its aftermath. It chronicles a mass displacement of swaths of the population — the “Hurricane Luna Migration,” which heads inland and into camps. The novel has multiple storylines of the people impacted that includes: a doctor’s wife (an artist) in Miami and her three kids and dog who flee and get bused to an Oklahoma mega-shelter; the FEMA official who runs the shelter there; and an insurance agent/drug dealer who tries to suck the evacuees dry. 

Oh yeah this is a doozy of a story … and it goes from bad to worse for most of it. In places it’s pretty dramatic, and I was particularly focused on the main story of the well-off family who evade the hurricane only to lose everything while on the run and in the long weeks after in the shelter. The mother Daphne seems not totally astute for losing and not having access to their funds, while her stepson, Gavin, 19, gets involved with dealing drugs, and her younger daughter Mia naively implicates a friend picked up by ICE. 

Surely being in a displacement camp as a Luna refugee without cash is rough. The novel does well painting the picture of the chaos in the disaster’s aftermath and those made destitute by it — as well as the economic and racial divides in the U.S. along the way, but the story also felt to me over-the-top and bloated — and even a bit hard to believe especially the part about Daphne’s missing doctor husband. 

There’s a lot in this, and maybe too much stuffed in. It’s ambitious in its portrayal and the characters undergo some tough changes. The easiest part to believe is the huge disaster that causes the massive disruption and the large fleeing migration, which unfortunately seems all too real of what more swaths of the population could face in our future. The novel complements well with the other Florida disaster novel in 2022 The Light Pirate (about a girl staying put during such a hurricane), but in terms of how it’s put together and the story, I liked The Light Pirate a bit better. 

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read many climate-change disaster novels and if so, what did you think? 

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