Bookfoolery : October 2021

Friday, October 29, 2021

Fiona Friday - Nighthawk

My favorite photo of the week is this shot of Isabel when I couldn't sleep that was taken with the night feature on my mobile. I didn't use a filter; this is just how it turned out.

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Monday, October 25, 2021

Monday Malarkey

Recent arrivals:

Walrus Song by Janet Lawler and Timothy Basil Ering (illustrator) - from Candlewick Press for review

Just one arrival and, of course, I sat right down to read it because I adore children's books. It's a good one. I'll be reviewing it when it releases in November. I remember only one childhood story with walruses in it and I cannot manage to summon the title but I think I love this book partly because I can't think of a single other book specifically about walruses that I've read and reviewed. Walruses Need Love, Too!

Books finished since last Malarkey:

Lost Love's Return by Alfred Nicols
Evil Spy School by Stuart Gibbs
The Sundial by Shirley Jackson
Walrus Song by Janet Lawler and Timothy Basil Ering

The following is Isabel's contribution to today's Malarkey (she walked across my keyboard):

\\\\\\\

Currently reading:

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
Throwback: The Chaos Loop (Throwback #2) by Peter Lerangis

Posts since last Malarkey:

Throwback (Throwback #1) by Peter Lerangis (book review)
The Birds and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier (book review)
Fiona Friday - Getting in the Spirit (cat photo)
The Apothecary (Apothecary #1) by Maile Meloy (book review)
The Sundial by Shirley Jackson (book review)
Fiona Friday - Conked out (cat photo)

In other news:

I'm already thinking about challenges for next year. This year's challenges . . . well, some went pretty well (Gone With the Wind — check! Book-buying and library ban —very good! Native American books — totally dropped the ball). I like choosing a very large challenge book, like GWTW; that's gone well in recent years. I'm waffling between Dune and the full version of The Count of Monte Cristo, at the moment, but that may change. The version of The Count that I've been reading all my life is condensed. I didn't even realize that till a few years ago so now I want to read the longer version. But, Dune is one I've wanted to read for as long as I can remember, so . . .

Waffle, waffle.

Since I finished The Sundial, I haven't felt much like reading. I pick up a book and drift off, thinking about things that need to be done or just daydreaming. Ugh, I hate that. Walrus Song was a welcome arrival because it allowed me to read a book from start to finish without my mind wandering. After a few days of reading one short story or only a handful of pages, I picked up the wrong Throwback book and was enjoying it. Then, I realized there was a reason the author talked about some important time travel activities that took place without going into detail. He did go into detail elsewhere. There's an entire other book.

So, I set aside #3 and picked up The Chaos Loop, which is Throwback #2. It's so much fun that I read half of it and then I started thinking about the astronaut book that I've been reading only on my bike and how last week I never did get around to biking and how I'm almost out of books to review and missed the readathon, this weekend, and blah, blah. Net result: I've decided to take a few days off from blogging to try to finish some books so I'll have something to review — and hopefully manage to get back on that bike. A lot of my reading time has been replaced by art time, so I need to also work at figuring out how to squeeze both into a day. Sometimes, it just might not happen, but we shall see.

My next post will be Fiona Friday and then I'll be back to normal blogging, next week.

Happy reading!

Friday, October 22, 2021

Fiona Friday - Conked out

I like to think the pattern on the pillows that came with our couch is of stacks of books.

Wednesday, October 20, 2021

The Sundial by Shirley Jackson

Mrs. Halloran frowned. "When, Fanny?" she asked. "When did all this happen?"
"Just now—this morning. It was just getting light."
"No," Mrs. Halloran said. "There are no gardeners working on the hedges yet. Your brother wants me to speak to them today."
"On a ladder," Aunt Fanny said.
"Quite impossible," Mrs. Halloran said. "You may very well have seen your father; I would not dream of disputing a private apparition. But you could not have seen a gardener trimming a hedge. Not here, not today."
~from p. 30 of The Sundial

I love Shirley Jackson's writing and I had no idea what I was getting into when I opened The Sundial. I thought I was about to read another suspense novel in the same vein as The Haunting of Hill House. While there is definitely a suspense factor, I think the book is particularly enjoyable for the way the author stabs at the ridiculousness of humans.

Aunt Fanny, as in the quote above, has gone for a walk in the garden on a foggy morning. After becoming lost, she gets a message from her long-dead father. The world is about to end in flames. Nobody will be spared but those inside the sprawling mansion in which Aunt Fanny lives with Mrs. Halloran, her husband, daughter-in-law and granddaughter, a few hired people who are almost part of the family, and the servants.

At first, everyone is skeptical. But, as time goes by it becomes clear to everyone exactly when the world is going to end and they begin preparing. As they do, guests show up and it seems wrong to cast them out to certain death, so they're allowed to stay. One of them actually climbs over the gate and in sharing how she got in, spouted another of my favorite quotes.

"When I am visiting a place," Gloria said, "I don't like being locked out, even if they don't know I'm coming."
~p. 63

Highly recommended - Oh, my gosh, what a hoot. I was expecting suspense but this book is witty, thought-provoking, and at times hilarious. And, you can't beat the sheer precision and stylishness of Shirley Jackson's writing. Is the end of the world really coming or are all the inhabitants of the household deluding themselves? Does what Gloria sees in a mirror with oil poured onto it confirm Aunt Fanny's message from her father? Who will stay and who will go?

This one is a serious keeper, a great read to usher in fall, and there's a lot of discussion-worthy material in it because each of the characters is very flawed in his or her own way. There's also the interesting question of what one would do if given the option that one of the characters is offered — take a large check and the chance that the world really will end and you'll die in two weeks, or stay and lose out on the money but maybe survive an apocalypse.

A couple interesting side notes: The Sundial is apparently a book that was chosen as a special read for this year's RIP Challenge. Humorously, I'd already pulled it off my shelf and put it in my bedside TBR before people started posting about the RIP. While I planned to read it, though, I imagine that the fact that I was seeing it everywhere nudged me a bit so I'm grateful that other people were talking about the book. I didn't read any of the reviews in order to avoid spoiling the reading.

Having read a handful of Shirley Jackson's books or books of her writings, now, I think I can finally put her on the Favorite Author's list. And, I definitely want to go back and read We Have Always Lived in the Castle. It was the first Jackson work I read and —believe it or not— I didn't like it, although I don't remember why. But, now that I'm familiar with Jackson's style and have figured out that her books are about people, their oddities and flaws, and how they can get worked up over nothing, I think I might enjoy it more. I donated my copy, unfortunately. Silly me.

Monday, October 18, 2021

The Apothecary (The Apothecary #1) by Maile Meloy

The Apothecary by Maile Meloy is the first in a magical Young Adult series set in the 1950s. Janie Scott's family has moved from Los Angeles to London after her parents — both in the film industry — are accused of being Communists and feel obligated to leave the country. In London, Janie feels totally out of place but she's fascinated by Benjamin Burrows, the son of the local apothecary, an unusually defiant student who pointedly refuses to get under the table for atomic bomb drills.

When the apothecary's shop is invaded and he disappears, Janie and Ben set out to find him and discover the apothecary's Pharmacopoeia, the book filled with magic potions that Russian spies were seeking when the apothecary disappeared. To find Ben's father, keep the Pharmacopoeia out of Russian hands, and prevent nuclear disaster, they will have to try some magical potions that do amazing things like turn people into birds.

Highly recommended - Magic, adventure, and a touch of romance make The Apothecary a total delight. I'm kind of disappointed that I only have the first book in the series. The next two don't get quite the ratings the first does at Goodreads, but I enjoyed The Apothecary enough that I'd still like to read on. I just looked and my library system does have the second book, but not the third. I need to drop off donations, anyway, so I'm tempted to check it out in spite of my library check-out ban — part of my book-buying ban. I haven't checked out a single book since the pandemic began so one can't hurt, right? Right?

Friday, October 15, 2021

Fiona Friday - Getting in the spirit

Thursday, October 14, 2021

The Birds and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier

Oh, Daphne. You sure could write.

Near as I can tell, The Birds and Other Stories is my 9th read by Daphne du Maurier and it's my second deliberately spooky/atmospheric read for fall in 2021. I never did figure out how to sign up for this year's RIP Challenge, but that's OK. I've become so accustomed to reading at least one or two books that are spooky, witchy, atmospheric, or scary to usher in autumn that I do so by force of habit. I'm not in touch with Carl, who started the RIP and helped me form this habit, but I'm grateful that he started it as it helps to make those last hot, sticky days of summer feel like they pass a little more quickly. Our second cool front is finally on its way, this weekend!

Back to Daphne. I've had The Birds and Other Stories on my TBR for a year or two but it didn't click for me till last week. I loved all but one of the stories. Unfortunately, the least enjoyable of them was the longest. It was more odd and mysterious than creepy or frightening. But, the rest were suspenseful, spooky, atmospheric. Du Maurier had a knack for building tension in the most unexpected ways. Summaries of the stories follow with my thoughts below in italics:

The Birds - The most well-known story, thanks to Alfred Hitchcock, is different from what I know of the movie (I've only seen bits and pieces). A farm hand, injured in the war and only able to perform the easier chores, is shocked when he hears a tapping at his window one night and is attacked by birds, then discovers that his children have left their windows open and are being attacked, as well. The next day, he realizes the birds are hovering offshore, waiting to attack when the tide comes in. So, he rushes his children home and boards up all of the windows. The family hunkers down during the evening attack while the farm hand worries about supplies. How will they survive if this continues? They have barely any food left and there seems to be no end in sight to the attacks.

I can see why this story is a classic that has given plenty of people a fear of birds. Absolutely kept me on the edge of my seat.

Monte Verita - When the beautiful wife of the narrator's friend disappears into a strange mountain complex, he's determined to wait for her to emerge. But, she'll only communicate with him in writing and she says she's never coming back to him.

This is the longest story that asks, "Will the man ever figure out how to get his wife to emerge?" and "Do the people inside this complex stay forever young, as the nearby villagers have told him?" A strange story that I didn't particularly enjoy.

The Apple Tree - When a man's wife dies and he notices that one of his apple trees looks like her, he wants it cut down. But, his gardener is determined to keep the tree alive as it's blossoming for the first time. Each time a piece of the tree enters the house, something goes wrong. Is the tree out to get him?

One of my favorites. I will never think about apple trees in quite the same way.

The Little Photographer - A Marquise on holiday with her children and nanny is captivated by the local man who runs a photography business. Bored with her life, she begins meeting him during siesta time on a cliff where he likes to take photos. But, what will happen when her husband decides to come to the seaside a little earlier than expected?

Trouble, that's what. Good story. The tension is in the fact that they could be caught at any time, but then something shocking happens.

Kiss Me Again Stranger - When a mechanic goes to see a movie, he falls for the usherette and they take a walk together. A few strange moments intersect with a news article, the next day, and he becomes aware of the danger he was in.

Another story with a good shock factor. It doesn't feel entirely creepy till the end; you just get the sense that something is off.

The Old Man - The narrator has been advised to stay away from "the old man" who lives near the lake. Did he kill his children?

The surprise twist ending totally caught me off-guard. Not my favorite. In fact, I'd totally forgotten what this one was about and had to flip through the book.

Highly recommended - The second book of short stories I've read by du Maurier (Don't Look Now is the other; link leads to a mini review). Of the two, The Birds is better in my humble opinion. Only one story fell totally flat for me and the last story felt like it had a bit of a cheap twist. 4 of the 6 were exceptional. And, as I said in my mini review of Don't Look Now, Daphne du Maurier's books are always worth reading because her writing is stellar.

This is my favorite cover of The Birds. My copy looks like the one at the top of the post.

Tuesday, October 12, 2021

Throwback by Peter Lerangis (Throwback #1)

All Corey Fletcher needs to travel through time is an artifact from the past. After Corey time travels by accident a couple times, he discovers that the ability to time travel runs in the family and sets out on a mission to save his grandmother, who died on 9/11 in the collapse of one of the Twin Towers.

But, then something goes terribly wrong and Corey ends up stuck in 1917, hunted by a street gang, and befriended by a cowboy named Quinn. In order to end up back home, Corey will have to find an artifact from his own time. Will Corey be able to find his way home?

Recommended but not a favorite - I liked Throwback but didn't love it. However, I'm a big fan of time travel so I checked the ratings on this series before buying them and the latter two in the series have better ratings than the first book. So, I'm really looking forward to them, in spite of the fact that I wasn't thrilled with Throwback.

All three books from the Throwback series were purchased when I placed that Husband-approved book order, a few weeks ago. I'm determined to make it to the end of the year without making any more book purchases at all.

Monday, October 11, 2021

Monday Malarkey

Recent arrivals (left, above - click on image to enlarge):

The London House by Katherine Reay - from Harper Muse for tour

Recent arrivals stacked above (all purchased), top to bottom:

The Complete Two Pints; Charlie Savage; and, Love - all by Roddy Doyle
The Burning Chambers by Kate Moss
The Autumn of the Ace by Louis de Bernières
Stories from Suffragette City by various authors, ed. by M. J. Rose and Fiona Davis
Love and Other Consolation Prizes by Jamie Ford

The Autumn of the Ace is the 3rd in the Daniel Pitt series. You might remember if you hang out here often that I recently read the 2nd. It was the desire to finish this series that compelled me to look Autumn, etc. up at Book Closeouts and I was utterly shocked to find the final book in the series. So, I looked up the Spy School series and found almost all of those books, as well. Then, I just kept going, looking up favorite authors and then flipping through fiction. I can get myself in all sorts of trouble that way.

Books finished since last Malarkey:

Throwback by Peter Lerangis
The Boatman and Other Stories by Billy O'Callaghan
September Moon by John Moore
The Birds and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier
The Apothecary by Maile Meloy

Throwback and The Apothecary are both the first in a series by the same name as the title. I don't have any more of The Apothecary series but I have two more Throwback books. They arrived with my last order (blessed by spouse) and I've posed them with the first book so I'll share that photo when I review Throwback.

The two books of short stories were both fabulous. I've already reviewed The Boatman (link below) and hope to get to The Birds, soon. And, September Moon (also already reviewed with link below) was also a terrific read but an unusual one because we're so accustomed to the worst possible outcome in fiction, I suppose. Bad things happen but they always work out in September Moon. I so enjoyed how relaxing that made the reading. The Apothecary was good, clean fun, very adventurous and magical with a touch of romance (YA). The rest of the series doesn't get quite the positive reviews of the first book so I'll have to think about whether or not I want to eventually read on.

Currently reading:

Lost Love's Return by Alfred Nicols (e-book) - for F2F discussion

Still also reading How to Astronaut by Terry Virts. Also still getting hollered at by the cat while I read and bike.

Posts since last Malarkey:

The Lighthouse Witches by C. J. Cooke (book review)
Gobbolino the Witch's Cat by Ursula Moray Williams (book review)
Fiona Friday - Wants on lap, plz (cat photo)
The Boatman and Other Stories by Billy O'Callaghan (book review)
September Moon by John Moore (book review)
Fiona Friday - Izzy is helpful (cat photos)

In other news:

We watched a couple episodes of Blake's 7 and I'm pretty sure that's literally all I watched. Husband asked for subscription to a sports channel for his birthday so the rest of the time the TV was on, it involved some sporting event or other.

Wait, I'm wrong! We watched one episode of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives and the spouse got a recipe that interested us from that particular episode. I hated it. Nice try, though.

Most of my spare time has been spent on art videos, although I haven't done all that much. There's an annual event called "taster sessions" — which is pretty much what it sounds like, just two weeks of free videos that give you a taste of the courses you get if you buy the year-long membership to this thing called Lifebook. I've only actually tried a couple of the projects. Some I just watched. I found the sheer quantity so overwhelming that I just chose the few that interested me. Two were abject failures; two went well. I haven't decided if I'm going to buy the yearly membership because many of the tasters lean "crafty". But, I have learned a few new techniques and there are a couple artists whose classes pique my interest enough that I think it might be worth the annual fee for the sake of being able to watch them over and over again, even if it's just 3 or 4 artists whose courses I want to keep. Once you buy a year's membership, you allegedly have access to the classes for life (I don't honestly trust the words "for life" when it comes to online content, but . . . a year of access is fine). Anyway, still thinking about that.

I also took a course from London Drawing School on the art of Julie Mehretu and did the warm up and the regular exercise. I'd never heard of Mehretu but I really love the London Drawing School courses and I found this course particularly interesting because her art is so very, very different from anything I've done. It looks chaotic and meaningless, just crazy-looking stuff. But, the instructor, Lucy McGeown, did an exceptional job of explaining the meaning of Mehretu's abstracts and showing how to imitate her art. I came out of it just glowing with the joy of having learned something completely new to me.

Meanwhile . . . the only other thing I've been up to of any significance is trying to get Christmas gift purchases done and dusted because of the anticipated shortages and the new rules slowing down the mail (massively peeved about that and hope it can be undone, at some point). I made good progress on that, this week.

I'm also already pondering my goals for 2022 reading and I think I've settled on a personal challenge that will be fun, the "Pick a Pile Challenge". As if that isn't obvious, it has to do with the fact that I have books stacked on the floor and those stacks line two walls of my home library. It occurred to me that there's a lot of variety in each stack, so why not challenge myself to pick a pile and stick with it till I've read them all? What do you think? Sound fun?

Friday, October 08, 2021

Fiona Friday - Izzy is helpful

Wrong place, Mom. I'll move it for you.

Wednesday, October 06, 2021

September Moon by John Moore

September Moon by John Moore is a book I ordered secondhand from Across the Pond for a buddy read hosted by @the_unhurried_reader of Instagram in 2019. Unfortunately, it didn't arrive till October of that year and the buddy read was by then over, having finished at the end of September. I've been eager to read it during a September ever since, but I must have been too booked up in 2020.

September Moon tells the story of the harvest of hops in England's Hertfordshire. During the month, itinerant workers — some Welsh, many traveling Romany, one an older man who has been harvesting all his life — arrive to do the harvesting. This is not a fast-placed, tightly plotted book, but at the same time there's no waste of words and the writing is lovely enough to suit anyone who enjoys literature. Instead, what you get is a farmer with chest pains; his son who had a fling with a "gipsy" girl [I'm going to continue with the spelling and usage of the word "gipsy" for convenience and to match the book, although I know Romany is the proper term] and tries to resume their affair but finds that her personality has changed; the Gipsy King who is challenged by the other tough-guy gipsy; the farmer and would-be inventor who is not a natural to farming, frequently loses money on crops and attempted inventions, and tends to drink off his profits at the local pub; and, his half-French daughter who has returned from London and whom the villagers suspect left in the first place because she got in trouble with a boy. There's also the threat of a spreading fungus ruining the crops.

Published in 1957, September Moon is a total comfort read. The tension is ever-present and there are plenty of questions to keep the pages turning, but in the end nothing awful happens. Literally nothing. All the fighting and drama and knives flashing by moonlight, the one farmer's illness and the other's threatened loss of his farm. Well, there's bloodshed and danger, but no tragedy and the plot twists are comfortable rather than nerve-racking. I think it'll be great going into the book in future Septembers knowing that it's that kind of read, taut enough to make the pages fly but pleasant enough to read when you're stressed out and just want to find something enjoyably tense in which nobody dies.

Highly recommended but apparently out of print - I checked to see if there are any newer copies available and it looks like the only available options are secondhand. Abe Books has quite a few but the first one to pop up is in a shop in Melbourne, Australia, so perhaps it was never published in the U.S. At any rate, if you're ever looking for something that is enjoyable to read and not in the mood for anything horrible to happen, September Moon is perfect. If I didn't happen to still be on that book-buying ban (I am determined to make it to the end of the year without buying another single book, in spite of having broken my ban a time or two), I would see if I could find some other secondhand books by Moore. But, I won't. Maybe next year.

Monday, October 04, 2021

The Boatman by Billy O'Callaghan

Even without Mei in the room, her presence blocked out the space the way sand fills an hourglass, turning everything slow. That's how I wanted it to be, and that at least was what I'd have, but I knew from before, from having already lost her once, such ghosts tormented as much as consoled. We'd taken an important step in reconnecting and had sworn we wouldn't let that flag, so that it would be different this time, better even if still a long way from ideal, but keeping our promise meant condemning ourselves to a famished life, to the scraps that could nourish only the most fragile of hearts.

~from "Ruins", p. 44 of The Boatman

I chose an excerpt from the story "Ruins" in The Boatman by Billy O'Callaghan at random because when I was reading I was so immersed that it never occurred to me to get up and look for flags to mark favorite passages. Instead, I read them over and over for their sheer beauty. But, this is what you most need to know about The Boatman: it is carefully, meticulously crafted, rhythmic and melancholy and absolutely stunning.

A few of the stories:

"The Border Fox" - A young man goes over the border into Northern Ireland with a group, to make a delivery. A tense story of subterfuge, violence, and budding romance.
"The Boatman" - Two men walk to a graveyard to dig the grave of the boatman's daughter, who died very quickly after becoming ill. "She was only young," her uncle keeps repeating. A heartrending tale of grief and the physical labor that becomes a part of the grieving process.
"Beginish" - A young couple, madly in love and still newlyweds, work hard at two jobs each to save money for a proper holiday. When they decide to stay close to home and camp out on an abandoned island, the man from whom they rent a boat is friendly though mildly concerned. But, neither he nor the young couple expect the tragedy they're about to encounter.
"Love is Strange" - A teenager is compelled to help an elderly neighbor who regularly struggles up the hill to her home with her purchases. A few years later, he goes out with a neighbor girl and they talk about the old woman.

I realize, after writing about these 4 stories, that all of them are favorites from the dozen in the book. But, I can't think of any story in The Boatman that I disliked. "Beginish" was the one story in the collection that I could imagine expanded to novel length and perhaps even turned into a movie. It's tragic, as are many of the stories. But, I was so swept away by the incredible beauty of O'Callaghan's writing that for once I thought more about the sound, rhythm and uniqueness of his wording than about the direction each story took. Having said that, all are compelling and at least two had an "edge of your seat" feel.

Speaking of tragedy . . . if you've hung around here for a while, you know I generally rate anything tragic that lacks a glimpse of hope lower than I do those that give you some sense of light at the end of the tunnel. I gave The Boatman 5 stars, which just goes to show that truly amazing writing will win out, even if a story is gut-wrenching. That surprised me, actually.

Highly recommended - This one's going on the good shelves and I will definitely return to it for future rereading.

Important note: I posted about this book on Instagram, yesterday, and one of the photos I posted was of the book posed with a record album (vinyl, that is) and music box that my mother brought home from Ireland, way back when I was a tiny tyke. I listened to the album as a child and remembered the tune to the title song but none of the words. After I posted, I found the title cut on YouTube to listen to and hoo boy, it could be considered extremely offensive in some quarters. It's about a man going off to join the IRA. Since I don't mean to take sides in any way, that post will come down. I was really shocked. It has such a jaunty tune that I had no idea what it was about. In fact, the words "where the helmets glisten in the sun" was one of those phrases that my little-kid brain turned into something else, although there is no such thing as a "Hal man" that glistens in the sun . . . and I didn't remember what my mind had turned it to till I heard the song for the first time in decades. Apologies to any Irish citizens who may have seen that post and found it offensive.