Cold Granite by Stuart MacBride

Talk about an unusual read for this bookfool! I don't read true crime, anymore, and seldom read crime novels for the same reason. I used to read both all the time. I stopped reading true crime when my husband told me he was coming home to find me in tears a little too often and I needed to give it up. Crime novels and mysteries . . . burnout. I was addicted to a number of mystery series for several years and then just suddenly couldn't stand them. Now, I really no longer have the ability to freeze out the yuck from my brain (not that I was very good at it in the first place -- see: Husband Advice). But, after a slumpy month, I needed to shake up my reading and I've found the best way to knock myself out of a slump is to read something very different from my normal fare. So, there you go. 

Cold Granite does have a lot of gruesome scenes, incidentally. If you can't tolerate them (particularly if you're upset by crime against children) you might want to avoid this, although I think the writing is exceptional and it was because of that fact that I was able to overlook the most disgusting bits.

Detective Sergeant Logan McRae of Aberdeen, Scotland has just returned to work after nearly being killed in the line of duty. Now, Aberdeen seems to have a child killer on the loose. Within days, bodies are found and several children go missing. Logan is still occasionally having some trouble with his injury, so the new boss assigns a uniformed female Police Constable to work with him . . . or, maybe babysit him. He's not too happy about it, at first. 

There is so much that happens in this book that I don't think I can even unravel it enough to talk about the various threads but there's a man who has a mental problem and collects the dead animals he scoops up from the side of the road, a young man who has been caught in a crime of his own and has to testify about the abuse he suffered when he was in a hospital, and Logan dealing with a new boss who isn't sure he should be back at work and an old flame at work who wants to stay well away from him. There's also a reporter who keeps coming up with information he shouldn't have and publicizing it and he wants to weasel information out of Logan. Suffice it to say, Cold Granite is nicely complex and twisty. 

Meanwhile, it's very cold and snowy in Aberdeen, which feeds into the mood. There's mention of Christmas decorations, so there's a tiny bit of the season injected. It's way too grisly to call a Christmas read, though. 

Highly recommended but not for the faint of heart - I'm normally the faint of heart and I really had to work at shutting out the images of autopsies and decomposed bodies, but I thought Cold Granite was incredibly well-written with believable characters and dialogue and I liked Logan. Will I read on in the series? After closing the book, I felt tempted but I'm about to attempt a year-long book-buying ban and read only from my shelves (not even the library). So, it's very unlikely that I'll get to another MacBride book right away. However, I will definitely remember this author and series and I think someday I will try to read on. This particular book was originally published in 2005 so there are quite a few more books in the series. 

©2020 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

I Guess I'll Write it Down by Beth Evans, a journal

I keep forgetting to post about these adorable journals and I finally realized why, last night. I'm accustomed to reading a book, recording the number of pages read daily, finishing it, and then adding it to my master list (a draft saved for publication on the blog at the end of the year). I refer back to my master list regularly to see what I need to review and to add links to my reviews. But, you don't read an empty journal, apart from the pages like that one shown above, so these two did not get added to either the calendar or the master list.

At any rate, I finally photographed the two journals, both sent by HarperCollins. There are some pages with text like the open journal, above, but most have the ghostly-looking creature peeking out of a single corner or doing something in a small space and the rest of the spread is empty lines to fill. It's super cute, but of course a journal is for writing in, not reading, so I'm glad the author kept the reading material to a minimum but made it interesting or funny when she did insert a page of text.

I'm not a journal-keeper in the traditional diary/anecdote way. Notebooks and journals are, to me, a place to write down observations like the features of everyone at a particular table in a restaurant, lines they say that I think are interesting, or brief conversations I find worth keeping. I've done that since I was young and never fully stopped, in spite of the fact that I haven't written fiction regularly in years. I Guess I'll Write It Down by Beth Evans encourages me to get back in the game.

Highly recommended - The I Guess I'll Write It Down journals make me want to go to a coffee shop to eavesdrop. I particularly like the fact that these little journals are hardback, so they're not likely to end up ruined if you stick them in your purse or other bag (I'll add a rubber band when I carry one around, just to make sure something doesn't get stuck between the pages). But, they're compact enough to carry around conveniently. The two would easily fit in the purse I'm currently carrying. Particularly great for people who carry a journal in a bag or who are intimidated by a larger empty journal because they don't write large entries.

My thanks to HarperCollins for sending me the journals. They will be well used!


©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie is a classic 1930s mystery in which a person is murdered on a train just before it becomes stuck in the snow. Someone on the train is guilty of murder and Inspector Poirot must find the murderer without any high-tech gadgetry, instead relying upon observable fact, interviews of the suspects, and his powers of deduction.

You probably knew all that, but I'd completely forgotten the storyline, apart from "Murder on train; Poirot investigates," although I've seen the movie version that stars David Suchet (long, long ago). The novel edition shown above is a tie-in to the new movie release starring Kenneth Branagh as Poirot and a stunningly high-profile cast as the passengers and suspects.

You might be surprised to find out this is the first time I've read Murder on the Orient Express. I've never been a big fan of Agatha Christie but I do like to occasionally read a mystery as a change of pace, so I requested the book from HarperCollins for review. As it turned out, in spite of its classic status I felt about the same as I always do about Agatha Christie's books (meh), but there was one thing that particularly intrigued me and that was the details of the train, itself - the diagram of compartments, the description of the sleeping berths and dining car, etc. That part I enjoyed. And, the movie tie-in edition has a photo section, so there are shots of the train to refer to when the author mentions certain details, like the window bar.

Recommended, especially to mystery lovers - I may not be the best judge of Agatha Christie because I tend to dislike the kind of mysteries that involve someone hammering suspects with questions, but the descriptions of the train itself kept me going and I can see why Murder on the Orient Express is a classic. Its setting and the murder are definitely unique. And, now, looking back on a work that is at least 80 years old, you get a  fascinating historical  peek into of a mode of travel that has all but disappeared. I was also intrigued by a comment made by a German character about how her people were peaceful, an especially interesting remark in view of the events that took place in Germany within a handful of years after publication in 1934. I appreciated the movie photo section and now I definitely want to see the movie, if only for a better look inside the train.

©2017 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman - Thoughts and F2F group discussion

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman was a reread for me and I'm not sure I ever actually wrote about it on the blog when I read it, before. At least, I couldn't find a review when I looked via Google. Incidentally, this serves as a great reminder that my blog search feature has not worked in years. The best way to look for a review on my blog is to go to Google and type in the title of a book you hope I've reviewed and "Bookfoolery". If I've reviewed the book at this blog (or even mentioned it), there will be a link.

Back to the book. The first time I read The Graveyard Book, I checked it out from my local library because I've always been a little iffy about Gaiman. I fall instantly in love with about half of his books and the other half are let-downs. I never know which will be the case and will often check his books out from the library before buying them.

I remembered exactly why I didn't love The Graveyard Book, the first time. It's got a pretty scary opening. At the beginning, a toddler's family is murdered but he's saved by the fact that he's a wanderer and the door to the house was left open. After roaming to the local graveyard (which is also a nature reserve and has been closed to new burials for some time), the murderer pursues him but the ghosts in the graveyard agree to let one ghostly couple adopt him and to work together to protect him from the man who wants him dead.

It was the gory opening that I disliked. I'm prone to nightmares and have been since I was small, so I tend to be sensitive to books that are marketed to children but which I think could give some of them nightmares. And, The Graveyard Book certainly would have given me nightmares as a child.

On the second reading, though, I knew what was coming and enjoyed it for the atmosphere, the unique setting, and the story. I didn't mind the murder at all because I knew it had to happen for little Nobody Owens, or "Bod", to enter the world of the ghosts in the graveyard. In other words, I was free to appreciate the book, the second time. And, boy, did I. Especially at the beginning of the book, I could imagine reading the book aloud to children. It's so beautifully written and atmospheric, just a stunning beginning with fog creeping around the door frame and this giggly little child completely unaware of the danger while you're thinking, "Hurry, child, hurry," and feeling the chill in the air.

And, then, the happenings in the graveyard are both wildly creative and somehow believable.  "What would happen to a human who grew up with ghosts?" One of the group members asked, and then answering herself, said: "He'd learn to fade." In other words, those little magical touches within the book seem utterly sensible, given the context.

We didn't do a show of hands but I'd say more than half of my group liked The Graveyard Book. Of the ones who didn't like it, one said it was just too geared toward children and he's not really interested in children's books. One was the member who had stopped discussion of Gaiman completely when I tried to recommend his books for discussion, earlier in the year, and she said she's just not interested in anything otherworldly at all - ghosts/spirits, scifi, fantasy, etc. She's only interested in realistic fiction. One woman said, "I don't have a problem with that. I've seen ghosts." One said, "I didn't understand the purpose of the murder, apart from placing the child in the graveyard. Why was the murderer after him, in particular?" And, another member said, "I can't analyze books like you guys do, but when I opened the book I stepped into the graveyard with Bod and stayed till I closed it. I enjoyed it. It was an experience."

What a fun discussion! We didn't have any discussion questions and we went off-topic a bit more than I think some of us would have liked to but the discussion was noisy because the opinions were so divided. I was not the only person who had trouble with a book with such a terrifying opening being marketed to children. But, apparently, I'm the only person in my group who hasn't read The Jungle Book. One member commented on the episodic nature of the book (which I noticed this time - it almost felt like interconnected short stories rather than a novel) and the group member who recommended The Graveyard Book noted that it's based on The Jungle Book, so that episodic aspect is deliberate.

OK. So, I have to read The Jungle Book, soon. Fortunately, I have a copy. The bottom line is that I liked The Graveyard Book much more the second time around. Whether or not it's appropriate for children seems to be up for debate, but the writing is stunning, you get a little peek into history via the ghosts from different eras (one of whom, for example, has no idea what a banana is), and it is, in fact, a book that won an award for excellence in children's writing, so somewhere there's a panel of people who thought it was just fine and dandy for kids. I'd still keep it from children who are prone to nightmares or read it with them.

©2017 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Little Book of Hygge by Meik Wiking

I very seldom read books about how to be happy because I think they tend to either have only a short-term effect or I find them impractical in some way. I was interested in reading The Little Book of Hygge by Meik Wiking, though, because of the fact that the book is so stinking cute (maybe not the best reason) and it's about how people choose to add joy to their lives in a particular place. Maybe it would not be as applicable as I'd like, but I was still curious. I was not disappointed.

The Little Book of Hygge begins with a brief explanation of the concept of hygge - how to pronounce the word (HOO-GA), the cozy feeling it implies, and why something like a storm merely adds to the kind of comfort and joy that one can experience from elements of hygge like a warm sweater, soft socks, a book, the presence of a few friends, and mellow lighting. Then, it goes into greater detail.

Light is apparently a very big deal in Denmark and my first thought was probably the same as that of most Americans: Ack - candles - fire hazard! Danish people love candles (unscented) and tend to set the mood by lighting a lot of them. While I would love to do that, myself, I am definitely paranoid about fire hazards and it's true that the seeking of warmth generally does not apply to us because of our warm climate. One situation that was described repeatedly was friends gathering around a fire or out on a deck with a hot drink after skiing, when everyone is too tired to speak and the presence of others is a joy, in and of itself.

I do love a crackling fire. But, I doubt I'll ever experience skiing with friends. Oddly, as unrelatable as that is to an American gal living in the Deep South, it's easy enough to imagine and gives you a good sense of the kind of atmosphere hygge is about. As to the idea of lighting lots of candles . . . it sounds lovely in abstract but fire is my pet irrational fear. I am absolutely terrified of fire. My husband loves to light scented candles; I enjoy blowing them out. I imagine my cats jumping onto countertops and setting their tails on fire. So, the lighting concept makes sense to me and yet it feels like something I will never accomplish.

There are plenty more subjects: togetherness, food and drink, clothing, hygge inside and outside the home, Christmas. There is even a summer hygge chapter. Like a Danish winter, Danish summer could not be farther from our personal experience. Again, I don't think that matters because I still got the sense of what the Danish do to make comfort and happiness a part of their lives.

The author talks about other aspects that contribute to happiness, apart from the hygge that is deliberately created through atmosphere. For example, the fact that the Danish are taxed heavily but their tax money goes toward a marvelous social safety net. Healthcare is free; a university education is free. Because the cost of health and education are not concerns, the Danish have less stressful lives to begin with, which gives them the ability to focus on creating joy. But, we can all learn from them, of course.

My favorite part of the book is probably the Hygge Wishlist with 10 items "that will make your home more hygellig," including a comfortable corner (a hyggekrog), things made out of wood or ceramics, books, nature, vintage lighting, and tactile things like a warm drink or a soft pillow. You don't have to live in a cold climate to enjoy any of those things - well, apart from holding a cup of hot liquid. We do save the warm drinks for winter.

Recommended - While I was reading The Little Book of Hygge, I frequently read bits and pieces to my husband and told him a bout how the Danish decorate and use light, comfortable clothing, warm drinks, and friendship to create happiness. Our decorating style - when we put out any effort at all - could be described as Danish Modern, so there are aspects of the decorating already present in our home. We both came out of the reading feeling like it's something we want to study further and that we should focus on ridding ourselves of some of the home furnishings that we ended up with by default (chiefly through the deaths of family members). I put myself on a book-buying ban around the time that I was reading The Little Book of Hygge but I'm still planning to buy some books about the Danish decorating style to use as encouragement and I plan to return to The Little Book of Hygge for advice. As far removed as we are from some of the aspects of Danish life that lead to coziness, like the cold, the snow, and the long, dark winters, I think there's something for everyone in The Little Book of Hygge.


©2017 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Everything I didn't review in 2016, Part 1

After writing that last post, I realized there was no recent read left that I thought needed even mini review treatment, although a couple of the books I neglected throughout the year really should have gotten reviews fresh from the reading. I'll mention those when I get to them.

Don't Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change by George Marshall is a book not so much about climate change and the stats that prove it but how people think about it, what makes them prone to denial or understanding, and why certain circumstances make it more likely that they won't connect an event to climate change. An excellent, thought-provoking book that I thought about for so long I didn't get around to reviewing, this is probably one of two books I seriously regret not getting around to saying anything about. It's more psychology than climate science. While the author approaches both sides and does his best to stay neutral, he falls clearly on the side of the 97% of scientists who are convinced that climate change is going to kill us all (he's not shy about saying so) and describes climate scientists as a gloomy lot, because they anticipate their doom. This one deserves a reread. It's a 5-star book.

From the Land of the Moon by Milena Agus is a Europa translation with a surprising ending, so twisty as to be baffling. I found another reader to discuss with and we were uncertain what actually happened in the end but it appeared that the narrator was unreliable and the ending cast the entire story into doubt. I'm glad I read From the Land of the Moon but it was definitely a head trip.

1914 and Other Poems by Rupert Brooke is one of the few books I don't remember all that well. I knew of Rupert Brooke as one of the war poets but as far as I can recall, the book was not composed entirely of war poetry. As with most poetry, some of it made sense and even resonated, some was either baffling or simply beyond my understanding, some I liked and some I did not. In the end, I'm guessing I didn't have much to say about it and that's why it ended up unreviewed, but I'm always happy to have read a volume of poetry because I love trying to engage with an art form that is powerful due to the careful and precise use of wording, whether I get it all or not.

The Secret of Raven Point by Jennifer Vanderbes is a book I read while on vacation, a WWII story about a nurse, her patients, and a doctor for whom she has feelings she must keep to herself. When I read this book, I really enjoyed it but I was shocked how quickly I forgot what it was about. To this day, I can't remember the details. But, I have to wonder if that has to do more with travel fatigue than the content of the book. At any rate, I know I enjoyed it. I just don't remember much about it.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows was, of course, the hot book about 5 years ago. Maybe longer, I don't know. At any rate, I put off reading it for ages and I don't know why. I finally got to it in 2016 and, like everyone else, I loved it. I found the story of the group of Guernsey island inhabitants who use a book club as cover for their activities charming, sometimes funny, but at the same time fiercely real. It's a rare book that can be funny, serious, and deeply moving. I opted not to review the book because everyone else already reviewed it but if there's anyone left out there who hasn't yet read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, quit putting it off.

Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo is a book I bought and had autographed - or maybe just bought autographed - at our local book festival. I got to hang out with blog friend Brittanie during the author's hilarious question/answer session and then came home and gobbled down Flora and Ulysses, that night. It's the story of a squirrel who is sucked up by a vacuum cleaner and when he does, he gains the ability to write poetry. But, he really wants to be a superhero. Funny, cerebral, and heartwarming (although not my favorite by the author). Kate DiCamillo is a gifted storyteller. I can't imagine not liking anything she has ever written or will write.

A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression by Jane Ziegelman and Andrew Coe is one of the best works of nonfiction I read in 2016 and I feel awful about not reviewing it. You should see my copy; it is chock full of colorful flags. I still think about it regularly. It's particularly relevant because a great deal of what was done during the Depression with the back-and-forth about social programs and whether or not people were becoming too dependent upon handouts and should only get seeds to grow their own food . . . similar things are being done, today, with the whole "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and stop depending on SNAP!" thing. I had no idea, actually, about the bread lines being as controversial as the distribution of food to families, nor did I ever contemplate the fact that it was always the men standing in food lines. Funny that I never noticed that. I also gained a new admiration for farm wives of that time period and learned a lot about how home economists led changes in the way we live and cook.

I need to find my copy and pull some quotes from this one. It's a crime that I didn't get to it, honestly, particularly given its application to the way we're still bickering about whether or not people living in poverty should be served by food programs. If you have any interest at all in the Great Depression, A Square Meal is a marvelous resource and a fascinating read.

Part 2 is coming up.

©2017 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Tree by John Fowles

The Tree by John Fowles came to me in ARC form in 2010 from HarperCollins, and I'm sure I looked at its slimness (at 91 pages, some reviewers have referred to it as an essay) and told myself, "That will be a quick read!" I failed to finish it in 2010 and just recently returned to it. I remembered that I'd set it aside and wondered why when I picked it up a second time.

John Fowles was pretty fricking erudite, that's why. Thin as the book is, it's not always easy reading and I found myself looking up more than a few words. But, at the same time, it's packed with wisdom.

Evolution has turned man into a sharply isolating creature, seeing the world not only anthopocentrically but singly, mirroring the way we like to think of our private selves. [p. 26]

[...] only fools think our attitude to our fellow-men is a thing distinct from our attitude to "lesser" life on this planet. [p. 30]

But I think the most harmful change brought about by Victorian science in our attitude to nature lies in the demand that our relation with it must be purposive, industrious, always seeking greater knowledge. This dreadfully serious and puritanical approach (nowhere better exhibited in the nineteenth century than in the countless penny magazines aimed at young people) has had two very harmful effects. One is that it turned the vast majority of contemporary Western mankind away from what had become altogether too much like a duty, or a school lesson; the second is that the far saner eighteenth-century attitude, which viewed nature as a mirror for philosophers, as an evoker of emotion, as a pleasure, a poem, was forgotten. [p. 33]

I could keep quoting for quite a while. In spite of its size, I managed to mark 15 passages. The Tree is, at its core, a meditation on the importance of nature to humankind through the personal experience of its author; but it also challenges our perception of nature, of growing things that can't speak to us directly but can touch our hearts and souls, of life around us, not just in us. My reading of The Tree felt pretty timely to me as I'd just recently read The Sixth Extinction, in which Elizabeth Kolbert talked to a scientist who is monitoring the way trees are marching in step with climate change, moving as the climate around them changes.

Recommended - At times so scholarly in its wording that I found myself rereading a sentence or paragraph three times, at times fluid, The Tree is a very moving piece of work about something intensely personal to the author, John Fowles, but also a book that challenges us to think about our world and all its parts as a whole. It's really quite thought-provoking and pertinent, especially as the end of the latest world conference to hammer out guidelines for slowing climate change has just concluded.

©2015 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

In which my F2F book group goes to see Labor Day, the movie

If you hang around here much, you probably already know my F2F group was provided 10 copies of Labor Day by Joyce Maynard.  I had already received a copy from HarperCollins and read the book, by the time the offer arrived, so I left the choice of whether or not to accept the offer up to members.  I liked Labor Day (the book).  And, our F2F group discussion about Labor Day was a good one; in general, everyone enjoyed it, which is interesting because I've since read a few scathing reviews, one of which referred to the pie in my favorite scene (short version: "escaped prisoner teaches deeply depressed woman and her lonely son how to bake pie") as a metaphor for life when, personally, I think it was just a scene designed to show the escaped prisoner's humanity, but that's neither here nor there. Point being, we liked the book and the discussion was a good one.

HarperCollins also provided us with 10 tickets to the Labor Day movie, which our group leader handed out on a first-come, first-serve basis.  I don't know exactly how many people showed up but I'm guessing it was 20-25.  We had a huge turnout, which was fun in and of itself - just going with a group, sitting with someone I would not likely ever have attended a movie with otherwise and discussing in the hallway after the movie ended . . . that was a terrific experience.

So, what did we think of the movie?  To be honest, there was pretty much a collective groan as we exited and the most commonly used words were "fragmented" and "confusing".  But -- and this is an interesting distinction -- that was the opinion of those of us who read the book, which was most of us.  There seemed to be an advantage to not having read the book in advance of viewing the movie, which I find is often true for me; I can't speak for anyone else in that regard.  My typical mode is to watch the movie, read the book, then watch the movie, again (if I know a book is being made into a movie and I haven't already read the book, that is).  If you see the movie first, then you can read the book with a completely different perspective.  In my case, I like to see a story visually portrayed then go deeper by reading the book, which obviously gives you the internal side, elaborates on details movies often skim over, etc.  It's a kick comparing the two mediums.

Anyway . . . ramble, ramble.  After I'd gotten a general (mostly negative) reaction from most everyone, someone nudged me and said, "H liked it!"  H is a new member and she had only read part of the book. She reminded me that the acting was good (true - great actors, all around). H also said she thought Barry, the handicapped boy, was cute and his mother was just as annoying in the movie as she was in the book.  We both agreed that Henry, Adele's son, was a good little actor and they did nicely show how Adele and Henry's weekend with Frank left a lasting imprint on both their lives.  I was really glad to have a few moments to chat with H about her thoughts because she helped me to leave the theater thinking about the positives. It's easy to focus on the fragmented way the story was filmed and overlook its strong points.

Eventually I was emailed by our group leader with thoughts from a few people who viewed the movie at a later date and shared their thoughts.  The common denominator, again, seemed to be that those who had not read the book enjoyed the Labor Day movie more than those who did, even though pretty much everyone found the flashbacks confusing.  Some just didn't care, though, and enjoyed it for what it was.  I'm going to quote our group leader:

People who enjoyed the movie because of the story, the romance of it, the happy ending, the good actors, and were not bogged down in what we knew from the book didn't care about a few scenes that may not have made a lot of sense.  Just didn't matter enough to spoil their enjoyment.   

That's pretty much H's viewpoint.  So, good and bad.  I asked and everyone did enjoy the pie scene -- one of the scenes we were most looking forward to.

I later thought about the fact that in the movie Frank is more threatening in the store (where he doesn't so much ask as insist that Adele and Henry take him home) and on the car ride to their home, which struck me as a good choice because Adele's mental illness is clear in the book and -- although I think Kate Winslet did a knock-out job of portraying her fears -- I think it made sense to have Frank appear more threatening if you haven't read about just how seriously depressed and agoraphobic Adele was, beforehand.

Our thanks to HarperCollins for providing copies of Labor Day and movie tickets.  We really had a terrific time talking about the book, watching the movie and then discussing the movie.

©2014 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Labor Day by Joyce Maynard

In Labor Day by Joyce Maynard, an escaped prisoner asks a boy if he and his mother (who are shopping in a grocery store) will take him home with them.  It's clear that he's injured and something is not quite right about him, yet 13-year-old Henry's depressed and agoraphobic mother, Adele, agrees to take Frank home with her and her son.  During the next 6 days, which encompass the Labor Day weekend, Frank boosts Henry's confidence, teaches the two of them how to bake a perfect peach pie and lifts Adele from serious depression. 30 years later, Henry reflects on this pivotal weekend in his young life and how Frank made a lasting impact on his family.

I took Labor Day along with me to Oklahoma and gobbled it down in a few hours.  It's told from the viewpoint of a 13-year-old boy so it fits the "coming of age" mold, something I usually dislike because there tends to be a lot of focus on sex, which frankly bores me.  In this case, however, the pages absolutely flew.  Adele's dysfunctions are oddly fascinating and relatable: a woman has become so crippled by depression that her son has to do most of the shopping and she almost never goes out at all, a boy who is clearly struggling with his mother's issues as well as his own self-confidence, and a strangely magnetic murderer.  It is both the uniqueness of the characters and the way one person makes such a huge impact in such a short time that make Labor Day such a compelling read.

There was definitely a lot of sex talk.  But, it didn't matter.  I was fascinated by Frank.  I wanted to know what he did wrong in the past and why he was such a surprisingly steady, trustworthy guy.  He was a murderer, after all.  I also wanted to know what was going to happen.  When you start reading the book, you can't help but think, "This is not going to end well."  And, yet Labor Day is a stunningly uplifting read.

Highly recommended - Fascinating characters and an unexpectedly uplifting ending are the two most outstanding features of Labor Day.  I'm not typically a person who goes rushing out to see movies based on novels but I'm curious how this story will be handled so I may end up seeing if I can drag a friend to the theater for this one.  Labor Day is my first read by Joyce Maynard and it definitely will not be my last.

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Paperboy by Tony Macaulay

Not sure where I've managed to plunk my copy of Paperboy so look here for Paperboy by Tony Macaulay details (that's a link to Amazon).

Paperboy is the memoir of a man who worked as a paperboy in Belfast during "the Troubles," a time when Catholics and Protestants were bombing each other and building up walls to divide their city.  I knew next to nothing about this particular period in Irish history, although I remember the news about bombings very well.  I recall once asking one of my parents what exactly they were fighting about in Ireland and the response was, "The Irish have pretty much been fighting for the last 500 years."  It wasn't quite the answer I'd hoped for.

What's truly wondrous about Macaulay's memoir is that he does an amazing job of keeping the story balanced and staying inside the head of a young boy.  He talks about how he felt, what was required to get the job done in a time when the buses he needed to get around town were often blown up and there was no way home but walking or taking a taxi (which he couldn't afford).  He talks about what he understood and what he did not about the violence, as a peace-loving child.  But, mostly he talks about life as a youngster in Belfast and what it was like to do his job - dealing with his boss, his determination to be the best newspaper boy on the Shankill, the challenges he faced (besides bombings, there were bullies, uptight customers and thieves to deal with) as well as his obsession with the Bay City Rollers and the concert he and the other youngsters looked forward to attending.

The year he focuses on is 1975.  And, don't make the mistake I made of looking up some of those Bay City Rollers songs he mentions, if you read the book.  I thought I'd never get them out of my head (but you should look at their outfits if you want a good laugh - just keep the volume off if you look up one of their videos, seriously).

I thought Paperboy was one of the best memoirs I've read in the last few years and now I'm seeking out more information about "the Troubles".  If you know of any good, readable titles about that time period in Irish history, please let me know!

Highly recommended, especially to those who enjoy memoirs and reading anything at all about Ireland, but honestly . . . just an excellent, well-written memoir, in general. Paperboy gave me that wonderful you were there sensation.  My only complaint would be that it could have used a brief glossary because I had difficulty, at first, in sorting out which soldiers (who were often described in slang terms) belonged to which side.  A little reading, a little googling and I had most of it figured out, though.

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman - 2nd attempt

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Copyright 2013

William Morrow (an imprint of HarperCollins) - Fantasy

178 pp.

Going to the easy Q/A format for my second attempt at reviewing this book (I didn't like my first review, which was long, cluttered with too many quotes and didn't include my thoughts about its flaws, so I never put links up at Twitter and Facebook).

It was not pitch-black.  It was the kind of cloudy night where the clouds seem to gather up light from distant streetlights and houses below, and throw it back at the earth.  

~p. 79

Ursula Monkton smiled, and the lightnings wreathed and writhed about her.  She was power incarnate, standing in the crackling air.  She was the storm, she was the lightning, she was the adult world with all its power and all its secrets and all its foolish casual cruelty.  She winked at me.

~p. 86

What led you to pick up The Ocean at the End of the Lane?

Neil Gaiman is an author whose books are iffy for me.  Some I love, some leave me wondering what on earth that was about, but those I love become favorites that end up on the permanent shelves, so I look forward to his new releases.  

Summarize the plot but don't give away the ending:

While at home in his native Sussex for a funeral, a man returns to the site of his rambling childhood home and is reminded of events that took place when he was 7 years old.  At the time, his parents were having financial difficulty and he had to give up his room to be used by a string of boarders. Death, betrayal, loneliness, the love and companionship of a pet, friendship, and fear all feature in The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

Many of the story's elements imply "Animal-loving, book-addicted nerdy artistic type recalls childhood fears and experiences that made him what he is today." But, those bits are also tied into an adventurous and nicely creepy fantasy story with a fairy ring, an ocean that appears to be a pond, and what I think you could refer to as "old magic".  But while those hints at the author's backstory are the core of the novel and apparently its purpose, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is also about how people grow and change and narrow in many ways but the same child is still there, lurking inside us.

Capsule description:  A deeply personal story of childhood fear, wrapped in fantasy.

What did you like most about The Ocean at the End of the Lane?

I liked the fact that The Ocean at the End of the Lane was more personal in nature than any other book I've read by Gaiman.  It was only between readings (I've read it twice) that I found out I was correct in assuming that the author opened up emotionally in The Ocean at the End of the Lane as the book was written for (or, maybe to) his wife to explain himself in ways he apparently found difficult to share in person. I could relate to his childhood in many ways (in a broad sense, as in the bookish tendencies, love of a companionable kitty and awkwardness) and I enjoyed the fantasy portion because it was creepy without being nightmare-inducing, adventurous, highly descriptive of British childhood and a pleasant story of friendship.  

What did you dislike about The Ocean at the End of the Lane?

Actually, let's make this clear:  I loved The Ocean at the End of the Lane.  I thought it had one major flaw, though, and that's the fact that it plods along sounding like a bildungsroman and then suddenly the little boy and his new friend, Lettie, are walking into a dangerous fantasy world. In other words, the segue to the fantasy world was a bit of a jolt.  That didn't bother me, upon the first reading, but it stood out a bit more on the second reading and helped me to understand where the, "What was that about?" sensation some of my friends have mentioned comes from.  In fact, it kind of makes me want to give Coraline a second go because I so did not get that book at all.

The only thing I actually disliked was not part of the story but the acknowledgments.  Any nerdy guy who sprinkles quotes about books being his best friends throughout a book ought to understand that true book addicts are going to read the acknowledgments (and afterword, author's notes, etc.)  It matters not one whit that the reader knows absolutely nobody in the author's life.  For my part, I like reading lists of names.  I'm fascinated by the variety of ways people name their offspring.  

This is the first paragraph from the acknowledgements:

This book is the book you have just read.  It's done.  Now we're in the acknowledgments.  This is not really part of the book.  You do not have to read it.  It's mostly just names.

Um . . . yeah.  If this was a children's book, maybe that would be a nice little addition, but it is not and I think in the context of a "childhood story told to adults" that paragraph comes off as rather obnoxious and/or condescending, whether or not it was it was intended that way.  I read the acknowledgments anyway, of course.  I always do.

Share a favorite scene from the book:

I particularly liked the scene toward the end of the book, when Lettie plunks the boy into a protective fairy ring and tells him absolutely not to move, no matter what, the things that happen while he waits, and his exit from the fairy ring (which I suppose would be a spoiler).  It's delightful and creative.  

In general:

Highly recommended - I loved the blend of "what it was like being a young boy in Sussex" with Neil Gaiman's touch of fantasy.  I don't always "get" Gaiman's books but this one really worked for me.

Cover thoughts:

What a gorgeous cover!  It's got that little hint of creepiness, the color is beautiful and the image is relevant to the storyline.  Definitely a grabber and one of my favorite covers of the year.

Links:

Amanda Palmer's essay, "The Ocean at the End of the Lane (a Book and Marriage review)"

New York Times Book Review of The Ocean at the End of the Lane

The Guardian review of The Ocean at the End of the Lane by A. S. Byatt (contains spoilers) - The comments are interesting as they reveal elements the author has used in other books:

"I'm sure there are plenty of allusions which I missed, but did anyone else pick up that the Hempstock women have the same name because they are actually the three stages of womanhood - maiden, mother and crone?"

That comment by someone posting as "Gatz" led to some interesting discussion.

Stuff as Dreams Are Made On review of The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Estella's Revenge review of The Ocean at the End of the Lane

I received a copy of The Ocean at the End of the Lane from HarperCollins in return for an unbiased review.  My thanks to HarperCollins!

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

I am so embarrassed to admit that Flight Behavior is my first Barbara Kingsolver book after all the praise I've heard lavished upon Kingsolver by people I trust for so many years!  What was I thinking?

Flight Behavior is about a woman with a really bizarre name who is on the verge of having an affair.  Married young in the "shotgun" way, Dellarobia has two children and a devoted husband.  She loves them but she's not happily married because she's not fulfilled.  When she heads up into the mountains above her home to meet up with a man with whom she's had a flirtation going, she is shocked to find what appears to be a living valley of flame.

It's not flames that she sees but millions of monarch butterflies wintering in the wrong place.  What has caused the butterflies to migrate to the wrong place?  Is it an ominous sign or a miracle?  Will they survive winter in a place far north of their usual wintering spot?

--WARNING, POSSIBLE SPOILER--

I don't think this next comment is a spoiler at all, but if you're worried you may skip this bit because sometimes people disagree with what I consider spoilery:

Well, really quickly, it's a global warming thing.  And, since Kingsolver was a biologist before she became a writer, the science is sound (from what I've read).  Flight Behavior is fiction but similar things have been happening for years.  Yes, yes, I know there are plenty of people who don't believe in climate change.  She actually even explains why she believes that the idea of climate change-slash-global warming is something that people reject because it threatens deeply-held beliefs.

--END POTENTIAL SPOILER--

But, back to the story.  Barbara Kingsolver's writing is . . . it's just . . . I was blown away.  It is freaking beautiful.  Every single sentence is a work of art.  I'd say, "Why didn't you guys tell me?" but the truth is you did.  Thank goodness, I have at least two other Barbara Kingsolver books on my shelves because I did listen in a vague, detached way.  I just didn't bother to read them.

I will now throw the Kingsolver gushiness back at you.  People, you have got to read Flight Behavior.  Marvelous craftmanship, excellent storytelling, amazing characterization, and believable dialogue don't come together in such a mind-blowing manner very often.  Highly, highly recommended.

Flight Behavior can be a bit distressing if you are a lover of nature.  At times, I felt a little heartbroken at the thought of all those beautiful creatures dying.  I'm glad the story itself is fiction, if not the general concept.

©2012 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Mini reviews - The Four Seasons, The Faithful Gardener, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever & The Cat Who Came Back for Christmas

I need to knock out reviews even faster and all four of the following books are from my personal library.  There's really not all that much I have to say about them, so it makes sense to keep them brief. Mini time!

The Four Seasons: Japanese Haiku Second Series is just what it sounds and looks like - a slim volume of carefully-selected and translated Haiku poetry.  There's a nice little 2-page "Note on Japanese Haiku" which talks about the poetic form and describes the known masters whose poetry are most frequently quoted in the book.  At 61 pages, The Four Seasons is the kind of book that you can gobble down in 30 minutes, if you so desire.  But, I prefer to read poetry slowly and let it roll around in my head.

The Four Seasons was published in 1958 by Peter Pauper Press.  My copy is definitely showing it's age, but it's the kind of book you want to hold onto to reread.  Some of the haiku verses are funny, some sad, some thoughtful.  It's a nice selection.  This is one of my favorites:

I particularly love Haiku that makes me smile.  If you love Haiku and can find a copy, this is a great little book.

The Faithful Gardener by Clarissa Pinkola Estes is another quick read, only 81 pages long, published by HarperCollins in 1995.  When I finished the book and set it down, I remember thinking it was going to be hard to describe but I'll do my best.  The author says The Faithful Gardener is a book of stories within stories, much like Russian Matryoshka dolls and, yes, it is definitely that.  But, the basic framework is the tale of her family's storytelling tradition and her education in storytelling at the knees of her family members blended with their terrifying history and how they emigrated to start a new life.

An uncle was among one of the people who were closest to the author and who helped teach her the importance of stories to understanding life.  Many of the author's family members were killed by the Nazis; her uncle was among those who survived and fled to the U.S.

At one point, the U.S. Government takes over some of the family's land by eminent domain, which sends Uncle into despair because the taking of everything he owned was the beginning of horror at the hands of the Nazis.  What Pinkola Estes' uncle does to restore the land and his soul is deeply moving.  Highly recommended to lovers of stories (which pretty much covers everyone reading this, right?) and those who are interested in WWII.

I bought The Four Seasons and The Faithful Gardener at the Mississippi College Library's awesome book sale, a few weeks ago.  My check was written out to "M C Library" but I wrote the "c" smaller than the "M" and "L", so it looks like I made the check out to "McLibrary".  Haha.  There's a concept.

I have almost nothing to say about The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson, a reread and another short one, originally published in 1972 (and there's a movie, but I haven't seen it).  My copy was published by HarperCollins. You've probably read it.  If you haven't, you should.  The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is one of the cutest Christmas stories I've ever read.  A family of wild children takes over all the major roles in an annual church Christmas pageant when one of the children hears that doughnuts are served at church.  The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is a riot, but at the same time it manages to be sweet and touching without landing in "totally sappy" territory.  I love it and will continue to reread it at Christmas, when the mood strikes me.  Also, I discovered I cannot spell "pageant" without really focusing.

Last, but not least, is a book that looks Christmasy but really isn't:

The Cat Who Came Back for Christmas by Julia Romp was an impulse purchase.  I tell myself I'm not impulsive when it comes to books (I don't pre-order and almost never go running out to buy a book on its release date) but I lie to myself.  Sam's Wholesale Club is my downfall.  I should never walk down the book aisles.

More suitably titled "A Friend Like Ben" in Great Britain, The Cat Who Came Back for Christmas is as much about the author's experience raising an autistic child as it is about how the cat, Ben (nicknamed "Baboo"), broke through young George's shell and helped him learn to socialize.  It is also about the cat's disappearance, although that happens toward the end of the book.  When author Julia Romp and her son George went to Egypt with a friend on their very first vacation ever, the cat disappeared.  The author details her search and how George regressed during the cat's absence.  Fortunately, as the title indicates, The Cat Who Came Back for Christmas does have a happy ending.

I love cat stories, of course, so I really enjoyed The Cat Who Came Back for Christmas, but do be aware that it's more of a memoir than a Christmas story.  If you're an animal lover, you won't care.  I definitely recommend the book, although it's not one I'll hang onto for a reread.  I would happily frame that kitten cover, though.  That is not actually Ben on the cover, incidentally. If you google an image search of the author, you'll get to see the real Ben.  The Cat Who Came Back for Christmas was published in the U.K. in 2010 but was just released in the US in October of 2012, published by Plume, an imprint of Penguin.

Woot!  4 down!  Are we having fun, or what?

©2012 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

My Dear I Wanted to Tell You by Louisa Young

My Dear I Wanted to Tell You

By Louisa Young

Copyright 2011

HarperCollins - Historical Fiction/WWI
336 pages

London, April 1916

Riley Purefoy was walking across Kensington Gardens in the sun, coming up from Victoria station, going home. He hadn't been in London for two years. It seemed very peculiar to him. There were no shells going off. No one was shooting. No gas-gong. No sergeants shouting. Firm clean ground underfoot. No corpses, no wounds, no huddled smoking men, no sweet stink of blood, no star shells waving beautifully through the sky. It was quiet. There were women. He was clean and dry in the flea-free uniform he had had pressed and steamed at the hotel in Dover. God, how shamelessly he appreciated the advantages of being an officer. It was worth all the little sneers in the mess, the sideways glances from aetiolated toff twats, the dumb attempts at mockery from chinless boys whose pubescent moustaches and public-school slang did not, it turned out, make them natural leaders of men. He fully intended to buy himself some decent-quality puttees, now that he was allowed such freedoms, and to have done for ever with the annoying little thin ones.

--p. 92 of My Dear I Wanted to Tell You, Advance Reader Copy (some changes may have been made to the final print version)

I love several sentences in the opening pages of this book, so I'm going to mix them in with my own synopsis. Anything in quotes is writing by someone at HarperCollins. "The lives of two very different couples are irrevocably intertwined and forever changed in this stunning World War I epic of love and war."

Well stated. Riley Purefoy is from Paddington, a working-class part of London. Nadine Waveney is the daughter of a well-known orchestral conductor, a wealthy family into whose home he's allowed for visits as a friend of young Nadine after an accident in the park. But, as budding artists Riley and Nadine grow up, their class differences become a barrier to their growing affection, just as WWI is breaking out.

After a drunken evening leads to an incident that confuses and angers Riley, he impulsively signs up to serve in the army till the war's end. A year of service seems far too long. Little does he know how long WWI will rage and how it will change his life. The HarperCollins description: "In a fit of fury and boyish pride, Riley enlists in the army and finds himself involved in the transformative nightmare of the twentieth century." What a great way to describe the first World War.

Peter Locke is older, married to a beautiful woman, living a peaceful life. He could easily avoid the service but he doesn't feel right doing so. Because of his class, he is made an officer. Julia worries that she may have done something to drive him away and finds that she's not up to working in a munitions factory or nursing the injured. All she's good at is being pretty and keeping house. When Peter's cousin Rose joins the nursing corps, Julia is left at home with her fears while Peter is facing the kind of horror she can never even begin to understand.

As Riley and Peter fight for their lives, the reader is given a realistically harsh view of life as a soldier during WWI. When Riley suffers a disastrous, deforming injury and Peter finds himself sinking into the bottle to cope with loss, both must find a way to summon inner resources.

"Moving among Ypres, London, and Paris, this emotionally rich and evocative novel is both a powerful exploration of the lasting effects of war on those who fight--and those who don't--and a poignant testament to the power of enduring love."

What I loved about My Dear I Wanted to Tell You:

There is so much to love about My Dear I Wanted to Tell You: The depth of description, the language, the characterization, the meaning and depth of the story, the themes of undying love and how terribly unimportant looks are if one is still living and breathing. Riley and Peter are both really likable, wonderful characters in very different ways. Riley is unexpectedly heroic, witty and intelligent. Peter has a huge heart and a love of classical music and writing. He doesn't act posh or superior but he's gratified when he meets someone who can relate to the things he truly loves. Rose and Nadine are both strong and determined, truly amazing women and fantastic examples of how so many women courageously stepped forward and willingly faced the horrors of war. Julia is one of only a few characters you really want to smack. The dialogue is perfect, in my humble opinion.

Here's one of my favorite little passages, Riley's response when Nadine asks him the meaning of the archduke's assassination:

'A Serbian shot the Austrian archduke so the Austrians want to bash the Serbians but the Russians have to protect the Serbians so the Germans have to bash France so they won't help the Russians against the Austrians and once they've bashed France we're next so we have to stop them in Belgium,' said Riley, who read Sir Alfred's paper in the evening.

'Oh,' she said. 'What does that mean?'

'There's going to be a war, apparently.'

'Oh,' she said.

Well, it would be over by the time they were old enough to go to Amsterdam, where he would put his hand on her waist again, and she would laugh and sing but not run away downstairs.

pp. 20-21, ARC of My Dear I Wanted to Tell You

What I disliked about My Dear I Wanted to Tell You:

I thought the ending was a little rushed, especially given the detail in the rest of the book. When I closed the book, I recall thinking something to the effect that I was willing to overlook the rushed ending because I was so completely immersed in the story and loved it so much. I felt especially invested in Riley's life.

The bottom line:

Apart from the rushed ending, I absolutely loved My Dear I Wanted to Tell You. It's well-written, realistic, sometimes charming, often gritty. It can be gruesome in the way only a book about WWI can be, with its gas injuries and rot and horrors. The characters can be thoughtful at one time, clueless and harsh at another. In the end, it offers the one thing I find most important in a book about a time of tragedy: a light at the end of the tunnel. I always felt there were plenty of indications that there was hope, even when it appeared that Riley's situation was beyond horrifying. And it is, in the end, an uplifting story of undying love and hope. Highly recommended, but be aware that the ending is not fully wrapped up. Peter's story particularly feels incomplete.

Seems like a good time for a photo of sheep, doesn't it?

©2011 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.