Tutu's Two Cents

Review: Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard

2012-02-17T00:02:00.128-05:00

A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President
Author: Candice Millard
Publisher-Format: Doubleday (2011), ARC, 352 pages
also Audio: Books on Tape, 9 hours, 47 minutes
Narrator: Paul Michael
Subject: The assassination of Charles Garfield
Setting: Washington DC, various other US cites
Genre: historical narrative, biography
Source: ARC from publisher, audio from public library
Recommended? Defintely.

A wonderful surprise. I'm ashamed to say I've had this ARC sitting on my shelf since last July and while I wanted to read it, I just couldn't find enough inspiration to butt it up in the queue. Two weeks ago, I saw it available on the library's audio download, and I grabbed it. Once I started listening, I couldn't stop, and found myself jumping ahead in the book. Instead of the standard biography, Millard has given us a masterful study of the era of the late 19th century when the country was finally beginning to mend from the Civil War. She does this in a unique presentation from three different perspectives: that of Garfield and the politics of the Republican party; that of the megolamaniac Charles Guiteau, Garfield's "assassin", and the scientific influences of the times as we meet Alexander Graham Bell, and Joseph Lister the author of the theory of disease causing micro-organisms.

These seemingly disparate stories come together as Millard shows us Garfield's love of learning, particularly science. Having served successfully in the Union Army, he then served nine terms as Ohio Congressman until his unanticipated nomination for President on the Republican ticket. Our science/medicine lesson begins with an exciting glance at the United States Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, where the Hall of Machinery featured such exhibitors as Alexander Graham Bell and his telephone. At the same time, in another area Joseph Lister was trying in vain to convince the doctors of the US of the need to wash hands, instruments, wound sites with carbolic acid to kill germs. He was not well accepted, and the rejection of his theories became critical in the failed attempts to save Garfield's life. Finally, throughout the book, we follow the movements of Charles Guiteau, the mentally unbalanced self-appointed individual who considered himself "chosen by God" to "remove President Garfield" so that Chester Arthur (the vice-president) could assume the throne and appoint Charles Guiteau to a government position.

These three separate but inter-related stories are woven together in a page-turning narrative. I knew some of the facts before I started reading this story. I knew Garfield had been assassinated; I knew that Alexander Graham Bell had invented other scientifically valuable devices besides the telephone; I knew that Lister was credited with the discovery of the theory of germs; and I knew that Garfield was succeeded by Chester Arthur. But the incredible detail and masterful blending of these different aspects of the worlds of science and politics kept me reading and reading and reading. I have a different and deeper appreciation for most of the players in this tableau.

The villain turns out not to be the so-called assassin. I doubt today that any jury would convict this man of murder - assuming his case ever came to trial. Millard's assertion that Garfield was killed by his doctors, not by the assassin's bullet will find no argument from me. It's a sad, depressing, discouraging story of how ego can kill, of how humans can deceive themselves, and how far we've come and how far we still have to go in the field of medicine, and the political arena.

Other players who were fleshed out to step into the limelight include Lucretia Garfield (the President's wife), Robert Todd Lincoln, Joseph Stanley Brown (Garfield's private secretary), Dr. Doctor Bliss (the incompetent physician who self-appointed himself to be in charge of the president's care), Roscoe Conkling ( a crooked politician who mentored Chester Arthur until Arthur became President), and vice-President Arthur himself. All of these are featured in enough detail to explain their roles in the drama, but without too much verbiage. In fact, one of the best things I can say about the book besides the well-told story, is to praise the tight editing which gave us a story well worth reading without dragging us down with myriad unnecessary details.

Finally, it is a monumental tribute to an obviously under-rated President. By showing us his focus on education as the way out of poverty, his willingness to embrace science, his insistence of bettering the lives of blacks by giving them education, jobs and the vote, and his unfinished plans to reform the Congressional system of awarding federal jobs to cronies which led to Arthur's founding of the Civil Service, Millard demonstrates his greatness as it has not been shown before. His home in Mentor OH houses the first Presidential library, started by his wife and his personal secretary Joseph Brown. I just may have to make a trip out there to explore this interesting historical figure in more depth. And I know I'll have to find Candice Mallard's other book about Theodore Roosevelt and read that one too.

Review: The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat

2012-02-14T00:02:00.003-05:00

Author: Edwidge Danticat
Publisher-Format: Penguin (Non-Classics) Paperback, 312 pages
Year of publication 1999
Subject: Genocide of Haitians in Hispaniola
Setting: Border between Haiti and Dominican Republic
Genre: historical fiction
Source: Maine Humanities Council "Let's Read About It" book discussion series
Recommended? absolutely, but with warnings about graphic violence

This was the last book in our discussion series of women's stories we've been having at my local library. I'm not sure I was looking forward to it, because I'd heard it was "heavy" "depressing" and "a downer". After four previous reads of the trials and tribulations and degredation and humiliation of women in various cultures, I approached this one out of obligation (I'm the group facilitator) more than enthusiasm.

I'm so glad I read it. Whle those adjectives I'd heard can certainly be applied, the book is also lyrical in its ability to describe unspeakable violence, revealing in its historical detail, stimulating in pushing the reader to search out more about this time and epoch. Seen through the eyes of a young Haitian orphan Amabelle Desir who was raised by a middle class Dominican family, and her lover Sebastian Onius, a Haitian who has come to the DR side of the island of Hispaniola seeking work in the cane fields (known as the farming of bones) we learn of the extreme racial tension between the Haitians, who speak a bastardized French knows as Kreyol, and the Dominicans who are of Spanish extraction and who also number among them many blacks of African descent. This story dwells almost completely on the massacre of Haitians who were living and working in the Dominican Republic during the reign of Generalissimo Trujillo, and certainly leaves this reader hungry to find out more of the background and history of the peoples of this island.

The story of Amabelle's life before, during, and after the massacre is bone-chilling. It is difficult to imagine how any woman could survive such violence. Her inner strength seems to have come from her parents, who drowned crossing the river between the two countries, while she stood on the "wrong side" and watched it happen. In her mind, as she replayed the story over and over again, she heard her parents' encouragement, felt their love, and knew that someday she too would float off in the river to join them. In the meantime, she accepted her fate, used her inate talents, and became a trusted member of her adoptive family (although in a servant's role.)

It was a difficult book to read, but it was so well written that once I picked it up and began, I found it even more difficult to put down. I finished it in less than a day. Edwidge Danticat has given us a striking picture of a woman's strength of character, and inspired us to look more into history to see what the world can do to insure no other women (or their menfolk) have to endure such atrocities in the future. It is not a book for the timid, nor is it a book for young readers, but by late high school, it is excellent reading for all who need to be exposed to the cruelty man has wreaked upon his fellow humans.

Many thanks to the Maine Humanities Council for making these books available to us. The series definitely did what it was billed to do-- "Open the Windows" onto women's stories around the world.

Mailbox Monday - February 13th

2012-02-13T00:02:00.015-05:00

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house recently, but here's a warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists!

Created by Marcia at The Printed Page, Mailbox Monday, now has its own blog. Hosting duties are rotated every month. This month one of my favorite blogs Metroreader: Reading One Mile at a Time has the hosting honors. Be sure to stop by and discover a new and wondrous (for me anyway) addition to your blog roll and take a look at everyone's Mailbox lists.

This week I received two books and they both have my attention. They went right onto the "Read them as soon as you get a chance" pile. The first was an ARC from Ecco Publishing. I've been reading so much non-fiction that this one is really appealing to me. It fits one of my 2012 reading goals - to read general fiction - and since I haven't done much of that this year yet, I'm thinking it will be one I'll definitely want to fall into. Here's what the publisher's blurb says:

Restoration by Olaf Olafsson

Having grown up in an exclusive circle of wealthy British ex-pats in Florence in the 1920's, Alice shocks everyone when she marries Claudio, the son of a minor land-owner, and moves to San Martino, a crumbling villa in Tuscany. Settling into their new paradise, husband and wife begin to build their future, restoring San Martino and giving birth to a son. But as time passes, Alice grows lonely, a restlessness that leads her into the heady social swirl of wartime Rome and a reckless arffair that will have devastating consequences. While she spends time with her lover in Rome, Alice's young son falls ill and dies, widening the emotional chasm between her and her husband-and leaving her vulnerable to the machinations of a nefarious art dealer who ensnares her in a dangerous and deadly scheme. Returning to San Martino, Alice yearns for forgiveness. But before she can begin to make amends, Claudio disappears, and the encroaching fighting threatens to destroy everything they have built. Caught between loyalists and resisters, cruel German forces and Allied troops, Alice valiantly struggles to survive, hoping the life and love she lost can one day be restored.

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My other exciting mailbox gift was a contest win, that is perfect for my goal of reading cozy series both new and old. I've wanted to get into this mystery series for quite awhile, and winning this one has given me the push I need. I'm hunting down the first in the series, State of the Onion (and I have the third one - Eggsecutive Orders-- sitting here on loan from my sister) so I'm going to have a White House Chef read-a-thon sometime before the daffodils raise their little heads. In the meantime, I getting hungry already. These sound like good candidates for the NOOK. Must go track down how much is left on my Christmas gift certificates.

Affairs of Steak

(A White House Chef Mystery)

Julie Hyzy

White House chef Olivia Paras and her arch nemesis, White House Sensitivity Director Peter Everett Sargeant, must work together to solve the double murder of one of the First Lady's assistants and the Chief of Staff-before they become the next victims of a merciless assassin with a secret agenda.

It was a great reading week, and since it's so cold and windy here in Maine, it promises to be an even better week to curl up with a cuppa tea, a soft purring kittie, a big warm fire and a pile of books. When the ice melts, we'll drive to the post office to see what other wonders await us.

Mini-Reviews: More Delightful Maisies

2012-02-10T13:04:00.002-05:00

If you read Tutu fairly regularly, you'll know that I've become quite a fan of Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs novels. They are especially well done in audio, and make for the perfect relaxing ear-read when I want to get a break from some of the heavier tomes I'm reading at this time. Maisie keeps my attention, makes me use my brain to follow her adventures, and the novels provide an excellent picture of England (and to a lesser extent France) between the two World Wars.

Messenger of Truth is actually probably my least favorite of the series so far. Maisie is hired by Georgina Bassington-Hope to investigate the unusual circumstances of her twin brother's death. Nick, who was an artist apparently fell from a scaffold while preparing to hang his defining work for an exhibit. No one knows what this work looks like, or where Nick has stored it, and Georgina is convinced that although the police have ruled his death accidental, he was actually helped to his death (murdered?). She hires Maisie to dig out the truth. And of course Maisie comes through. The story again was well written, well plotted (the ending is stunning), but I just found parts of it a bit of a stretch. Still well worth the time though.

The Mapping of Love and Death, on the other hand, was fascinating. In this one, Maisie is hired by an American couple (the Cliftons) to discover if and how and by whom their son was murdered. Mr. Clifton (the father) emigrated from England to America, and his son Michael, a trained cartographer, returns to England in 1914 shortly after the outbreak of WWI to serve in the British army. He is killed in action, but his remains are not recovered until the time of this story - around 1930. The post-mortem shows that Michael may not have died from enemy fire, and Maisie sets out to find the truth. In her delving into this mystery, we are introduced into the role of the Army cartographers, a subject I found quite interesting. It added another bit of information and filtering to use in my World War I reading.
This one has a lot going on, and to tell anymore would be to invite huge spoilers. I didn't realize until I was already into the story, that I had picked this one out of order -- I jumped from #4 to #7-- so I have three more (5,6, and 8) delightful stories to look forward to before the newest one appears in bookstores the end of March. I'm looking forward to doing a lot of swimming so I can listen to these in peace and quiet.

Mailbox Monday - Feb 6th

2012-02-06T00:02:00.001-05:00

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house recently, but here's a warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists!

Created by Marcia at The Printed Page, Mailbox Monday, now has its own blog. Hosting duties are rotated every month. This month one of my favorite blogs Metroreader: Reading One Mile at a Time has the hosting honors. Be sure to stop by and discover a new and wondrous (for me anyway) addition to your blog roll and take a look at everyone's Mailbox lists.

I haven't done a Mailbox post for awhile, because most of the books I've gotten for review have been coming online in my virtual mailbox. NetGalley has certainly changed the reviewing world. For me, where often books would sit at the UPS office for weeks because the UPS truck couldn't get down our icy driveway (even though we could get out to the Post Office), and where the piles of physical galleys were becoming a fire hazard, the convenience of e-galleys, and the cost-effectiveness of this method for publishers has really changed the reviewing landscape.

Since I did my last post, the physical books arriving included gifts from family and Secret Santas:
I got Bohemian Girl using a gift certificate. My local Indie, had this one in a pile labeled "seriously underappreciated". I love discovering books like this, a pioneer story from the female perspective set in the American West.

Likewise, I used another gift certificate to get the marvelous George, Nicolas and Wilhelm. This one will go perfectly in my War through the Generations World War I read. I've been reading some battle histories, and some social commentaries, so it will be interesting to fill in with the biggies.
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My secret Santa on LT sent two books, Joe Coomer's Pockeful of Names, the marvelous story of an artist and a dog on an isolated Maine island. It's gotten many many thumbs up from all my local patrons, so I'm anxious to get into it.

The Season of Second Chances has been at the top of my wishlist for several months. One of my favorite genres, women's relationships and life stories, this one has gotten some great reviews so I'm thrilled to have it.
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Some came as loaners from my sister and my daughter:

The Necklace by Cheryl Jarvis. My sister Chèli reviewed this one on her blog Chèli's Shelves back in November. It sounded so good I borrowed it from her when we went to her place Christmas Eve.

The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell
and Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain both came from my daughter's library. As a history major, she has plenty more where these come from, but I'm thinking they will really provide good reading for the WWI group.
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Then there were a couple that showed up as contest wins!
WOOT WOOT, Two of my favorite authors, Margaret Maron and Julie Hyzy, who never fail to delight are now standing by to give me a good dose of reading relaxation when the heavy chunksters get too much.

So................
What's in your mailbox this week (or month?)

Sunday Salon - spinning my techno wheels

2012-02-05T16:56:00.000-05:00

If it seems like I've not been reviewing too much lately, your perception is correct. I've been up to the tips of my pierced ears in E- readers, e-books, and technology in general. First of all, the Tutu Family owns two Nooks-- Simple Touch and a Nook Tablet. We maintain one family account so we can share books since we tend to have very similar reading tastes. We've been adding to the e-library since Christmas since all our relatives were kind enough to give us Nook gift cards to help flesh out our libraries, and since we've been hitting the "buy" button on a number of daily/weekly freebies and bargain books, it seemed it was time to get the libraries organized into "shelves."

Now remember, I've had a Nook for over a year. I had the original Nook (now known as the 1st Generation or 1G and no longer available) but I traded it in for the Simple Touch. Of course, the wizards in techno world couldn't leave well enough alone, so they completely changed the system for "shelving books" on the new one. Thus making me sit back and wonder if I regret my decision to upgrade. The old system for organizing still works the same on the Tablet, but not on the Touch. For the past three days I've been going crazy trying to make it behave like it used to, and even went so far as to spend 50 minutes in an online chat with the Nook friendly helper only to discover that what I wanted to do couldn't be done the way I wanted to do it. And believe me, the "new" way is totally cumbersome, time-wasting, and STUPID. So, now that I have learned the process, I've put the Nooks aside and will "shelve" during the Super Bowl (GO PATS!) tonite.

As if the Nook didn't produce enough angst, I'm also responsible for the library's Kindle which we are getting loaded up and ready to circulate. I wanted to catalog the 40+ books we'd purchased/or gotten in Amazon's free giveaways so they would show up in our online catalog, and people would know a) what we had on the Kindle, and b) if we had a book that it was available on the Kindle.

Unfortunately, almost 65% of these freebies (many of them self-published) do not have MARC records out there in the universe, and our online "cataloging in the cloud" program does not recognize them, so I was forced to either a) grab a MARC record from the print version (if one existed) and do some serious editing or b) just go ahead and completely compose a new MARC record for the work. In most instances it turned out to be quicker to just enter all the data and self catalog. I just realized that some of you may be unfamiliar with the term MARC. It's the MAchine Readable Cataloging record. Libraries use this format so that if and when they change cataloging software or systems, or import or export their records they can be easily read and implanted.

Enough techie stuff......for the next few days, I'm sticking strictly to Print (I have to read Farming of Bones for our Book Club next week) and Audio ( I'm listening to another Maisie Dobbs - they are good listens, they have some great info about World War I, and the technology doesn't tax my ancient brain). I'll get back to my e-reader hopefully by Thursday because I've been participating in Unputdownables "Moveable Feast" Read-along and I need to read the next chapters, as soon as Barnes and Noble can figure out why the download I bought is not reading correctly. But that's another whole techno story that doesn't bear telling right now.

Anyhow, I do still love the Nook, particularly for helping me organize and keep track of review copies from Net Galley, for enabling me to sample books before buying, and for being able to read library books without having to go out into the windy, icy Maine weather to get them.

In spite of my frustrations, I'm still smiling, because I can smell that beef pot pie in the oven, and the PATS are going to win, and I'll just have to catch this week's episode of Downton Abbey on the re-run later.

Finally.....a very slow read is finished.

2012-02-05T15:46:00.001-05:00

Author: John Paul Stevens
Publisher-Format: Little, Brown and Company (2011),Hardcover, 304 pages
Subject: Supreme Court Justices
Genre: political narrative
Source: my own shelves - a "win" from LibraryThing Early Review program
Recommended? not unless you really like reading case law

Wow....this was a huge disappointment. I've been a fan of LT's Early Review program and have gotten several good books through it. When you enter what amounts to a lottery and indicate which books you're interested in, you essentially promise to read and review the book since you're getting a free copy. These are full hardback published books usually, not ARCs. I have always admired Justice Stevens, and saw an interview with him just as he retired in which he talked about writing the book, and how he was planning to structure it, so I was excited when I received this one back in October.
Somehow though, I just couldn't get into it, and it took me until today to make myself sit down and finish it. I had been nibbling at it for weeks, but just wanted to get it over with. I thought I was going to get some insider insight on each of the five Chief Justices under whom he served. For each of these distinguished gentlemen, I got about a paragraph's worth of non-legalese. The rest would probably make interesting reading to law clerks, law students, and maybe constitutional lawyers. There was way too much personal opinion about whether so and so made a good decision, what lead up to the case coming to the Supreme Court, and whether he (Justice Stevens was on the pro or con side of a decision).

The writing was obviously from someone used to writing legal briefs to uphold a particular point of view, and to enumerate cogent arguments. I have trouble even assigning it the genre "memoir" because it was too apologetic (in the Greek "apologetics" sense of the word). It was more a political or sociological exposé of court procedures, and even these boiled down to a recitation of who assigned the decisions to be written, and who changed the schedule. Aside from Justice Rehnquist's gold stripes on his robe, there was very little that gave me any feel for the personalities of the five. Perhaps readers with differing expectations will find it more to their liking. It was well edited, and there were lots of illustrations, but I would have much preferred some more informal shots of the five featured subjects than the constant "class photos" that are sprinkled throughout. I guess it just wasn't my cuppa.

Review: The Vine in the Blood by Leighton Gage

2012-01-31T00:01:00.017-05:00

Author: Leighton Gage
Publisher-Format: Soho Crime (2011), e-galley, 289 pages
Year of publication: 2011
Subject: organized crime
Setting: Sao Paulo Brasil
Series: A Chief Inspector Mario Silva Investigation
Genre: police procedural mystery
Source: e-galley from the author
Recommended? yes -definitely. For fans of mysteries, Brasil, and police detectives with brains

Leighton Gage's Inspector Mario Silva series is really growing on me. This is the fifth, and in my humble opinion, the best so far. Inspector Silva is a Brasilian Commissarrio Brunetti, for those of you familiar with Donna Leon's wonderful series set in Venice.Silva is educated, urbane, humane, and eminently competent.

In this one, the Federal Police (of which Silva is a member) are charged with solving the kidnapping of the mother of Brasil's star soccer player just as the World Cup is about to be contested. Without his mother safely home, Tico "The Artist" Santos won't be at his top form and Brasil could lose. Of course everyone wants to blame the arch-rival Argentinians, but Silva suspects several other possibilities. This one is particularly much better than earlier ones because Gage has learned how to tell us about heinous crimes without pages and pages of blood and gore. I had almost gotten to the point where I couldn't read them, and even last year sent the author an email to that effect. Evidently he got the message from a broad spectrum of readers. Here he gives us a much more developed cast of characters (both the good guys and the bad), an interesting look into the world of futebol and the annual Brasilian Carnival samba floats and teams, in addition to the hefty dose of up-to-date police procedures used to solve this mystery without wallowing in graphic violence. I won't give you much more - no spoilers - it's a page-turning, easy to read, gripping mystery. You don't need to read earlier ones in the series, this one can easily stand alone.

Leighton Gage also blogs on Murder is Everywhere where his latest post will be of great interest to any of you gentle readers who love books in all their wondrous formats.

Many thanks to Leighton for sending the review copy. It's a terrific book and a series with potential for even more adventures. We can't wait for the next one.

Sunday Salon - January 29th

2012-01-29T00:02:00.001-05:00

A long lazy day ahead.....it's cold, it's supposed to be partly sunny, until 9:00 tonite, there's nothing to watch on TV (and then all eyes go to Downton Abbey.) So it will be a perfect day to read, read, read and stitch a bit too. I've made great progress on those nine books I mentioned last week. I finished four of them, and am really enjoying the others.

I've not had a lot of time to listen to the audios: between bad weather and icy roads and some physical issues I'm dealing with that have kept me from exercising, I haven't spent much time with audios. I've become so enamored of my Nook that I can't seem to put it down. The biography of James Monroe, the two World War I books (Guns of August and The Beauty and the Sorrow), are all huge big chunky books, but so easy to read on the e-reader. Five Chiefs - the Supreme Court memoir by John Paul Stevens is just the right size print book, beautifully done, not too big, and very easy on the eye. It's also quite readable, and I'm going through it slowly so I'm sure I understand all the legal implications of the discussions. Then I have a paperback copy of Farming of Bones to finish for our book club in three weeks.

Finally, yesterday I succombed to my first case of what my husband fondly calls "eyes bigger than stomach" (for those of us who must overload our plates in a buffet line) and I joined the readalong for A Moveable Feast over at Unputdownables. I had just gotten the audio of this one from the library, and it will be a great follow-up to A Paris Wife.

So Sunday at Tutu's will be a true day of rest. We go to church on Saturday evening, and after a nice breakfast of french toast, crisp bacon and some linguicia (Portuguese sausage) and some homemade apple butter and good french roast coffee, I'll be ready to settle into my favorite big chair in front of the fireplace with my two favorite kitties, a pile of books and my Nook. I'm planning to spend at least 2 of those hours listening to an audio (probably another adventure of Maisie Dobbs) and working on some cross-stitch. Sure hope your day is as quiet and peaceful as mine promises to be.

Review: House of Prayer No. 2 by Mark Richard

2012-01-28T23:42:00.000-05:00

Author: Mark Richard
Publisher-Format: New York : Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, e-book
Year of publication: c2011.
Subject: growing up poor and special
Setting: Southern Virginia, California, Texas, variety of sites
Genre: Memoir
Source: public library download
Recommended? For readers who enjoy memoirs, southern settings, life success stories

This one was a complete surprise to me. I downloaded it from the library out of just plain curiosity - hadn't seen very much buzz here, or on the blogs. And that's a shame. THIS IS AN OUTSTANDING PIECE OF WRITING. Great memoir, great capturing of place and time, and written in the 2nd person....something that took a few minutes to settle into, but boyo boyo does it work. Mark Richard is a writer of spartan prose that grabs the reader and won't let go. Once I started this, all 7 of the other books I had going got shoved aside and I spent every spare minute for the next two days reading it.

It's the story of his childhood and his rather adventurous and torturous adolescence and early manhood. Labeled a "special child" from birth, he shows us how a life of poverty, labels, physical deformity all played a role in making him the incredible writer he is today. His descriptions of lying in body casts for months on end could have been quite depressing; instead his straight-forward narration, sometimes peppered with an irreverent tongue-in-cheek sense of humor, encourages the reader to cheer for this "special child" and spurs us to keep going to see how life turns out. We watch as he avoids disaster after disaster to evolve into the highly functioning successful writer and husband/father that he is today.

RUN don't walk to get a copy. I may have borrowed this from the library, but very soon, we're going to hit the "buy" button on the Nook, because Mr. Tutu wants to read it too, and it's so good we'll both want to re-read it. Trust your Tutu.....this one is not just good, it's outstanding. Coming on top of just having finished The Sense of an Ending I'm feeling like 2012 is gonna be a very good reading year.

Mini-Reviews: Two Fun and not quite cozy Series

2012-01-24T00:49:00.001-05:00

I've been reading several heavy books about World War I, a biography and a memoir, so this almost cozy mystery was a good change of pace when I needed a breather.

Author: Charlaine Harris
Publisher-Format: e-book, New York : St. Martin's Press, 1997, 170 pages
Subject: solving murder -
Setting: Shakespeare Arkansas
Series: Lily Bard mysteries
Genre: mystery - amateur sleuth, police procedure, private detective
Source: public library download
Recommended? Yes if you like mysteries, strong women and good police stories

I do really like this series by Charlaine Harris. More adventures of housecleaner, rape victim, super karate, Tae kwan do champion Lily Bard, and her various beaus. Set in Arkansas it also shows a not so nice side of southern rednecks and their racial prejudices. Lily's not a person I can warm up to, but then she doesn't want anyone to warm up to her. She's very much a loner, having been so damaged earlier in life that she's taking things very slowly, and not letting anyone get too close to her.

The immediate dead body in this one is a fellow weight lifter found dead at the gym, but there are other murders from prior times that are drawn into the web of investigation (all of which Lily is somehow connected to.) Several new characters, several from before, and some fantastic fight scenes. I'm not into martial arts, but I have no trouble following Harris' excellent description of Lily's interactions with the bad guys.

Good plot, great characters, and a terrific ending. NO SPOILERS, but I will say this is a series that is entertaining enough for anyone liking a southern setting, a strong woman, and cops who are actually competent.

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The other book in a series I just finished was an audio from a fun Maine writer:

Author: Sarah Graves
Publisher-Format: audio: BBC Audiobooks, 9hr, 7min, 2008
Narrator: Lindsay Ellison
Subject: old books, restoring old houses, murder
Setting: Eastport Maine
Series: Home Repair is Homicide
Genre: mystery - amateur sleuths,
Source: public library
Recommended? Yes if you like mysteries,old houses, and Maine

In this series, Sarah Graves gives her readers a wonderful cast of characters, a totally picturesque setting, and some lessons in home repair many of us hope never to have to use. I just wish sometimes her plots weren't so unbelievable. More to the point, I wish her two amateur sleuths weren't so gol-blamed stupid to put themselves into the situations they get into.

This one was a wonderful story about personalities in small Maine towns. Lindsay Ellison's narration captures the variety of DownEast accents perfectly (I actually thought one of the voices belonged to one of my neighbors here in town!) but Grave's manipulations of events to get to her outcome left me shaking my head.

It's almost impossible to give you even the gist of the story except to say that Jacobia is looking for a book she found behind some crumbling plaster in her old old house. She sent the book to an "expert" to have it authenticated, the expert turned up dead, and the book turned up missing. So of course, she's not only going to find her missing book, but she's darn well gonna figure out who killed the book dude. I love good mysteries (and this one was certainly a good mystery) and I love surprise endings - I didn't catch on until the final chapter, but I just couldn't bring myself even to imagine some of the life-threatening escapades Jacobia and Ellie found themselves in JUST TO FIND A BOOK. I thought Indiana Jones was going to appear at any moment!

It won't stop me from reading one or two more in this series, but these ladies need to wake up and get some good old fashioned Maine horse sense. Still fun, just be prepared to suspend belief.

Current reading - The Pile keeps growing!

2012-01-20T00:01:00.001-05:00

As most of my loyal readers know by now, Tutu always has several books going at the same time. I read physical books in print, on my NOOK, and also listen to audiobooks on a daily basis. Generally, I don't read from the same genre at the same time, or at least not in the same time setting. Currently though, I find that I'm really stretching my mental abilities by reading 9 (yes that's right) right now.

So if you don't see any completed reviews for the next 10 days, the reason is that all of these books are so interesting that I simply cannot stop reading any one of them. Usually, as I get to the last 40-50 pages of a book, I'll put everything else on hold and finish that one. Here's a quick thumbnail of what's "on the nightstand" this week.
In print:

I'm trying to read Five Chiefs: A Supreme Court Memoir. It's a review copy I got from the Early Review Program of LibraryThing and it's way overdue, so I'm planning to devote several hours to it over the weekend. Because it's gotten very mixed reviews so far, I'm anxious to dive in and form my own opinion.

On the audio pod I'm listening to two very different books right now:

The Book of Old Houses (A Home Repair is Homicide Mystery) by Sarah Graves, This mystery is light, set in Maine, plotted well enough to hold my interest, but not so heavy that my brain is set spinning trying to figure it out. It's a great "read" for taking down and packing up Christmas decorations, doing laundry, and someday getting back to the pool.

The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman. Considered one of the seminal works on WWI for my War through the Generations challenge, it's actually a re-read for me. I read it years ago, and wanted to do it again to provide a good basis for the rest of the year's WWI books. It's well done on audio but I do have it also on the NOOK, so when I'm able I'm reading it one chapter at a time. It's quite full of names and places and really requires a good map and lots of time in between chapters to let the facts soak in.

Then on the NOOK:

I nabbed a copy of Bill Clinton's newest tomelet Back to Work it's only 144 pages and is due back to the library (i.e., it will expire on the NOOK) in 7 days, so I want to at least read the intro and opening chapter to see if it's worth dropping back on some of my others to finish.
I'm reading (and having a hard time putting down) Leighton Gage's latest A Vine in the Blood , an Inspector Mario Silva mystery set in Brazil. I love this series, and Leighton was kind enough to send a review copy...it's just out now, and is not disappointing.

Another library download for the NOOK is House of Prayer No. 2. It has really grabbed my attention from the minute I opened it to see what it was all about. I know once I really get going, this is going to jump to the top of the line and stay there.

I love Charlaine Harris's Lily Bard series and had the 4th in the series Shakespeare's Champion on hold at the library. It came through earlier this week so I HAD to read that one. I started it this afternoon, and was actually reading it at choir practice tonite. I'm an alto, so I get lots of reading time while the choir director goes through soprano, bass and tenor parts. Don't you just love the NOOK?

My World War I challenge has another on the current read list. This one, The Beauty and the Sorrow is a very special book written from the viewpoint of 20 different people from all countries involved in the war, and from all walks of life. It's very special, and I'm able to read it in small batches--each vignette is only 3 or 4 pages long. It will probably take me until late February to finish it, but it's a perfect read along to the heavier factual histories.

And finally on the Nook, I'm reading along in my presidential biography series. Right now I'm reading The Last Founding Father: James Madison and a Nation's Call to Greatness. by Harlow Unger. It's another big heavy tome that I found almost impossible to hold in my hands to read, but it's just great being able to read on the NOOK.

I had to abandon a review copy of Juliette Gordon Low that I got from Net Galley. The epub they dropped was not formatted well-enough for me to be able to adjust an excruciatingly small font set in really tight line space. I hope when the book is published next month, that it will be more readable because JGL is a woman I've always admired (yes, I was a Girl Scout) and I'd love to read this one.

I have several other Net Galley offerings waiting to be read and reviewed when this batch clears out, but this year I'm determined not to be rushed, and to read what is appealing to me, not what I HAVE to read. I trust you all will find something in the coming reviews to make you run out yelling "I've got to find that one."

Review: The Sense of An Ending by Julian Barnes

2012-01-19T22:11:00.001-05:00

Winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize

Author: Julian Barnes
Publisher-Format: Alfred A. Knopf, Hardcover, 176 pages
Year of publication: 2011
Subject: The meaning of life
Genre: literary fiction
Source: public library
Recommended? Absolutely. A must - read

There are a few books so well-written, so stunning in their impact, and perfect in their ability to stop us in mid-thought that they defy conventional review. I am not normally excited when I see the label "Winner of the Man Booker Prize" - I've read several good ones, but I've read others that have left me cold. This one however, is the best of the best. The book jacket describes it as being one of "Stunning psychological and emotional depth and sophistication." It is a short book, written in a clear, flowing, soothing style. It's not flashy, the sentences are not convoluted. Instead, the prose is eloquent, graceful and so thought-provoking as to be almost breath-taking.

Basically it's the story of one man, Anthony Webster and his attempt to reconcile the memories of his early life with the realities of his later one. He seems to build his musings on a quote from Patrick Lagrange : "history is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation." The protagonist ruminates further: "It strikes me that this may be one of the differences between youth and age: when we are young, we invent different futures for ourselves; when we are old, we invent different pasts for others."

There's no real plot, but as we are inexorably drawn to the end, we are suddenly confronted with an climax that is not foreseen. Anthony tells us, "Sometimes I think the purpose of life is to reconcile us to its eventual loss by wearing us down, by proving, however long it takes, that life isn't all it's cracked up to be." This is a must read book. I won't spoil it by revealing anymore. I got it from the library, but it will definitely be added to my personal library.

Review: Trespasser by Paul Doiron

2012-01-16T20:39:00.000-05:00

Author: Paul Doiron
Publisher-Format: MacMillan Audio, 9:39, 320 page equivalent
Narrator: Henry Leyva
Year of publication: 2011
Subject:Maine Game wardens
Setting: coastal Maine
Series: Mike Bowditch (2)
Genre: mystery- law enforcement professionals
Source: public library download
Recommended? - Yes if you like mysteries or Maine

In this second installment of the (mis)adventures of Maine Game Warden Mike Bowditch, Paul Doiron has given us a protagonist who is still recovering from the events in the first book of the series, The Poacher's Son. While this one could stand alone, I think readers will not grasp the full extent of Mike's inner turmoil, and the demons he is still wrestling with unless they've read the first one.

The book opens when Mike is called by a demanding and irate citizen who cannot understand why the warden must follow certain procedures before just barging off to "arrest those dirt-bags." At the same time, he is called to the scene of a car-deer encounter on a dark, foggy road (an not uncommon occurence in Maine), only to discover that the deer (presumably dead) is gone, and the driver of the vehicle is missing. When an obnoxious state trooper finally appears on the scene (he should have been the one to handle the case to begin with) and dismisses the missing driver with a remark that she was probably trying to avoid an OUI, Mike is outraged but too tired and muddy to stick around and challenge the other officer. Once at home, the niggling clues that don't fit the trooper's assessment begin to bother him, and his rebellious and hard-headed nature once again kicks in. What happened to the girl? Is she OK? When he tries to find out, he meets roadblocks at every corner, while his inner radar continues to pick up vibes that something is definitely wrong. When the girl is found dead, the town and local cops are spooked by the resemblance to another murder seven years ago. From there on, we watch as Mike becomes a self-destructive one man posse bent on proving everyone else wrong.

Girlfriend Sarah has returned, but doesn't appear inclined to make their relationship more permanent until Mike agrees to counseling. Mike's boss Kathy has only a cameo appearance in this one, as do his old friends the retired game warden Charley and his wife Ora. Once again, the book is replete with lush descriptions of Maine's natural settings, its wildlife, and its citizens; it shows us again the very intense and necessary role the Game Wardens play in law enforcement in Maine. There are bodies, bad guys, suspects, and bosses galore. Doiron shows us the close relation between the local sheriffs, police departments, the state police and the game wardens. His portrait of Maine continues to enlighten and delight, and his mystery plotting is spot-on.

I do hope that Mike and Sarah can get their relationship back onto a positive track and begin moving forward. Mike is young (he's only been a warden for two years) and he has a lot to learn in the life department, but readers have become invested in getting this young man to adulthood, and look forward to the next novel in the series.

The Giveaway Queen

2012-01-15T13:54:00.000-05:00

One of the most fun things about being a book blogger is getting acquainted (virtually at least) with some wonderful people who share your love of books. Another is that we are able to feature books we receive from publishers to give away to our wonderful readers as an enticement to a) read and review the books, b) attract more readers to our blog, and c) get come great (AND FREE) publicity for their books.

I haven't run a giveaway in a while because they are time-consuming and my review schedule is really backed up. The library in town is keeping me quite busy, and frankly, I've wanted to devote my reading to books that truly interested me as a reader, not just books the publisher wanted promoted. BUT, there is a blogger out there who is my nominee for "Queen of the Giveaways" - BINGO at Bookin' with Bingo.

This lady has the respect of publishers, the devotion of over 1000 followers, and one of the most exciting blogs around. She's ALWAYS running giveaways (I've won a couple myself over the years) and she features a very eclectic assortment of interviews, giveaways, reviews, and graphcis. She is currently celebrating her third "Blogiversary" by giving away a boatload of books. Several of these giveaways are still underway, so click that link and get on over there and treat yourself.

Thanks Kaye for a wonderful three years. I'm looking forward to many more. Now do I get extra points for this post? LOL

Review: Kehinde by Buchi Emecheta

2012-01-12T22:42:00.000-05:00

Author: Buchi Emecheta
Publisher- Format:Waveland Pr Inc (2005) Paperback, 144 pages
Subject: Women's roles in various cultures
Setting: London, Nigeria
Genre: African literature
Source: Public library

The Blurb: Kehinde is a Nigerian woman, unsure of herself, not quite certain she has the right to be happy. With her husband, Albert, she has made a home in London, and has a promising career when Albert decides they should return to Nigeria. Kehinde is loath to do so, and joins him later, reluctantly, only to discover that he has taken a second, younger wife. Her years in England have left Kehinde unwilling and unprepared to reembrace Nigerian social mores; and unable to accept the situation, she returns to London.

My Impressions: This short crisply written book packs a wallop. The main character Kehinde is a strong, educated but conflicted woman who is trying to reconcile the role of women in two cultures: the polygamous traditions of her native Nigeria where her extended family still lives, and the European customs and mores of monogamous marriage. She and her husband Albert are both living in England where she has an excellent and well-paying job, a house, two children, and is well respected by everyone except her husband, whose lesser job does not reinforce his perception of his self-importance. Letters from his sisters (who think he is very wealthy) make him believe he can be a larger than life big man in his home town, and he insists on returning to Nigeria.

When Kehinde, who was left behind to sell the house and wait for her husband to find a job and a house in Nigeria, finally arrives, it is to find the second wife, a small house full of relatives, and her "English" ways very much unappreciated. How she deals with the disappointment and disillusionment and how she comes to save herself and her dignity make for a compelling story.

Published several years ago, this book was part of our library's "Opening the Windows" book discussion series we've been doing. Seeing the lives, expectations, opportunities, and traditions of various cultures as they impact the lives of women, has been a truly enriching experience for those of us participating in the group. This book is well-worth the two or three hours it takes to read it.

Review: The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

2012-01-11T20:55:00.000-05:00

Author: Paula McLaine
Publisher Format: Ballantine Books (2011), Hardcover, 336 pages
Subject: Hadley Richardson Hemingway
Setting: Midwest US, Paris, Spain, various Europe
Genre: Historical fiction
Source: Public Library
Meet a goal? Yes- Read General Fiction

A nicely written book, nothing special. Written as historical fiction, it tells the story of Ernest Hemingway and his first (he had four!) wife, Hadley Richardson and their five year marriage. It appears to be well-researched and accurate, but the whole story left me depressed, not just about the failed marriage but about the entire life-style.

While Hemingway was gathering "life experiences" for his writing, his wife is often left to her own devices in Paris, with little money, little ambition, and few resources except their group of high-rolling, heavy drinking, party throwing and going friends. The story unfolds mostly through Hadley's eyes and voice, although every once in a while (three or four times total) the reader is suddenly shifted to Ernest's point of view but in the third person. It was a bit scattered, as they rambled over Europe staying in a series of small apartments unless they could find rich friends to put them up. At times, they seemed the ultimate moochers.

There were skiing, fishing, hiking, drinking, and bull-fighting scenes to do justice to Ernest's well-known life style. But there were also scenes of incredible insensitivity to spouses, children, and friends. I did appreciate the author's epilogue which allowed us to see how Hadley's life progressed after her marriage to Hemingway ended.

Definitely worth reading, but probably not a re-read. Had I not known before I started reading it, I would never have said this was on several lists of "best of 2011." IMHO, it was good, but not that good.

Review: Believing the Lie by Elizabeth George

2012-01-09T00:02:00.001-05:00

Author: Elizabeth George
Publisher-Format: Penguin Group USA, Dutton Adult, e-galley 615 pages
Year of publication: 2012
Subject: betrayal, family dysfunction, keeping secrets, infertility
Setting: The Lake District, Cumbria, UK
Series: Lyndley/Havers Mysteries
Genre: Mystery - police procedural
Source: e-galley from publisher through Net Galley

It's been a while since Elizabeth George has given us a new episode in the ongoing adventures of Scotland Yard's Chief Inspector Thomas Lyndley and his trusty side-kick Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers. Believing the Lie was worth every minute of the wait. It's meaty, some might argue a tad long, but the subtle layers of personal motivation, interwoven stories of various characters, and a crime that defies definition -- (was there a crime?) keep the reader up late at night, turning pages, vowing to read just one more chapter.

There are several story lines going here, all of them inter-related but each also a stand-alone. Havers is dealing with ambivalent feelings about her (and Lyndley's) new "guv" -the impeccably groomed Isabelle Ardery whose insistence on Barbara getting a haircut and spiffing up her wardrobe does not sit well with the Sergeant. Barbara's also dealing with the sudden (and somewhat unwelcome) appearance of the mother of her next door neighbor's daughter.

Debra and Simon are engaged in emotional upheaval revolving around their (in)ability to conceive a child. Lyndley himself is still reeling from the death of his wife Helen three books ago, and is conflicted about his relationship with Isabelle, engaging in a highly charged sexual affair by night, and keeping an even professional keel in the office.

Scotland Yard Commissioner Lord Hillyer sends Lyndley on an undercover, hush-hush mission to Cumbria to see if the death of his friend Lord Fairclough's nephew was truly accidental as it had been so ruled by the coroner. Because Hillyer doesn't want anyone at the Yard aware of the investigation, Tommy takes his friends Simon and Debra St. James with him, swearing them to secrecy. He tells Havers only that he will be gone for a few days, and simply tells Isabelle (his boss) that he's on assignment. All too soon, Sgt Havers gets drawn in to research items for him using the Yard's resources, and Isabelle's nose gets way out of joint.

The Fairclough family is a soap opera in print. There's marital infidelity, an out of the closet gay couple, neglected children, a nymphomaniac mother, an out-of-control teenager, a recovering drug addict and his secretive wife, a matriarch who wants to control all, a disgruntled tenant farmer, a sour, spoiled-brat spinster daughter, and a divorced couple still living together. The author manages to keep each of these story lines moving right along without confusion on the reader's part, and in the end ties everything together. Often authors trying to keep this many balls in the air try to wrap everything up in a neat package with a pretty bow, leaving their readers breathless, confused and frequently disappointed. George takes her time, drawing out the stories and letting them come to natural conclusions, even when the reader would have wished for a better or different ending.

George has built on characters introduced earlier in the series, but gives enough back story to provide new readers with a clear sense of who and why. She has also given us a lot to look forward to in future installments. Many potential readers are familiar with Lyndley and Havers from the PBS Masterpiece Theatre adaptation of the earlier books, and although those are well done, there is no way the TV specials can include the depth, diversity and delicate nuances of the books.

If you enjoyed the TV show, you'll love the books. If you're a fan of the series, you will love this one, and if you're new to Tommy and Barbara, grab this one (or one of the earlier ones)---you're in for a treat!

Many thanks to Penguin for making the e-galley available for review. Publication is scheduled for January 17th.

A Plug for E-books

2012-01-06T14:59:00.000-05:00

I just completed the absolutely completely painless download of an e-book from Google e-books partnered with a local Indie Book Store. What a great way to patronize local (well --- it was 90 miles away in Portland but still in Maine) bookstore, get a book that had been on my wishlist, plop it on my NOOK, and never leave home!

To me, this is one of the biggest advantages of the e-reader. This works for everything EXCEPT KINDLE (sorry Amazon patrons) and I hope our two local (like here within 10 miles) Indie bookstores will get on the band wagon. I've been very careful about spending $$ since we got the e-readers; it's so very easy to click that buy now button, but the advantage of knowing it will be there when I really want to read it, that I can support local small businesses but I don't have to buy it this very minute and let it languish on the shelf for 3 years, is very attractive.

So for now, I'm off to finish an ARC that's got a pub date coming up next week. It's the new Inspector Lyndley - so stay tuned for a review. And THINK SNOW!!!

Review: V is for Vengeance by Sue Grafton

2012-01-05T01:20:00.001-05:00

Author: Sue Grafton
Publisher-Format: Random House Inc; Books on Tape; audio 15:11 hrs
Narrator: Judy Kaye
Year of publication: 2011
Subject: Shoplifting rings, police corruption, organized crime
Setting: Santa Rosa California
Series: Kinsey Millhone mysteries, The Alphabet Series
Genre: mystery - private detective
Source: public library download

Unlike some writers who get boring and formulaic and whose writing deteriorates as a series progresses, Sue Grafton continues to delight with fresh plots, well-developed characters, and excellent writing. In this episode, many of the auxiliary characters we have come to love have very small parts: Henry, Rosie, and William put in only cameo or background appearances. The story centers around Kinsey's inadvertent witnessing of a shoplifting, and the perpetrator's subsequent questionable suicide. Hired by the decedent's "fiancé" to prove it was not a suicide, Kinsey suddenly finds the situation dissolving into a very sticky mess, involving a big-hearted loan shark, dirty cops, stereotypical big brawn small brained thugs, unhappily married couples, etc etc. All the players stories come together to produce an ending that many readers may not be pleased with, and frankly, I'm not sure the resolution is one I feel morally ok with, but given the choices, Grafton's denouement is solid and convincing.

Grafton has several different points of view running concurrently, a fairly new device for her writing, and she does it well. In addition to watching Kinsey's investigation, we watch the lives of one of the "bad guys" and another story line of one of the disaffected spouses and see how their actions and emotions influence what happens as the story progresses. I haven't read one of these in awhile, and I don't remember previous volumes being quite this involved. The story line while complex, flows well and Judy Kaye continues to do a great narrating job to keep us listening to the audio (in fact I took the long way home today just so I could finish one of the discs.)

In this series, "V" is every bit as good as "A" was. In fact, if I had time, I'd love to start this series over from the beginning and read them again. For new readers, the best part is that they can be read as stand alones and there's no need to feel you need to go back to the beginning. Grab any of them, and be prepared to meet a smart, sassy, level headed private investigator who is one of my favorite characters. She knows when to involve the police, when to say "no" to stupidity, and generally shows us a professional who generally doesn't participate in activities beyond her scope. A great way to start the New Year.

New Year's Resolutions - Let's Get Real!

2012-01-02T00:02:00.003-05:00

Welcome to Tutu's 2012 Goals.

Rather than get all frazzled by joining sixty-eleven bazillion challenges, I'm doing something a bit different this year. I'm not going to spazz on numbers or challenges. In fact, I suspect, I'll actually be reading fewer books this year for a number of reasons. I read 149 in 2011, but think it will be closer to 100 for 2012. After looking at where I want my reading to go this year, I've decided to set some goals to guide my reading choices, but, with one exception I'm going to concentrate on what my sister Cheli has christened BOMBS (Books On My BookShelves).

I have several goals:
1. Continue to read in the US Presidents Challenge group on LibraryThing. This is an open ended "challenge" so I don't have to read any specific number. I've only finished 5 so far, but just got "The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness" (which I started last year but couldn't hold the dang book-too heavy), so it's now on my Nook.

2. I'll be reading at least 2 ARCs a week since I enjoy blogging about new books and publishers who grace me with review copies do have some expectation that I'll publish some reviews. I have a boatload of good ones on my Nook (many from NetGalley) and others as paper galleys to finish. I'm currently entranced by Elizabeth George's newest Inspector Lynley - "Believing the Lie" due for publication this month.

3. In addition to the President's bios, I'm going to read lots of other biography---this genre (along with memoirs) is one of my favorites, and I'm hoping to read at least one bio/memoir per month.

4. I'' be reading lots of mysteries - in fact, I had almost decided to read only histories and mysteries for 2012, but I know myself too well to set myself up to have to refuse a good work of science, food writing or fiction.

6. Speaking of fiction, I'm going to be skimming a lot of it during the year. I just got invited to participate in recommending the adult fiction selections for the state's Overdrive Consortium - both ebooks and audios, so I have to leave room for those wonderful tomes I'll discover that scream "read me, read me."

7. Also since I'm a Maine librarian, albeit a transplant "from away", I'm trying to do more reading of some of our great Maine authors like Elisabeth Ogilvie, Leah Wait, Sarah Orne Jewett, and many others.

8. Book clubs and group reads will provide some great reading. Our library's first up is "Kehinde" in our Women's perspective series.

9. There'll be some miscellaneous non-fiction, particularly concerning food.

10. And my only "challenge" is participating in a group called War Through the Generations where we'll be reading (fiction and non-fiction) focused on World War I. I already have over 14 stacked up to read in a variety of formats - audio, ebook, and good old fashioned print. My daughter was a history/german major so she loaded me up with a ton of goodies while we were in Virginia last week.

There's a great variety of formats available in this list and while many of these are available in audio, many are already available sitting on my shelves (wooden or virtual) so I'll be able to keep up while I'm doing my 4x weekly water aerobics, waiting in line at the grocery or the blood lab (e-readers are really great for this) or just sitting in front of the fire watching the snow fall.

I think I'll be keeping busy, but I hope to stop by and visit you all during the year. Instead of just lurking, I'll be dropping a comment, and letting you know I've been to visit. I think sometimes it gets discouraging when there are no comments on a blog, so I'm going to try to be a better member of the blogging community and speak up a bit more.

Enjoy the party!

2012-01-01T00:02:00.009-05:00

glitter-graphics.com

Here's to a wonderful year of happiness, health and

peace for everyone.

I'll be checking in with a recap and some goal setting later today if I can get caught up. In the meantime, my thanks to everyone for your faithful following. Tutu has some new challenges in the wings and I hope you'll continue to join me here at the 2 cent roundup. Now it's back to the party.

A last look back

2011-12-31T00:01:00.036-05:00

It's time to wrap up the old year. I do think it's valuable to look back because it helps to see where you've been and then figure out where you want to go.

In 2011 I read 149 books. I thought I'd hit the 150 mark, but discovered I'd double counted one of my books back in August. Oh well.....whatever.....Here's how they break down by genre:

116 Fiction

2 fantasy
2 graphic novel
11 historical fiction
56 mystery
1 Sci Fi
3 short stories
40 pure fiction

2 Poetry

30 Non-fiction

13 bios/memoirs
2 travel
2 sociology studies
1 science
6 history
6 food

Now comes the Fun part. Listing the best reads. Please note: these are MY best fiction reads, not necessarily the best fiction published in 2011...many were published earlier than 2011. And I'd be VERY hard pressed to choose the best of the best, so please don't ask!

Fiction (links go to the book page on LibraryThing.com)

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
Cloud Atlas
One Was a Soldier
Lester Higata's 20th Century
The Beautiful One has Come
Doc
God of Small Things
Nervous Condition
Sea of Poppies
Night Circus
A Trick of the Light

Best Non-Fiction Reads of 2011

Cleopatra: a life
The Social Animal
American Nations
Strange Relation: A Memoir
Curse of the Narrows
Unbroken

Honorable Mentions

Room
Work Song
Maine
A Buddha in the Attic
Coventry

Major Disappointments

Land of the Painted Caves
The Russian Affair
Great House
The Tiger's Wife
The Reading Promise

And finally by Format:

56 audio
10 audio /print (these were books I listened to and read in print. I often find this a particularly fascinating way to inhale a work.)
30 e books ( I love my NOOK!!)
52 print

So here's to a great year for 2012 although I don't expect the numbers will be nearly this high. I'll be posting my expectations for the year within the next 24 hours.

Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh

2011-12-30T23:27:00.000-05:00

A Man Booker Prize Nominee
Author: Amitav Ghosh
Publisher-Format: New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008. 515 pages
Audio book Brilliance Audio, 18 hrs, 14 min
Narrator Phil Gigante
Subject: Opium wars, colonialism
Setting: India, Canton
Series: Ibis Trilory
Genre: historical fiction
Source: public library

I just finished this fantastic book, and now I'm panting to get to the next one. I really couldn't stop long enough to take notes, so I just decided to let go and wallow in the gorgeous language, and the wonderful characters. I'm certainly having some love-hate relations with a couple of them, and really want to see how this story progresses. The story is set in India, and is a good exposè of the British Empire and its control of the Opium trade. One of the main characters is a young mixed race sailor from Baltimore, who has chosen to make his fortune sailing on this gorgeous Baltimore clipper ship. His rise to a place of some power in the company provides a backdrop for several other personality driven story lines.

The reader gets a really good picture of how the British used the Indian caste system to keep the natives under control. However, they also needed workers in the fields, and forced many lower caste individuals into what amounted to slavery, loaded them onto a sailing ship (the Ibis) and headed for the Mauritius Islands. I was so fascinated with this journey that I went to Google Maps to see where the Mauritus Islands were. There are wicked way out there in the middle of no-where. The voyage reminds me somewhat of "Amistad" with enslaved people totally at the mercy of a gang of hoodlums who will exercise power any time they can.

I really have to let this settle before I can write a proper review, but I highly recommend listening to this in addition to reading it. I literally did both. I would read a chapter as I listened to it. The audio was well synchronized to the book chapters, making it very easy to keep track. The incredible voice of Phil Gigante the narrator, and his ability to speak the difference languages and dialects really added a dimension of pleasure to the experience.

Sea of Poppies is volume #1 of the Ibis Trilogy. I can't wait to get the next one "River of Smoke".

A Special Christmas Wish

2011-12-24T00:02:00.002-05:00

Although everyone may not be enjoying the peaceful romance of a White Christmas,

I'd like to take this opportunity to wish you all the blessings, peace, health, and happiness

the idea brings with it.

No matter your faith, or your chosen holiday, this is one time of the year when everyone of us can stop to celebrate our common humanity, our desire for peace, and hopefully take the time to spread peace and goodwill through small acts of goodness, love and kindness.

May you receive the blessings promised by the Light born on Christmas

and the happiness of knowing you are loved.

May we all receive the peace we so desperately long for and that this war-torn world deserves.

Merry Christmas

Happy Hannakah

Happy Kwanza

and for all other

Joy for all days.

Tutu will be absent from the blog scene for the rest of 2011 - I'm spending some restful time with my children, sisters, mother and granddaughter. I'll be back on the New Year with a recap of this wonderful reading year, and some news about a couple of new projects.

Here's hoping Santa left a PILE of books under your tree, along with some hot chocolate, and a warm snuggly. Happy New Year.

A Double Header of Familiar Series

2011-12-23T00:02:00.046-05:00

This time of year does not offer large uninterrupted chunks of time for reading, so I often turn to the familiar for relaxing and enjoyment. Recently, I had the opportunity to get back to two of my favorite series: Lily Bard and Salvo Montalbano. They're very different, but by now, I'm familiar with the characters, the settings, and the basic life events of each, so I can sit back with each of them and simply enjoy what's happening right now. It's like meeting up with an old friend while you're downtown Christmas shopping. You stop in at your favorite eatery, have an enjoyable mid-day meal, a glass of wine, and catch up on what's been happening. You leave refreshed, and looking forward to seeing them again.

Author: Charlaine Harris
Publisher Format: Berkley (2008), Edition: e-book 224 pages
Subject: Christmas wedding in a small town - oh yeah - a cold case missing child investigation
Setting: Arkansas
Series: Lily Bard mysteries
Genre: amateur sleuth/private investigator crime solving team
Source: electronic Epub download from public library

This is my kinda series -- I love Lily Bard, adore her main squeeze Jack, and needed a Christmas book to get me in the holiday mood. Not only is there some Christmas, there's a southern wedding, and that in itself is enough to produce lots of enjoyment. Add the old cold case of a missing girl and a few more bodies and this gets very interesting. Nice resolution, nothing overly coronary. This one as an ebook took only about 3 hours to cruise through. Easy, fun, and still fresh enough that I want to track down the 2 left in the series I haven't yet read.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author: Andrea Camilleri
Publisher Format: Penguin Books- Blackstone Audio, 5 hrs, 52 min, 276 page equivalent
Year of publication: 2010 (original print copyright 2004)
Narrator: Grover Gardner
Subject: crime solving; mafia, kidnapping
Setting: Sicily
Series: Inspector Montalbano mysteries
Genre: police procedural
Source: public library audio download

In this latest of the ongoing adventures of Salvo Montalbano and his sidekicks Fazzio, Mimmi, and Catarello, we are introduced to the Italian concept of kidnap/ransom where everyone expects the victim to be ransomed, the police want to help facilitate the exchange of ransom money for the victim, and even the priest says that if the family can't afford the ransom, then the godfather of the victim must pay. There's none of the American expectation that the bad guys should be caught and punished. Everyone knows the mafia rules and everything will be fine as long as the money is paid. In this case, however, the crooks appear to have kidnapped the daughter of a penniless and broken old man, and it is up to Montalbano to identify the true motivation for the kidnapping. Classic Montalbano. If you're a fan of this series, you'll enjoy it. If you've never read any, I'd suggest starting a little earlier in the series (this is #8). They're always good for a short satisfying escape from reality.

Review: An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin

2011-12-21T00:02:00.046-05:00

Author: Steve Martin
Publisher- Format: Grand Central Publishing (2010), Hardcover, 304 pages
Subject: Art dealers, auctions, art history
Setting: New York
Genre: fiction
Source: my own shelves - a 2010 Christmas gift!

I can't believe it took me so long to get to this one! I had it as one of my top picks on my Christmas wish list last year but it just kept getting buried in other "must reviews." I'm so glad I didn't give up on it. Steve Martin has given us a well-written, tightly plotted view of the art world in the recent and current economy. He certainly seems to have done his homework to be able to present realistic scenes of auction houses, private galleries, international jet-set buyers, and less than honorable wheeler-dealers. The protagonist, Lacey Yaeger, an aggressive up-and-comer in the art world, takes us on a roller coaster ride of emotions, motivations, love affairs, and monetary ups and downs. Told through the voice of art writer Daniel Franks, her career, her mentors, her co-workers, her love affairs, and her competition are all well drawn and pulled together to provide a taunt story that keeps the reader turning pages long past bedtime.

In addition to a good story and some good basic explanations of art, art history, and how art is collected and sold, the book features twenty-two beautiful four color plates of many of the works featured in the book. The pictures added the extra frosting to a good solid cake. Steve Martin has certainly proved that his writing abilities are on a par with his acting and directing.

Trying to "read" this in an audio version is probably a non-starter since the lushness of the paintings would not be available to contribute to the reader's experience. As an e-book, it would only work on a color reader. I think a lot would be lost in a strict black and white world. As a print hardback, it's a winner, a definite positive, enriching, and enjoyable read. Now that I've finished last year's Christmas book, I can look forward to this year's with a clear conscience.

If You Ask Me (And Of Course You Won't) by Betty White

2011-12-20T00:02:00.074-05:00

Author: Betty White
Publisher-Format: Penguin Group: Putnam Adult Kindle edition, 272 pages
Year of publication: 2011
Subject: Lessons learned from life
Genre: Memoir
Source: Public library download

A recent press release from Penguin Audio announced that Betty White has been nominated for a Grammy for the audio edition of this work. It's not hard to imagine that. The print (or in this case Kindle) edition is just as much fun as I imagine the audio would be. Penguin tells us:

In If You Ask Me (And Of Course You Won’t), Betty’s wit and wisdom take center stage as she tackles topics like friendship, romantic love, aging, television, fans, love for animals, and the brave new world of celebrity. Drawing from a lifetime of lessons learned, If You Ask Me mixes her thoughtful observations with humorous stories from a seven-decade career in Hollywood. Longtime fans and new fans alike will relish Betty’s candid take on everything from the unglamorous reality behind red-carpet affairs, to her beauty regime (“I have no idea what color my hair is, and I never intend to find out”), to the Facebook campaign that helped persuade her to host Saturday Night Live despite having turned down the hosting job three times. Featuring all-new material, with a focus on the past fifteen years of her life, If You Ask Me is funny, sweet, and to the point – just like Betty.

We downloaded this ebook from our library's Overdrive program to test our new Kindle e-reader. The process was painless, and turned out to be a really fun. Betty White is a tell-it-like-it-is lady whose long and noted career in TV is only one aspect of what makes her tick. She actually reads and answers her own fan mail, confesses to be totally inept with computers, has loads of interesting friends - male and female- and as everyone knows, is absolutely devoted to the cause of humane treatment of animals. Stories of her interaction with dogs, dolphins, chimps, cats, snakes, and humans all bring smiles to the reader. Her easy, breezy style of writing gives the reader an experience similar to sitting down by the pool to sip lemonade together. The e-book worked very well, even showing the numerous black and white pictures in sharp clarity. I'm betting the audio was a definite winner given Ms. White's natural sense of timing and comedy.

This is one that would make a great Christmas gift in any format for someone who grew up watching Hollywood Squares, Password, Golden Girls, and Mary Tyler Moore. It's an easy read, and will be well received by those who like celebrity memoirs.

Review: A Thousand Lives: An Untold Story..... by Julia Scheeres

2011-12-16T00:02:00.085-05:00

A Thousand Lives:An Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown

Author:Julia Scheeres
Publisher Format: Simon and Schuster, Free Press, e-book galley, 320 pages
Year of publication: 2011
Subject: Jim Jones leader of the People's Temple, and the organization's structure and activities
Setting: San Francisco, and Guyana
Genre: historical narrative
Source: e-galley from publisher via Net Galley

Publisher's marketing copy:

"They left America for the jungles of Guyana to start a better life. Yet what started as a Utopian dream soon devolved into a terrifying work camp run by a madman, ending in the mass murder-suicide of 914 members in November 1978.

In A Thousand Lives, the New York Times bestselling memoirist Julia Scheeres traces the fates of five individuals who followed Jim Jones to South America as they struggled to first build their paradise, and then survive it. Each went for different reasons-some were drawn to Jones for his progressive attitudes towards racial equality, others were dazzled by his claims to be a faith healer. But once in Guyana, Jones's drug addiction, mental decay, and sexual depredations quickly eroded the idealistic community.

It's been 33 years since this tragedy occured, in which 914 people died in a mass suicide/murder scheme in November 1986, and the story still is repugnant to me. I can perhaps understand that individuals might choose to commit suicide for a variety of reasons, but I'm not able to comprehend participating in a mass suicide event that included killing hundreds of innocent children. Julia Scheeres has done extensive research, including interviewing survivors, and its shows in the details she was able to uncover to give us so much of the story behind the headlines. She begins with the young Jim Jones and traces his "call" to ministry, his education, and his founding of the People's Temple.

But she doesn't stop with Jones' story. By telling us the story of several members of the church - young, old, black, white, married, widowed, divorced, single, recovering addicts, paroled criminals - we begin to understand why people felt wanted, needed, and hopeful that here was an opportunity the world was not offering anyplace else. As she follows these members through the years from California to Guyana, we witness the increasing megalomania of Jones and the tension, the uncertainty and the terror of those who finally come to realize that there is no way out of the situation in which they have placed themselves.

It's terrifying, shocking,and appalling, but it's mesmerizing, spell-binding, and absolutely compelling. It was so depressing to see that the promise of hope so many accepted was perverted by someone purporting to be God, and that people could believe such a person could in fact lead them to eternal happiness. Watching Jones turn disatisfied people into sub-human creatures who could turn on their own spouses, and children, was not a pleasant reading experience, but it was a story that once started could not be put down.

I only wish the review copy I received had been better edited, but I'm sure the publisher cleaned up those glitches by the time it was released. It's a powerful story, and one that deserves to be shown to the world, if for no other reason than to prevent it happening again.

Review : Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka

2011-12-15T00:02:00.057-05:00

Author: Julie Otsuka
Publisher- Format: e-book galley: Knopf Doubleday 160 pgs,and audio: Books on Tape, Random House Audio - 3 hrs, 52 min
Year of publication: 2011
Subject: Japanese mail-order brides
Setting: US - 1st half of 20th century
Genre: historical fiction
Source: ebook- publisher galley through NetGalley; audio - public library download

The publisher entices us thusly: "... a tour de force about a group of women brought from Japan to San Francisco in the early 1900s as mail-order brides. In six unforgettable, incantatory sections, the novel traces their new lives as "picture brides": the arduous voyage by boat, where the girls trade photos of their husbands and imagine uncertain futures in an unknown land . . . their arrival in San Francisco and the tremulous first nights with their new husbands . . . backbreaking toil as migrant workers in the fields and in the homes of white women . . . the struggle to learn a new language and culture . . . giving birth and raising children who come to reject their heritage . . . and, finally, the arrival of war, and the agonizing prospect of their internment. Once again Julie Otsuka has written a spellbinding novel about identity and loyalty, and what it means to be an American in uncertain times."

Written almost entirely in the first person plural voice, the author uses this unusual point of view to give us what appears to be an impersonal overview of all that is happening - "we did such and such, one of us did this, etc." . But as the haunting repetitious prose chants itself into our brain, we the reader realize that the events being portrayed were at once incredibly personal, intimate, and private moments of the entire group. They may each have experienced their lives individually, but these experiences paint a collective picture of loneliness, despair, hope, encouragement, and ultimate heart-break.

It is truly, as the publisher touts, a tour-de-force. It is easy to see why it was a National Book Award finalist. The poetic nature of the prose, and the vivid imagery of the women's adjustment to life in America, to marriage with men they did not know, and to a country that does not quite accept them, are well worth the short time needed to immerse oneself into the story. It won't be quickly forgotten.

Review: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

2011-12-13T22:30:00.002-05:00

Author: Erin Morgenstern
Publisher /Format: Random House audio,13 hrs,40 minutes; 400 pg. equivalent
Year of publication: 2011
Subject: magic, illusions, circus
Setting: fictional circus
Genre: fiction: Magical realism, fantasy

Opening excerpt:

ANTICIPATION

The circus arrives without warning.

No announcements precede it, no paper notices on downtown posts and billboards, no mentions or advertisements in local newspapers. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.

The towering tents are striped in white and black, no golds and crimsons to be seen. No color at all, save for the neighboring trees and the grass of the surrounding fields. Black-and-white stripes on grey sky; countless tents of varying shapes and sizes, with an elaborate wrought-iron fence encasing them in a colorless world. Even what little ground is visible from outside is black or white, painted or powdered, or treated with some other circus trick.

But it is not open for business. Not just yet.

Within hours everyone in town has heard about it. By afternoon the news has spread several towns over. Word of mouth is a more effective method of advertisement than typeset words and exclamation points on paper pamphlets or posters. It is impressive and unusual news, the sudden appearance of a mysterious circus. People marvel at the staggering height of the tallest tents. They stare at the clock that sits just inside the gates that no one can properly describe.

And the black sign painted in white letters that hangs upon the gates, the one that reads:

Opens at Nightfall
Closes at Dawn
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I don't normally read or enjoy pure fantasy, but from this point I was absolutely captured. I could not put this down. At one point, as I was listening in the car, I drove an extra 10 miles out of my way because I did not want to stop. The story is one of pure magic.

A young woman, Celia Bowen, daughter of a famous magician, is trained by her father to use and enhance very exceptional powers she has. She becomes the premier illusionist in the "Cirque de Reves". Her father enters her (without her knowledge) into a contest of magical wits and powers against another magician - the protegè of the circus' owner, an old rival. This young man Marco also does not know at first that he is locked into this combat. As both young people grow, and become more adept at their powers, they are drawn romantically to each other; the circus gains in fame; more fans are engaged; and more incredible actors are introduced to us. The suspense builds beautifully as the reader knows that there is a contest, we know who the contestants are, but we don't know exactly what is involved. We are as much in the fog about the details as the main characters. Even with a constantly back and forth time line, we have no trouble hanging on to the illusion. We sit on the edge of our seats in that circus tent waiting to see what happens next, and every time a new magic occurs we wonder: "Is this it? Is this the contest?" Later, as the suspense builds and the characters become more involved, we undergo another kind of suspense waiting for the climax.

I can't say anything more. I can't spoil this fabulous, wonderful, engaging, and incredible story telling. It is a book to be read in any format, and enjoyed over and over again. It's definitely going into my personal permanent collection, and into my library's collection too. Grab some popcorn, settle back in your favorite reading venue and treat yourself. It's the best thing Santa can put in your book pile. Prepare to be seduced.

My Kinda Tree!

2011-12-11T18:56:00.000-05:00

If you haven't seen her gorgeous blog, you can find this and thousands of wonderful bookshelves, and book doodads at Bookshelf Porn. If you like on Facebook, or subscribe in a reader, you can see all of these everyday. One can always dream.

Stressed = Desserts??

2011-12-07T23:42:00.001-05:00

A very wise friend once told me that "Stressed" is "Desserts" spelled backwards, so this week, while I haven't been writing any reviews, I have been relieving stress. I suppose I could have done a Weekend Cooking post about my assorted squash/praline pie that I made Monday night, but the whole point of stress reduction is to avoid doing what sounds like a "COULDA, SHOULDA, WOULDA". So I baked this gorgeous pie, and after hearing the government's report about the lack of nutrition in many of our breakfast foods, we've been enjoying it for breakfast. After all, it has vegetables, protein, and very little fat. And it's yummy. And I don't even have a picture to share. Oh yeah, did I mention the pain meds for the back and shoulder I threw out lifting a 20 pound turkey for Thanksgiving? Working great, but not good for motivating one to do too much work.

So....Sleigh bells, snowflakes, Santa....gift giving, parties, cookies, wrapping, ornaments, wreaths....trees, travel, friends and relatives. Our expectation of holidays often comes from a combination of Hallmark, Hollywood, and Home and can lead to depressing let-downs when others' expectations are different (or one's old bones are creaking).

Holidays can be especially challenging if travel and distance is involved. I think the older we get, the more we value our little creature comforts--we want our own bed, our own pillows, we like our own brand of coffee, and want to watch a specific late night news show (or sports event) while our hosts want to go to bed early and turn off the TV. We look forward to visiting with family, but also value our time here at home enjoying each other's company and the quiet that is life in the woods.

The stress of meeting everyone's holiday expectations can often make it seem like more effort is being expended than is needed. So this year, we're trying here in Tutuland to keep it simple. We're baking cookies to share with friends and family, we've put up a gorgeous wreath on the door and candles in the windows and we've gotten some gifts for the kids. We're going to go to "Grandma's" in Baltimore and share Christmas Eve with my three sisters, two kids and everyone's spouses and then spend a quiet Christmas day with G-ma. The favorite cat-sitter lady is lined up, the volunteer schedule is filled at the library and the town's tree is lit. So we can sneak out of town for a few days. Now we just need to find a good audio book for the trip down and back (actually can almost get in two - total of 24 hours on the road.)

Meantime, there are several other books I'm trying to finish, and several more that are complete BUT....as you may have noticed, my reviewing genes seem to have gone on vacation early this year. I will have at least five more reviews before the end of the year, and they're all great books, but I think when those are done I'm going to kick back, and just read without thinking about reviews for the rest of the year.

In the meantime, those cookies are certainly DESSERTS that are taking care of the STRESSED. What are you doing this year to keep holiday mayhem under control?

Review: The Train of Small Mercies by David Rowell

2011-12-03T00:02:00.002-05:00

Author: David Rowell
Publisher/Format: G.P. Putnam's Sons, pprbk galley 272 pgs
Year of publication: 2011
Subject: hope and despair
Setting: Eastern seaboard of US from New York to Wash D.C.
Genre: Literary fiction
Source: Early Reviewers program of LibraryThing

In the Train of Small Mercies, David Rowell essentially gives us a snapshot of a single day in the lives of six very different people. The date is never given, but those of us who are old enough to remember will never forget the events of June 1968 and the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Using the day of RFK's funeral and the interminable trip of his funeral train from New York to Washington D.C. as the backdrop, the author introduces us to a cast of characters who have nothing in common except their struggles with personal hopes, dreams, disappointments and disasters.

We meet Lionel Chase, a young college student who, on his first day working as a Pullman porter, is assigned to serve aboard the Kennedy train. He'd really rather be with his pregnant girlfriend in North Carolina. Michael Colvert, a fifth-grader whose father is quite absent from his life, comes dangerously close to disaster as he and his buddies play on the rails waiting to catch a glimpse of the casket as the train rolls by; Delores King, a huge Kennedy fan married to one of RFK's most ardent detractors, sneaks her young daughter out of the house to go see the train, and in doing so, puts her daughter in grave peril.

Further along Edwin Rupp is having a pool party, and hoping this opening of his personal swimming venue will somehow put some spice back into his sagging relationship with his wife. Their yard not only has a new pool, but the train tracks run right along the fence line, perfect for viewing the rolling funeral cortege. We also follow Maeve McDerdon, Irish nanny extraordinaire, whose appointment to interview with Ethel Kennedy for a position minding the newest little Kennedy is abruptly cancelled because of the funeral. And finally, we meet Jamie West, recently returned (minus one leg) Vietnam vet, whose life, like all the others in this saga, will never be the same, and who is just beginning to reconcile his past dreams with his future opportunities.

Each of these characters has flaws, each has dreams, each puts his or her life on hold for this one day, to watch the train go by. Their stories are connected only by the train tracks, and the national day of mourning. Otherwise, they are simply and crisply presented as six short stories, all of which have elements of hope woven into them.

I usually enjoy this format in fiction, but..... while the writing was superbly readable and descriptive, and the characters well drawn, I found it difficult to find a thread that really pulled them together as tightly as I've come to expect. There were continual mentions of RFK and his influence, sprinklings of expectations from segments of the population about the premature ending of not only his candidacy but also his life, but I just could not feel them congealing into a whole work. It's a well-written, well-edited piece of fiction. I just wish the six stories hung together in a more specific and coherent whole.

All I want for Christmas is a book.....

2011-12-02T00:11:00.000-05:00

What a marvelous idea! Often parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles come to teachers and librarians asking for suggestions about "good" books to get for special kids in their lives for Christmas gifts. Rather than develop a list of what other people's kids have liked, or what teachers and parents THINK their children SHOULD read, why not let the little ones pick out a few of their own. Even if you ask them to make a list to send to Santa you at least will know what appeals to them. Children definitely have a better chance of reading a book they pick themselves than one foisted on them because someone in authority said they SHOULD read it.

If your budget this year doesn't stretch to buying books, don't forget the public library. Establishing a regular library visiting schedule with your children is one of the greatest gifts you can give a child. Pat Conroy, in his bestseller My Reading Life, credits his mother's habit of taking all her children to the library every week, and letting them choose their own books as one of the biggest factors in his adult literacy and success as a writer.

So, make a day of it tomorrow. Visit a local bookstore, stop and get a hot chocolate, and go home to read a good book. And just think.....the children may be so enthralled with their books, they'll disappear so you can get the grown-up holiday chores done.

Review: Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga

2011-12-01T00:02:00.086-05:00

Author:Tsitsi Dangarembga
Publisher/Format: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Second edition, Pprbk, 224 pages
Year of publication: 2004
Subject: treatment of women in colonial Rhodesia
Setting: Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)
Genre: fictional autobiography
Source: Maine Humanities Council "Let's Talk About It" book club

From the beginning this story grabbed me. Young Tambu opens by telling us she is not sad when her brother dies. Whoa!!! Who would not mourn the loss of a sibling? She gives us a picture of her life as one of poverty, lack of education (or opportunities for anything other than the very basics), and utter hopelessness that things might improve. Until her brother dies.....There are no other sons, so suddenly, she is next in line to be educated, to have a chance to improve not only her life but that of other women of her village. Until then, her life is encapsulated in this quote:

My father thought I should not mind (Not going to school) Is that anything to worry about? Ha-a-a, it's nothing, he reassured me....'Can you cook books and feed them to your husband? Stay at home with your mother. Learn to cook and clean. Grow vegetables.' pg. 15.

My father (who was the son of immigrants) had much the same thought about the value of higher education for women. Fortunately my mother had a more enlightened attitude. And Daddy did eventually admit that he was quite proud of all his daughters' accomplishments.

In "Nervous Conditions" Dangarembga gives us a portrait of two cousins in Rhodesia during the late 1960's and early 1970's. Tambu, the main protagonist, is constantly compared and compares herself to her cousin Nyasha, who was raised in England where her parents were studying, until her early teens. After her brother's death, Tambu goes to live at the mission complex when her Uncle (Nyasha's father) is made headmaster of the school. Nyasha is uncomfortable living in Africa, having never been given the chance to experience the language or mores of village life. Tambu, on the other hand, is fascinated with Nyasha's Englishness on the one hand, but repelled by the fact that the English influence is gradually destroying her family and its traditions.

There are other women's stories woven into this one: Tambu's mother, who is unable to see herself as other than the possession of her husband. Tambu's aunt (Nyasha's mother) struggles to reconcile her African identity with the life she lived in England, and the creature comforts she enjoys by virtue of her husband's position and their relative wealth. Lucia, a woman who lives in the village and who has a child by father unknown, wants to better herself, get an education, and doesn't care a fig about social status, or cultural taboos.

Watching all these women react to the men in their lives could paint a picture of bleak despair, but Dangarembga manages to give us hope, offers us a picture of women overcoming the ravages of colonialism, educating themselves and their families to recognize the dignity of human beings, taking control of their own lives, salvaging the traditions of their culture and molding it into a life to be valued and celebrated. Through Tambu's eyes we experience the open-eyed wonder of a young girl who suddenly has clean clothes, a real bed, modern bathing and toileting facilities, not to mention a more varied diet than she'd been used to and her ambivalence about these "privileges" when she returns on school holidays to the family's hut.

Her uncle is viewed as almost omnipotent by both the men and women of the village, the family and the school, and she struggles to come to terms with the power he can exert, his seeming generous support of her family, and the often confusing contradictions of his actions and his English education. It's a fascinating book, beautifully written, and full of puzzling juxtapositions, examples of cruelty and of kindness. The picture it paints of the life of women in Rhodesia during that time period does not give us as many answers as it provokes questions. I certainly hope the author will write a follow-on book about young Tambu. It would be intriguing to see how she turns out as an adult.

I read this book as part of a series of book discussions sponsored by the Maine Humanities Council who provided the books to our library for the "Opening Windows: Women's Stories from Different Cultures" series. Our group has certainly learned a lot, and enjoyed the previous books in the series. We all agreed that this was definitely our favorite so far.

Review: American Nations by Colin Woodard

2011-11-30T00:02:00.000-05:00

Author: Colin Woodard
Publisher/Format: Viking Adult (Penguin Group), Hardcover, 384 pages
Year of publication: 2011
Subject: Cultural differences throughout North America
Genre: Historical narrative
Source:Public library ( but I'm buying my own copy).

Colin Woodard has given us a thought-provoking, deeply researched, easy to read look at the various ethno-cultural groups making up the North American continent from Canada to Mexico, from the Native Americans who were subjugated by the Spanish (or annihilated by the Anglos) to the Inuits of Canada who are enjoying a resurgence of their identity and culture.

He posits these 11 "nations" to be Yankeedom, New Netherlands, The Midlands, Tidewater, the Deep South, Greater Appalachia, New France, The First Nation, the Far West, El Norte, and the Left Coast. For each, he introduces us to the earliest members, traces their original settlement and the subsequent expansions to other areas of the continent, their expectations, educational levels, governing style, religious and cultural influences from the "Old Country", and analyzes their influence on key historical events of the North American development from elected officials, wars, and legislative achievements to looking at the current political gridlock occuring in the US.

His insights are exceptionally provacative and give the average reader pause to re-examine what we have been taught. For example ....

In the end, The U.S. Constitution was the product of a messy compromise among the rival nations. From the gentry of Tidewater and the Deep South, we received a strong president to be selected by an "electoral college" rather than elected by ordinary people. From New Netherland we received the Bill of Rights, a set of very Dutch guarantees that individuals would have freedom of conscience, speech, religion, and assembly. To the Midlands we owe the fact that we do not have a strong unitary state under a British-style national Parliament; they insisted on state sovereignty as insurance against Southern despots and Yankee meddling. The Yankees ensured that small states would have an equal say in the Senate, with even the very populous state of Massachusetts frustrating Tidewater and the Deep South's desire for proportional representation in that chamber; Yankees also forced a compromise whereby slave lords would be able to count only three-fifths of their slave population when tabulating how many congressmen they would receive. pg. 148

It's a profound book that is not a quick read; neither is it a plodding read. He often offers us "What ifs?" that introduce stunning possibilities e.g., if South Carolina hadn't fired on Ft Sumter, the Union might have been able to negotiate a settlement, and eventually the many nations would have re-aligned themselves into several --up to four--separate confederations, or ended forming a collaboration somewhat akin to today's European Union. To supplement several well-drawn and clearly notated maps, Woodard's style is enjoyable, clear and concise. He gives us an especially thoughtful look at the role the Canadians and northern Mexicans have played (and continue to play) in the culture and politics of the US. He poses questions, synthesizes the best of scholarship available at the moment to give us intelligent and interesting answers. Never did I feel I was reading a text book, although I'd certainly hope that all US history and political science majors will be required to read this. It is simply one of the most interesting and fascinating books I have read this year. It will certainly be on my Top Ten Non-Fiction list for 2011.

Review: The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

2011-11-29T00:02:00.035-05:00

Author: Jeffrey Eugenides
Publisher/Format: MacMillan Audio 13 CDs, 16 hours, 416 pg equivalent
Narrator: David Pittu
Year of publication: 2011
Subject: literature, love, mental illness
Setting: New York, Rhode Island, Cape Cod
Genre: fiction
Source: Review audio furnished by publisher

When MacMillan first offered me this book on audio, I essentially said "No thanks, I really don't 'get' Eugenides". I was reluctant to accept the audio book knowing that it would probably languish in the corner pile of my personal TBR mountain range, in spite of my avowed love of the audio format. Their wise publicist, Esther Bochner, encouraged me by saying that the audio was awesome and she thought I would enjoy it. She was right!

Although I was a math major in college, and never have understood others' fascination with Jane Austen, etal, I was able to follow this story pretty well. I'm sure I missed many literary allusions, but that does not spoil the story. Set in the early 80's (just as I had finished grad school) at Brown University in Rhode Island, and then in Cape Cod and New York, the story follows the coming of age angst of Madeleine Hanna who is completing her senior thesis on the Marriage Plot theme prominent in the novels of Jane Austen and George Eliot. In the meantime, she becomes involved with Leonard Bankhead, a Darwinist from the west coast, and at the same time develops an intellectual relationship with a semiotics classmate Mitchell Grammaticus who thinks that Madeleine is his destined mate.

As Mitchell travels to Europe, India and Asia between senior year and graduate school, Maddy and Leonard move to Cape Cod so he can pursue a research fellowship. At the same time, Leonard also develops a full blown case of manic depression.

This could have been an awful book with disparate pieces floating all over the place. Instead, Eugenides keeps all the players and their stories tied together, interesting, and ultimately brings us to a conclusion we should have seen coming, but in my case at least, we didn't. The references to places, music, literature, history, politics of the era made this one easy for me to relate to, but are also clear enough for younger readers to understand.

While the setting and the plot are well developed, this is truly a character driven work. The expansion of the three main characters is done with precision and insight. We don't understand Maddy, because she doesn't really understand herself. We feel great pain for Leonard's mental illness (and for Maddy's inability to deal with it). Several times I asked myself if medical science hasn't come further along in treatment of bipolar disorder than what was portrayed in the setting 30 years ago. Mitchell's seemingly unorganized ramble through Europe and India seems out of character with his professed desire to enter divinity school, but does give us an excellent picture of the state of his brain and his emotions.

The reader can take this at several levels: as the plain and simple story of three mixed up college graduates with too much learning, and too little grip on the reality of adulthood and the need to settle down and take care of themselves; or one can read this as a very complex mimicry of the 19th century English novels where women and men were meant to be paired for life (at least I think that's what the Marriage Plot is - never could read Austen, nor have I ever read Eliot). Eugenides' genius seems to be in creating a story that can be enjoyed by readers coming from either level.

I certainly enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. The audio was exceptionally well done. David Pittu manages to give each character a distinct voice, and his clear enunciation helps us to understand at least the words if not the literary concepts presented. I can't compare it to Eugenides' previous works, but this one is definitely a winner.

Mailbox Monday - Nov 28th

2011-11-28T00:02:00.059-05:00

Lost Trail , Nine Days Alone in the Wilderness
by Donn Fendler

Donn Fendler's harrowing story of being lost in the Maine wilderness when he was just twelve, was made famous by the perennial best-seller, Lost on a Mountain in Maine. In Lost Trail, more than 70 years after the event, Donn tells the story of survival and rescue from his own perspective. Lost Trail is a masterfully illustrated graphic novel that tells the story of a twelve year old boyscout from a New York City suburb who climbs Maine's mile-high Mt. Katahdin and in a sudden storm is separated from his friends and family. What follows is a nine-day adventure, in which Donn, lost and alone in the Maine wilderness with bugs, bears, and only a few berries to eat, struggles for survival.
This one is sure to be a hit in our library in Maine. The original book is one of our most circulated, even after all these years have passed. Many thanks to Down East Books for sending a review copy.
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The Partials
By Dan Wells

I don't usually read sci-fi or fantasy, so I'm not sure how this one landed in my mailbox, but one of my ardent YA readers at the library eagerly accepted my request that he read it and let me know what he thought. I'll keep you posted. Here's the pub blurb:

The human race is all but extinct after a war with Partials—engineered organic beings identical to humans—has decimated the population. Reduced to only tens of thousands by RM, a weaponized virus to which only a fraction of humanity is immune, the survivors in North America have huddled together on Long Island while the Partials have mysteriously retreated. The threat of the Partials is still imminent, but, worse, no baby has been born immune to RM in more than a decade. Our time is running out.
Dan Wells, acclaimed author of I Am Not a Serial Killer, takes readers on a pulse pounding journey into a world where the very concept of what it means to be human is in question—one where our humanity is both our greatest liability and our only hope for survival.

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The Trail of the Wild Rose
English garden mysteries #4
by Anthony Eglin

I haven't read 1-3 yet, but this one looks intriguing. This gorgeous paperback was a reward for entering the giveaway on Lesa's Book Critiques, one of my all-time favorite blogs. Many thanks Lesa for consistently great reviews and giveaways. Here's the blurb:

The hunt for an ancient Chinese rose turns deadly in this latest English Garden Mystery featuring Dr. Lawrence Kingston.

A plant-hunting expedition haunted by tragedy leads to a perilous trail of greed, larceny, and deceit. Has Peter Mayhew, the man who plunged to his death on a mountain in China, come back to life? Which of the expedition members is hiding an explosive secret? Why are some being targeted for murder?

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Ecco Press sent an ARC of this travel bonanza..London is one of my favorite cities so I'm looking forward to strolling through this one.

Here are the voices of London - rich and poor, native and immigrant, women and men (and a Sarah who used to be a George) – witnessed by Craig Taylor, an acclaimed Canadian journalist, playwright and writer, who has lived in the city for ten years, exploring its hidden corners and listening to its residents. From the woman who is the voice of the London Underground to the man who plants the trees along Oxford Street; from a Muslim currency trader to a Guardsman at Buckingham Palace; from the marriage registrar at Westminster Town Hall to the director of the biggest Bethnal Green funeral parlour – together, these voices and many more, paint a vivid, epic and wholly fresh portrait of Twenty-First Century London.

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I also received an E book from the Member Giveaway program on LT.

Irreparable Harm

by Mellissa Miller

There's a smartphone app capable of crashing a commercial jet. And it's for sale to the highest bidder. Attorney Sasha McCandless is closing in on the prize: After eight years of long hours, she's about to make partner at a prestigious law firm. All she has to do is keep her head down and her billable hours up. Then a plane operated by her client slams into the side of a mountain, killing everyone aboard. She gears up for the inevitable civil lawsuits. But, as Sasha digs into the case, she learns the crash was no accident. She joins forces with a federal air marshal and they race to prevent another crash. People close to the matter start to turn up dead. And Sasha's next on the list. She'll need to rely on her legal training and Krav Maga training in equal measure to stop a madman and save herself.

I'm always interested in strong female protagonists, so this one is definitely worth a look. Thanks to the author Melissa Miller for making the review copy available.

What's in your mailbox this week?
Edited 2:58pm Monday to correct inaccurate sourcing on "Trail of the Wild Rose".

Mini-Reviews: Cozies in Audios

2011-11-15T00:02:00.001-05:00

Earlier this summer, I stacked up some audios to listen to as part of my cozy-readathon. Here are two that were enjoyable enough to while away an afternoon at the beach, but which I wouldn't run right out to buy. As you can see, my reactions to them were quite different.

Title: Maybe This Time
Author: Jennifer Crusie
Publisher/Format: Brilliance Audio, 10 hrs, 58 min, 352 pg equivalent
Narrator: Angela Dawe
Subject: Rescuing Orphans
Setting: Southern Ohio
Genre: Chick lit, light mystery
Source: public library download

My sister-in-law has been bugging me again...she got me to read one of Cruzie's book this summer- Bet Me- which I enjoyed. This one? Well I don't normally get into the para-normal, and although I have enjoyed some lightly haunted ghost stories (Charlaine Harris e.g.) but this one got a little bit deeper than I normally would read.

By the time I realized this was as ghostie as it was, I was hooked on the romance and the rest of the story, so I soldiered through. I was surprised that at the end I could say I really enjoyed it, although I hope the rest of her stories aren't quite so weird. I really don't want to spoil the story, but will say it's vintage chick-lit on steroids: divorced strong female in love-hate relationship with ex-spouse (drop dead perfect gorgeous stud), interesting side kicks, heart-pulling orphans, Victorian haunted houses, nasty housekeeper, imperious mom-in-law, ditzy relatives, other very stereotypical ghost busting personalities, etc etc etc. Fun fun fun, in spite of my normal aversions to ghosties. Worth checking out.

Title: Silver Girl
Author: Elin Hilderbrand
Publisher/Format: Hachette Audio, 14.5 hrs, 416 pg equivalent
Narrators: Janet Metzger and Marianne Fraulo
Year of publication 2011
Subject: life after bankruptcy
Setting: New York, Nantucket
Genre: fiction
Source: publisher provided review copy

I got this one in audio from Hachette to do a review. Good thing I read Stephanie Madoff's memoir first! This thinly veiled fictionalized account of that woman's ordeal really stretches the disclaimer "....work of fiction....any resemblance to real people purely coincidental....yada yada yada" As pure beach read chick lit, it was a "meah"...as an audio, it was OK.

It's basically the samo samo story of rich girl married to crook, has to find her way in life when there is no money, no home, no friends, etc. By moving the scene of the trauma to Nantucket, Hilderbrand is able to create a lone remaining friend who takes in the poor about to starve spouse, create an interesting diversion of the friend's romance, and let us play voyeur as we watch them reconstruct their traumatically scarred lifes. As a story, it was just short of "Oh puhleez....can't you write anything original"? As relaxation, it was OK, but nothing to rush out and get. Glad I read the real story first.

Mailbox Monday - Nov 14

2011-11-14T00:00:00.055-05:00

From Barnes and Noble, in their Free Books Friday program for NOOK owners, I was able to nab

The Journey Home by Michael Baron.

Joseph, a man in his late thirties, awakens disoriented and uneasy in a place he doesn't recognize. Several people are near him when he opens his eyes, all strangers. All of them seem perfectly friendly, but none of them can explain to him how he got there....Joseph doesn't know where he is and he has no way to contact his wife, who he is sure is worried sick over him.
Antoinette is an elderly woman in an assisted living facility. She’s spent the last six years there since her husband died, and ...her son comes to visit often. But in recent months, she’s had a tougher and tougher time leaving her room. Her friends seem different to her and the world seems increasingly confusing.
Warren, Antoinette’s son, is a man in his early forties going through the toughest year of his life. His marriage ended, he lost his job, and in the past few months, his mother has gone from hale to increasingly hazy. Having trouble finding work, he spends more and more time by his mother’s bedside. Joseph, Antoinette, and Warren are three people on different searches for home. How they find it, and how they connect with one another at this critical stage in each of their lives, is the foundation for a profound and deeply moving story.
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I was lucky enough to be selected by the Early Reviewers program of LibraryThing.com to receive this brand new memoir. As you know, memoirs are one of my favorite genres, and I've always admired and respected Justice Stevens, so I'm putting this one at the top of the TBR queue.

FIVE CHIEFS by John Paul Stevens

When he resigned last June, Justice Stevens was the third longest serving Justice in American history (1975-2010)--only Justice William O. Douglas, whom Stevens succeeded, and Stephen Field have served on the Court for a longer time.
In Five Chiefs, Justice Stevens captures the inner workings of the Supreme Court via his personal experiences with the five Chief Justices--Fred Vinson, Earl Warren, Warren Burger, William Rehnquist, and John Roberts--that he interacted with. He reminisces of being a law clerk during Vinson's tenure; a practicing lawyer for Warren; a circuit judge and junior justice for Burger; a contemporary colleague of Rehnquist; and a colleague of current Chief Justice John Roberts. Along the way, he will discuss his views of some the most significant cases that have been decided by the Court from Vinson, who became Chief Justice in 1946 when Truman was President, to Roberts, who became Chief Justice in 2005.
Packed with interesting anecdotes and stories about the Court, Five Chiefs is an unprecedented and historically significant look at the highest court in the United States.

Weekend Cooking -Remembering the Nonas

2011-11-12T00:30:00.060-05:00

Smart cooks realize that the easiest cookbook to use is the Yellow Pages and the handiest appliance in the kitchen is the telephone. ~ Miss Piggy

If you don't do Yellow Pages, phones or Take-Out Taxi, you can still rely on your Nona. One of my fondest memories is having my grandmother pull a fresh fig off the tree, break it open, and stuff the inside out fruit dripping with sweetness and juice into my mouth, and then show me how to lick my chin to catch it all. So I don't think she would have thought much of Miss Piggy's philosophy.To my grandmother, food was life. Not just the preparation and serving, but the growing, harvesting, preserving, and to a lesser extent the shopping, kept her going. In fact, although I have fond memories of rolling, squeezing, peeling, chopping, cutting, tasting, picking from the garden. I don't think I ever went shopping with her until I was in my late 20's when my sister brought her for a visit from Baltimore to Long Beach California where we were living. We were having good some Navy friends to dinner and Nona wanted to make gnocchi. Off we went to shop. She made little turned up nose faces at much of the produce, and almost all of the meats, but we managed to get enough decent (but certainly not perfect) ingredients.

So I really appreciated the sentiment and story in this memoir cum cookbook celebrating food as a way of life. The residents of the town of Campodimele Italy, a small town in the mountains between Naples and Rome, are noted for their longevity. Tracey Lawson, an English teacher who had been living in Tuscany heard of the village and set out to learn more. As she says on the back cover:

I came to Campodimele hoping I might learn how to live longer, but discovered something much more important -- how to live well.

For over three years, she visited with the residents, was allowed into their pastures, their gardens, their vineyards, their olive orchards, their kitchens, their cantina, and their hearts. By observing, then working as she was instructed, she was able to see the value in living off the land, eating seasonally, but still preserving the bounty for times when fresh was not available. She pressed olive oil, made sausage, shelled beans, picked various greens, made goat cheeses, rolled pastas, and climbed mountain roads with 80 and 90 years old residents to tend the goats, pick the olives, and call the hens home at night to roost.

Her month by month description of food, recipes and traditions brought back many memories of the Italian kitchen of my Nona, and gave me a deeper understanding and appreciation of the hows and whys of many of the foods. It held a few surprises. The inhabitants of Campodimele, who regularly live well into their 90's, use very little salt, but are very generous with peperoncino, a red chili pepper they grow, dry and sprinkle liberally on everything. I don't remember that ingredient in my grandmother's repertoire, (although my mother assures me that the shaker of red pepper flakes was ALWAYS on Nona's table) and she did love her salt. It's a perfect example of regional differences. Each area used what grew well there and was readily available.

Subtitled The Lifestyle of Longevity in Campodimele, Italy, it's a treasure of a book - particularly if you love Italian food, have an Italian ancestor, or just want to learn, as Lawson says, "to live well." It's yummy, it's interesting, and it's a definite plus for your food collection. Even if you don't want to try the recipes, the philosophy of living off the land, living simply, and looking at your food as an enjoyable gift will light up your reading and eating day.

Review: Turning the Tide by Ed Offley

2011-11-11T00:00:00.085-05:00

Author: Ed Offley
Narrator: James Adams
Publisher/Format: High Bridge Company; Audio, Unabridged; 17.25 hours
Year of publication: 2011
Subject: WWII - Battle of the Atlantic
Setting: North Atlantic Ocean
Genre: Naval History
Source: Publisher review copy furnished through Early Review program at LibraryThing.com

I actually received this book last July - just before the Independence Day holiday. It took quite a while to finish it. As I review this, I need to separate the format from the content. As you know, I normally LOVE audio books, and was delighted to receive the audio from the Early Review program.

BUT...................this is a book that has to be read in hard copy to be fully appreciated. The narrator, James Adams does a yeoman job of getting through this tome but it simply is not a book well suited to audio. There are hundreds of alpha-numeric designations and numerical descriptors that do not lend themselves to oral recitation. For example, at the beginning of chapter 6, pg. 107 of the print copy, we see:

Three weeks earlier, U-653 had damaged the 9,382-ton Dutch Madoera, a straggler from westbound Convoy ON166, and just four days before it had dispatched the drifting 7,176-ton American freighter Thomas Hooker, which had been abandoned by its crew after suffering major structural failures during the previous week.

Try reading this aloud (Pay close attention to every syllable and you'll get an idea of how cumbersome this is to the ear):

Three weeks earlier, U -six-five-three had just damaged the nine thousand three hundred eighty two ton .....a straggler from westbound Convoy O- N-one-six-six, and just fours days .....the drifting seven thousand one hundred seventy six ton......yada yada yada.

There are literally three to ten such sentences on every one of the 392 pages of the print edition. Trying to follow the story from the audio was painful....there was simply no way one could track who was doing what to whom without resorting to pencil and paper. After the first of 13 discs, I gave up and went hunting for the book. I finally located the one copy in the State of Maine system, and had it sent from a community college library to mine here on the coast.

I then was able to listen to the audio, but had the book at hand to supplement the story with all the enlightening illustrations, maps, charts, glossaries, Convoy lists, etc. It's a wonderful wonderful history of one of the most important battles of World War II, and the audio simply does not do it justice. Our ears and brains just don't register that kind of data without having to stop and make mental notes. Audio books should tell a story in a continuous flow so that the listener/ear-reader can follow along seamlessly. Listening to this was like driving along a turnpike that had speed bumps every 1/2 mile. You never get up to speed, and you're constantly off on the shoulder to check the map and make sure you know where you are.

Enough about the audio. The book itself, as I mentioned above, is incredibly well-researched, coherently written, elegantly edited (I didn't see a misspelled word or dangling participle anyplace!), has ample supplemental material enhancing the text, and should stand as one of the best naval history books of World War II. While the author has a limited scope (the time frame is quite short: the first six months of 1943), he gives us both the Allied and German perspectives on what was happening, who was involved, what lessons were learned, and how it impacted the rest of the war. It was fascinating, and surprisingly easy to follow in print. Our eyes and brains seem to have been conditioned to grasp "Convoy ON166" as a single reading bullet vice the seven syllables we had to absorb in the audio. The charts, maps and pictures added so much- giving us faces to go with names, outlines to go with ship shapes, and places to imagine.

I'm thinking alot today about my father who served in the Merchant Marine during WWII, my father-in-law who marched with Patton through Sicily and Italy (and who probably depended heavily on these convoys being able to get across the Atlantic), my several uncles who served in various branches and those of my generation who served during subsequent wartimes. Preserving and telling their stories is one of the best ways we can honor them. I'm so glad I was able to finish this book (it takes a long time) in time to feature it for Veteran's Day today.

We will probably end up buying the print edition of this one for our personal library. It's a tremendous reference book if you have any interest in this battle at all. Offley certainly has given us the definitive work on the subject. I just wish that James Adams' wonderful narrating voice hadn't been so wasted. I'm giving this one 4 1/2 stars as a print book, 1 1/2 as an audio.

Two More British mystery series

2011-11-10T00:00:00.001-05:00

Author: Jacqueline Winspear
Publisher Format: Penguin, Paperback (2005), 336 pages
Subject: unorthodox detective work
Setting: London and environs, post WWI
Series: Maisie Dobbs
Genre: private investigator mystery
Source: public library

In this second book in the very popular Maisie Dobbs series, Maisie has been hired to find the "missing" daughter of a wealthy business man. This is evidently not the first time the 30 year old woman has chosen to remove herself from her father's overbearing household, but as Maisie begins tracking down her whereabouts, she becomes aware of several other mysterious deaths of women who were at one time or another connected to Maisie's missing lady. Maisie is convinced that all the deaths are somehow connected and that her client's daughter might well be in danger. When she finally tracks her down, it takes all her powers of persuasion to get her cooperation. In the meantime, Maisie is confronted with her assistant Billy's increasingly aberrant mood swings and she embarks on a mission to fix that problem at the same time as she's looking for the missing heiress.

Once again, Maisie's powers of reasoning, ability to think analytically, and sense of daring-do and fair play---all qualities not normally expected in a woman of the 1930's--give us a plot worth solving, characters worth following and a story that makes the reader thirsty for more.

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Author: Deborah Crombie
Publisher/Format: Avon , Mass Market Paperback (2004), 288 pages
Subject: crime solving
Setting: London and environs
Series: Duncan Kinkaid/Gemma James Novels
Genre: police procedural detective
Source: Public library

This series has been around for awhile. I read the first one over five years ago, and always wanted to follow up with another to see if the series turned out to be as enjoyable as it promised to be. When I went looking for an audio of this second in the series, it was SO OLD, it was only available in cassette format. I had to hunt up an old, but still working walkman to play the tapes! I couldn't even listen in the pool. Oh Well....

In spite of those drawbacks, I'm definitely going to keep on reading more in this series. Superintendant Duncan Kinkaid of Scotland Yard, finds himself not only grieving the unexpectedly early death of his downstairs neighbor (she had been terminally ill but did not seem that close to death), but then drawn into an official investigation of her death when it is determined that she perhaps had some assistance to her end. Kinkaid asks Inspector Gemma James (divorced mom with the normal child-care, more-bills-than-money problems) to help him on the case.

I really like the relationship developing between Kinkaid and James. It promises to continue to bloom in future volumes of the series (there are now 14 of them). The setting is nothing special, but Crombie's plot and character development are exceptional. There were at least 4 good solid suspects in this one, and it wasn't until near the end that I began to see a narrowing down of the field. Definitely worth a look if this is a genre you enjoy or a genre you'd like to try.

Review: Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast

2011-11-09T00:02:00.001-05:00

Author: Bill Richardson
Publisher Format: St. Martin's Griffin (1997), 152 pages
Subject: life as we wish it could be
Setting: Pacific Northwest island, small town inn
Genre: short essay, memoir
Source: public library I keep smacking myself to refrain from describing this as a "sweet little book." OK--I said it. It is a calming, soothing, elegant, portrayal of the life of twin brothers who, now in their late middle years, have turned the family house where they grew up into a bibliophile's retreat. There is no TV, there are no nearby restaurants, there is little to do except show up, eat good food, and read good books.

No the BBB&B (as they call it) is not in heaven, but it sure sounds pretty close to it to me. There is a resident cat Waffles, whose naming story begins the telling of the tales. There is an articulate swearing parrot in residence named Mrs. Rochester, whose appearances throughout the book add just the right touch of colorful zest. The brothers themselves, Hector and Virgil, give us their birth history (including their conception under the oil pan of a truck), and a portrait of their unmarried (and never married) mother who raised them with a love of books that has never left them. The twins give us reading lists of favorites, among them: "Virgil's List of Books for when you're feeling low" and Hector's "List of Favourite Authors for the Bath."

In the story "Love and Skincare" we meet Altona Winkler, the local Avon lady, newspaper reporter, and novelist wannabe whom Hector describes thus: "...my association with Altona Winkler..has gone on for a long time now. It suits us both.It is relaxed and casual. Comfortable. In one way or another, we tend to each other's needs."

Guests come toting bags of books to be read, or find an appealing volume in the BB's library. Breakfast is served by the brothers every morning, but guests, who are given the run of the kitchen, are responsible for fixing their own lunch and dinner. Lasting friendships are formed, and guests are encouraged to leave their thoughts in the guest book. In between vignettes from Hector and Virgil, we are treated to stories written by various temporary residents, some of whom have been returning for years.

Virgil, who took up playing the bassoon several years ago, shuts himself in a closet to practice under the watchful eyes and ears of Mrs. Rochester. He also can recite from memory hundreds of poems he learned as a child, including the poetry of the town's now long dead reigning poet Solomon Solomon. This talent is especially well regarded since the local newspaper where the poems were published never kept an archives, and old copies don't seem to exist anymore. Speaking of his poetry reciting prowess Virgil says "I love the phrase learning by heart, especially when it is applied to poetry, because it seems such a perfect description of the process of memorizing words that have been carefully chosen and weighed and handled. The heart, I think, which is the home of all things rhythmic, is where learned poems go to live."

This small easy-to-read tome is easy to love. It gives us literature, poetry, enchanting vignettes of life and makes us want to find this real Shangri-la in the Pacific Northwest. When I find it, I probably won't tell though. I want the whole place to myself.

Though written almost twenty years ago to collect stories recounted on the Canadian radio by author and raconteur Bill Richardson, this is a timeless piece of writing. Do try to find a copy and make it your own. My thanks to my friends on LibraryThing for pointing me in this direction.

Review: The End of Normal by Stephanie Madoff Mack

2011-11-08T00:00:00.099-05:00

Author: Stephanie Madoff Mack with Tamara Jones
Narrated by the author
Publisher/Format: Penguin Audio, 2011,6 hr, 42 min
Subject: betrayal, suicide, coping with grief
Setting: New York, Greenwich CT, Nantucket
Genre: Memoir
Source: audio download from the Publisher Penguin audio

Stephanie Madoff Mack had it all: homes in Soho, Greenwich and Nantucket, a doorman, a dog walker, reliable childcare for her two beautiful children, a handsome rich husband who adored her, a famous even wealthier father-in-law, luxury cars, nice clothes. Then in December 2008, her father-in-law Bernard Madoff, confessed to his two sons that his entire life and business was a giant lie. The rest is history. Thousands of people lost millions of dollars from "investing" with Bernie Madoff, including Stephanie Madoff's own step-father.

Over night all members of the Madoff family became pariahs, hounded by the FBI, the SEC, and the media. Mark and Andrew, Bernie's two sons, were the ones who turned their father in to the FBI, but no one would believe that the sons had not been involved in the fraud. As lawsuits piled up, and bankrupcy loomed, Mark and Stephanie faced total isolation, and became estranged from the rest of the family who refused to sever relations with Bernie. Mark spiraled down into a deep depression and attempted suicide. After his failed attempt, he went into counseling and seemed to be recovering.

Two years to the day from his father's arrest, Mark hanged himself in the Soho loft, while his wife and daughter were in DisneyWorld, and his son slept in the next room. His final texts, sent on December 11, 2010, at 4:14 a.m., while Stephanie slept, simply said: Please send someone to take care of Nick and I Love You. Suddenly Stephanie's life was totally upside down. Now she not only had no money, no job, and myriad legal problems, but she had no husband, and her children had no father.

I was hesitant to listen to this in audio, although it is a format I really enjoy, because the author reads this herself. I thought it might be self-serving, or whiny, but it's not. It's a straight forward account of a young woman's change in circumstances and how she is dealing with the problem. Oh. Yes. there is certainly some rancor toward her mother and father -in law. There is certainly still an unsteady relationship with Mark's brother Andrew. And yes at times it is difficult to feel sorry for someone who still has a dogwalker, nice cars, a doorman, and several houses. But she is very clear that all that privilege does not make up for being deprived of Mark's presence. She tells her story, from the beginning of her relationship with Mark, to their early days together, meeting the senior Madoffs, their wedding, early days of marriage and pregnancy and parenthood.

She is bluntly honest about the trauma and terror of the days following finding out about the Ponzi scheme, and her anguish as she watched the agony her husband and brother-in-law went through trying to convince the world that they were not involved. Her animosity toward her mother-in-law Ruth Madoff is especially well documented. She relates her panic at receiving those last two text messages from her husband, her frantic efforts to get her step-father to gain access to the apartment home to check on her son, and the subsequent flight home and how she had to explain to her 4 year old daughter that "daddy had a boo boo in his brain, and it made him die, and now he's in the sky and you can talk to him anytime you want. He can't come home but he's there for you anytime you want to talk to him."

She ends by reading from the first paragraphs of Mark's unfinished book that he had begun writing before his death. He wanted desperately to vindicate himself, to recapture the respect he felt he'd earned by all his hard work, and that he'd lost because of his father's transgressions. Her heart-felt passion is at once emotional and composed. No matter whether the reader believes that the sons were involved or not, and no matter what other financial tragedies that Bernie Madoff unleashed on the world, this story is a compelling personal one that presents a story needing to be told.

Penguin sums it up in their press release: "Stephanie Madoff Mack has written this at once searing and poignant memoir in order to tell her husband’s story—for him, for their children, and for the world." It works especially well in the audio format. Ms. Madoff gives us just enough emotion to be able to understand her feelings, without having to wallow in them.

About the Author

Stephanie Madoff Mack is the widow of Mark Madoff, whom she married in 2004. She worked at George magazine and for the fashion designer Narciso Rodriguez, and since 2007 has been pursuing a master’s degree as a Child Life Specialist and working at Mount Sinai Hospital. She lives in New York City with her two children.

My thanks to Penguin Audio for making this available for review.

Review: An Impartial Witness by Charles Todd

2011-11-07T13:13:00.002-05:00

Author:Charles Todd
Publisher Format: BBC Audiobooks, America: 10 hrs, 55 min

Narrator: Rosalyn Landor

Subject: crime solving
Setting: England/France WW I
Series: Bess Crawford mysteries
Genre: amateur sleuth detective story
Source: public library audio download

For the past two or three weeks, I've been indulging myself with some great relaxing British mysteries on audio. One of my latest discoveries, Charles Todd is actually a pseudo name for a mother-son writing duo Caroline and Charles Todd. Many are familiar with their popular Inspector Ian Rutledge mysteries (also on my TBR list) but we tend to hear less about the delightful adventures of World War I nurse Bess Crawford - an amateur sleuth who seems to spend as much time getting into other's mysterious challenges as she does nursing. These books have much in common with the Maisie Dobbs books (I'll be reviewing one of those later this week) but there is enough difference that the reader does not become confused about the two - even if you are reading one of each at the same time. I think Maisie is better, but these are satisfactory also.

Bess Crawford, daughter of a British Army officer, was raised in India, is well-educated and quite independent for her times. Todd gives us interesting period looks at army field hospitals, early 20th century transportation choices, changing class structures and strictures, and the women's suffrage movement (a peripheral but still strong influence to the story).

In this story, Bess is witness to an encounter she considers a crucial piece in solving the mystery of a young woman's death. She is quite convinced of her insights, and goes to great lengths to push the authorities to see things her way. At the same time, the reader is given to ponder whether Bess is becoming too personally involved with several of the main characters.

This is a good solid mystery with a few twists and red herrings. It is also one that has an ending that could be seen as leaving us hanging. A nice pleasant, nothing to write home about, read it and go on to the next one mystery.

Sunday Salon - Home for awhile

2011-11-06T00:00:00.000-04:00

Ah............a Sunday at home, with nothing scheduled but the rising of the sun and the tide and the moon, a chill in the air, a pile of good books to read, and an extra hour in which to enjoy it all!

What a difference from last weekend when we got to see several (like at least 12) inches of snow in the western lake region of Maine where we spent a wonderful evening with more old friends. Our hostess and Mr. Tutu actually went to grade and high school together in California, and we now find we end up living only 2 hours apart in Maine! I wonder if that's what Mr. Disney had in mind with his "small world" theme? We also got to visit with other mutual Navy friends whom we hadn't seen in years (they moved to Maine the same year we did, but GOSH, when you're 2 hours apart!!!!)

The snow added just the perfect touch to some already picture perfect scenery, including having to drive through the covered bridge as we drove home. It was spectacular - snow on the ground, autumn leaves still on the trees, and the sun shining down. When you combine that with good friends, you have a perfect weekend.

Now though we're perfectly happy to kick back and relax at home. The Christmas Bazaars are starting up here in town, and the wood piles are growing every day. Since I'm ONLY about 8-10 reviews behind, I've got my work cut out for me, not to mention a pretty meaty book to read for book club in 10 days.

Stay tuned for an avalanche of reviews coming the rest of the month, and get your holiday reading ready. I know I always have a couple of TBRs tucked away for holidays, and they're not that far off. In the meantime, stay warm, stay dry, happy reading, and THINK SNOW.

Monday Mailbox - No Tricks, Just Treats

2011-10-31T00:00:00.001-04:00

From Macmillan Audio comes a copy of Pulitzer Prize winner Jeffrey Eugenides' latest. This one should get me through many long hours of needlework in the upcoming winter.

"There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel." — Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers

Madeleine Hanna was the dutiful English major who didn't get the memo. While everyone else in the early 1980s was reading Derrida, she was happily absorbed with Jane Austen and George Eliot: purveyors of the marriage plot that lies at the heart of the greatest English novels. Madeleine was the girl who dressed a little too nicely for the taste of her more bohemian friends, the perfect girlfriend whose college love life, despite her good looks, hadn't lived up to expectations.

But now, in the spring of her senior year, Madeleine has enrolled in a semiotics course "to see what all the fuss is about," and, for reasons that have nothing to do with school, life and literature will never be the same. Not after she falls in love with Leonard Morten--charismatic loner, college Darwinist and lost Oregon boy--who is possessed of seemingly inexhaustible energy and introduces her to the ecstasies of immediate experience. And certainly not after Mitchell Grammaticus--devotee of Patti Smith and Thomas Merton--resurfaces in her life, obsessed with the idea that Madeleine is destined to be his mate.

The triangle in this amazing and delicious novel about a generation beginning to grow up is age old, and completely fresh and surprising. With devastating wit, irony and an abiding understanding and love for his characters, Jeffrey Eugenides resuscitates the original energies of the novel while creating a story so contemporary that it reads like the intimate journal of our own lives.

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No....nothing is wrong with the picture. This small 110 page photo essay arrived in my mailbox just before I left for Florida. I had ordered it based on recommendations from LibraryThing friends. It wasn't exactly what I'd expected--a little sparse on the storyline, but it will certainly be a discussion starter when left on your coffee table.

Hurricane Story is a spellbinding odyssey of exile, birth and return told in forty-six photographs and simple, understated prose. This first-person narrative told through dreamlike images of toys and dolls chronicles one couple’s evacuation from New Orleans ahead of the broken levees, the birth of their first child on the day that Katrina made landfall, and their eventual return to the city as a family. Shaw’s photographs, at turns humorous and haunting, contrast deftly with the prose.

This clothbound hardcover edition includes an introduction by Rob Walker, author of Letters From New Orleans and former ""columnist for The New York Times Magazine.

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BOOKS that landed on my NOOK

Blood Safari is a harrowing novel from internationally acclaimed thriller writer Deon Meyer, an expert storyteller whose wickedly fast narratives reveal the heart of his enthralling country.In Blood Safari, Emma Le Roux, a beautiful young woman in Cape Town, sees her brother named on the television news as the prime suspect in the killing of four poachers and a witch doctor. But it can’t be possible: Emma’s brother is supposed to be dead, having disappeared twenty years ago in Kruger National Park. Emma tries to find out more but is attacked and barely escapes. So she hires Lemmer, a personal security expert, and sets out into the country in search of the truth.
A complicated man with a dishonorable past, Lemmer just wants to do his job and avoid getting personally involved. But as he and Emma search for answers from the rural police, they encounter racial and political tensions, greed, corruption, and violence unlike anything they have ever known.
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The first in a series of Cork O'Connor mysteries, Iron Lake looked too good to pass up when Barnes and Noble offered it for their Friday special. This is one series I'm itchin' to get into.

Part Irish, part Anishinaabe Indian, Corcoran "Cork" O'Connor is the former sheriff of Aurora, Minnesota. Embittered by his "former" status, and the marital meltdown that has separated him from his children, Cork gets by on heavy doses of caffeine, nicotine, and guilt. Once a cop on Chicago's South Side, there's not much that can shock him. But when the town's judge is brutally murdered, and a young Eagle Scout is reported missing, Cork takes on a mind-jolting case of conspiracy, corruption, and scandal.
As a lakeside blizzard buries Aurora, Cork must dig out the truth among town officials who seem dead-set on stopping his investigation in its tracks. But even Cork freezes up when faced with the harshest enemy of all: a small-town secret that hits painfully close to home.

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Then through Net Galley, I received publisher's ARCs for these:

Pub date: 11/01/2011
From the author of Home in the Morning comes the sweeping story of a father and son, and of the loves that transform them amid the turbulence of the American South.

Bernard Levy was always a mystery to the community of Guilford, Mississippi. He was even more of a mystery to his son, Mickey Moe, who was just four years old when his father died in World War II. Now it’s 1962 and Mickey Moe is a grown man, who must prove his pedigree to the disapproving parents of his girlfriend, Laura Anne Needleman, to win her hand in marriage. With only a few decades-old leads to go on, Mickey Moe sets out to uncover his father’s murky past, from his travels up and down the length of the Mississippi River to his heartrending adventures during the Great Flood of 1927. Mickey Moe’s journey, taken at the dawn of the civil rights era, leads him deep into the backwoods of Mississippi and Tennessee, where he meets with danger and unexpected revelations at every turn. As the greatest challenge of his life unfolds, he will finally discover the gripping details of his father’s life—one filled with loyalty, tragedy, and heroism in the face of great cruelty from man and nature alike.

A captivating follow-up to Mary Glickman’s bestselling Home in the Morning, One More River tells the epic tale of ordinary men caught in the grip of calamity, and inspired to extraordinary acts in the name of love.

Mary Glickman is a writer, public relations professional, and fundraiser who has worked with Jewish charities and organizations. Born on the south shore of Boston, Glickman studied at the Université de Lyon and Boston University. While she was raised in a strict Irish-Polish Catholic family, from an early age Glickman felt an affinity toward Judaism and converted to the faith when she married. After living in Boston for twenty years, she and her husband traveled to South Carolina and discovered a love for all things Southern. Glickman now lives in Seabrook Island, South Carolina, with her husband, cat, and beloved horse, King of Harts.
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Pub date: 11/08/2011. I started this one..it's fairly hefty, but really pulling me right in.

Set in Madrid, Tetuan, and Lisbon before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War through the Second World War, The Time In Between follows the life of Sira Quiroga, a poor seamstress from Madrid who, after being abandoned in Algiers by her lover, forges a new identity and becomes the most sought-after couturiere in North Africa for the idle rich and the wealthy wives of German Nazi officers. But she is soon embroiled in a world of spies and counterspies and passes information on to the British Secret Service through a secret code stitched into the hems of her dresses.

The Time In Between is one of those rare, richly textured novels that, down to the last page, keeps you hoping it won’t end. Written in splendid prose, The Time In Between moves at an unstoppable pace. An exceptional debut, it is is a thrilling adventure through ateliers of haute couture, the glamourous elite, political conspiracies and obscure secret service missions blended with the unhinged power of love.

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Penguin Audio sent an electronic copy of The End of Normal for my review. It's one I'm really excited about - an audio and a memoir.

An explosive, heartbreaking memoir from the widow of Mark Madoff and daughter-in-law of Bernard Madoff, the first genuine inside story from a family member who has lived through- and survived-both the public crisis and her own deeply personal tragedy.

I'm thinking these are going to be more than enough to add to my already toppling pile of books to be savoured, but they are each singing to me for different reasons, so I'm always going to have something that will fill my unquenchable thirst for good reading. What was in your mailbox recently?

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-30T00:00:00.000-04:00

I'm not too fond of lifting things from other people without attribution, but this is publicly available on YouTube. It's a fun video that brings back memories of the many scary books and movies those of us who are chronologically advantaged enough to remember from days when we could still have loose candy, homebaked cookies and real apples (sans razor blades) in our pillow cases (AKA Trick Or Treat) Bags, when we could still eat candy without the food police screaming at us, and when it was just plain good scary fun.Thanks to my friend Megan Johnson for posting on her Facebook page so I could "borrow" it from her.

Let's all hope this is the year that Charlie Brown finally sees the Great Pumpkin and everyone has a good scary fun-filled evening.

Memoir: Let's Take the Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell

2011-10-25T00:00:00.000-04:00

Author: Gail Caldwell
Publisher Format: Random House (2010), Hardcover, 208 pages
Subject: Friendship, alcoholism, death, grieving
Setting: Cambridge Massachusettes
Genre: Memoir
Source: my own shelves

This brilliant tribute to friendship has been sitting here on my TBR shelf since the day it was published last year. I had intended to include it in my Month of Memoirs last year, but life kept happening. I'm so glad though that I finally got to it because it is definitely worth reading, and like the friendship it describes, cherishing.

Gail and Caroline met as they were walking their dogs. Both writers, both women who valued their solitude, they met everyday to walk the dogs, and as the friendship grew, to teach each other the finer points of their chosen sports: swimming and rowing.

Caldwell frames this relationship with a look back at her personal struggles with alcoholism, and shows us how she was able to remain sober with the help of Caroline, who had overcome her own problem with anorexia, but who was struggling to stop smoking.

The premature end to their friendship when Caroline died of lung cancer at the age of 41 did not end the memoir. Caldwell gives us a quiet, calm, and somber reflection on how she was able to continue life while missing her best friend. The last part of the story is as much a story of her relationship with her dog who helped her through the grieving period.

Although many have claimed this is a tear-jerker, I found the story heart-warming, inspiring and a beautiful tribute to the true meaning of friendship.

Friends-- How many do we need?

2011-10-23T00:00:00.000-04:00

Instead of a regular Sunday Salon post these week, I want to talk a bit about friends.These days it is fashionable to have lists of "friends" everywhere. There are friends we've never met, friends of friends who become our "friends", people who think we're "friends" because we met at the bus stop or the checkout line at the grocery, stores where we shopped who claim we're now their "friends" just because somewhere we said we "liked" them, and pop stars who claim us as their "friends" because we once bought a ticket to one of their movies or concerts, lots of people we barely know (if at all!) who have "friended" us to be able to keep track of our lives, and often, to intrude on them. The word has lost its meaning and is being used in place of acquaintance, colleague, associate, or simply contact when it's used as a noun, and good grief - the trouble we find ourselves in when we convert that once meaningful noun to a verb!

On the other hand, those of us raised in more traditional (some say uptight times?) still lean to the definition found in The Oxford English dictionary:

a person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically exclusive of sexual or family relations…

Or Webster's definition:

One who entertains for another such sentiments of esteem, respect, and affection that he seeks his society and welfare; a wellwisher; an intimate associate;

Last week, when we visited Florida for a few days, I was reminded of what the real meaning of the word is. We had the beautiful and all too rare experience of being able to spend an entire day with two very very dear friends, whom we've known since 1969. As often happens with military folks, our friends are torn from us time and again; but time and again, we find a way to stay in touch, to meet up, to share not just memories but dreams, not just successes but aches and pains, accomplishments and sorrows.

Spending time looking back on our shared memories, filling each other in on family members, jobs finished, ongoing projects, unmet expectations, dashed dreams, exciting new adventures, and the pros and cons of living in opposite extremes of the weather this country has to offer, we found ourselves talking about BOOKS. In fact, we spent hours lingering over a wonderful lunch sitting on the deck by the inter-coastal waterway in St. Augustine watching water birds pull fish out of the water, and talking about all the different books and writers we'd discovered since the last time we got together over two years ago. We left with promises to send longer lists to fill in what we shared that afternoon, and with the glorious elation that comes from knowing that our liberal arts educations were not wasted, and our aging brains were still capable of rational analysis, debate, and consensus.

I don't need a blog or Facebook, or twitters or tweets or MySpace, to stay in touch. These are people that we know will always be there for us and who understand who we are and what we are about. We may go months without hearing from them, but when one or the other calls, it's like we were never apart. Our shared lives are rich in the love and understanding we've had over the years, and that's what true friendship is all about. I'll never have to worry about being 'unfriended.'

Review: Port City black and white by Gerry Boyle

2011-10-22T00:00:00.000-04:00

Author: Gerry Boyle
Publisher/ Format: Down East Books (2011), Hardcover, 355 pages
Subject: street crime
Setting: Portland Maine
Series: Brandon Blake Mysteries
Genre: police procedural mystery
Source: ARC from publisher

Police recruit Brandon Blake, along with his partner Kat, are called to calm down a noisy party. While there, they discover the occupant is drunk, high on drugs and has no idea where her six month old baby is. She thought he was asleep in the bedroom, but he seems to have disappeared and she can't remember anything. Brandon, who has arrived at adulthood with unresolved abandonment issues of his own from his alcoholic mom, is merciless in his pursuit of the missing child.

Although he is new to the Portland police force, he is not new to violence. He is well known throughout the city, and the police force, from an incident in which he killed a man who was holding his (Brandon's) fiancèe at gunpoint. The police accepted him into the police academy after this incident, but many consider him too quick on the trigger, and too rigid in his attitude to make a good cop. His fiancèe Mia, is having a hard time adjusting to his inability to check his job at the door (or in this case on the dock, since they live on a boat in the Marina). She is spending more and more time with her best friend Lily, whom Brandon describes as a "trustfunder" and Lily's boyfriend Winston, a restaurant owner who hails from Barbados. Something about the pair doesn't sit well with Brandon, and his attempts to investigate Winston outside of official channels get him in more hot water with the brass.

This is the 2nd book featuring Brandon Blake and I'd have liked to have read the first one before this, but Boyle does a good job of just enough backfill to help us get to know this interesting young man without having to read the previous volume. The plot develops in a quick, sharp and straight line. The characters give the reader a well-drawn portrait of the ethnic tensions that are building in this small but charming seaport town, and a view of a small but professional police force.

Although I live in Maine, I don't get to Portland too often. I felt though that the descriptions of the town, the routes taken by police cars, the landmarks, etc, brought the city to life for the reader who has no knowledge of the city. It's a good solid police story, with lots of room for the main characters to expand (should we look for Brandon to make detective early in his career?) and excellent writing.

Thanks to DownEast books for providing a review copy.

Review: The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

2011-10-21T17:24:00.000-04:00

Author: Arundhati Roy
Publisher/Format: Harper Perennial,trade paperback, 333 pages
Year of publication: 1988
Subject: Women's lives in India
Setting: Kerlala India
Genre: fiction
Source: Public library

The winner of the Booker Prize in 1997, this exquisite novel about women's role and lives in India in the 1960's and onward, is part of an ongoing series we are reading at our library showing the roles and stories of women in a variety of cultures. This one blew us all away both from the story itself, and from the pure beauty of the language.

The story of a multi-generational family features a grandmother who manages a Pickle factory (actually what we think of as chutney), who is almost completely blind, who plays the violin, and who endures incredible beatings from her husband every night after he retires and has nothing to do. It is only after their son Chacko returns to the area having been divorced from his English wife and threatens his father with dire consequences that the old man stops beating his wife. Mammachi (the grandmother), while she certainly doesn't like being beaten, doesn't seem to feel there is anything out of the ordinary about it, and certainly doesn't feel empowered herself to end the beatings.

Then there is the daughter Ammu, divorced mother of the "two-egg" twins Rahel and Estah, who engages in an illicit affair with an untouchable, a man adored by the children. She has not given the twins a last name because she is considering going back to her maiden name, but feels between her father and her abusive husband, there's not much to choose from and so doesn't want to be associated with either.

There's another auntie who converted to Roman Catholicism so she could be close to a priest for whom she had fallen, even going so far as to enter a convent. When she realized he was not going to leave the priesthood and marry her, she leaves the convent, returns to the family home, and adds to the general mayhem. Religion doesn't seem to play a major role in her life and she is livid when she discovers the good Father has left the RC priesthood, converted to hinduism, and taken a hindu wife.

The story actually opens with a funeral. Sophie "Mol", Chacko's daughter, and her English mother have come for a visit at Christmas time. Sophie Mol drowns, and the story starts with her funeral and progress backwards and forwards from there. The time line is somewhat difficult to follow at first, but the lyricism of the words strung together and made up with perfect precision to describe a thought makes the reader forget any problem with story line. Every page has sentences and often paragraphs of prose that is so fantastic that it is difficult for us mere mortals to describe it. I could give a quote from every page and not cover all the beauty of this writing.

Here are a few examples:

"Rahel's new teeth were waiting inside her gums, like words in a pen."

"Margaret Cochamma climbed into the advertisement (the family car with signs painted on it) with her brown back-freckles and her arm-freckles and her flowered dress with legs underneath."

Ammu flew through her dream on heavy, shuddering wings, and stopped to rest, just under the skin of it. She had pressed roses from the blue cross-stitch counterpane on her cheek. She sensed her children's faces hanging over her dream, like two dark, worried moons, waiting to be let in.

"D'you think she's dying?" she heard Rahel whisper to Estha.
"It's an afternoon-mare," Estha-the Accurate replied. "She dreams a lot."

This is a book that belongs in the library of every serious lover of literature. It's one I certainly plan to read again, and again. As a cultural exposè it is excellent. As an all you can eat buffet of exquisite language, it's indescribable.

Review: Children of the Street by Kwei Quartey

2011-10-19T23:32:00.000-04:00

Author: Kwei Quartey
Publisher Format: Random House Trade Paperbacks (2011),e-galley 352 pages
Subject: street crime
Setting: Accra Ghana
Series: Inspector Darko Dawson mysteries
Genre: mystery- police procedural
Source: Publisher via Net Galley

The publisher tells us:

In the slums of Accra, Ghana’s fast-moving, cosmopolitan capital, teenagers are turning up dead. Inspector Darko Dawson has seen many crimes, but this latest string of murders—in which all the young victims bear a chilling signature—is the most unsettling of his career. Are these heinous acts a form of ritual killing or the work of a lone, cold-blooded monster? With time running out, Dawson embarks on a harrowing journey through the city’s underbelly and confronts the brutal world of the urban poor, where street children are forced to fight for their very survival—and a cunning killer seems just out of reach.

My reaction:
I've been a fan of Darko Dawson since Quartey published his first book "Wife of the Gods" in 2009, so I was excited to be able to get an early review copy from Net Galley of the next in the series. I was not disappointed. Quartey has given us an even more developed character and an excellent plot. The misery and poverty endured by these children is quite perceptively portrayed and the reader has no difficulty imagining the smells, the noise, the agony of hunger and the terror of facing death at every turn that Quartey shows us as he has Dawson tracking the killer(s?) of this group of murders.

By giving us a portrait of Darko the happily married man with a son who has definite and life threatening medical problems, a wife who is independent and educated and thoroughly devoted to her husband, and a mother-in-law whom he barely tolerates, we definitely feel that we know this man, that we want him to succeed, and we can excuse his occasional lapses in judgment or behavior.

Darko is human, lovable, irrascible at times, and definitely a good cop. Quartey is a good writer who looks to improve with each volume. I'm looking forward to more of these adventures.

About the Author: Kwei Quartey was raised in Ghana by an African American mother and a Ghanaian father, both of whom were university lecturers. Dr. Kwei Quartey practices medicine in Southern California, rising early in the morning to write before going to work. He is currently writing his next novel.

Happy 236th Birthday US Navy!!!

2011-10-13T00:02:00.004-04:00

The Naval Academy Chapel

With fond thoughts for all those who never returned from their voyages to keep us free and strong, and with best wishes for all those who have served and are still serving around the world.

Louise Penny does it again!

2011-10-09T23:17:00.000-04:00

Author: Louise Penny
Publisher Format: Macmillan Audio,11 hrs, 44 min
Narrator: Ralph Cosham
Subject: Murder, Alcoholism
Setting: fictional village of Three Pines outside Quebec
Series: Chief Inspector Gamache novels
Genre: Mystery-police detective
Source: gift from a friend

Louise Penny is so DAMN good that it's impossible to describe how delicious her writing is. I actually went to Google tonight to discover that it's only a 5 1/2 hour drive from here to Quebec. I'm ready to jump into the car and go spend a weekend wondering around looking for the village of Three Pines. Ms. Penny really does spoil the genre for anyone else. I will have to dive into some non-fiction to 'cleanse the reading palette' because trying to read any mystery or even literary fiction is going to be difficult after this one. Maybe a graphic novel....

The entire cast of characters from the Three Pines series is here, continuing to develop. There's a murder in a garden, and every single person in this cast of characters is allowed to rise to the top of the suspect pile for the reader. Her nuanced presentation of the psyches of these characters gives us as much meat as the physical forensic evidence when it comes to solving the crime. She weaves the themes of vengeance and forgiveness into the palette of the workings of the world of art and all the various players in the making and marketing of paintings, and overlays that with a stunning depiction of Alcoholics Anonymous and its workings.

The writing is so gorgeous. There are phrases that have so much descriptive power the reader has to stop to catch a breath. There are no extra words, but at the same time, she allows her characters the luxury of thoughtful contemplations that give us incredible insights into their motivations. Minor characters from earlier books in the series are growing in importance, and crusty, lovable, irascible ones are becoming more so. By this time in the series (this is #7) we feel these people are our friends, our neighbors, and we want life to be good for them. We want to go have a drink in Gabri and Olivier's Bistro. We want to walk around the park. We want Gamache and Beavoir to heal.

Although this is #7, Penny gives us a story that can stand alone, and a mystery that resolves itself only at the very end of the story, while leaving us with enough lingering questions about what's next for several of the characters that we're already panting for #8. Ralph Cosham gives us a melodic and cultured narration that allows us to absorb the unique cadence of Quebeçois.

If you haven't started this series, what on earth are you waiting for? If you're a fan, then grab this one...they just keep getting better.

Third Quarter Wrap-up: 114 and counting!

2011-10-07T00:19:00.000-04:00

At the beginning of the year, I set a goal of reading/reviewing about 150 books- about 3 per week. I'm running only slightly behind that pace, but I didn't aniticipate being named the Library Director either.

I'm skimming a lot more books to make selection decisions, but I'm not reading quite as many as I intended to be able to do full reviews. I'm also finding I'm not willing to invest a lot of time in a book that doesn't grab me either in the first 50 or so pages, or by the end of the first hour of audio.

This recent quarter I decided to slow the brain pace a bit and dive into a pile of 'cozies' that had been accumulating over the past two years. I'm glad I did. I found some gems for our library, found some new series to follow, and also found that while I can enjoy some of this lighter reading, I cannot take a full diet of it. So I'll be sprinkling some throughout my reading from now on.

There's been a great upsurge of interest in e-books and e-readers here in town, and in September I attended a great full day workshop sponsored by the wonderful supportive team at the Maine State Library: E-Books and the Library.
We had a chance to play with the toys, we heard from very dynamic speakers from around the country, and we heard from our peers how they were using, buying, lending, and loading up the e-readers for their patrons. It was an eye-opening day for our staff, and one that has given us lots of new items on our 'to-do' list.

So here's the recap of Tutu's reading from July-September

40 Books completed:

17 print
10 ebooks
13 audio

31 Fiction

1 short story collection
18 cozies/mysteries

9 Nonfiction

3 memoir
4 cookbooks
1 graphic format - history

Best Fiction of the Quarter:

The Beautiful One has Come
Theodora: Actress, Empress, Whore

Best Non-Fiction:

I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced

So what's on tap for the last quarter?
There's a partially read fon-fiction I hope to complete on the Nook:

Absolute Monarchs - A History of the Papacy

Some great audios are awaiting including:

A Trick of Light by Louise Penny
Turning the Tide: How a Small Band of Allied Sailors Defeated the U-boats and Won the Battle of the Atlantic

And then I have good fiction including:

The God of Small Things by Arandhati Roy and
Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga --both for my Book club.

Several other great new mysteries/novels, and literary fiction await me both on my nook, and piled up on my bedstand....I think I'll suprise you (and maybe myself) when it comes time to choose what comes to the top.

So stay tuned, Tutu's going on a short road trip to Western Maine late this month, and will be reading all the while. I might not make the 150 benchmark, but I'm having a good time on the way to wherever I land.

A new series (for me) - Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear

2011-10-06T17:35:00.000-04:00

Author: Jacqueline Winspear
Publisher Format: Penguin Books (2004), Paperback, 320 pages;--- also audio - BBC Audiobooks America, 10 hours
Narrator: Rita Barrington
Subject: women's role in 1st half of 20th century; gentle detective work
Setting: English countryside
Series: Maisie Dobbs
Genre: cozy mystery
Source: public library

Many of our patrons here in small town Maine are absolutely delighted with the character of Maisie Dobbs. I tried other 'classic English' mystery writers such as Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie earlier this year, but I found the writing stilted, the mysteries quaint, the font too cramped, and the pace way too slow. So why oh why was I so enchanted with Maisie Dobbs?

In this first of a many volumned series, I thought I was going to have another "deja vù" moment as Maisie meandered through the grand opening of M. Dobbs, Trade and Personal Investigations in the first chapter and the ensuing first case. She is asked by a well-to-do gentleman to ascertain where his wife goes when she leaves the house for the day. He wants to know whether she is being unfaithful. We see Maisie following the lady in question to a cemetery, we are presented with Maisie's questions about whose grave she's visiting and why, and only then do we get a flashback into her earlier life and pick up the pace - a story within the story which takes up a good chunk of the book.

Maisie is placed "into service" at an early age, where her insatiable curiosity and keen intellect are noticed by her employer Lady Rowan Compton, a brave suffragette do-gooder who places Maisie under the tutelage of one Dr. Maurice Blanche. Her education progresses, she's admitted to Cambridge (quite a coup for a woman in 1915 and quite an eye-opening experience for Maisie). As England becomes more entrenched in the war, Maisie determines to do her duty, and enlists as a nurse trainee, lying about her age to do so. After meeting the love of her life during her training in England, she is shipped off to France to work in a field hospital. When she returns, she is a much more mature, wise and worldly woman who goes on to complete her education and decides to use her formidable deductive reasoning skills to help others. Thus (and I admit that for me it was a giant leap) the opening of the detective agency. I'll not spoil the story by revealing the outcome of the romance.

Of course, one must remember that the whole time Maisie is solving her puzzles, her mentors Lady Rowan and Maurice Blanche are there in the background as safety nets. But in spite of that, I found the story fascinating if for no other reason than it provided a crystal clear look into the life and culture of the era: the changing roles of women, the total devastation of the European male population -either in outright death, or lingering wounds both physical and mental. Nowhere do we hear the words PTSD mentioned, but with the insight gained in the 21st century, we are certainly able to see its foreshadowing a hundred years ago.

Maisie is a gutsy, bright, determined and lovable protagonist, and I can see why my readers like her so much. I'm certainly going to check out the next two or three to see if her character develops enough to merit all the hype.

A note on formats: I both read and listened to this one-- Rita Barrington's clear, crisp British accent lent a great deal of authenticity to the audio version. This is one series that does well in audio. The plot is not so convoluted and there are not too many characters to track, so it lends itself to a gentle afternoon of knitting by the fire while ear-reading a good story. A definite addition to my list of series to follow.

An Absolute Stunner - I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced

2011-10-03T00:02:00.001-04:00

Author: Nujood Ali with Delphine Minoui
Publisher/Format:Broadway (2010), Paperback, 188 pages
Subject: arranged marriage, child abuse, women's rights
Setting: Yemen
Genre: memoir
Source: public library

This book left me speechless. It was recommended by one of my LibraryThing group participants, and when I saw the cover, I was struck by the shy expression on this young lady's face that was so similar to my 10 year old grand-daughter's.

Thank the good lord that my grand-daughter lives in a country that would never knowingly tolerate the abuse this young woman suffered. At the age of somewhere between 8 and 10 (there are no official birth records in poor villages where babies are born unattended at home), Nujood was married to a man in his 30's. Her father signed the contract, claiming that the groom promised he would not touch the girl sexually until she reached 13 or puberty. Ripped from the school and the childhood friends she loved, she was taken miles away to an isolated village, where she was immediately raped by her "husband" with the support and encouragement of his mother and the rest of his family. For months she begged and pleaded to be left alone, to go back home to her parents (even though her mother had not prepared her at all for what would be involved in "being married" and her father was the one who put her in this position to begin with.) Finally the husband took her back to visit her parents, where she daringly left home one morning when her mother asked her to go to the corner store, hopped a public bus, then used the bread money to pay a private taxi and asked to be taken to the court.

When she finally came before a judge, and was asked what she wanted, she answered "I want a divorce." The ensuing story of her journey through the legal system, her befriending by a prominent female attorney and ultimate triumph are a tribute to the strength of the human spirit. Overnight, she became somewhat of a media darling (see for instance articles from the Los Angeles Times). Her life has improved, and she hopes by telling her story that other women will never have to suffer the trauma she went through. She is back in school now and says she wants to become a lawyer to help other girls.

The book itself was published awhile ago, and her story may not be front page news in FOX or CNN land anymore, but the story is still compelling. The writer Delphine Minoui who helped Nujood by putting her words onto paper did a splendid job of capturing the anguish of the young girl without making it a soap opera tear jerker. It's factual, depressing, but hope filled. It's short, clear text makes it easy to read in one sitting, but impossible to forget. It's a must read.

Weekend Cooking - Emeril's Latest Yummies

2011-10-02T00:02:00.002-04:00

Beth Fish Reads sponsors this weekly meme where we foodies can chat about cookbooks, cooking gadgets, recipes, or anything else gustatory. Be sure to stop over there to find other terrific weekend cooking posts.

Continuing on with our look at egalleys of cookbooks, I'm doubling up this weekend. I've been drooling over another great one I wouldn't mind having on my shelf. It's

Sizzling Skillets and other one pot wonders

Author: Emeril Lagasse

Publisher/Format: William Morrow Cookbooks ARC - egalley 304 pages

Year of publication: 2011

Subject: One pot cooking

Genre: Cookbook

Source: ARC from publisher via Net Galley

Once again, the engaging Emeril Lagasse gives us a menu of amazing gusto from a variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds. They range from simple combinations of ingredients that most will have on hand, to more intricate mixtures of spices and techniques that may be new to users. In all instances, he gives tips about using different ranges of the same ingredient with indications of how those will impact a recipe. As an example, he points out that different brands and types of blue cheese will each yield a very specific flavor and that some are much stronger than others. He wisely advises the cook to use a blue cheese you like.

The culinary influences include Creole, Cajun, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Indian, Thai, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese. He features some of my favorites, but each has a new twist that has me aching to try them out. Among those are the southern style chicken & dumplings where he uses a different blend of ingredients but the same technique for dumplings in a recipe that I've used for over 35 years; his Braciole which he suggests doing in small individual rolls instead of the one huge rolled round steak I've been used to. I love his take on lasagna - using wonderful fresh ingredients that are perfect for this time of the year -- butternut squash and Italian sausage. The Portuguese pork and clams is going to be a hit in our family -- we love pork and we love clams, but who would have thought about putting them together. And speaking of Portuguese (I do often...I married one!) the recipe for Chorizo and Potato Quesadillas will be particularly tasty made with the portuguese version of Choriço.

To me, one of the strengths of the book is the layout: recipes are divided by the cooking vessel to be used. All too often, I find myself looking at a recipe, paying lots of attention to the ingredients, and then realizing too late that I don't have a pot the right size to make the one that has just struck my fancy. In this volume you begin by seeing how it will be cooked, and then looking to see what goes into the pot. Different, but at least to this cook, a great perspective to have. There are recipes for Skillets and saute pans, Casseroles and baking dishes, Dutch Ovens, Big Pots, Woks, and Slow cookers. In short there's something for everyone in this one.

The recipes are clear and easy to follow. Emeril's little asides are priceless--it's like having him right there next to you as you cook. The photography is outstanding, and even shows up well enough on a black and white e-reader. In color, the shots are yummy. The only problem with the book is that I will never be able to decide which of many recipes to make. We can only eat one at a time, and I'd like to make at least 10 of them right now!

Another great one to put on your Christmas list, or to gift to your favorite cook.
Thanks to publisher William Morrow Cookbooks for the opportunity to review via Net Galley.

Weekend Cooking and a Cookbook Review - The French Slow Cooker

2011-10-01T00:02:00.003-04:00

Beth Fish Reads sponsors this weekly meme where we foodies can chat about cookbooks, cooking gadgets, recipes, or anything else gustatory. Be sure to stop over there to find other terrific weekend cooking posts.

This weekend, there's another one of those fabulous Net Galley e-book reviews: The French Slow Cooker.

Author:Michele Scicolone
Publisher/Format: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, e-book, 237 pgs
Year of publication: 2011
Subject: French cooking
Genre: cookbook
Source: electronic ARC from publisher via Net Galley

It seems a shame to waste the precious short Maine outdoor grilling season we have, so I've been pushing this one to the side waiting for the right weather. Therefore, it's taken me a while to get through this marvelous cookbook, and it's another one that is going onto my Christmas wishlist. I do a lot of winter cooking in the slow cooker, and found myself wishing for some cool foggy days to try out some of these recipes. This past week, while winging my way back from the heat of California to a forecast in the low 50's in Maine, I spent some time with my NOOK taking a good look at this one. Michele Scicolone has another winner here.

The author seems to have hit a perfect bulls-eye target audience: those of us who love the flavors of the French countryside, but who have neither the time, talent, array of pots and pans, or over-sized kitchen to indulge in Julia Child type 8 hour cooking marathons but would love to be able to serve some of these classics at home. She really resonated with me when she talked about the first time she made a cassoulet and the three day marathon it involved. Many of us have "been there, done that" and found the results nice but definitely not worth doing again. And who would have ever thought about doing souffles, fish and other delicacies in a slow cooker? Not I, but I certainly intend to try out a few of these over the upcoming dark days of Maine's snowy "wintah".

In additon to the recipes, she points out the many ecological and economical benefits of these most friendly appliance: it uses less energy, it allows us to use less expensive (read tougher) cuts of meat, it doesn't heat up the house when it's warm outside, and it doubles as a 'keep it warm' buffet server - I use mine a lot for mulled cider! The tips for cooking in a slow cooker, plus the discussion of how to shop for one and the many new features available are invaluable to both new and veteran slow cookers. And the glossary and explanation of basic French cooking ingredients are a definite plus for those of us who are willing to admit that we would never pass "Julie and Julia".

I actually got inspired earlier this week to do a version of the Sunday Roast Chicken with Potatoes, Lemon and Thyme. It was yummy and it was wonderful to be able to throw the ingredients into pot, turn on the switch and walk away to do other things. Being able to smell that melange of melding flavors while I was reading and blogging made it an afternoon to remember. There are several lamb and pork recipes just waiting for the right moment to whip up.

This one will be a definite addition to any cookbook shelf.
My thanks to Houghton Mifflin for the opportunity to review it.

Escape by Barbara Delinsky - a different format

2011-09-30T00:02:00.008-04:00

Author: Barbara Delinsky
Publisher/Format: Doubleday(2011),Hardcover, 320 pages
Audio: Books on Tape, 12 hours 56 minutes
Narrator: Cassandra Campbell
Genre: Fiction
Subject: love and life in the fast lane
Source: Review copy from publisher

Last week I posted a guest review of this spirited fiction work by Barbara Delinsky. Just as Becky was finishing her read and handing me her review, I noticed it was available for an audio download from the public library. I always like to have a lighter piece of fiction available to listen to if I get into a reading funk, so I downloaded it to my MP3 player, and began listening while we were in California. I never got very far that week, since I was bone tired and kept falling to sleep as soon as I sat down, but I did enjoy it enough to want to finish it when I came home.

This is a chick lit story with a lot more meat than fluff. There is a feisty heroine, a super stud (as my friend Becky described him) husband, and equally dashing and dangerous former lover, and an early mid-life crisis. Emily, a young up and coming lawyer who has had it with money grabbing corporate antics, snaps one morning, walks out of her office, and doesn't look back. In addition to the story of her quest for meaning, Delinsky even builds a great deal of suspense with a well plotted mystery (no murder, just basic ugly cheating, embezzleing and kidnapping!)which increases the suspense of the story and adds to the relationship issues.

It was much more enjoyable than I expected. Well written, great character development and motivation, and a charming story. It's still going to fall under the chick-lit heading---I don't see too many men being able to relate well to it-- but it's not brain candy. There's definite intellectual nutritional value.

I especially enjoyed it in audio. The New England accents are quite authentic, although they may in fact be hard to understand for those not familiar with the many different dialects of Yankee. All in all though, Barbara Delinsky has certainly landed on my list of authors to watch for.

Review: Long Time Gone by J. A. Jance

2011-09-29T00:02:00.007-04:00

Author: J.A. Jance
Publisher/Format: Books in Motion audio,11 hrs, 39 min; 448 page equivalent
Narrator: Gene Engene
Year of publication: 2006
Subject: repressed memory, witness credibility
Setting: Seattle Washington
Series: J.P. Beaumont #17
Genre: police procedural detective mysteries
Source: public library download

I've been a fan of J.A. Jance for a long time and thought I had read all of the J.P. Beaumont series. Somehow, however, I seem to have missed this one. Beau has moved from his Seattle P.D. detective job and is now working for the State's Attorney General's "Special Homicide Investigation Team" (the acronym of which causes great glee within the unit, but due to political correctness is never used in public!). He is called to meet with a woman (now a nun) who claims to have witnessed a murder when she was about 5 years old. This memory has been recently brought to light while she was under hypnosis.

While Beau is trying to track down a victim, a location, and ultimately determine the veracity of the report, his former partner Ron Peters is in need of his help both personally and professionally. The tension that arises from this interaction begets another exciting case to be followed.

As always, there is plenty of suspense, numerous clues to follow, plenty of wise-cracking (although Beaumont has certainly mellowed a lot from his earlier alcoholic days) and a perhaps new?? love interest for Beaumont.

This is a series I really love, both in audio and in print. This particular audio featured Gene Engene, a voice that was new to me. It took a while to adjust to his narration, but then I settled in and was able to adjust. As usual, the story and the character took over. A great read and a great addition to the series.

Mini Review: Eggs Benedict Arnold by Laura Childs -- the final cozy

2011-09-28T00:02:00.004-04:00

Author: Laura Child
Publisher/Format: Berkley, Paperback, 336 pages
Year of publication: 2009
Subject: small town amateur sleuths
Setting: Kindred North Carolina
Series: Cackleberry Club #2
Genre: cozy mystery
Source: borrowed from my sister

This past summer, I was engaged in a "cozy-thon" reading several mysteries from various authors that presented the reader with pain-free, enjoyable stories in a variety of settings. Laura Childs was one of my favorite authors to emerge from that reading stint. Her Cackleberry Club series delights me, and I intend to continue reading in that series throughout the year. I actually finished this one in late August, but just never got the chance to close out my records and post a short review.

Like the first one, this story centers around the friendship and crime solving abilities of the three amigas who run the cafe known as the Cackleberry Club. In this adventure, the local undertaker is found duct taped and embalmed on his own embalming table by Suzanne, who almost ends up in the same situation but who passes out before she can see who is doing the pre-mortem rites. Sheriff Roy Doogie (don't you just love that name?) gets more "help" than he can use from Suzanne, Toni and Petra as they all have various motives for proving who didn't do it. Again, we have several suspects, a plot that progresses nicely down several literary dark alleys and an ending that (for me at least) is totally unexpected. I loved it!

The books are fun and easy to read; the plots are basically believable, the characters just quirky enough to be fun without being outrageous. They're brain candy with some nutritional value in the form of the recipes and menus sprinkled throughout the story. The fact that several of the recipes are actually included is a huge bonus and almost worth the price of the book. If you've never tried a cozy, these would be a good place to start. If you're a cozy fan, I probably don't have to tell you about Laura Childs. It was a relaxing way to end the summer.

Mushrooms!! We've got mushrooms!!

2011-09-27T13:18:00.000-04:00

My local mushroom picker assures me that due to recent perfect weather conditions, we are now one of the primo mushroom farms in the area!!!

During the past summer, this young man has shown up at my front door, and requested permission to harvest "the gorgeous mushrooms in your yard", always offering us some for our own use. We have always told him to have at it. Today, he came back to show me all kinds of goodies....each separated into different sealed bags to segregate the non-edibles (AKA POISONOUS) ones. He said to me "You really should try these chanterelles - they are spectacularly delicious."

I do like mushrooms, and have never tried these, so I did take a bowl full and am now in pursuit of a good recipe to do them justice. Mr. Tutu is NOT a big funghi fan, so I'm going to invite my sister who's living down the road for a couple weeks to join me and we'll see what we can come up with.

In the meantime, if any of you out there in blogland have any suggestions, bring them on. I'll let you know how it goes.

Review: Maine's Most Scenic Roads

2011-09-27T00:01:00.001-04:00

Author: John Gibson
Publisher/Format: Down East, 2nd Ed., pprbck, 192 pages
Year of publication: 2011
Subject: 25 Routes off the Beaten Path
Genre: Travel/guidebooks
Source: Review copy furnished by publisher

Leafing through this book solidified my conviction that we made the right decision to move to this glorious state. Forty-four years ago, Mr. & Mrs. Tutu came from Newport RI (where we were stationed together on active duty with the Navy) on our honeymoon to Maine. We had no agenda: we wanted to sea the lighthouses, the nautical museums, and just let the scenery dictate where we would go. We got all the way up the coast to Quoddy Head Light, a trip we repeated three years ago on our anniversary. We left reluctantly, vowing to return again, "to see the rest" and came back on vacation as often as we could. It was not often enough. So seven years ago, when we made THE MOVE, we promised ourselves that we would continue to explore this glorious state.

We have not had this little guidebook in our travel bag before, but we will now be using it extensively. We were pleased to see how many of the 25 routes we'd been able to cover (some in part, others in their entirety) as we drive to see friends, attend High School sports events (when hubby was coaching) and library meetings to tour each other's facilities, and to take the grand daughter on trips 'to see the Moosies'. It's a gem of a book that fits easily into your glove compartment. While you'll probably be more comfortable with a more detailed map if you're in an area where you've not ventured before, the author presents enough detail to guide you to little known gems and let you soak up the scenery. It's not a picture book. The traveler can take his or her own pictures, taste the food, smell the smells, and simply soak up the ambiance. John Gibson just provides the compass to point you in the right direction. It's a gem of a book, and for those who live in the vicinity, it's the perfect volume for the guest room bedside table, or as a welcome to town giftt for newcomers. We're certainly going to be sure to get a copy for our library (and not just because we're mentioned in the book!)

Many thanks to DownEast books for the chance to review this one.

Monday Mailbox - Sept 26th - Personal deliveries

2011-09-26T00:02:00.017-04:00

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists!

Created by Marcia at The Printed Page, Mailbox Monday, now has its own blog. Hosting duties are being rotated every month. September, is the month for hosting by Amused at Amused by Books. Be sure to stop by and say howdy.

Since we knew we were going to be gone for much of September and a chunk of October, I deliberately refrained from accepting too many review requests, and confined myself to e-galleys through Net Galley. However, last week, I had the chance to meet-up with Caite of A Lovely Shore Breeze. We met in my small town library, where I gave her the grand tour (how grand can a whole 936 square feet get?) and then adjuourned across the street to our local general store cum cafe (AKA "The Gig") so she could partake of an honest to gosh whoopie pie.

While we chatted away about the merits of cheese steak sandwiches (with or without mayo), e-readers, lighthouses, fog, tour groups, ugly Americans overseas, etc etc., we chanced upon the topic of one of our mutually favorite authors Louise Penny. I allowed as how I was panting to get my hands on the newest one, but just had not had a chance yet. I was planning to break down and buy it for my Nook, and have it on order for our library. She allowed as how she had the audio copy IN HER CAR!!!!! (can you see me drooling already?????) and that she'd finished it, and that she was not an overall fan of audio, so she couldn't see herself ever listening to it again, and WOULD I LIKE TO HAVE IT??? Now since the Gig Store is right next door to the Post Office where I get my mail, I think this counts as the Mailbox delivery of all time! I didn't even have to grovel--although I was prepared to offer up something close to the equivalent of my first-born for this treat. What a lovely lovely gift and what a lovely lovely treat to be able to meet a fellow blogger in person. Caite my dear, my reciprocal grab-bag is open...just let me know what strikes your fancy (first borns are excluded) and it will be on the way. And, dear readers, if you haven't yet visited Caite's blog....get over there---her photography is drop dead gorgeous, and the reviews aren't half-bad either.

I realize this isn't saying too much about this book, but since I know I'll be listening to it very soon, and I don't expect from reviews so far that I will be anything but thrilled about it, I'm sure you'll be able to hang on until then. It's Louise Penny, it's Armand Gamage, it's Three Pines. What else is there to say?
Here's the Marketing blurb:

Penny has been compared to Agatha Christie [but] it sells her short. Her characters are too rich, her grasp of nuance and human psychology too firm...." --Booklist (starred review)
“Hearts are broken,” Lillian Dyson carefully underlined in a book. “Sweet relationships are dead.”
But now Lillian herself is dead. Found among the bleeding hearts and lilacs of Clara Morrow's garden in Three Pines, shattering the celebrations of Clara's solo show at the famed Musée in Montreal. Chief Inspector Gamache, the head of homicide at the Sûreté du Québec, is called to the tiny Quebec village and there he finds the art world gathered, and with it a world of shading and nuance, a world of shadow and light. Where nothing is as it seems. Behind every smile there lurks a sneer. Inside every sweet relationship there hides a broken heart. And even when facts are slowly exposed, it is no longer clear to Gamache and his team if what they've found is the truth, or simply a trick of the light.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Children of the Street

Kwei Quartey

Now the other book that arrived in my e-galley mailbox is another one by Kwei Quartey in the Inspector Darko Dawson Mystery series. I've reviewed the first one "Wife of the Gods" and have been anxiously awaiting this next one in the series. Darko Dawson is a delightful character, and I enjoyed getting to know something about the culture and people of Ghana that Quartey describes so well.

Here's the publisher's blurb on this one:

In the slums of Accra, Ghana’s fast-moving, cosmopolitan capital, teenagers are turning up dead. Inspector Darko Dawson has seen many crimes, but this latest string of murders—in which all the young victims bear a chilling signature—is the most unsettling of his career. Are these heinous acts a form of ritual killing or the work of a lone, cold-blooded monster? With time running out, Dawson embarks on a harrowing journey through the city’s underbelly and confronts the brutal world of the urban poor, where street children are forced to fight for their very survival—and a cunning killer seems just out of reach.
Kwei Quartey was raised in Ghana by an African American mother and a Ghanaian father, both of whom were university lecturers. Dr. Kwei Quartey practices medicine in Southern California, rising early in the morning to write before going to work. He is currently writing his next novel.

It's going to be a great autumn reading and listening to these two. What was in your mailbox this week?

Review--Code Word: Geronimo....Super-heroes in graphic format

2011-09-25T14:17:00.000-04:00

Author:Captain Dale Dye (USMC, ret.) and Julia Dye Ph.D.
Afterward: John M. Del Vecchio
Publisher IDW Publishing,
Format: e-galley 90 pages, Graphic format
Year of publication: 2011
Subject: American SEAL team raid and capture of Osama bin Laden
Setting: Abbottabad Afghanistan
Genre: Graphic novel
Source: electronic from publisher via NetGalley

Here's The Marketing Copy:

The leader of SEAL Team 6 uttered, "Geronimo," and the world let out a sigh of relief. The symbol of ultimate evil was no more. Code Word: Geronimo is the amazing, moment-by-moment story of the clandestine raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Told by military insider and Hollywood consultant, Captain Dale Dye (USMC, Ret.), with Dr. Julia Dye, Ph.D., this historic tribute details the bravery and valor of SEAL Team 6 as it descends into a foreign land and achieves the near impossible.

The graphic format of this publication does not work at all on my NOOK. None of the illustrations transferred to the device, although I was able to read it and see the pictures clearly using Adobe Digital Editions on my laptop--which also shows the color very clearly. The Afterword, obviously a straight text file, comes through just fine on the NOOK. The book was not available in a Kindle edition through Net Galley, so I can't comment on that, although I notice that Amazon is marketing the kindle edition.

E-reader issues aside, the graphic format works well for this story, but I kept having to step back from my military background and relationships and remind myself that it was precisely that - a comic book telling the story of a brave adventure. The only cataloging data I found has it designated as a graphic. It's not intended to be an historical reporting, but was obviously written as a patriotic salute to a very brave group of warriors. That said, I suspect that parts will be difficult to grasp for someone without a military jargon grounding, but it's probably ok for a generation used to playing action video games. The authors are very spare with their 'word-balloons' and that tendency keeps the reader's eye moving right along.

For me, the most interesting part of the work is the Afterward "Perspectives" by John M. DelVecchio, a noted author of fictional works about Vietnam, giving us a short but insightful history of Geronimo the person, and Geronimo as the choice for naming the operation. It also gives us a short bio of Osama bin Laden with a time line of Al Quaeda activities, and finally presents the reader with a description of Navy SEALS - their organization and the rigorous training program an applicant must pass before earning that coveted trident patch.

We are assured that no real names of American participants have been revealed, but must take it on faith that no other secrets have been inadvertently displayed. The author's quote buried in the Afterward "Due to entirely appropriate security concerns, there is some creative license in our script." would have been much better inserted at the beginning of the book. I found DelVecchio's Afterward quite informative until the end when in the closing section "Perspective-Lessons Learned; Unfinished Business; Closure" we are given the oft-repeated mantra of look what happened in Korea, look what happened in Vietnam, if we don't stay in Afghanistan and clean up this mess, the world is doomed. (italics my interpretation - not intended as a quote of Del Vecchio's actual words.) The tone, while patriotic, is a bit jingoistic for my taste. This turned what could have been a reasonably accessible story of an episode in American history into a politicized lecture that spoiled the overall effect for me. It must be assumed that the authors agree or they wouldn't (or shouldn't) have allowed that section to close their work.

I'm not seeing it as a best seller, but I do see this as the unfortunate(?) beginning of a wave of this kind of publication. Will it be the coming way to teach history? Who knows? If it presents facts to a generation more accustomed to the sound bite format to capture information than it's probably better than a totally uninformed public, but I for one hope that our accomplishments as Americans, and the analysis of that history does not totally depend on Hollywood screenwriters to be promulgated.

Review: Theodora : Actress, Empress and Whore by Stella Duffy

2011-09-23T00:01:00.012-04:00

Author: Stella Duffy
Publisher Format: e-galley ; 352 pgs
Year of publication
Subject: early life of Theodora, wife of Emperor Justinian
Setting: Constantinople, Antioch, Syrian dessert, Alexandria
Genre: historical fiction/biography
Source: Net Galley

A fascinating read. I knew very little about any of the politics or personages of this period of history (6th century Byzantium). While I knew about the schism between the Eastern (Constantinople) and Western (Rome) branches of Catholicism, and the reason for the rift, this well-written novel brought the vibrance of the era to life. Framing the story around the life of Theodora, the daughter of an animal trainer who was "given" to a eunuch master to train on the stage at the age of 5, we follow her tortuous life from acrobat, to poetic declaimer, to that of a highly prized prostitute when she reached the age of 13.

We learn of laws that forbade women who had performed on the stage to marry, although many were highly coveted as courtesans, mistresses or concubines. Theodora herself, became the mistress of a regional governor in one of the north Africa provinces of the empire; then after being "dumped", she began a journey back to her home (Constantinople). Along the way, she experiences a religious conversion in the desert, and is eventually recruited and sent back as the emissary of one of the battling religious factions.

The exciting page turning continues as she eventually meets and marries Justinian (only after the law was changed to allow the repentant former actress to do so) and becomes the adored and adoring Empress upon his ascending the throne. It was a fascinating read, giving us glimpses of lives we'd only heard about. I understand HBO is going to make this a series, but I'd not wait for that. Pub date is Sept 27, 2011, and I'll be lined up to get a permanent copy for my library. It's colorful, well-written, and keeps the reader up late to see what happens next.

Duffy indicates that she is writing fiction, and makes no claims for the historical accuracy of the story, but her research is evident and the basics are factual enough that it makes an exceptional introduction to the period. She also gives us an excellent bibliography for future reading. I'm going to be sure to take a look at several of them. It's definitely a time-frame I want to learn more about.

Many thanks to Penguin Publishing for making this review copy available through Net Galley.

Guest Review - - Escape by Barbara Delinsky

2011-09-21T22:18:00.000-04:00

Author: Barbara Delinsky
Publisher/Format: Doubleday(2011),Hardcover, 320 pages
Genre: Fiction
Subject: love and life in the fast lane
Source: Review copy from publisher

If this doesn’t sound like Tutu, it’s her occasional book reviewer/borrower. Becky works at our town library and is a very competent writer/reviewer/retired journalist who loves to pick through my pile of new arrivals. And I love to have her help. I hope you enjoy her delightful review of this fun book. I'm certainly going to keep it on my TBR list.

Happy September! As in “Happy Kids Back to School, Happy Vacation Visitors have Gone, Happy Partner’s back at work, and Happy new Fall books are all out at once! Not so happy Border’s is gone, days are becoming shorter, and it’s almost time for winter clothes!" If you’re a consummate reader of everything and you’re a woman of a certain age, you probably know Barbara Delinsky well. You may even like her. Her books fall into two categories: strictly “chick lit” involving only a gorgeous heroine and a hunk of an available man, and slightly deeper plots involving a gorgeous heroine, a hunk of a man, and maybe some conflict besides the romance. Escape skirts between the two categories. Gorgeous hunk is a husband, and, as I expected, he’s a handsome, charming attorney married to an auburn-tressed beauty who’s herself an attorney. They share a Manhattan condo, love each other deeply (if only late at night since they’re both work-a-holics), and life is marred only by the occasional yen for a child.

Since the title gives it away, I’ll tell you: she plans an escape to think things over. And here’s this author’s strength. The escape takes her to a picturesque New England village, a charming B & B, an encounter with a long-ago swain, and an appealing center where animals are given a second chance at life. So although you know how it’s going to end, the details and the action keep you reading without forcing you to stay up until it’s finished because the suspense is just too much to bear.

Delinsky’s details are accurate, picturesque, and comprehensive. And even if you only read these books as “fillers” between your great literary perusals, you can count on a Barbara Delinsky hardback to distract you for a few hours with an enjoyable story. This is true to her form, and it was the perfect September escape when the kids have gone, the company has deserted Maine for warmer climes, and the sky is clear blue, the birds are singing, and you have all winter for the serious stuff.

The Sunday Salon: More Old Books

2011-09-18T18:42:00.000-04:00

While the real reason we are here in Central California this week was to attend the 50th reunion of Downey HS in Modesto (and I can assure you a good time was had by all), we have also been spending quite a bit of time helping family members sort through treasures and memories from now deceased parents and step-parents. There are two storage units where stuff has been stashed for almost 30 years, and we are going through a lot of stuff (and a lot of dust). Much has gone (or will go shortly) to the dump, and this afternoon we will be sorting through boxes and boxes of old pictures and letters to make sure everyone in the family -kids and grandkids--gets a good pile of memories. However, tomorrow the real work will take place as we go through some antique chests (there's one we know came over from the Azores in the late 1800's), and many many boxes labeled BOOKS!

Of course, everyone said "OH TUTU...you're the book lady" .... and couldn't understand why I groaned. Our suitcases were absolutely stuffed coming out, so there will be some real decision making to happen tomorrow.

But...........speaking of books, I did finish Theodora a couple days ago. The publisher has requested that we hold all reviews until nearer the Sept 27 pub date, so stay tuned....It's a great one!

I have to finish my re-read of Banana Yoshimoto's Kitchen for our book group on Wednesday, so I may not be up on the loop too much before then. In the meantime, I hope you all have as much fun this Sunday as I'm having.

Reading on a Plane

2011-09-15T11:46:00.000-04:00

The person who invented the e-reader is on my short list for canonization, and the daughter who gave me my NOOK for christmas is right up there at the top of the list. There is absolutely nothing like it for people like me who used to agonize for hours over which books to take on a trip, only to decide about half-way through that none of my choices held my interest. Yesterday on a very loooonnnnnnnnnnnnng trip from Maine to California (Mr. Tutu and I both swear that it took longer to taxi to the gate at O'hare than it took to fly from Portland to Chicago), I finished over 1/2 a very long historical novel Theodora - and probably will finish it today as we drive around visiting various friends and relatives who won't be able to make the big reunion on Sunday. E-readers--lightweight, easy to turn pages, and full of books (mine has almost 300 on there right now) are perfect for sitting, squashed in the middle seat (I did have two very polite seat mates, both of whom were reading real paper books), and losing oneself back in the Byzantine empire.

And no....I'm not getting any kick back for advertising from Barnes and Noble (I should be so lucky that they'd give me one of the new Nooks to test for them). Any e-reader would probably make me just as happy. I just happen to own the original NOOK, and love it!

Off to try to adjust to the time change!

Winging Away!

2011-09-14T09:18:00.000-04:00

Every once in awhile, Mr & Mrs Tutu take leave of their senses and depart the peaceful shores of the Weskeag River to visit other parts of this wonderful world. This week we're zooming west to attend Mr. Tutu's 50th high school reunion in central California. While we're there, we'll be visiting with a host of friends and family, soaking up some sunshine, and I suspect battling a wee bit of traffic.

Tutu has loaded up her NOOK with lots of wonderful books to read. Many thanks to NetGalley for providing publishers a way to make their ARCs available in the e-format. At the rates airlines are charging for baggage these days, no way could I afford to take more than one book with me and that one book is Banana Yoshimoto's Kitchen. I read this two years ago, but our local book club (which meets 12 hours after I get home next week) is reading this one as part of a series we're doing on women's cultures in different countries. More on that series next week. I remember it as a fascinating read the 1st time, and I'm looking forward to a re-read. And I'm VERY thankful that Ms. Yoshimoto's prose is quite sparse. The tiny little book is less than 200 pages, and fits nicely into my purse.

I've also loaded a few audio books on my MP3 for those times (particularly on the plane) when I want to close my eyes and ignore my seat mates (Mr. Tutu excepted of course.) I have a few reviews waiting to be posted, and plan to finish another two while I'm gone.

Don't forget the Jeffrey Archer audio giveaway---we need more entrants to pick a winner.

Have a wonderful week - I sure plan to. Many thanks to our neighbors taking care of the homefront, and all the volunteers at my library who let us get away for this once in a lifetime event.

Review: When Will there be Good News by Kate Atkinson

2011-09-12T20:27:00.006-04:00

Author: Kate Atkinson
Publisher/Format: Little Brown and Company, 1st edition E book, 314 pages
BBC America, Audiobook, 10 discs, 11 hours, 51 min
Narrator: Steven Crossley
Year of publication: 2008
Subject: kidnapping, deceipt, cold case
Setting: Scotland
Series: Jackson Brodie mysteries
Genre: private detective mystery
Source: Public library downloads, Barnes & Noble Nook

Jackson Brodie is a detective I really root for. He seems to run into more bad luck than any other of his ilk, and seems to have terrible luck with women, even when his heart is in the right place. Kate Atkinson somehow manages to make us fall in love with him, even as she skips blithely back and forth, hither and yon among three or four stories. This technique can be very disconcerting to first time readers of the series, but this is #3, and I'm finally getting used to the style. I'm sure the story would not be nearly as exciting or attention holding were she to tell each thread more linearly, but it takes some getting used to.

This style is not particularly well suited to audio, unless you have the time to sit down with pencil and notepad to take a lot of notes so you can keep up with everyone. I read this one both in print and audio. I've learned by now to get into all the threads (about the first 30-40% of the book) and THEN I can pick it up in audio while I'm working out. If I don't get a good grip on who is who (often requiring some flipping back and forth) I'm not able to enjoy Steven Crossley's wonderful narration.

In this adventure, we meet some old friends - Detective Inspector Louise Monroe, Julia Land, and Jackson's ex-wife Josie, and are introduced to a 16 year old detective in training Reggie Chase. Reggie works as a home helper (don't say "Nanny"!) for Dr. Joanna Hunter, who suddenly goes off on a mysterious trip to visit an aging auntie. Brodie, still haunted by the deaths of his sister, brother and father, is married now to an art curator named Tessa, who has gone off to a conference in the US for most of the book. While she'd gone, Jackson goes on a quest to determine whether he is the parent of Julia's son. Along the way tho, he becomes unwittingly (isn't this how he always gets involved?) embroiled in the case of the missing doctor who was herself involved in a brutal mass slaying in her childhood, the search for a recently released felon who seems to have assumed another identity, and another series of daydreams (reciprocal at least) about a romantic relationship with Louise. Of course, he's trying NOT to get involved in any of this because he's recuperating from a near fatal train crash while traveling back to Covent Garden.

The plot is complicated, convoluted, and at times confusing. I've finished it, but as with previous books in the series, I'm still not sure I understand everything that happened or why. I have the fourth one on the nightstand, but I'm going to let it sit for awhile. I love this series, and may want to go back and re-read one or two before I tackle #4.

If you like really well-plotted, intricate mysteries, with quirky, snippy, and quintessentially British characters, and enjoy a very dry and biting sense of humor, these are for you. They're not for light reading, but they are for those times when you want to lose yourself in a good book. And if you like sensitive, intelligent men not afraid to bend the rules, Jackson Brodie is the hero for you.

Review: Doc by Mary

2011-09-10T00:02:00.001-04:00

Author: Mary Doria Russell
Publisher/Format: Random House audio 12 discs; 16 1/2 hrs
Narrator: Mark Bramhall
Year of publication: 2011
Subject: John Henry "Doc" Holliday
Setting: Dodge City Kansas
Genre: Fictional biography
Source: Public library download

I've never been a big fan of "Shoot 'em ups" but I grew up during the era of westerns on TV, watching Bat Masterson, Wyatt and Morgan Earp, and Doc Holliday in weekly episodes. I knew they were actual historic figures, but never had much need to figure out the who, why, when, where of each of their claims to fame. But when I kept seeing very positive reviews and conversations about this book from people who usually don't lead me to poor books, I decided to take a look at this one.

Even if you don't think you'd like westerns, even if you don't like biographies, try this one. Mary Doria Russell, and narrator Mark Bramhall have given us a very fresh, unadorned look at Doc, his lady friend Kate, the Earp brothers, and the bustling, smelly, muddy, smoked filled saloons and bawdy houses of Dodge City. Her research into the symptoms and effects of tuberculosis and her descriptions of the hard life of cattle rustling, early dental procedures, and law enforcement in "the wild west" give us a picture we didn't get on TV. Mark Bramhall's ability to give us a distinct voice for each character, a coquettish European accent for Kate, a guttural German for the Augustinian priest, a gentle Georgian drawl for Doc, Irish brogues for several of the women, and western twangs for the Earps was incredibly powerful and kept me riveted for the full sixteen hours.

Doc's long slow losing battle with TB was something I had been vaguely aware of, but the personalities of each of the others was new and interesting. It was an eye-opener for those of us steeped in whatever version of the shoot-out at the OK Corral we have inherited. Russell has done a wonderful job in setting the record back onto a more historically accurate track in a very enjoyable read along the way.

Can You Believe it? Tutu's Reading Romance! And loving it!

2011-09-09T00:02:00.007-04:00

Author: Jennifer Crusie
Publisher/Format: Brilliance Audio, 12 hours, 448 page equivalent
Year of publication: 2011
Genre: chick-lit, romance
Source: public library download

I don't normally read pure romance, but a dear dear friend whom I'm going to visit next week in California, insisted that I would LOVE Jennifer Crusie and MUST read her. When I saw one of her books available on the library download, I decided I had nothing to lose and would listen for a few hours, and then at least be able to tell her I'd tried it. I did try it, and I kept reading and reading, and loved it. I could not stop this one, and was inventing all kinds of reasons to sit down and listen to the audio.

Essentially it's a romantic comedy featuring two delightful people who are tired of their friends telling them what or what not to do, and who are therefore determined not to allow themselves to build anykind of romantic relationship. The harder they try to stay apart, the harder they fall. Throw in two ex-lovers who are trying hard to break them up, but whose attempts make it even worse, and you have the ingredients for a great farce. It's simply delightful. Well-written, well plotted, and the characters are very like people we all know. It was a delightful read, and I'll certainly be looking for more by Jennifer Crusie whenever I want a feel good read with some meat to it.

Sometimes it pays to listen to our friends.

An old friend in a new format!

2011-09-08T12:34:00.000-04:00

Often I'm asked how I get so many new books to review. Where do I find them? The answer is a simple one. I subscribe to a daily newsletter called Shelf Awareness. I've enjoyed getting a chance to see new books as they come out, read interviews with authors, and keep up on what's happening in the industry.

This publication that booksellers, librarians and bloggers turn to for news on the book industry is now publishing a version for book lovers! Shelf Awareness: Enlightenment for Readers is a FREE emailed newsletter with reviews on the 25 best books publishing each week along with author interviews, book excerpts, giveaways and more. Right now they’re running a contest for new subscribers. Check out the button on the sidebar to sign up for the new publication and to be entered for a chance to win a great book!

I know you'll enjoy it as much as I do.

Audio Book Review: One Summer by David Baldacci

2011-09-08T00:02:00.001-04:00

Author: David Baldacci
Publisher/ Format: 7 discs; 8 hours, 337 page equivalent
Narrator: Ron McLarty and Orlagh Cassidy.
Year of publication: 2011
Subject: love and loss
Setting:Ohio and South Carolina
Genre: romance
Source: review copy from Hachette Audio

One Summer is a complete departure from David Baldacci's normal political thriller, action adventures. It is a romance, some would call it chick-lit, but it is every bit as well written as his other stuff. It was a pleasant summer read, and fit right in with my cozy summer reading theme.

Essentially, it's the story of a terminally ill man whose wife is killed on Christmas eve. His children are ripped from his deathbed by his mother-in-law who sells the family home to pay for his care, and he is left to die alone. Then a miraculous recovery and an unexpected inheritance allow him the chance to reunite his family, rebuild his relationships with his children, and find a new friendship that has definite romantic possibilities. The family interactons are realistic even if the plot is a bit far-fetched. I suppose every summer romance has to have a happy ending, even if we are left to imagine the future of many of the characters. The positive possibilities for each were there.

I "ear-read" this one thanks to a review copy from Hachette Audio. It's a favorite format for me. I've listened to several other Baldacci books in audio that also had Ron McLarty as the narrator. He has a clear voice, and terrific inflection, but I found it disconcerting to have this voice who is usually relating white-knuckle suspense to be telling a story of love lost and found. I also disliked the music. I'm not sure why audio book producers feel they have to make 'productions' out of book readings. A good narrator should be able to give us the story. I don't need background music to set the tone or scene in a printed book, and I find it distracting in an audio book. I want the author's words to set the tone, not some heart-string pulling music (if I closed my eyes at one point, I'd have expected to open them to see angels descending with harps!)

All in all though, it's a fun read, a heart-warmer, and one that is sure to please readers who like happy endings.

Many thanks to Hachette for the opportunity to review it.

Review: The End of the Alphabet by CS Richardson

2011-09-07T23:16:00.000-04:00

Author: CS Richardson
Publisher Format: Doubleday (2007), Hardcover, 119 pages
Subject: facing death
Genre: Novella
Source: public library

This is an exquisite little book. It is difficult to classify it. Certainly it's fiction. It's a love story, it's a story of grieving, of fear, of loss, of death. But it's a story of celebrating life, of empowering each other by letting go, of suffering loss and experiencing growth.

Layered onto the life story however is a very very clever play on words and letters. The cover flap describes the basics:

Ambrose Zephyr is a contented man. He shares a book-laden Victorian house with his loving wife, Zipper. He owns two suits, one of which he was married in. He is a courageous eater, save brussels sprouts. His knowledge of wine is vague and best defined as Napa, good; Australian, better; French, better still. Kir royale is his drink of occasion. For an Englishman he makes a poor cup of tea. He believes women are quantifiably wiser than men, and would never give Zipper the slightest reason to mistrust him or question his love. Zipper simply describes Ambrose as the only man she has ever loved. Without adjustment.

When Ambrose is told by his doctor that he has only thirty days to live, he and Zipper set out on an alphabetical journey to fulfill Ambrose's many childhood dreams of the alphabet being spelled out in places vice objects. Ambrose's alphabet wasn't "A is for apple, B is for bear", his was "A is for Amsterdam, B is for Berlin" and so on. The frantic and frenetic race to see all his beloved dreams is written so crisply, in such elegant, reduced text, that the reader is able to read the 119 pages in one sitting. You put this down and realize that you have practically been holding your breath until the end. It's a book to be shared by lovers, a book to read again, and a beautiful expression of lives well lived.

Do yourself a favor - - get a copy, grab a cup of tea and curl up. You won't regret it.

A second chance for Jeffrey Archer

2011-09-06T00:53:00.023-04:00

Wow! How lucky can we get? MacMillan audio saw the review last week for Jeffrey Archer's latest one, and offered to give me an audio version to review. They are also giving us a copy for a giveaway. So....If you really wanted to read this one, and you didn't win, here's your chance. I'm going to make this one vey easy. One comment, one chance per customer. BUT....I'm not going to give it away until I get 20 comments. So mention this one on your blog and encourage people to come over here. If you do post it on your blog (and mention that there's no giveaway until we reach the magic number) then I'll give you an extra entry...you won't have to do a thing.

If you've never tried an audio book before, this would be a very good one to start with, and just to prove it, there's a substantial sample here on the Only Time will Tell page It's a great read, and I can't wait to get my copy to listen to the story and see if there was anything I missed first time around. The best part of audio books is that you don't have to turn the pages....they just keep going for you. You can get lost in a book very easily and not want to turn it off.

Remember - one comment, include an email address, no PO Boxes, and be sure to give me the link to your blog post. Good luck.

Book Review: A Night Too Dark by Dana Stabenow

2011-09-05T13:05:00.001-04:00

Author: Dana Stabenow
Publisher Format: St. Martin's Minotaur (2010), 322 pages
Subject: gold mining
Setting: Alaska
Series: Kate Shugak Novels
Genre: women private detectives, murder mystery
Source: public library

Now here's a series I'm really going to get into. One of our patrons donated this book to the library, and shoved it at me (she knows me well) saying " YOU MUST READ THIS." Now who am I to make a patron unhappy? She was right. It's a page turner, with a great plot, a wonderful protagonist in Kate Shugak, a private investigator who works along side the tribal and government law enforcement authorities in the Alaskan wilderness.

This is evidently the 17th in the series, but I didn't feel I need much back fill to enjoy the story. The plot revolves around a greedy mining company wanting to dig gold from a pristine and ecologically endangered mine. I thought the author did an excellent job balancing what could have become a political diatribe and instead offered a fair explanation of the issues. These were certainly debated enough to cause murder and mayhem, missing and mis-identified bodies, and offer Kate the chance to once again help put together the clues she and others piece together from the wilderness. There's just enough question mark left at the end (no spoilers here!) to make readers look forward to the next in the series.

There is certainly enough to this character and the gorgeous setting to make me definitely seek out at least a few of the earlier ones. If you like rugged settings, strong women, and well plotted murder mystery, these just may be for you.

Summer wrap- up

2011-09-05T12:05:00.000-04:00

Since many of the books I read this summer were for my own reading pleasure, and not formal reviews, I haven't done individual posts on several of them. There are some however, that merit a mention with my comments and what's to like or dislike:

Sizzlin' Sixteen - Janet Evanovich. I chuckled when I read #15 in this series, but almost forgot why I had stopped reading them several years ago. This one made me remember and swear off Stephanie Plum for the rest of my life. Evanovich is a good writer. She just needs to find something new, refreshing, and with a totally different premise.

To Kill a Mockingbird - This classic was chosen by our Book Club at the library for it's July discussion. I hadn't read it in 50 years since it came out. I thought I remembered it, but found there was so much I'd forgotten, or never keyed on when I was younger. It is a true classic, and if you haven't read it, drop everything and do so. It was required reading when I was in high school, and in my opinion, should still be required, but those of us who read it as the Civil Rights movement was just starting will find a surprising depth of insight from being able to look back.

August Heat by Andrea Camilleri. The 10th in the Inspector Montalbano detective series, this was the perfect book to read in August. The scorching searing heat of Siciliy in the summer is something I've experienced first hand (twice!) and although Sicily is a spectacular vacation venue, I'm not going to plan my next trip in the summer months. Montalbano locates a beautiful seaside villa for a friend coming down from northern Italy, only to have the family discover that there are some serious defects in the building (like a dead body to begin with). His girlfriend Livia, as usual, becomes upset and goes home. Montalbano battles the heat, tries to solve the mystery of why the house is as it is (it's hard to describe the mysterious happenings without spoiling the story) and in the end detects the true culprit. His sidekick, Catarella provides just the right touch of comic relief to make the book not only a good who dunnit, but an enjoyable and amusing read. This series continues to get better, so if you haven't tried any of them, next time you're browsing the shelves, pull one out and settle in for a few hours. I don't think you'll regret it.

All in all, it was a successful restful summer. I wallowed in a few great page turners, enjoyed the summer breezes while listening to some awesome audios and stitching my blue heron. In fact, I'll be giving you a progress report on my stitching project later this fall. For now, the leaves are already turning, and it's time to turn to some heavy duty catching up on ARCs sent for reviews. I'm still planning to continue reading in some of the new series I discovered this summer, so as long as the eyes and ears hold out, and the NOOK stays charged, I'll be offering up more of my two cents.

Monday Mailbox - September 5th

2011-09-05T00:02:00.000-04:00

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists!

Created by Marcia at The Printed Page, Mailbox Monday, now has its own blog. Hosting duties are being rotated every month. Now that we're into September, is the month for hosting by Amused at Amused by Books. Be sure to stop by and say howdy.

Only one this week-- a contest win from First Reads, but one that certainly has a big appeal to me:

The Goodreads blurb says:

Twenty-five-year-old Julie Jacobs is heartbroken over the death of her beloved Aunt Rose. But the shock goes even deeper when she learns that the woman who has been like a mother to her has left her entire estate to Julie’s twin sister. The only thing Julie receives is a key—one carried by her mother on the day she herself died—to a safety-deposit box in Siena, Italy.

This key sends Julie on a journey that will change her life forever—a journey into the troubled past of her ancestor Giulietta Tolomei. In 1340, still reeling from the slaughter of her parents, Giulietta was smuggled into Siena, where she met a young man named Romeo. Their ill-fated love turned medieval Siena upside-down and went on to inspire generations of poets and artists, the story reaching its pinnacle in Shakespeare’s famous tragedy. (more)

Sienna is one of my favorite cities in Europe, absolutely elegant in its architecture, ambiance, and refusal to move too far out of a medieval setting. I can't afford to go back there right now, so I'm really looking forward to day-dreaming about my wonderful visits there in the past, while I read this one.

Many thanks to Goodreads and the First Read Program for picking me to win it.

Two New Winners - How Cool is That?

2011-09-04T00:02:00.000-04:00

Author:Barbara Delinsky
Publisher Format:Doubleday (2011), Edition: First Edition, Hardcover, 320 pages Setting: New York
Genre: fiction
Source: ARC from publisher

Well...Random.org has really done a great job this time. The two names chosen as winners of Barbara Delinsky's newest fiction were new winners here at Tutu's Two Cents. We welcome both of them and hope they come back often.

To refresh everybody about this one, here is Doubleday's synopsis:

Emily Aulenbach is thirty, a lawyer married to a lawyer, working in Manhattan. An idealist, she had once dreamed of representing victims of corporate abuse, but she spends her days in a cubicle talking on the phone with victims of tainted bottled water—and she is on the bottler’s side.

And it isn’t only work. It’s her sister, her friends, even her husband, Tim, with whom she doesn’t connect the way she used to. She doesn’t connect to much in her life, period, with the exception of three things—her computer, her BlackBerry, and her watch.

Acting on impulse, Emily leaves work early one day, goes home, packs her bag, and takes off. Groping toward the future, uncharacteristically following her gut rather than her mind, she heads north toward a New Hampshire town tucked between mountains. She knows this town. During her college years, she spent a watershed summer here. Painful as it is to return, she knows that if she is to right her life, she has to start here.

I don't usually read too many pure 'chick lit' books, and I haven't read any of Delinksy's work in several years. It's not something I'd want to have a steady diet of, and perhaps it's because I've been reading "lite" all summer that I found this one wasn't quite as developed as I would have preferred, but it was certainly entertaining enough and I know will be enjoyed by our winners:

Jasmyn

and

Ellie Lewis

Congratulations to both of them. I've sent their emails and they have until Wednesday nite to get back to me.

If you missed out on this, you can have another chance at some of my favorite blogs who are also featuring giveaways of this one:

Bookin' with Bingo - deadline Sept 6th
Just Another New Blog - deadline Sept 7th

Weekend Cooking - Christmas Cookies? Already?

2011-09-03T00:02:00.013-04:00

The World's Greatest Christmas Cookies

A collection of cookie recipes, decorating ideas, and inspirational thoughts from the contributors.

Publisher/ Format: Barbour Publishing Company, e galley 160 pages

Year of publication: 2011

Subject: Christmas Cookies

Genre: Recipe compilation

Source: Net Galley

Net Galley has offered several cookbooks for review recently, and since Christmas Cookies are a special weakness for me, I was delighted to be able to take a look at this one. I had best state up front that I collect cookie cookbooks, and over my forty plus years of marriage and moving around the world, I've been through an extensive assortment of recipes. But by now, I've settled on about two dozen all time favorites that I know I can count on to be fun to make, easy to store, and (most of all) well received by all who stop by to share holiday cheer, or to whom I send them as gifts every year.

So even though I'm pretty settled on my list, I'm also always looking for something new, delicious, and relatively easy to make. (I gave up trying to be Martha Stewart a long time ago). I would not buy this one for myself since I have most of the recipes that appeal to me already in my files. But I definitely would consider this one as a gift for someone who is just embarking on setting up housekeeping, a young parent who wants some easy to make recipes to make with children, or someone who is not a cookbook collector but who loves cookies.

The format is excellent - each recipe is easy to read, colorfully typeset, the pictures are crisp, clear and yummy, and none of them threaten to overwhelm the baker with complications. I especially like the "Sweet tips" sprinkled throughout the book. Several of them were new to me (such as placing a slice of apple in a container of cookies that are beginning to get a bit dry---I've done that for brown sugar but never thought about it for cookies!)

The recipe for Potato Chip Cookies looks like a busy Mom's dream - crushed chips, a can of sweetened condensed milk, coconut and peanut butter. Mixed up and dropped on a greased cookie sheet, these can be done in about 15 minutes start to finish!

Bar cookies are another favorite of mine, and living up here in cranberry bog heaven, those Cranberry Paradise bars look really yummy. We also grow a lot of rhubarb up here, and the Rhubarb Squares looks like a good recipe to use up that last bag of frozen rhubarb to make more room in the freezer!

There are a few drawbacks to this one. Cookbooks, by their nature, are meant to be browsed. There is no Table of Contents - although that may be simply a function of the egalley - I hope one appears in the finished product. There's a great index, but I shouldn't have to go to the back of the book to browse. AND....................about 25% (I didn't do an exact count) of the recipes don't have pictures. Sorry Barbour publishing, but cookies need to have pictures. It's the picture that grabs a cook. I don't have the vaguest idea of what the "Italian Christmas Cookies" are supposed to look like. The ingredients and instructions don't sound like ANYTHING any of my Italian relatives every made for Christmas, and I certainly don't think I've ever seen a recipe like them in any of my numerous Italian cookbooks. So that one for me would be destined to remain a mystery forever - I'd never even consider it. And that may be a shame.

Over all, this is one to consider if you like cookies, or are looking for a good not too expensive addition to your cookbook collection, or for a nice gift.

Thanks to Barbour Publishing and Net Galley for making it available.

For other Weekend Cooking, take a look at our Host: Beth Fish Reads. There's always a great range of yummy reviews, recipes, and all things foodie to whet your appetite.

Audio Reviews: The Jackson Brodie series by Kate Atkinson

2011-09-02T20:40:00.000-04:00

Author: Kate Atkinson
Publisher/Format: BBC Audio America, 10 discs-11 hours, 312 page equivalent
Year of publication: 2008
Narrator: Susan Jameson
Subject: Three different crimes separated by years
Setting: Cambridge,England
Series: Jackson Brodie Mysteries
Genre: mystery- detective fiction
Source: public library

Author: Kate Atkinson
Publisher/Format: BBC Audio America, 12 discs-14 hours, 448 page equivalent
Year of publication: 2006
Narrator: Steven Crossley
Subject: seemingly random unrelated incidents of murder
Setting: Edinburgh Scotland
Series: Jackson Brodie Mysteries
Genre: mystery- detective fiction
Source: public library

This series has a lot to like about it. I had just gotten the 4th in the series Started Early Took My Dog for our library, and was intrigued by the jacket blurb. I really dislike starting a series in the middle, so I hunted down the 1st two to see if they might be worthy of including in our collection. Since I needed some audios to get me through a couple of cooking/sewing projects this summer, these two really met the challenge. They are intricately plotted, but somewhat hard to follow in the beginning. In both volumes, Atkinson weaves together a series of seemingly unrelated characters and murders that leave the reader asking "where is this going?" until about half-way through each book. The head scratching is well worth the wait however because not only do the stories mesh together, along the way we meet a cast of wonderfully eccentric and engaging characters who hold our interest and pull us toward their personal conclusions.

In Case Histories, Jackson becomes involved in a cold case of a missing toddler, another of a dead teenager, and an ax murder. I don't want to spoil the delicious way Atkinson pulls Brodie through all of these with their reluctant witnesses, missing evidence, etc. so I won't reveal too much more about the story line or characters. I especially like her borderline risquè sense of humor, her tartly funny remarks emerging from the most unusual characters, and Jackson's seemingly lackluster enthusiasm for some of the rigors of the cases.

In One Good Turn, we see Jackson continuing a relation that was only a glint in the first book, as he follows (somewhat begrudgingly?) his now lady friend to Edinburgh so she can participate in an acting festival. He whiles away the time that she is in rehearsals by blundering onto a dead body, and then spends the rest of the book walking a tightrope between wanting to be totalling uninvolved in solving the crime, (he's on vacation after all!) and in wanting to take over the investigation completely. His prickly personality and on-again/off-again motivation makes for a true page turner and some uproarious chuckles. Again, the reader has to pay attention to be sure not to miss any of the many many clues Atkinson strews throughout, but that concentration is well worth the effort in the end.

Normally, I really enjoy audios, but I'm daring to say these are better read in print at first, unless you have exceptional powers of remembering who is who. The audios done by BBC America were spot on, and easy to listen to, but I think being able to flip back and forth would be a definite advantage to the first time reader of either of these. Susan Jameson and Steven Crossly did a first rate job of bringing these doty characters to life so if you like audio, do give them a try, but maybe with a dog-earred paperback next to you for easy referral. I don't necessarily see that they have to be read in order either, so my advice is to find any of the four in the series, grab a chair and settle back for a great and fun detective story.

PS...I think I'm going to be adding at least one more of these to our collection at the library.