What are you reading the week of January 27, 2024?

I've taken some time off from reading the past couple of weeks. After a conversation with a colleague at work, I've begun George Orwell's 1984.

Enjoying this audio via Audible ~

The Mystery Guest: A Maid Novel (Molly the Maid, #2) by Nita Prose

I always have multiple books in play. This week, they include Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, This Great Unknowing, War for the Oaks, The Rediscovery of America, and A City on Mars: Can we settle space, should we settle space, and have we really thought this through?.

I knocked off America's Round-Engine Airliners. I'm in the home stretch of The Other Great Game. I'll be starting The Splinter in the Sky today.

Starting War, Revolution, and Nation-Making in Lithuania, 1914-1923 and Menewood (which I expect to be working on into the middle of the coming month).

I'm still reading and enjoying The Island at the Center of the World by Russell Shorto, a wonderfully written history of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam.

I just started Gangsters Don't Die by Tod Goldberg, the final installment of a trilogy. I'm looking forward to finding out what happens to Sal.

This week I finished reading A Change of Circumstance by Susan Hill, the most recent installment in her Simon Serailler novels. It was excellent - her best so far. I also finished listening to Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan, a memoir by a young woman who was struck down by a mystery illness (which is solved by book's end). It was well worth the listen.

Now I'm one chapter into The Grapes of Wrath, a little intimidated by the great novel, but I really would like to read it as well as cross it of my list of books that I know I should read. I have a Master's Degree in English and sometimes I feel badly that I've not read as many of the classics as I should have.

I'm listening to A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah Maas, and it's excellent, entirely and thoroughly gripping. I haven't allowed myself to listen to it for days because I had coursework to do, and still have a final paper to write, and it's too easy to lose myself (and hours of my time) listening to this novel.

Rosemary– Kate Clifford Larson
Book on CD narrated by Bernadette Dunn
4****

Subtitle: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter

After two healthy boys, Rose and Joseph P Kennedy had a baby girl, whom they named Rosemary. She was apparently healthy and robust, but as she grew to toddler age, it was clear that her development lagged behind her siblings. Soon her younger sisters, Kathleen and Eunice, surpassed Rosemary’s capabilities, both physically and mentally.

Larson does a fine job of detailing Rosemary’s life, and that of the Kennedy family. Their ups, downs, successes and tragedies have been chronicled frequently, but little has been known about Rosemary.

The Kennedy’s did all they (and their money) could in order to provide sheltered educational opportunities for Rosemary, but as she grew up her behavioral issues exacerbated. When she was in her early twenties, Joe decided the best treatment was a newly touted operation – a frontal lobotomy. His expectation was that Rosemary’s emotional outbursts would stop, leaving her more docile and obedient. Unfortunately, the operation went awry, and Rosemary was left with severe mobility issues as well as extremely limited intellectual capacity. Joe eventually placed his oldest daughter at St Colletta’s School in Jefferson, Wisconsin, where she lived out her life in a private cottage, with two full-time caregivers.

Intent on building a political dynasty, Joe and Rose Kennedy insisted on keeping their oldest daughter’s condition a secret from all but a few close friends. Even Rosemary’s younger siblings knew little about her. Rose didn’t see her daughter for decades. Only Rosemary’s sister Eunice visited with any regularity. And Eunice, along with her children, worked to form several charities to care for and support those with mental, intellectual and mobility disabilities.

Bernadette Dunn does a fine job of narrating the audiobook. She has clear diction and sets a good pace.

I finished du Maurier's The Scapegoat yesterday. As a whole, I loved it but was a bit disappointed by the way it ended.

Today, I picked up Clare Pooley's The People on Platform 5, aka Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting. So far, it's light and entertaining.

>7 ahef1963: I read The Grapes of Wrath years ago and loved it! It's a great read, enjoy!

I am reading The Stranger by Harlan Coben and listening to Farewell to Manzanar

Game On: Tempting Twenty-Eight
Janet Evanovich
3.5/5 stars
Stephanie Plum is back in her 28th book and she is with Diesel, who also apprehends criminals too! This time they are going after Oswald Wednesday. He is known for hacking computers and he is killing off other hackers who hacked into his network! I like her stories which are fun and not too involved!

Bombay Time – Thirty Umrigar
4****

Umrigar’s debut novel focuses on the residents of a particular middle-class apartment building in Bombay.

The apartment dwellers who have long lived at Wadi Baug come together to celebrate the wedding of one young man. As they arrive at the reception, each, in turn, reflects on his/her life and how they came to live in this community of Parsi men and women. One man descends into alcoholism. A woman is an incorrigible gossip. One man thinks on his betrayal and heartbreak. A widow who has retreated into herself is finally seen with compassion. One local man has risen above and become very wealthy, but still lives in the same apartment because it feels like home. And a couple struggle to find the love and attraction that drew them together in the first place.

Umrigar’s writing is full of the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of this vibrant community. Several scenes are shockingly brutal – abject poverty, violence, pestilence. And then there are scenes of loving tenderness – a new baby, a man’s love for his wife, the devotion between a mother and daughter.

I finished the LTER book The Fragile Blue Dot. While the ramifications of climate change on the earth are mentioned, the majority of the stories address the difficulties suffered by mankind as he tries to tackle the danger. Some present population control as the most effective quickest solution but recognizes that mankind recoils from the idea leaving the earth doomed.

From the library: The Manuscripts Club by Christopher de Hamel (2023 US edition)
A great complement to Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts.

The Time Traveler's Guide to Regency Britain by Ian Mortimer (2022 US edition)
I've read the previous 3 installments and now reading this one!

The Paris Daughter – Kristin Harmel
3***

Sculptor Elise LeClaire entrusts her daughter, Mathilde, to her best friend, Juliette Foulon, when she is forced to flee Paris during the German occupation in World War II. After the war, Elise returns to Paris only to find the Foulon’s building a pile of rubble with no clue as to survivors or where they might be.

There are a number of historical threads woven into this melodrama: the Nazis penchant for stealing art, the role of the French Resistance, the many Jewish families who sent their children into hiding, and the post-traumatic stress survivors had to deal with.

I really liked Elise and the way she had to fight to be recognized as an artist. I had little sympathy for Juliette, though I suppose Harmel is trying to show how grief can warp one’s thinking. She certainly loved her children. Ruth Levy is perhaps the strongest of the three and shows the most resilience and positive influence. I would have liked to read more about her.

In general, Harmel’s story kept me interested, but I thought the writing was just okay. I guessed the central plot point VERY early in the book and noticed the foreshadowing as a result. The many coincidences that brought the story to its overly dramatic ending seemed contrived and tested my abilities to suspend disbelief. Don’t get me wrong. It was NOT terrible; it just wasn’t good enough to rise above many other stellar novels about this same period.

I just finished reading the memoir Elvis and Me by Priscilla Beaulieu Presley.

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I finished An Experiment in Love, an exquisite reminiscence of an English boarding school for women, an exploration of characters and friendships, all beautifully written, sprinkled with unexpected, vivid metaphors. I note in Library Thing ratings of the book that some people did not enjoy it but I found it superb.

All the Days of Summer – Nancy Thayer
Book on CD narrated by Cassandra Campbell
3***

A novel that explores what a woman’s “second act” might look like. Heather Willette has led a good life in Concord, Massachusetts: a husband, a son, a large Victorian house she inherited from her grandmother and has lovingly restored. But as her son is about to graduate from college, she realizes her marriage has pretty much ended. She rents a cottage on Nantucket for the summer to have time to herself to think on what she wants for this next chapter in her life. And then her son announces that he is NOT going to be working with his dad in the family’s hardware store. Instead, he is moving to Nantucket to take a job with his girlfriend’s father.

I enjoy Thayer’s novels. They usually feature a woman in her middle years, finding new purpose as her children are leaving the nest. Heather keeps to her stated purpose of figuring out what SHE wants next; she walks the beach, adopts a stray dog, improves her rented cottage, joins a bridge club, takes on a part-time job, and begins to make friends. But, of course, there are bumps in the road – Kailee (the girlfriend) is a spoiled brat, self-centered and immature, and her mother, Evelyn, is practically Nantucket royalty (she certainly acts like it).

Will everything work out? Well, there are no pretty ribbons tied around a perfect ending here, another thing I like about Thayer’s books. But there is positive movement and hope for a splendid future.

It's a fast, fun, enjoyable read. Perfect for the beach, or anytime you want to just relax and enjoy the experience.

Cassandra Campbell does a fine job of narrating the audiobook. She sets a good pace and I like how she interprets these characters. 4**** for her narration.

The new thread is up over here.