What are you reading the week of June 29, 2019?

Fred is handling family matters this week so I'm launching
the thread.

Transcription
by Kate Atkinson
3/5 stars
Juliet Armstrong of England is recruited during WWII to be a spy and infiltrate the British Fascists. When WWII ends she joins the BBC to do radio programming but her history with MI5 comes back to haunt her. Well written and at times I got confused as to what was going on which I suspect was the aim of the author. After all isn’t that the purpose of a good spy!

I'm reading and enjoying a mystery written in the 1980s and taking place in the New York City of that same era, Dirty Laundry by Pete Hamill.

Finished The Dead Drink First, a moving piece of journalism and family love.

Next up for listening is The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides.

>1 Molly3028: Thanks for getting us started!

This week I read a couple of mediocre thrillers, and then the wonderful The Shepherd's Life: Modern Dispatches from an Ancient Landscape by James Rebanks. What a book. I had no idea that shepherding, even in this modern age, was so time-consuming, so physical, and requiring such a mixture of intelligence, instinct, dumb luck, and endless patience. I loved it. I particularly liked reading about how good sheep-herding dogs are trained, how they work, and what they do.

I'm back to the land of thrillers; this one is good: A Stranger in the House by Canadian writer Shari LaPena.

Started this OverDrive eBook ~

Enemy of the People: A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth in America
by Jim Acosta

Not reading, really. "Dipping" is a better word. Uploading e-books to my LT library, Lots of historical fiction I see.

Still reading One Word Kill, Shogun, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction September/October 2018.

Hissy Fit – Mary Kay Andrews
Digital audio read by Moira Driscoll
3***

From the book jacket Keeley Murdock’s wedding to A.J. Jernigan should have been the social event of the season. But when she catches her fiancé doing the deed with her maid of honor at the country club rehearsal dinner, all bets are off. And so is the wedding. Keeley pitches the hissy fit of the century, earning herself instant notoriety in the small town of Madison, Georgia. Even worse is the financial pressure A.J.’s banking family brings to bear on Keeley’s interior design business. Enter a redheaded stranger – in a vintage yellow Cadillac – who’s purchased the local bra factory and a derelict antebellum mansion, which he hires Keeley to redo.

My reactions
Even before I read the jacket blurb, I knew I was in for a light, fun, fast, chick lit, beach read. And that’s exactly what I got. Mary Kay Andrews knows how to write in this genre and she does a fine job of it. The central characters are likeable (or not, as required … I’m looking at you, A.J. and Stephanie), and the plot is supported by a cast of eccentric older folks, wise and tolerant parents, and friends and acquaintances who help Keeley and take a keen interest in her personal life. Andrews includes a bit of a mystery subplot, which I felt distracted from the central romantic tension. But that’s okay … we need both sugar and salt in our reading diet.

It’s a fast, fun romp of a novel. Grab some iced tea and your sunglasses and set yourself up on a beach chair to enjoy.

Moira Driscoll did a fine job of performing the audio. Her southern accent was spot on, and she really brought the large cast of characters alive.

The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches From the Border – Francisco Cantú
Audiobook read by the author.
4****

Cantú studied international relations in college. He was raised primarily by his mother, a Mexican immigrant and U.S. Park Ranger, in the Southwest U.S. He joined the border patrol because, “I spent four years in college … learning about the border through policy and history. I want to see the realities of the border day in and day out. I know it may be ugly. I know it might be dangerous, but I don’t see any better way to truly understand the place.” In this memoir he examines what he learned, what puzzled him, what distressed him, and what haunts him still.

Cantú writes with a stream-of-consciousness style. He uses no quotations marks and there is little exposition. At times the change in time/setting is quite abrupt and made this reader feel a little off-balance. He begins with a visit to Mexico with his mother, covers his training at the Academy, his time in the field and in the office, and ends after he’s left the Border Patrol and is working at a coffee shop where he befriends the maintenance man, an undocumented worker who has been in the USA for about 30 years.

Cantú explains the policies and procedures of the Border Patrol and Immigration. He writes with brutal honesty about the realities of hunting humans, the horrors of finding bodies in the desert, the heart-breaking stories of women and children left to fend for themselves by coyotes who have taken their money (and what little water they had), the callous destruction of “caches” found by the agents (they put holes in water jugs, urinate on extra clothing, break tools). And he explores the dreams that plague him.

It’s raw and emotional and thought provoking.

The audiobook is read by the author. He sets a good pace and has a smooth delivery. And his Spanish pronunciation is perfect.

NOTE: There is occasional Spanish in the book, and Cantú rarely translates it.

Yesterday I finished Quotations of John Muir published by Applewood Books. I visited Muir Woods National Monument for the first time last week.

I'm almost done reading Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty. Even though I know how it ends the tension is speeding me to the finish!

I finished Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior which I enjoyed. Now I'm reading The Wanderers, the second book in a trilogy by Tim Pears.

The Cuckoo's Egg is an old (1989 orig pub date) book about the man who "discovered' the need for cyber security quite by accident when he uncovered the hack of the Lawrence Berkeley Lab by what was discovered to be a German spy who was selling US military secrets gleaned from computers in White Sands to Russia. Stoll was the systems manager and "bookkeeper" for Berkeley Labs ARPNET computer access billing and he found strange anomalies in the accounts amounting to only $0.75. Thank goodness, Stoll, an astronomer by training had an endless supply of curiosity and doggedness.

Thiss is nonfiction that reads like a spy thriller!

In spite of its age, this book is most timely amid the Russian intrusion via computer hacking into American election systems.

I finished listening to two books over the last couple of days. First, The Silent Patient, an excellent suspense novel, and then Us Against You, an outstanding novel and second of the Beartown trilogy.

Next up for listening is On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong.

I finished Indignation by Philip Roth. The book is about how seemingly small decisions can have disproportionate effects.

Enjoying this iTunes audiobook ~
No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency: BBC Radio Casebook: BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisations by Alexander McCall Smith
(Vol. 1/eight mini-plays AMS wrote based on his long-running series)

and

Enjoying this library audiobook ~
Don't Let Go by Harlan Coben
(NJ 15 years ago ~ suicide-pact deaths or murders? ~ was a disappearance related to this event?)

LT issue

>13 Limelite: Stoll's book certainly sounds very interesting!

My next is Clock Dance by Anne Tyler

I’ve just started a Netgalley ARC of Quichotte, Salman Rushdie’s newest novel, which is a clever update of the Don Quixote saga (so far, anyway).

The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
Mitch Albom
3.5/5 stars
Narrated by the voice of Music, this is the story of the magical but difficult life of Frankie Presto, musician extraordinaire, born in Spain and who became an orphan at a very young age. He was taken in by a blind music teacher who helped him hone his gift which leads him into his musical career and the ups and downs of his unusual life. Interesting read!

>18 JulieLill:, >21 JulieLill:

"Cuckoo's Egg" IS interesting. From the beginning, Cliff Stoll's puckish personality shines on every pg. Even the first footnote clarifying the two different types of hackers provoked an LoL from me.

The subject is highly technical, but Stoll is careful to make it understandable w/o being either condescending or pedantic. His brief descriptions of his colleagues given as we encounter them is unmercifully direct and comic, as is his own self-effacing assessment of his (in)abilities as a software analyst.

But what I like best is Stoll's ability to present the story as if we are a fly on his shoulder able to share his every thought just when he thinks it.

Can't recommend "Cuckoo's Egg" enough.

I finished The Wanderers by Tim Pears -- beautiful book -- I eagerly await the third book in the trilogy.
Now I'm reading Solus by Peter Bowen -- good to be back in Gabriel Du Pre's Montana.

Eleven Minutes – Paulo Coelho
3.5***

Maria is a young girl form a small Brazilian town. Her first love leaves her heartbroken and she becomes convinced that she is destined to never find true love. She works in a drapery firm, where she fends off her boss. On a trip to Rio de Janeiro she meets a “businessman” who promises her fame and fortune in Switzerland.

Well this went in a direction I wasn’t expecting. Yes, of course, Maria winds up a prostitute and not a famous movie actress, but she comes to understand much about herself and the world. She starts going to the library and reads up on a wide variety of topics. She opens a bank account and saves for her eventual return to Brazil, where she plans to buy a farm for her parents. She explores her sexuality in ways she never expected and thinks long and hard about the meaning of love and whether it really exists.

There were several times when I thought that Coelho really doesn’t know women at all. And still, I was captivated by Maria and her journey.

I had previously read Coelho’s The Alchemist and was not enthralled. At the outset of this book I felt it might just be the author’s attempt to write the same book with a female protagonist. But the strength and beauty of Coelho’s writing carried me away.

I was heading for a 4-star rating, but the fairy tale ending lost a half star for me.

I finished Pete Hamill's mostly fun mystery from the 1980s, Dirty Laundry. I then went through a stack of my "between books," thusly . . .

“Knowledge and the Unconscious” from The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View by Richard Tarnas
“The Clash” from Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung by Lester Bangs
Excerpt from Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston from The Norton Book of Women's Lives edited by Phyllis Rose
“The Secret History of the Peace Offensives” from The Secret History of the War, Volume 1 by Waverley Root
“The Past is Important to Us” from Uncommon Type: Some Stories by Tom Hanks
"I Have Kept the Faith" - Part Three, Chapter 19 of the novel The Apostle by Sholem Asch
“A Perfect Analysis Given by a Parrott – A One-Act Play” by Tennessee Williams from Esquire Magazine - 40th Anniversary Celebration edited by Don Erickson

Tonight, I started Georgia and State Rights: A Study of the Political History of Georgia from the Revolution to the Civil War, with Particular Regard to Federal Relations by Georgia native Ulrich B. Phillips. This was originally published in 1902 as Ulrich's doctoral dissertation at Columbia University. This is definitely going to be a "understanding how they thought back then" kind of read, for Ulrich, while he believed that slavery was an economically inefficient system, he continued to believe that the relationship between large plantation slaves and their masters was "a relation characterized by propriety, proportion, and cooperation."* Although Ulrich's scholarship became more sophisticated--and he is still considered a groundbreaking historian in terms of his research methodology and scope--he remained, for the most part, a defender of slavery until he died in 1934. My copy of the book is a 1968 edition published by Antioch Press. Wish me luck.

* from this article: https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/ulrich-bonnell-...

I finished an LTER book by the Spanish author, Juan Jose Millas. Sometimes surreal, sometimes humorous, sometimes sad and pathetic, From the Shadows describes alienation and the power of fantasy: thoroughly enjoyable while revealing the the human condition.

Finally finished Shōgun by James Clavell. After I switched it to my nighttime read, I enjoyed it much more.

Next into my rotation is The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson.

Needing something light, and found The Science of Games of Thrones. Some interesting info bringing real examples (slight as they are) to dragons, wildfire, flaming swords, and other topics. Her attempts at humor were eye rolling but still useful in a light enteraining sort of way (and since I am on season 4 of my annual rewatch of the show, relevant)

Isn’t It Romantic?– Ron Hansen
3***

The subtitle of this little novel is “An Entertainment.” And that’s exactly what it is.

Natalie and Pierre are a young Parisien couple, but Natalie has had it with Pierre’s playboy ways. She decides to go to America and travel by bus to really see the country. Pierre follows her and they wind up stranded in Seldom, Nebraska, population 395. Natalie is taken in by the former French teacher (who’s apparently forgotten much of her French), while Pierre bunks with Owen, the local garage mechanic and amateur vintner. They also capture the amorous attentions of two locals.

What follows is a farcical comedy, with messages gone astray, intentions misunderstood, love declared, and more than one mishap. Who will wind up with whom?

It’s a fun romance, if totally ridiculous. Great beach read.

Little Town On the Prairie – Laura Ingalls Wilder
Digital audiobook performed by Cherry Jones
3***

Book seven in the popular classic Little House series, has Laura growing into a young lady. She feels that the new teacher, Miss Wilder, is unfairly picking on her and her sister. Nellie Oleson seems to be thwarting Laura at every turn. Mary has left to go to a college for the blind, and Laura takes on a part time job to help pay the expenses. The town is growing and with growth come new opportunities for socializing. Laura passes her examination to be certified as a teacher, and love begins to blossom.

I love this series for the way the pioneer spirit is portrayed and the strong family relationships.

THIS book, however, has a scene that is very uncomfortable for modern readers. The towns folks put on a minstrel show, including performers in blackface. I know this is historically accurate to the period, but I just cringed reading about it.

Cherry Jones does a fine job narrating the audiobook. I particularly like it when she sings the hymns or folk songs.

This week's thread can be found here ~

https://www.librarything.com/topic/308786