richardderus's eleventh 2023 thread

Julia Child (born 15 August 1912). Julia Child's effect on US cooking and eating culture was immense, much like Fanny Cradock's in England. Early adopters of eating quality foods prepared in enticing and creative ways, the wonders of making beautiful food each lady brought to our TV sets for decades live on.

...those tomatoes tho

Reviews 018 through 025 (out of order) linked here.
Reviews through 025 linked here.
Reviews 026 through 033 linked here.
Reviews 034 up to 039 linked here.
Reviews 040 to 045 linked here.
Reviews 046through 058 linked here..

THIS THREAD'S REVIEWS

059 Whale in post #108.
060 I'm Not Going Anywhere in post #159.
061 My Men: A Novel in post #183.
062 History of Ash: A Novel (Hoopoe Fiction) in post #255.
063 Guiltless (Sandhamn Murders, #3) in post #259.
064 Tonight You’re Dead (Sandhamn Murders #4) in post #261.
065 In the Heat of the Moment (Sandhamn Mysteries #5) in post #273.
066 In Harm's Way (Sandhamn Murders #6) in post #278.
067 In the Shadow of Power (Sandhamn Murders #7) in post #291.
068 In the Name of Truth (Sandhamn Murders, #8) in post #296.

Previous Burgoine reviews linked here.

THIS THREAD'S BURGOINE REVIEWS:

#15 My Husband in post #45.
#16 Calypso's Guest: A Short Story in post #56.
#17 This World Does Not Belong to Us in post 196.
#18 Urgent Matters in post #197.

Previous Pearl Rule reviews linked here.

THIS THREAD'S PEARL RULE REVIEWS:

PEARL RULE #12 (40%)
The Bridge (Detective Louise Blackwell #6) in post #198.

AUGUST IN REVIEW

#WITMonth (W In Translation) is over, and I met my goal of reading and reviewing at least twenty books by and/or translated by women from my Kindle DRCs. With two over in my pocket, may I add. ::nailbuff::

The best books I read this month, if not the easiest to read, were The Law of Lines and History of Ash: A Novel; I realized forcefully how little I want to read ~meh~ stories when I just could not force myself to finish The Bridge because I literally could not tell which of an almost infinite number of the same "sadist abuses women" books it was. Why are y'all so very eager to read this stuff? There's oceans of it, and not one I've read (or partially read) is distinct from the others.

This brings my 2023 total books reviewed to 89, out of a drastically cut goal of 100. Of course that's based on the strokes I had in January interfering with my reading, apparently a lot less than I expected given how much I've accomplished this month. It was very soothing to make my goal because Pride Month was such an abject failure. I seem to be recovering better than even I hoped. CERTAINLY better than I was told was probable by my rehabilitators, who need to manage people's expectations...I took it as a challenge not an instruction, so have done more than would be ordinary.

No one's said I'm not making sense, so I guess I haven't lost my ability to write! I'm pondering resetting my 2023 goal from 100 to 125 or 150, but haven't decided if that's a good idea or not just yet.

My report on the first quarter of 2023's reading.
June in review.
July in review.
August in review.

Okay. Your turn has arrived!

Happy new thread, Richard!!

Posted that before I finished to be sure I was first :>

Your carpet looks peaceful to me. I hope the fresh smell and pleasant color bring you pleasure and I'm sure you're right about having easy, direct access to your bed. At least your books are still accessible, right?

Have a peaceful, restful day to recover from all of your hard work. OK?

Happy new one, RD!

Happy new thread, Richard dear!

Happy new one RD.

>1 richardderus: A huge fan of tomatoes here dear fellow.

What's wrong with the tomatoes?

Happy new one, Richard!

Hi Richard.
In our home, it would feel worrisome not to have all our books out on shelves (or at least boxed where we can open them handily). I can understand that 'books in storage' is uncomfortable and worrisome.

here's best wishes for a smooth re-jigging of your personal space.

>8 RebaRelishesReading: You're first, Reba, so have a crown:

Neo-Assyrian, no less...been savin' that one up.

The color is pleasant compared to:


I'm down to the puttering stuff, and I need to Ammy up some things before I can truly finish. But everything's HERE! *smooch*

>9 katiekrug: Hiya Katie! *smooch*

>10 FAMeulstee: Thank you, Anita, two visits on the same Thursday is a great threadwarming gift.

>11 PaulCranswick: Me too! Those're some glorious ones, no?

>12 jessibud2: Apart from them not being in my mouth, not thing one.

>13 SandyAMcPherson: Thank you, Sandy. I'm not happy, but I know when to bow to common sense. *sigh*

>14 richardderus: Yay for everything being here. . . er, there.

((Hugs)) and **smooches** RD

>20 alcottacre: Heh

*smooch*

from last thread, post #308 from Caro McElwee: I really can't complain about the notice, Caro. The notice debacles other people had taught them a lesson, and it was always going to be a major production number to get my stuff sorted. Honestly I have no kick about anything except I hate the process of change.

>14 richardderus: OMG! That was your previous carpet pattern?
Yoicks!

>23 SandyAMcPherson: My friend Sarah-Hope said, after seeing that pic, "Who knew William Morris did Brutalist patterns too?"

Tangerine, lime, black spots that always looked like squashed mouse droppings to me, navy blue diamonds...queasy-making. AND IT'S GONE!

Happy new thread, Richard

>22 richardderus: I'm not fond of the process of change either, even without people in authority being improvident, unkind, or otherwise making things worse.

If I were emperor of the world, change would not be imposed on anyone unless the end state was shown to be better for them, counting the process of change itself as a cost. So no changing to things "just as good, except for being new," unless everyone involved wants the change.

>25 ArlieS: Your Imperial Majesty's loyal acolyte wishes to express unreserved approval.

I am actually very happy with the results of the carpet change. And since that was something I very much wanted, why not use that to swallow the bitter pill at the same time?

>24 richardderus: Carpet satisfaction in that regard, not to mention the years (decades?) of ground in filth gone. Sarah-Hope was spot on, I love that description.

>27 SandyAMcPherson: That carpet went in when the renovations after Superstorm Sandy in 2012, so let's say 2014 because when I moved in on 15 January 2015, it was about a year old. I just can not belive that someone chose it deliberately. And most of a decade later, there's no chance whatsoever that it would ever be really clean. (I hate carpetng for that reason. Wood or tile for me, please.)

She really nailed that description for sure and certain.

>14 richardderus: That's an, um, interesting style choice. The grey is certainly an improvement.
Happy new thread.

Happy new thread, Richard!

>14 richardderus: What a beautiful crown!! I will wear it with pride :)

>29 Helenliz: "Interesting" indeed, much as Ebola or radiation sickness is "interesting".

Even if it was just as ugly I'd be thrilled to have new, clean carpet, Helen!

>30 figsfromthistle: Thank you, Anita! *smooch*

>31 RebaRelishesReading: I was saving it for you, Reba...glad you like it! *smooch*

>16 richardderus: Just trying to lure you to my thread ;-)

Happy New Thread, RD! Juno sends a tail wag too.

>35 FAMeulstee: k

I'll be there directly.

>36 msf59: Thank her from me, Birddude! Doggy wags are the best things ever.

Happy New Thread, Richard! I'm glad the new carpet is in , and that you prefer the nice quiet new grey colour. I'm a little jealous that I did not win the crown as I enjoy all things Royal and jewel related. * Smooch*

‘Morning, RDear, and happy Friday to you.

>14 richardderus: Gorgeous crown you gave to Reba, and words fail me re the carpet.

>28 richardderus: There are two things in hindsight we should have done differently when we built our house in 1998:

1. Design the kitchen for a freezerless refrigerator and full-size freezer
2. No carpets anywhere, just red oak hardwood floors and tile. We’ve got carpet in 8 rooms, one set of carpeted stairs, one carpeted hallway, and 7 carpeted closets. Sigh.

*smooch*

>39 vancouverdeb: Thank you, Deb! You gotta be quick to win the crown...unlike real royalty, though, the job's not for life so a new chance comes up fairly quickly.

The color's such a huge improvement that I can't quite quantify how happy it makes me yet. Still so thrilled that ghastly old stuff is gone.

>40 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible! Indeed, the full-sized freezer is a Good Thing to have. I really wanted one of the double-doors-on-top, drawer-freezer-below ones with a full-sized freezer in the pantry at my last house. Alas, not to be.

Death to wall-to-wall! Give me some *cleanable* room-sized rugs every time. Except maybe the stairs...not slipping on the treads is good.

>14 richardderus: Oh, Richard. I had no idea you had been living with something so awful for so long. I praise your stubborn core that has kept you sane. ENJOY that clean, grey, non-offensive carpet. Also congratulations on being a mensch over the whole thing. *smooch*

And Happy New Thread. I can't wait to see what you read next and to tell you about Winter's Orbit, that I'll finish today and love forever.

>43 LizzieD: Thank you, Peggy! And see below for what I just read...can't say I loved it, but it was a very worthwhile use of eyeblinks.

Eager to hear about Winter's Orbit! *smooch*

BURGOINE #15 My Husband by Rumena Bužarovska (tr. Paul Filev)

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Adulterers, cheats, hypocrites, bad seeds—in My Husband, Rumena Bužarovska turns her wry and razor-sharp gaze on men, and on the lives of the women who suffer them.

In these eleven devastatingly precise and psychologically unsettling stories, we follow the female protagonists’ thwarted attempts at intimacy, ranging from pretense, to denial, to violent and ultimately self-destructive acts. This smart, funny, provocative collection demonstrates the profound skills that have made Rumena Bužarovska one of the finest contemporary writers of short fiction in Macedonia. This story collection Mojot Maž in Croatian, (My Husband in English), won the Edo Budiša Award for Best Short Story Collection.

I RECEIVED AN ARC FROM THE PUBLISHER. THANK YOU.

My Review: At eight or nine pages apiece, these stories can't be subjects of my usual Bryce method of synopsizing each one individually. That way spoilers lie, and y'all're very likely to go nuts about them spoilers. In a certain way, though, no matter what I say it'll be a spoiler because in eleven stories nothing changes. Women marry cads and bounders and abusive jackasses who treat them like dirt. Much of a muchness, then.

The reason I finished the book was that the author's voice, as translated by Paul Filev, is raw, blunt, almost brutally rageful; never less than seethingly aware of the injustice of "belonging" to a man and being subject to his will and whims. I cartainly won't re-read it. I'm glad I did read it in the first place. It's the first work translated from Macedonian that I've read. The author seems to be, based on the limited biographical information I can find in English, a big literary light in Macedonia.

Based on this collection, I can see why. Her sort of caustic honesty isn't going to be to everyone's taste, but I found it to be to mine.

>45 richardderus: "A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle."

I'm so glad not to live in a "traditional" culture.

>46 ArlieS: I absolutely agree with that. I'm so glad for you, and for me, that we're not in "traditional" cultures!

Happy new one, Richard! Glad the carpet thing is settling down.

>45 richardderus: Adding that one to the BlackHole. Thanks for the recommendation, Richard. I am not sure her "caustic honesty" will be to my taste, but I am willing to try.

((Hugs)) and *smooches** and wishes for a fantastic Friday!

>48 drneutron: Thank you, Doc! I'm so happy not to have the endless filth of old carpet in my space anymore.

>49 alcottacre: I think you'll appreciate her way with words, Stasia, if not the stories she tells. *smooch* for a happy Friday there, too.

Just caught up with the reno/new carpet drama. Ha, I bet the reason they decided to give advance notice to the next people to get new carpet was because it was too much work to move peoples stuff so they were saving having to do that work by giving you notice. I'm glad that is over and done and you're moved back in.

Happy newish thread, Richard.

>52 Familyhistorian: Thank you, Meg. I'm so pleased that it's behind me. The entire upheaval was unleasant, but the results are so much more worth it than moldering old carpets that reeked of dust. Read hearty this weekend!

*smooch*

The pity party 45 throws for himself and his "aggrieved" followers deserves a true cinematic soundtrack.

>54 richardderus: He is a piece of work, isn't he? I am not sure I would even use that large of a violin for him.

((Hugs)) and **smooches** and hopes for a wonderful weekend, RD!

Burgoine #16 Calypso's Guest: A Short Story by Andrew Sean Greer

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: A bargain with the gods throws two men together in a timeless short story of adventure and unrequited love inspired by The Odyssey by Andrew Sean Greer, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Less . A man in exile, banished to a planet far from home and cursed with immortality, discovers that a ship has crash-landed near his settlement. After two hundred years, his heart’s desire has come true. A visitor has finally arrived on his lonely little speck in the stars. He’ll have companionship again. Someone he could love forever. As the weary traveler heals, the two men form a tender bond. But all they’ve come to share may not be enough to curb the visitor’s irrepressible wanderlust. Now the exile, who thought nothing in his endless life would ever change, must make a decision that will change everything.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM NETGALLEY

My Review: First, read this:

You saved him. Surely you should have been the one to send him {away}.

What is a person except this heap of loss? Otherwise—what wasted breath.

The Odyssey's Calypso passage, between two men and in outer space instead of among Greece's islands. Beware of asking the gods for favors because the answer might be yes. Few things in life hurt more than getting what you ask for because no thing, not a person a place a thought a feeling, no thing is fully knowable. And it's what you don't know about a thing that will stab you and leave you to bleed slowly, weaker with every loss, yet never granted the gift of oblivion.

Like everything of Author Greer's I've read, it does a fine job of filling time agreeably in terms of writing. The way it ends is in the myth it retells and is exactly what one would expect from a man of later middle years whose life is accelerating the process of takings-away that aging represents. If you already like his stuff, this will not disappoint.

>55 alcottacre: Heh...the kind of violin I'd like to use for him is the kind they used on Saint Valentine's Day of 1929 in Chicago.

*smooch*

Happy Sunday! * smooch*

Happy Thingaversary, Richard dear!

‘Morning, Rdear! Happy Sunday to you.

>56 richardderus: I was actually surprised that you’d read anything else by Greer, given how much you love Less, and your tepid at best comments are consistent.

*smooch*

>58 figsfromthistle: Happy Sunday, Anita!

>59 FAMeulstee: Seventeen years...that has to be an internet record of sorts, how many of us have been coming here to conduct our social lives for darn close to two decades. *smooch*

>60 karenmarie: It was a whim, I knew it was short fiction so it couldn't be all THAT painful. It was, as my Goodreads friend Claire Oshetsky said, good to be reminded that mediocre has its place as much as the life-changing revelatory stuff.

*smooch* for a special Sunday's book-club fun.

Amazing, RD! Happy Thingaversary.

>64 karenmarie: Thank you, smoochling. Your own sixteenth is coming soon!

Happy Sunday, Richard. I had a wonderful time hanging out with Joe & Co yesterday. The grandkids are gorgeous. I am sure Joe will post many photos.

>54 richardderus: LOVE IT!!

Happy Thingaversary, RD!

>66 msf59: I'll check in on FB later, see what's gone up...of course it was a good time, y'all're pals snd seeing pals be happy is probably the most fun possible in this Vale of Tears.

>67 katiekrug: Thanks, Katie! Been a long, weird journey. Here's to seventeen more.

>56 richardderus: Beware of asking the gods for favors because the answer might be yes

When I was a whiny young teenager, my mother used to say, "Be careful what you wish for".

Years later, I learned that this saying supposedly derives from Aesop's fables (a highly over-cited source with no scholarly standing, says a classics prof of my acquaintance). Though the book you reviewed doesn't call to me, I think this 'saying' resonates with me still.

>70 SandyAMcPherson: Happy Sunday, Sandy...yeah, the story's not one I'll urge on you, but the idea is one of adulthood's defining insights. Aesop's Fables really are a confabulation of pop-culture accretions and isn't trustworthy as an ancient source as your friend said. Still useful, though, in charting the spread of certain ideas. So many things are like that, aren't they...not what they're billed as but useful anyway. *smooch*

HAPPY THINGAVERSARY, Richard! Happy Richard's Thingaversary to us!!!

>54 richardderus: I think it's totally appropriate that those notes are completely nonsensical, and I can generally hear what written music sounds like by looking at it. I'll give it a shot on the piano when I get home.

Just so you'll know, I did write a "review" of Winter's Orbit.

Happy thingaversary! Seventeen years on LT, Richard. Were the 75ers around that far back?

>72 LizzieD: Thank you, Peggy me lurve! I'm pretty sure they're the musical equivalent of greeked-in type, but it would be interesting to know if it's genuine cacaphony...as it ought to be.

I'll coddiwomple thitherward here directly to see what you have to say. *smooch*

>73 Familyhistorian: Thank you, Meg. Mark told me about the 75ers in 2009, I think, but it might've been around before that. I used to haunt the What Are You Reading Now? group when I first started being social on here. It's been a haven and a homeplace in otherwise unrooted times.

Happy Thingaversary RD. You have been here a year longer than I. Where did all that time go?

>74 richardderus: >75 richardderus: The 75ers started in 2008, I found the group in July that year.
In the first months I only catalogued my books, the social aspect grew on me later.

>76 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caro. I'm wondering the samr thing. What the heck did most of two decades leave us?

>77 FAMeulstee: That makes sense, it was already up and running when I followed Mark here in March.

My first 2009 thread was set up 22 December 2008! https://www.librarything.com/topic/52644

...that blows my mind...

Happy new thread, Richard! I'm glad that things are getting settled now that the new and improved carpet has arrived. As you know from the photos you've seen of my place, I'm completely with you with having wood rather than carpeted floors, and I have to say that old carpet is giving the green one from one of the upstairs bedrooms a run for its money in being absolutely *hideous*.

I'll happily take some of those tomatoes from Julia Child, though.

Sunday *smooches*

>80 bell7: Thanks, Mary! That green carpet in your upstairs bedroom is awful, but at least it's just one color, unlike the old awful stuff here. There's a sort-of man in the grey flannel suit vibe about the new stuff. Quite soothing.

Arm-wrestle ya fer them tomates!

>81 richardderus: you're on for the tomatoes!

*Was* awful, I hasten to add. The whole upstairs is now wood and, since the wood underneath was painted an odd grey-blue color, now painted white. Why, why did people cover perfectly nice wood floors with god-awful, smoke-retaining carpet? *Shudders*

Happy THINGAVERSARY, Richard! 17 years ! Wow, I have not yet hit 15 years. I joined LT Aug 9, 2010, so I guess I just missed my thirteen anniversary here. Just as well, as I purchase too many books anyway. Or at least my husband thinks so. I guess you are still working on your review of I'm Not Going Anywhere . Best wishes with that. A review can be quite a bear, though you seem to excel at them. Happy Week Ahead!

Belated happy Thingaversary, Richard!

>82 bell7: It's a good thing to have that hideousness and filth out of your space. Most people prefer carpet because it's soft and it feels warmer in wintertime. I contend that rugs do that job plus they can be cleaned. REALLY cleaned.

We'll do like Zuck-n-Musk, then, for the tomatoes? Meet in the Colosseum to decide whoe gets the perfect orbs of summer?

>83 vancouverdeb: Thank you, Deb! My book-concupiscence knows no limits, it seems, though it's confined to ebooks not tree books for practical reasons. The story collection reviews take longer to write but they have more to do, so that's fair enough. Every May I promise myself I'll do a May Is Short Story Month review series and every year so far I've failed. Maybe 2024....

Congrats on thirteen years! This is the sort of place one comes home to, or that absolutely repels one...we're the homecomers, obvs!

Happy Thingaversary, Richard. Aw, the "What Are You Reading Now?" group. Lots of fond memories there, my friend and where many of us first connected. I went to the 50 Book Challenge after that and quickly realized all the cool kids were at the 75. 😎

>84 Helenliz: Thank you, Helen! It's hard to conceive of the changes in these two decades, sliding quickly into a third.

Health and long life to Tim! (And get a good succession plan, dude!)

>87 msf59: Well, of course we are...a book a week isn't really much of a challenge to the passionate reader. The What Are You Reading Now? group still gets the occasional new member, but it's never been the juggenaut that the 75ers have been in this space. Been quite a long road, no?

Congrats on your thing-a-versary, Richard!

>90 jessibud2: Thank you most kindly, Shelley! *smooch*

*smooch* for the week, Richard.

As to the tomatoes, I'll take whatever it was that JC chose to make with them.

>92 LizzieD: I'm craving a good tomato sammy these days. Might visit the farmer's market this Saturday to see if someone's got a truly amazing tomato and then have it with buttered rye and onion salt plus pepper.

*smooch*

Hello Richard, a belated Happy New Thread my dear friend.

>94 johnsimpson: Hello John! Thank you for the kind wishes, heartily returned to you and all yours.

Morning, Richard. More rain in our area. It sure beats August heat, which arrives again this weekend, while we are camping. Today will be my last day at Wildlife Rehab. I sure enjoyed my time there, with the critters and some of the staff but it is time to move on. Of course, I will continue to do other volunteer duties throughout the forest preserve system. I just get to do it, when I want to.

>96 msf59: I'm glad the time was well-spent, Birddude, and pleased for you that you're changing roles to match your gentleman-of-leisure time demands. With all the work that needs doing, volunteering in the preserves is a great way to accomplish your goal of not being bored and their goal of explaining the woods to the world.

'Morning, RDear. Happy Tuesday to you.

I am heading out soon to sort books then have the book sale planning meeting.

*smooch*

>98 karenmarie: Have a lovely book-fondle-fest, Horrible, and plan well. Tuesday *smooch*

>93 richardderus: You bet, Richard! That's what happens to our tomatoes. (I'm grinning as I equate your "sammy" to my lifelong friend's "sam-widge.") *smooch* for steamy Tuesday.

>100 LizzieD: Samwidge is a good mondegreen for a sandwich. Whatever one calls it, there's nothing on this wide green Earth better than a really well-prepared breadslice with stuff on/in it.

I miss my Zapotec tomatoes. It never gets hot enough here to grow them, and the windowsill isn't ideal for their sprawling habit.

>57 richardderus: Good point, RD!

>62 richardderus: I did not realize that it was your Thingaversary! I had my 17th this year too, so we must have joined in the same year. Mine was back in May - I am making up for my lack of purchases then by buying a ton of books now.

((Hugs)) and **smooches** and hopes for another 17 years!

>102 alcottacre: Heh...I'm not sure but what 17 years isn't some kind of record in a world that moves as fast as the online one does. I don't usually have a lot to say about my THingaversary since my habit of acquiring books has come under disapproving scrutiny from many sources over the years. Best not to open the door for conversations I don't care to have.

*smooch*

>79 richardderus: Looking at that fist thread... blows my mind too... :-)

>104 FAMeulstee: How many people we've gained and lost over the past fifteen years, eh?

‘Morning, RichardDear! Happy Wed-nez-day to you.

>79 richardderus: I went to your first 2009 thread and damned if I didn’t get a BB – I love Elaine Pagels books and just bought The Origin of Satan. Better late than never, right?

*smooch*

Happy belated thingaversary! When I first joined ( in 2014), it was just to catalogue my books. I also joined the " What are you reading now" group and later the "100 books group". I found the 75ers by accident and although I did not participate in the social aspect as much at the beginning, it felt like home. What a great group!

Happy mid week!

059 Whale by Myeong-kwan Cheon (tr. Chi-Young Kim)

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE

A sweeping, multi-generational tale blending fable, farce, and fantasy—a masterpiece of modern fiction perfect for fans of One Hundred Years of Solitude

Whale is the English-language debut of a beloved and bestselling South Korean author, a born storyteller with a cinematic, darkly humorous, and thoroughly original perspective.

A woman sells her daughter to a passing beekeeper for two jars of honey. A baby weighing fifteen pounds is born in the depths of winter but named “Girl of Spring.” A storm brings down the roof of a ramshackle restaurant to reveal a hidden fortune. These are just a few of the events that set Myeong-kwan Cheon’s beautifully crafted, wild world in motion.

Whale, set in a remote village in South Korea, follows the lives of three linked characters: Geumbok, an extremely ambitious woman who has been chasing an indescribable thrill ever since she first saw a whale crest in the ocean; her mute daughter, Chunhui, who communicates with elephants; and a one-eyed woman who controls honeybees with a whistle. Brimming with surprises and wicked humor, Whale is an adventure-satire of epic proportions by one of the most original voices in South Korea.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: First, read this:

While the man with the scar—the renowned con artist, notorious smuggler, superb butcher, rake, pimp of all the prostitutes on the wharf, and hot-tempered broker—was a taciturn man, he was gregarious with Geumbok, telling her everything about himself. The stories he told her were frightening and cruel, about murder and kidnapping, conspiracy and betrayal—how he was born to an old prostitute who worked along the wharf and was raised by other prostitutes when she died during childbirth, how he grew up without knowing his father, how a smuggler who claimed to be his father appeared in his life, how he stowed away to Japan with this man, how a typhoon came upon them during the journey, how the ship capsized, how the smuggler didn’t know how to swim and flailed in the waves before sinking into the water, how he, who thankfully knew how to swim, drifted onto a beach and lost consciousness, where he was discovered by the yakuza, how he lived with them and learned to use a knife, how he killed for the first time, how he met the geisha who was his first love, how he parted ways with her, how he returned home and consolidated power in this city—but she remained enthralled, as though she were watching a movie.

It really amazed me how very violent this read was. Women, queer people, and children are assaulted in every way you can conceive of on practically every page. This is not to say the women are never the abusers...one woman grooms and sexually assaults a young boy.

Korea, once a backwater place only marginally present in the world's mind, was never expected to be more than the setting of a future war between the US and China. The huge existential dread of living in a place known only as the scene of a war that hasn't happened yet and only a few years away from being the colony of a brutal imperial power that was determined to extirpate its history and culture made all the modern cultural and economic flowering of Korea inconceivable. That has given the worst, most predatory actors free rein to design the socioeconomic climate to empower the lowest, most venal people to excel. (Does this sound familiar, Westerners?) The present-day creators working in Korea are shouting their "NO MORE"s and "NEVER AGAIN"s into excellent, internationally important artworks. This short novel is definitely one of those.

There is a dark, bitter gallows humor in the recounting of the many and various forms of violence in the story. The fact is, there are many very uncomfortable line-crossings of every sort in this family's trip through modernizing Korea. What I understood from this is that the author, who presents, eg, sexual assault as a fact of life, was not sensationalizing the existence of it, or trying to invalidate the experience of it; but was instead making the awful aftermath, the survival of its brutalizing horror, the point of her story...not the acts themselves but the aftermath of quotidian sameness that every victim of violence must, in fact, return to. Dinner still needs to be made, the garden still needs to be weeded, there are bricks to be made and laid, your tedious humdrum existence chugs right along...and that, my spoiled fellow Westerners, is how life is.

Not sensationalized. Not minimized. Lived over, through, shoved into a dark closet and sealed as tightly as is possible. No, it's never going away; yes, it bursts out in strange places in one's post-traumatic life that often cause more trauma; most of the world calls that "getting on with it." We're conditioned to condemn this pragmatism as being less than ideal. It is, in fact, the best and only way poor people all over the planet cope. It is a very privileged response to decry this kind of humor masking awful untold, untellable agony as perpetuating a system that is entrenched.

Not everyone is equipped to rebel, to spark change, and those people deserve out respectful attention, too.

That doesn't make this an easy read but I think it makes this an important read.

By its very nature, a story contains adjustments and embellishments depending on the perspective of the person telling it, depending on the listener’s convenience, depending on the storyteller’s skills. Reader, you will believe what you want to believe.

>106 karenmarie: Woden's Day smooches, Horrible. Fabulous book to be bulleted by; the aim from fourteen years ago is surprising to me only because I'd've thought you'd already read and loved that one before now. Still, a book-bullet's a book-bullet so I'm carving another notch in my holster.

>107 figsfromthistle: Thanks, Anita! I never got very interested in the 100 books group, it's too quiet for me.this group's annual incarnations dominate the posting-count scoreboard every year, though some decline in both membership and posting levels have occurred; but it's far and away the most welcoming and chatty group here. I'm very glad you joined in, and appreciate you for your friendly and positive presence.

*smooch*

>108 richardderus: Wow, Richard. I was reading along thinking "no thanks, not for me" and then I get to your final statement and now I'm re-thinking. Not at all sure, but re-thinking.

>111 RebaRelishesReading: You're farther along than most, then, Reba. It's a very easy thing to just give things you aren't sure will add to your stock of jollity a wide berth...not always a good idea.

>79 richardderus: My first thread brings back memories too, RD: https://www.librarything.com/topic/28160

It is hard to believe it has been 15 years since I joined this wonderful group of people!

>108 richardderus: Adding that one to the BlackHole. Thanks for the review and recommendation.

((Hugs)) and **smooches** and wishes for a wonderful Wednesday. . .

>113 alcottacre777: Your eeeville knoweth not of bounds, rotten-souled fiend. You book-bulleted me seventeen years on!!
236. I Dreamed I Married Perry Mason by Susan Kandel
Horrifying! Unacceptable! Shame and contumely be heapèd upon thee!

However, I completely concur with your post #171 responding to Linda:

Library Thing is a marvelous resource. I've expanded my reading habits and embraced books I never would have known about save for this site. I understand completely - you should see my reading list from 2 years ago when I joined LT. It consisted primarily of romances and mysteries along with a few nonfiction books along the way. Don't get me wrong - I have nothing against romances and mysteries, I still read them - it's just that they do not challenge me the way a lot of the reading I am doing now does. LT has expanded my reading horizon beyond anything I could have foreseen. I get very excited about lists such as avaland's and Cariola's because they seem to read books that are very much outside of my box and it challenges me to try them!

>1 richardderus: Happy new thread!!

>114 richardderus: I willingly accept all 'shame and contumely,' RD. After all, you hit me with a BB pretty much every time I visit your thread! Lol

>115 richardderus: And it is still so 15 years later, maybe even more so. I read almost no romances these days, but actively seek out books from Asian authors and those that make the Booker list.

>116 ocgreg34: Thank you most kindly, Greg!

>117 alcottacre: It's nothing short of amazing how much influence a community has on the behaviors and tastes of its members. *smooch*

Author Brian Klaas discusses the huge problems attendant on Power. His book Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How it Changes Us is out now.

>119 richardderus: Definitely agree! **smooches** back at you

Someone just found my blog today...forty-six views of today's total of 100 are one-offs of old reviews. I love those days!

Happy Thursday, Richard dear!

>119 richardderus: We are influenced by eachother. Before I found this group it was sometimes hard to find a next book to read. With an exponently grown TBR it is now only a choice between many :-)

>122 richardderus: Wishing you more blog visitors like that.

Sweet Thursday, Richard. "Whale" sounds like a tough read but also one that I would really like to read. I am off on another camping trip, just for the weekend. I head out this afternoon and will get everything set up and Sue and Juno will join me tomorrow afternoon. It is just over an hour away, so not bad.

Have a good weekend, my friend.

>123 FAMeulstee: Thank you, Anita! I'm glad when someone stumbles across me who "gets it" but those occasions aren't frequent. Honestly, I don't care so much about obscurity. Huge volumes of traffic would make me susceptible to phishing and other awful side effects.

*smooch*

>124 msf59: It's a very tough read indeed, Mark, but I found it worthwhile. I think you might as well.

Have a great weekend's camping!

'Morning, Rdear! Happy Thursday to you.

>109 richardderus: I've got several books on my shelves because of you - Montana 1948 and Cahokia immediately to mind - but also 5 on my since Jan 2021 wish list, two of which are also on my shelves.

*smooch*

>127 karenmarie: Decade-plus old book bullets just *feel* better, more like I've accomplished something, though. I'm just glad we're all interested enough to keep our TBRs open to new things.

>123 FAMeulstee: With an exponently grown TBR That may be the understatement of the year! For me, when I started in this group, I had Mount TBR, which then expanded to Continent TBR, and finally became The BlackHole. I tell everyone that I can never die - I have too many books to read yet!

>127 karenmarie: I also have Montana 1948 sitting here to read along with several other of Richard's recs.

((Hugs)) and **smooches** for today, RD

>119 richardderus: That's why good communities are so wonderful.

>129 alcottacre: I resemble that remark. At least I've mostly stopped buying additions to Galaxy TBR, unless I stumble on them used. I keep lists, and prioritize those available to me from libraries.

>129 alcottacre: Immortality is my fate as well, if I can't die until I get through my TBR. Realistically, I'll enter the black with hundreds, thousands even, of unread things I just MUST get to right now. *smooch*

>130 ArlieS: Couldn't agree more, Arlie.

Hi Richard! I'm trying to catch up on threads about once a week, and between you and Paul C, that's a lot of reading! 😂🤣 Hope your day is going well!

>127 karenmarie: >129 alcottacre: I helped edit Montana 1948 when I worked at Milkweed back in the day!! Enjoy it when you get to it. : )

And Ricardo--smooch, smooch, smooch! Keep those TBR piles going so you can live a long and happy life. xoxo

>133 The_Hibernator: It's good to see you, Rachel! Don't feel pressured to "keep up" around here. Dou your thing and enjoy yourself! Everything is all still gonna be here...no stress required.

>134 Berly: Thank you, Berly-boo! I'm happy to see you around given how very busy you've been all summer long.

*smooch*

Hope your Thor’s Day is going well! Skol! (As people watching the (Minnesota) Vikings say…)

Karen O

Happy day, Richard! Hope it was a good one filled with excellent books.

>137 klobrien2: Thank you most kindly, Karen O.!

>138 bell7: A perfectly fine day indeed, Mary! *smooch*

‘Morning, RDear! Happy Friday to you.

Well. *blinks* Stasia has Montana 1948 because of you and Kim helped edit it. Okay, okay. This might be inducement enough to finally read it.

*smooch*

>141 karenmarie: Good gravy, Horrible! Whatever it takes is what it takes but get it into your head ASAP!!

Friday *smooch*

'Morning, again, RDear, one day later. Happy Saturday to you.

I'm still stunned with sleep, trying to wake up.

edited to add *smooch* because I'm still brain dead.

Saturday! Good grief. I was here lurking Thursday but not yesterday. Good to be back!

Enjoy your weekend. Read a lot. Comment some. *smooch*

>143 karenmarie: Wakey-wakey, smoochling! Time to...wait...we're retired! Ain't time to do diddly. Doze the day away if you're so inclined, Horrible. I'm all about the enabling around here.

>144 LizzieD: Happy Saturday, Peggy! I'm so glad you're done with the eye shots for now. Welcome back! *smooch*

A Sunday thought for the day via A Word A Day's Anu Garg:
If we were to wake up some morning and find that everyone was the same race, creed, and color, we would find some other cause for prejudice by noon. -George D. Aiken, US senator (20 Aug 1892-1984)

>147 richardderus: I'm now debating whether to add this to my collection of email signatures, selected randomly when I compose a message.

>148 ArlieS: I would encourage you to add it to the rotation, Arlie; I think it says something very, very important to remind people about at random times.

>147 richardderus: Too true RD.

>150 Caroline_McElwee: Ain't it just. *sigh*

Hiya, RD! Happy Sun Day to you.

>147 richardderus: Ain’t that the truth! I was thinking about the economic version of that after listening to bits of Lethal White the other day – the redistribution of wealth – and realizing that everybody in the world could be equalized financially and within a short period of time there’d be billionaires and paupers all over again.

We watched the final of the World Cup. It was exciting, and worthy of being a final.

We might have London Broil if I can get it defrosted gracefully in time to cook it, along with whatever I can scrounge up as sides.

*smooch*

>152 karenmarie: Hey Horrible. Nothing on this Earth will guarantee or protect equality except penalties and punishments. People believe they'll be the lucky ones who'll escape the prison, but they will not. Oh well. Can't fix the world. Gawd hasn't and she's had longer'n any of us to do it.

I heard the Lionesses lost, to which my only response is, "is that right." Broiling London seems apt under those circs. *smooch*

>153 richardderus: They did indeed. A game too far. But seeing the men haven't been to football world cup final since 1966, we'll call that a success if not actually a win.

I watched parts of it from behind the ironing. I'm not good at sporting stress.

>154 Helenliz: Better luck next time, then. I understand the festivities that the men's sport would've been given by right were largely absent from y'all's public sphere, too...but misogyny isn't any more real than climate change....

I'm just not interested in the entire sport, so it's never going to matter to me.

>155 richardderus: I'm not a football fan either. I watched parts of it because it struck me as one of those "I remember where I was when..." moments!
Oh well. Them be the breaks!

The coverage has been different. Less wall-to-wall but also less aggressive, less chip on the shoulder for being crap for the last half century or so. And almost entirely female punditry and commentary.

>156 Helenliz: I hope that's progress, not just further marginalization. Not that I think I'd know one from the other in this case.

Hey, RD. We are back and I have a quiet week ahead, which is okay with me. It is supposed to be triple digits mid-week. Ugh! Should get in lots of reading. The latest McBride has been terrific. I hope you had a relaxing, pain-free weekend.

060 I'm Not Going Anywhere by Rumena Bužarovska (tr. Steve Bradbury)

Rating: 4.75* of five, rounded down for honesty

The Publisher Says: Razor-sharp social commentary, Jane Austen for contemporary feminists unafraid to confront a dark world

In her latest translated volume of collected short fiction, Rumena Bužarovska delivers more of what established her as “one of the most interesting writers working in Europe today.” Already a bestseller across her native Macedonia, I’m Not Going Anywhere is an unsentimental and hyperrealist collection in which Macedonians leave their country of origin to escape bleakness—only to find, in other locales, new kinds of desolation in these dark, biting, and utterly absorbing stories.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Seven stories, all centering women and their feelings; few socially acceptable, none positive.

Not having participted in heterosexuality for quite some time now, I am left utterly verschmeckeled by its continued existence. Exactly no women whose writing gets attention write of happiness connected to men. In romantic fiction, after the couple is established, the story ends; and none of them start with happy straight people. Of my own personal knowledge, there are almost no women really happy in their state of making eternal compromises and settlings they make to maintain relationships to their men. Why are y'all bothering? It's not great for anyone involved to be in what amounts to prison with a cellmate you condescendingly tolerate at best, despise and detest at worst.

Well...no one's makin' me do it, so my only interest is an outsider's appalled fascination. Self-inflicted harm seems so wasteful. Not one of these stories is going to challenge my observation's validity; that Author Bužarovska is a multi-award-winning chronicler of straight women's experience suggests to me that she's on to something or the kudos wouldn't flow.

Strap in...we're headin' into the venerable institution of the Bryce Method to examine a little of what she is talking about in this collection.

The Vase reminds me of the drunken fights, the rage and hatred of being Stuck, stuck with-stuck in-stuck under, that there bursts out the sudden overpowering need to break shit just to make the world hurt a little bit like you are. That time in my own life was hellish. It's all right here in a few pages.

With every drink I am getting more and more pissed at him, and at his mother for not dying. The idea that she is sitting there all sick and hideous in her living room like a neglected houseplant, watching stupid soap operas all day, enrages me.

The poison of disappointment and the rage of thwarted entitlement eat caustically away until they spill out, paradoxically, as acid recrimination. 4 unhappy stars

Blackberries charts the course of a passive, purposeless thirty-three year old as she aimlessly moves towards the scene of a dreamlike past to test whether she was even real as a child. Her memories of the place guide her in opening the old cottage her grandparents had. The scenes of domestic contentment shining in front of her dingy present include memories of a vivid friend from that past; these seem to conjure the now-woman from the stones, summon her back to this crumbling haunt from her passionate intense life in the US. A tiny flicker of life, a spark of connection, then the fog descends again.

Was it even real? Does it matter if it isn't? She is never going to burst into glorious flower, like her childhood friend. There is no mass in her to go critical. 4 stars

I flick on the living room light: it works. I flick on all the light switches: everything is working; nothing is amiss. But it can't be, I say to myself. Nothing is ever right. That's just how it looks.

Tsi-Tse brings the cost of settling instead of settling down to the diametric opposite of the earlier stories' impoverished as well as unhappy lives. Elena thought she escaped Macedonia's grinding poverty by marrying an American man with a good job and moving to New Mexico. She found loneliness, isolation, and motherhood's endless unmeetable demands. She also failed to disentangle herself from her ill, needy father. Returning to Skopje when he has a stroke, she's in the eternally tempting path of cheating because her high-school crush Jovan has been in email contact...ain't the twenty-first century grand?...and the lure of Home is so deep...dreams are, after all, deepest when one is dreaming. Pesky reality has no chance to screw things up in dreams. Pity dreams can't last. 4 stars

I'm Not Going Anywhere is Riste-the-incel's humiliated homecoming to his Mama in Skopje after his hottie wife and teenaged daughter finally work up the nous to trade up men. The escape to Australia that he participated in gave them the scope to do better than his bitter, furious, abusive self. Now he's unloading all his pent-up anger on his mother, a portly, poor, elderly woman whose life has clearly been spent as some man or another's dogsbody.

After throwing a tantrum about his mother's goulash being inferior, he storms off to get some veal and show her how it's done. This leads ro a reckoning with his past that he clearly expected to go differently than it did. I found spending time in Riste's company thoroughly unpleasant. 3.5 stars

Medusa pilots us to what, from the off, I was certain was going to be a grisly cocktail party with a pair of Balkan academics visiting some very, very nouveau riche fellow-countrymen in that couple's ever-so-new-money new-build mansion. It doesn't help that the guest's husband is in the sights of the host's wife....

We've been to that party, or at least those of us over a certain age have, and it's a grim, brutal evening. In this telling of it, it very much is that awful, brutal evening for all concerned. 4 stars

Cherokee Red brutalizes a gay kid with a homophobic father whose immigrant status marks the whole family out in ever-so-sunny, ever-so-hot Phoenix...about as far from Macedonia geographically and culturally as a place on Earth can get.

You never know what words will fall where they can do the most damage, do you, and yet there most people are spouting the most revolting kind of hatred and ignorance without a care in the world. Bitter anger, hatred, self-loathing all wound up in a bloated, bombastic, shouting boozehound's nightmarish effusion demonstrating his nithingness. 4 stars

The 8th of March plunged me back into the bad memories of being in alcoholic relationships. The utter, appalling humiliation of Vesna-the-drunk stirred up bad old days, and brought a giant rush of anxiety my way. Horrifyingly cruel, this portrait of self-pity and utter, abject, appallingly public humiliation is easily the most perfectly realized of the whole collection. No alcoholic needs any help destroying their life, but sometimes Life provides them a stage. Harrowing. 5 stars

>158 msf59: Happy you're so peacefully back at home, unhappy that the Weather Goddess decided to set her oven on broil. Live over it, I guess that's the best you can hope for.

Good morning, Richard. I do believe I'll skip “one of the most interesting writers working in Europe today.” I could do with a story or two, but not that many in a row. As to heteromarriage, I'm grateful for it. It's not perfect, but it's certainly not hell either, and sometimes it approaches heaven.
*smooch* for the day!

>161 LizzieD: I completely understand your response to Rumena Bužarovska, Peggy, and think you're wise to conserve your eyeblinks for fare more suited to your readerly palate.

Yay for being happy in the institution of marriage.

>159 richardderus: You write:

"Not having participated in heterosexuality for quite some time now, I am left utterly verschmeckeled by its continued existence. Exactly no women whose writing gets attention write of happiness connected to men. In romantic fiction, after the couple is established, the story ends; and none of them start with happy straight people. Of my own personal knowledge, there are almost no women really happy in their state of making eternal compromises and settlings they make to maintain relationships to their men. Why are y'all bothering? It's not great for anyone involved to be in what amounts to prison with a cellmate you condescendingly tolerate at best, despise and detest at worst."

I also haven't done heterosexuality in a while, but I suspect your observation has at least as much to do with whose writing gets attention, as with the life experience of real women.

There are, sadly, plenty of terrible relationships, and patterns of bad relationship exemplified by the stories you reviewed. But it seems as if many (most?) het women find their relationships to be a net benefit to them. Not perfect - perfection doesn't exist. But better than living alone, or living with other women they don't find sexually interesting, and this is no longer generally because of financial dependence.

I find it interesting that among my married/otherwise committed friends and long-term aquaintances, the happiest among us and those with (to my mind) the healthiest relationships are the ones who don't have children. Maybe the problem isn't heterosexuality, but spawning ;-)

I'm very happily married to an imperfect man (and I'm no model of perfection myself), and our relationship works because the compromising flows equally from both sides. I'll spare you my well-worn rant about "happy wife, happy life"...

I suspect a happy marriage, where the two participants rub along gently is not terribly interesting to anyone outside it. The first line of Anna Karenina is "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." The stable, safe, slightly boring relationship probably isn't going to be a source of great prose or interest; the unhappy marriage or the unusual relationship are all going to attract more interest from someone looking to write an exciting or dramatic story.

Maybe the happy marriage (as opposed to the happy ever after) is just under represented in great literature. Is there a LGBTQ version? Or is it just happy hetero marriage that is shunned??

I find the romance genre stops short. Getting together is great, but its the next 20, 40 60 years that are where the living and loving actually happens. I'm still in love with him (it changes after nearly 30 years, but it's still love) and know I'd be unhappier without him. OK, I moan about him every now & then, but it's certainly an account in credit.

>163 ArlieS: I suspect your observation has at least as much to do with whose writing gets attention, as with the life experience of real women

So stipulated.

>164 katiekrug: The list of novels about women without children yet with husbands is immensely smaller than the Standard Model, for sure.

>165 Helenliz: My response to the romantic swooner Maurice by EM Forster, both book and film, was, "...and what did these two ill-suited men talk about for the next twenty years?" Conversation lasts a lot longer than attraction. A. Lot.

Hi Richard - I made it over! Looks like I missed your Thingaversary; belated congratulations! You've been here for two more years (less a couple of weeks) than I have. And I gather that your premises have been undergoing their own renovation too.

>40 karenmarie: I want a freezer-less fridge and full-sized freezer (though I'll wait for what we have to need replacing) but I haven't been able to find them. A freezer-less fridge is especially hard to find here.

>169 humouress: Howdy do, Nina...my new carpeting is a real pleasure to have for certain. The best thing about it was having days to do preparation. I know others who were not quite so lucky. I can't locate exactly one thing after the move, a loose-change jar, but big deal!

I can't recall the last time I saw a freezerless fridge outside a laboratory...so maybe check some medical-equipment purveyors?

Hiya, RDear! Happy Tuesday to you.

>159 richardderus: Seven stories, all centering women and their feelings; few socially acceptable, none positive. Quickly zoomed past, which shouldn’t surprise you at all.

>163 ArlieS: Hmm. As you know, I’m in a heteromarriage. My heterosexuality determined the sex of my partner, and dare I say that one of the major reasons I got legally married is because I wanted to have a child. Being born in 1953 I still felt, 33 years ago, that having a child within the bounds/constraints of a legal marriage was the best way to go. Having said that, I had put a time limit on finding the man to marry to have a child - if I wasn't in a committed relationship that would lead to marriage/children by the time I was 38, then I'd simply have a child on my own, staying in LA near my family and friends and having lots of uncles for my child.

Now, not so much feeling that marriage is important to having a child. Family, bio or found, friends, and a support network are what are required to raise a child, whether that's legal marriage or not are what's absolutely necessary. The benefits of a legal marriage, for me, were/are the ability to leverage earnings into a nicer home than I would have had otherwise, getting the aforementioned child, and loving a good man. The disadvantages are that after 33 years my good man has changed in some fundamentally unhappy-making ways related to his health and world view (Nope – hasn’t gone to the Gang of Psychos dark side). I love him AND miss the kind of marriage I used to have.

People didn’t used to live as long and marriages didn’t have to last as long, although divorce has become more acceptable as a way of correcting mistakes of compatability and of getting away from abuse.

Straightmarriage and gaymarriage are, I believe, part of a marriage spectrum. People get married for lots of reasons, some related to their sexuality and/or romantic needs, some economic, some social, and etc.

Wow, just enough coffee to not feel like my brain’s exploded.

*smooch*

Good morning, Richard. I'm enjoying all the conversation your commentary on Rumena Bužarovska has stirred. Thanks! I look forward to the next one.

>171 karenmarie: Marriage is an Institution. The genitalia of the parties to it are, in fact, irrelevant. That's the major mistake the "gay marriage" folk made from the beginning. It's about marriage EQUALITY, a much easier sell to the legions of eww-ick homophobes than the prurient focus on what goes where and who does what to whom.

As An Institution, marriage is ill-defined, and poorly designed for its inmates. No one is taught what it takes to sustain an emotional connection to a fundamentally unknowable-yet-boringly-predictable Other. (I sure wasn't, anyway.) Couples grope through slightly lightening gloom towards a system of living with their choices' consequences in this day and age, but even that tiny ray of light doesn't suit the control freaks.

How to build a family isn't taught, either, and who counts as family...exactly none of my blood relatives count as family to me, f/ex...is another thing that we're busily rediefining, and that too scares the bejabbers out of the "this way and no other" controllers.

Long-term relationships are hard for everyone. Marriage is at best glue, at worst concrete, in which we consent to be entangled so as not to simply walk out on the relationship when the going gets rough. Not that this has ever stopped anyone willing to pay the social and economic price of abandoning ship....

Is there a good solution? On a societal level, probably not. As parties to the agreement, possibly but not probably. But possibly is hugely preferable to nothing at all.

>172 LizzieD: Morning, Peggy! I'm glad that this writer's work is as stimulating to others as it was to me. The coversations are interesting to me, and I think they're important for everyone to have, or at least see others having. There's no telling what will be the last straw that breaks a block in someone's emotional frozenness. So I think it's kind of a duty to talk about hard things publicly.

>108 richardderus: I've been eyeing Whale on our new book shelf. Temptation increases.

>159 richardderus: Sounds like an appealing set of stories. Re: marriage. I've been in one for thirty years and the most important thing I know is that I have no business telling anybody else how to do it.

>175 swynn: I hope you'll march forth on the morow, grab Whale forcefully off its criminally occupied shelf when it should be circulating, and devour it.

No one who's made it thirty years into a relationship with another human being without criminal charges being filed should hoard their knowledge and insights.

>176 richardderus: You made a new Grandpa smile as your rarely fail to do, RD.

I am in an unseasonably good mood today - the main reason being 7llbs and as cute as candy.

Happy Wednesday, Richard. I spent a few hours yesterday afternoon visiting with birthday boy Jack and he was in a very good mood. He is starting to string a few words together and of course that brings smiles to all of us.

It will be close to triple digits today and tomorrow, along with hefty humidity so minimal outdoor activities for me. I am enjoying The Finkler Question, so I am glad I decided to tackle it.

‘Morning, RDear! Happiest of Wednesdays to you.

>173 richardderus: I honestly don’t think you can sell ‘gay marriage’ to folks if they approach it from gayness=sin. That seems to me to be the overriding principle for many Christians, unfortunately. NOT all, I hasten to add, and none here that I know of in our group. I’ve been having some discussions with friend Karen in Montana about Christianity recently (well, we almost always discuss it because she’s Christian and I’m a heathen *smile*). I’ll put a bit on my thread about what we’ve been discussing to not clutter it up more here than this message, which is my last on the subject.

People aren’t given the proper tools for adulting and only have what they see in their parents/families/friends to emulate. Unfortunately, in most cases, the examples are not very good. I’ve always held that high school students should be required to take a basic personal finances class and a basic personal relationships class.

Since having close family members who came out (some with horrific experiences, some with good experiences) and reading gay romances, many of which have coming-out backstories, I have a better appreciation of bio family vs. found family.

Heh. Glue or concrete. Except for one time I was always the one to walk away from a relationship, but marriage is different for me in that 32 years builds lots of entanglements.

>175 swynn: I've been in one for thirty years and the most important thing I know is that I have no business telling anybody else how to do it. I agree 100%, Steve.

>177 PaulCranswick: Off to visit, Grandpa!

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>177 PaulCranswick: That's wonderful PC! I'm so happy things went well and Yasmyne and bundle are safely through the watery passage. I assume there will be photos...how's Hani holding up? That long flight and then *bam* more work for mothers.

>178 msf59: Keep a-Finklering, Birddude. That kind of heat is very unhealthy. I hope it passes soon.

>179 karenmarie: *smoochiesmoochsmooch*

I'm of the long-term opinion that no one walks away from anyone they've loved except in body. Even if you're not in love with who they've become, you're always in love with the one you fell for. After 32 years, even if you left Bill's body you'd never, ever leave his ghost or his impact on you. That's the glue. And it can't be removed without taking way too much of your skin with it. The strands get long and thin, sometimes, but they really don't break.

Couldn't agree more about the financial and emotional literacy of our children. It's being chucked out like the rest of the self-preservation skills They don't want us to have.

I'll come visit shortly to see your expanded thoughts from the Institution you're committed to.

061 My Men: A Novel by Victoria Kielland (tr. Damion Searls)

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Based on the true story of Norwegian maid turned Midwestern farmwife Belle Gunness, the first female serial killer in American history. My Men is a fictional account of one broken woman's descent into inescapable madness.

Among thousands of other Norwegian immigrants seeking freedom, Brynhild Størset emigrated to the American Upper Midwest in the late nineteenth century, changing her name and her life. As Bella, later Belle Gunness, she came in search of not only fortune and true faith but, most of all, love.

From Victoria Kielland, a rising star of Norwegian literature, comes My Men, a literary reimagining of the harrowing true story of Belle Gunness, who slowly but irreversibly turned to senseless murder for release from her pain, becoming America’s first known female serial killer. In pursuit of her American Dream, Kielland’s Belle grows increasingly alienated, ruthless, and perversely compelling.

Raw, visceral, and altogether hypnotic, My Men is a brutal yet radically empathetic glimpse into the world of a woman consumed by desire.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: When a writer sets their talent to the task of fictionalizing evil, there are choices to make that will determine the level of suspension of disbelief the reader's being asked to invest. Is the evil inherent (readily believable), evoked (sympathetically believable), or situational (tough to justify or invest in)? Is the perpetrator the victim lashing out, taking power back, or simply looking to survive in hard conditions? All of these ask us, as readers, to put aside our judgments of the bad actor to some extent and to come to a fuller understanding of what really happened (in the cases where evil is factually based, as this one is).

I'll say that I understood Belle Gunness a lot differently after this read than before it.

A more-or-less stream of consciousness, loosely structured narrative style suits the apparent purpose of humanizing a murdering, remorseless killer of many people. What the author seems to want me to do is to think of Belle as a person, in hard circumstances, not as just a killing machine. That didn't happen. As I followed her increasingly disordered thoughts and feelings, as I saw what she saw and worked back from there to her probable outside stimulus, I felt sympathy drain away from me. This is the situationally evil character, one who just does what she (in this case) does because she can. This person was a killer who liked killing for the power it conferred on her. The inner thoughts of such a person, as ficionalized, left me thinking how very easy it seemed to be for her to untether her blunted, stunted moral sense from anything that was outside her own mind. I'd assumed Gunness was existentially threatened herself and then enacted that on others. Before this read, what I saw was a need to redress her powerless victim state. After, she came through these pages as a narcissistic bundle of insecurities with a grossly overblown sense of what the world owed her.

If, like me, you thought we'd get a retelling of the life Belle Gunness led that made her what she was, get that out of your head. We're inside Belle's mind, arguably a more interesting place to be. It's going to put some readers off, because it's 100% conjecture. You're not tethered to the facts of Belle's life. You're asked to put aside that readerly need. Your disbelief buys you, however, the strange and deeply interesting view of a murdering sociopath's thought processes.

I hope like hell someone at the publisher's end made more than a cursory check on the author's background because she's very, very good...chillingly good...at making this horrifying person's inner life accessible to a casual reader.

I don't think everyone will appreciate this read. I know I expected something other than what I got. I liked the actual book better than the one I thought I'd be reading in the end.

Happy mid week !

>184 figsfromthistle: Thanks, Anita!

Happy Thursday, Richard dear!

>182 richardderus: Agree, every long term relation has an impact that lasts.
If it was a very toxic relation, one might need a little help with removing the most bothering parts...

Your last couple of reads don't seem to be my cup of tea at all, but I'm enjoying reading the discussion that's ensued.

Happy Thursday *smooch*

>186 FAMeulstee: Thursday orisons, Anita! Therapy, since it's worked so well for me, seems to me to be a drastically underapplied remedy for the emotional ills of the world. Of course, that presupposes its wide availablility, which just ain't reality. I'm so grateful that I live in a time and a place where my emotional health is considered valuable enough to care for.

>187 bell7: Thursday *smooches* Mary...nope, nothing I've read recently strikes me as something you should, personally or professionally, be aware of. Tomorrow's either, it must be said. #WITMonth hasn't been a bag of jollies it must be said. I like being involved in a read, though, and it can't be denied that they've each and all met that need.

>183 richardderus: Wait ... did you just suspect an author of possibly being a serial killer?

Hiya, RD! Happy Thursday.

All quiet on the central NC front. Treadmill and getting used to the leg brace, reading, hanging out.

*smooch*

>190 humouress: "Suspect" is stronger than the reality. It's more a dark little possibility that occurred to me as I read along. The degree of empathy needed to write this kind of story is so above and beyond the level mosst of us have access to makes me a little uncomfortable. That's not to say I think I'm correct but I do think it'd bear looking into.

>191 karenmarie: Hiya Horrible! Was just over at yours saying much the same thing. *smooch*

>183 richardderus: That one is of interest to me. Thanks for the review, RD!

Thanks for coming over to check on me when I was not feeling well :)

((Hugs)) and **smooches**

>194 alcottacre: It's really very interesting reading, Stasia. I'm sure it'll fascinate you if you can convince the library to get one. The mainstream reviews are sparse but positive, which could count for a lot.

*smooches*

BURGOINE #17

This World Does Not Belong to Us by Natalia García Freire (tr. Victor Meadowcroft)

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A journey to the bowels of the earth

After years away, Lucas returns uninvited to the home he was expelled from as a child. The garden has been conquered by weeds, which blanket his mother’s beloved flowerbeds and his father’s grave alike. A lot has changed since Eloy and Felisberto were invited into the family home to work for Lucas’s father, long ago. The two hulking strangers have brought the land and everyone on it under their control—and removed nuisances like Lucas. Now everything rots.

Lucas, a hardened young man, turns to a world that thrives in dirt and darkness: the world of insects. In raw, lyrical prose, García Freire portrays a world brought low by human greed, while hinting at glimmers of hope in the unlikeliest places.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: A very short, relatively dense novella-length story of the eternal balancing act between fathers and sons that never ends, never changes, and can't be resolved.

What makes this book unique is its fairly unpleasant fascination with rot, rotting, rottenness, and the hugely productive life the inarguable primacy of this process sustains. The role of the strongmen who take over this deeply rotten family system play is the first among those battening on the rot. The inevitable fall of the father from his position of control is prefigured in the title. What makes it a good read is its attentive eye on the metaphor of rotting...nothing in the story is even slightly out of sync with that central spine of meaning.

BURGOINE #18

Urgent Matters by Paula Rodríguez (tr. Sarah Moses)

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: An electric Argentinian thriller featuring a deadly train crash, two unidentified bodies, and a missing murder suspect—perfect for fans of Attica Locke and Steph Cha

The Americans are more astute when it comes to matters like these. They say “not guilty”. They don’t say “innocent”. Because as far as innocence goes, no one can make that claim.

A train crashes in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, leaving forty-three fatalities, two of which have not been identified. A prayer card of Saint Expeditus, the patron saint of urgent matters, flutters above the wreckage.

Hugo, a criminal on the run for murder, is on the train. He seizes his chance to sneak out of the wreckage unsuspected, abandoning his possessions—and, he hopes, his identity—among bodies mangled beyond recognition.

As the police descend on the scene, only grizzled Detective Domínguez sees a link between the crash and his murder case. Soon, he’s on Hugo’s tail. But he hasn’t banked on everything from the media to his mother-in-law getting in the way.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Fast, fun, mordantly funny...I hope the publisher's comps of Cha and Locke are resonating with you, because I think they're spot-on. There's little to mark this very entertaining read out of a crowded field, though, except some they-work-for-you or don't hints of hilariously implied Heavenly intercession. As foreshadowed in the synopsis, guilt and/or innocence really aren't the point here, so the ma'at-oriented mystery reader might not be well-served here...more, to me, of a Highsmith/gray hero vibe.

PEARL RULE #12 (40%)

The Bridge (Detective Louise Blackwell #6) by Matt Brolly

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Accident? Dangerous game gone wrong? Or murder? DI Blackwell faces her toughest case yet.

When the body of a young woman is discovered in a shipping container in Bristol, the police suspect she was an illegal immigrant whose death was a tragic accident. But their theory is shot down by two pieces of evidence: the container was due to ship out, not in; and, even more sinister, a video camera with a live feed was filming her from a hidden compartment.

Someone watched her die. Slowly.

DI Louise Blackwell is ten weeks pregnant, a fact she has largely kept to herself, and between bouts of morning sickness she now has a murder to investigate. While the docks offer few other clues, the discovery of more live feeds convinces Blackwell that there are other trapped women…and that some of them are still alive.

As she scours historic missing-persons cases looking for a pattern to the abductions, Blackwell finds herself in a race against time to uncover the voyeuristic killer’s motive and stop any more women becoming caught in the cruel and deadly game. But with every step being closely monitored, can she outwit a murderer whose method means staying hidden?

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: At the end of chapter seventeen, I realized I could not justify the expenditure of eyeblinks on this story any more. It isn't bad, or poorly written. It's just indistinguishable from many, many other women-in-sexual-jeopardy books and I don't like reading those all that much. This is #6 in a series but, I say this without a trace of malice, it's enough like so many books that it doesn't matter. The main character is newly pregnant and facing an uncertain future in the police...the boyfriend's a brick who wants more than she's interested in giving...her family's pretty crappy, but have hearts of gold...need I say more? It's okay.

I'm not okay with that anymore.

Happy Friday, Richard. Today will be in the mid-80s which will feel downright comfortable after the last 2 scorchers. A beautiful weekend ahead too, which will be perfect for Jack's family birthday party. We also get him this afternoon.

I am nearly finished with The Finkler Question and I am glad I finally read it, but it began to wear me down in the last 100-plus pages. All that friggin' angst...

>199 msf59: Yes, it's a one-note read that's redeemed, in my reading of it, by its presentation of that ubiquitous angst as Finkler's tragic flaw. A bit more foregrounded than perhaps I'd've chosen, but a pretty emotionally astute choice by Author Jacobson.

It's raining here today, so not hot, and essentially that's all I ask of early fall days. Have a terrific Jack-party, and a happy old weeked, Birddude.

Hiya, RD! Happy Friday.

>196 richardderus: “The bowels of the earth” struck me as funny for some reason … I simply can’t get past it and the description of the book by the publisher. It reminds me of the time I was on a death penalty case and I had to NOT laugh out loud or even smile at the DA’s histrionics.

>198 richardderus: Not being okay with okayness anymore makes sense to me.

*smooch*

>201 karenmarie: Hey-ho, Horrible. In reference to >196 richardderus: this book, "bowels of the earth" truly makes tonal sense. It's a very...visceral...kind of read, and TBH that wore on me. It's honest and not misplaced in the sense that decay is very much the meta and the extra of the book.

Could've done with less extra, if you ask me.

Okay is pleasant and unchallenging. I'm not dissing it, I just ain't after it no more. Too old, too little time left, too much Good that I don't want to leave on the table when my seat becomes vacant.

>197 richardderus: Adding that one to the BlackHole. Thanks for the recommendation, Richard!

((Hugs)) and **smooches** for today

Have a wonderful weekend!

>203 alcottacre: Oh yay, Stasia! I hope you enjoy the read. *smooch*

***

I barely remember...

>204 richardderus: I already ordered a copy of the book, whether you care or not :)

Some weighty subjects explored since I last visited your thread, Richard. I'm not drawn to the book that brought up the marriage discussion. Been there, done that, survived.

Like the LT origin stories about where people started and then finding the 75ers. When I figured out that there was a social side to LT (that took from 2008 to 2013) I joined the 75ers because I was sure that I could read 75 books in a year even though, at the time, I was working full time and going to school part time. How did I know that how many books you read wasn't really what it was all about anyway?

>205 alcottacre: LOL I have a more particular amnesia...45 and Co. and all the antics around the cases just bore me rigid.

>206 Familyhistorian: Heh...the actual book-count is entirely self-defined, so really it's the social aspect that rules. People have left the group because this is a noisy place with lots of interaction they don't want; because there's no cop holding someome accountable fir what does and doesn't count towards 75; because the general political atmosphere is disagreeable to them; on and on.

Much, much quieter than in years gone by now, but still by light-years the chattiest and friendliest group around here.

"...but still by light-years the chattiest and friendliest group around here."

Amen, RD. Much more comfortable here today- mid-70s and we have Jackson with us too. At the pool yesterday, I swear, (Sue thought she heard it too) Jack said Grandpa. I nearly levitated. 😁

>209 msf59: Happy day, Grandpa! That's a good milestone. It's rainy here, so not hot, but on the sticky side. Bog-standard early fall day, which is a relief given how unsettled the weather is most everywhere.

Enjoy the weekend!

'Morning, Rdear! Happy Saturday to you.

I love the chattiness, and although I'm seriously behind on way too many threads, appreciate the folks here. There are some great folks on ROOTs, too, BTW, and some of us are in both groups. I'm probably not even going to meet my goal of 10 ROOTs - Read Our Own Tomes, aka books off my own shelves - this year, but maybe I'll make a late-year push.

*smooch*

>209 msf59: How wonderful! (Jack saying “Grandpa”) Oh, the joys of being a grandparent!

Karen O

>211 karenmarie: There ARE good folk everywhere here. There isn't a group with this high a percentage of good folk to match this one, though.

*smooch* for a happy, busy weekend ahead

>212 klobrien2: Agreed, Karen O. *smooch*

>211 karenmarie: Hmm. I hadn't encountered ROOTs before. I may need to join it.

Would that make your post a GB - Group Bullet - rather than a BB?

>215 ArlieS: LOL

I like that one, Arlie.

I, too, stumbled into '75er because I thought "I think I can do that" and now it's an essential part of my day. You're my peeps, both on-line and in person :)

>217 RebaRelishesReading: Exactly the way I hope every new person will come to feel about being here, Reba, however long they take to find their Scoobygroup.

*smooch*

>208 richardderus: I have not noticed it being quieter here, lol. This group is the best group of people anywhere IMHO.

((Hugs)) and **smooches**

>219 richardderus: "Cad" does not even begin to do the behavior of the man justice.

I found the 75 group just far too busy for me. These days I set up home in the Category challenge group and just star the threads elsewhere I want to follow.
Not unfriendly, just too busy.

>220 alcottacre: Based on previous years' posting stats, it is...just as PC!

Cad is very polite, IMO. But a political cartoonist needs to be as close to PG13 as possible or else.

>221 Helenliz: A lot of folks find this group too hectic for their needs, Helen, so that's why other groups exist in profusion. All kinds of needs should be meetable in a properly run social medium.

>219 richardderus:- Pardon my rude manners (my mother tried to teach me that if I had nothing good to say to just keep quiet) but Eeeeew! Who would want to touch THAT to their lips (no matter what was in it)?!

Unless it's used as a sort of barf bucket type thing...😜

>224 jessibud2: HORRIFYING thought!!! It should sit on a mantelshelf, as empty and dirty as the skull of the model.

I guess the *artist* was just having fun with the *mug* shot idea. Still...🤤

“Human existence being an hallucination containing in itself the secondary hallucinations of day and night (the latter an insanitary condition of the atmosphere due to accretions of black air) it ill becomes any man of sense to be concerned at the illusory approach of the supreme hallucination known as death.”

—Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman

>226 jessibud2: eeewww indeed now that the idea has breached the surface of my poor little mind

"thanks"

>228 richardderus:- Sorry (I am Canadian, after all)

>229 jessibud2: IJBOL
***
Don't Arraign on His Parade via my delight-inducing forever crush Randy Rainbow:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=596N4aPnjrs

>230 richardderus: - I am going to have to guess about that acronym, not familiar with it.

I LOVE Randy. He is brilliant and the ONLY good or smart thing to come out of the trumplestiltskin era.

>208 richardderus: & >213 richardderus: Agree totally.

Opinions are good.
Agreement is optional.

The 75ers is still the place to be.

>219 richardderus: Ugh! There's a mug I could smash!

>231 jessibud2: It's what's replacing the old-fashioned LOL

It stands for I Just Burst Out Laughing

...the more you know...

>232 PaulCranswick: Still indeed, PC. We're not immune to criticism but we're willing, as a group, to learn and grow.

>234 richardderus: - Ha! I guessed right! (easily amused....)

>233 vancouverdeb: Heh...it's the face, isn't it Deb. Such a hideous thing.

>236 jessibud2: It's got the same virtue that LOL has of being contextually intelligible, so it'll have some chance of sticking.

*smooch*

Hi RDear, and happy Sunday to you!

>215 ArlieS: *blinks* Well, of course it does, Arlie. I must have been GB’d with it too, but don’t remember who gave it to me. First year was 2016 for me.

>219 richardderus: Evil, ignorant, venal, dangerous, and etc. Cad’s generous.

>232 PaulCranswick: Love this, Paul!
Opinions are good.
Agreement is optional.

Richard and I frequently ATD, agree to disagree.

*smooch* RD!

>239 richardderus: LOL -- so true

>240 karenmarie: It's not necessary to agree with anyone 100% or 100% of the time. I look back at my 32-year-old self...half my life ago...and think, "you're a complete idiot about X," on the regular. And I live in his used-up body! No one else is going to get the free ride of conflictless submission if he doesn't.

Have a lovely. *smooch*

>241 RebaRelishesReading: Ain't it? *smooch*

Hiya. Been in a WiFi vacuum and then LT website wasn't loading (rain? hurricanes? snow in Maine?).

Today, I wanted to write up reviews but so far behind on the threads... a veritable rabbit-hole. Perfect to confound me. Hope you are thriving in the used-up old bod. Cheers.

>244 SandyAMcPherson: How do, Sandy...I'm not doing at all bad for the husk of a 32-year-old. I'm sure something will go wrong sooner or later but until then Imma keep readin' and writin'.

Wifi vacuums are most distressing. Until I got onto the rehab's wifi I was very antsy. Being disconnected from one's peer is cybershunning and we all know that's a form of torture. I need to get some polish put on a couple reviews so I can get my #WITMonth plan completed...wish me luck! *smooch*

>245 richardderus: Wishing you luck and alertness (with espresso ☕️) to keep up the pace!

>246 SandyAMcPherson: Thanks! I'm rubbing up against a wall ATM. I'll keep chipping away.

>244 SandyAMcPherson:
I was recently in a WiFi vacuum myself. It was in Kansas and the cause was the digital divide. Since I don't have a local (to there) telecom company suppling WiFi to my cell phone, I only had one bar. How do you load LT with only one bar? I couldn't send text messages and barely would get phone calls. It took me 2 hours to get a text message from my sister who lives across the street from my mother. Talk about a WiFi desert!!! I didn't even get lots of reading done, but I did get to cook with lots and lots and lots of fresh veggies and fruit - all locally sourced! And had fresh eggs to boot!

Hey, RD. I hope you had a good weekend. A cold front moved through on Saturday and it is lovely here. I have volunteer duties this AM and then lawn duties but I should have a nice afternoon with Juno and the books.

>219 richardderus: I love it but who would want that thing in their cupboards?

>248 benitastrnad: It's awful. I'm so online that my life just...ends...without my devices.

Chilling.

That level of cooking freedom is a glory that makes up for a lot! Glad you're back among us.

>249 msf59: I'm so glad the Weather Goddesses turned off the oven.

I don't think that object, if it exists, would land in my cupboard but rather on a shelf where I could gloat at it.

'Morning, RDear, and happy Monday to you.

I've got a chiropractic appointment today, which always makes me happy. Other than that, catching up on spreadsheets, using the brace, and etc.

*smooch*

Timbuktu's doing me proud again this month. My blogged review of it's led to over 1400 views today. I still have no idea why people are interested in a six-year-old review of a ten-year-old book. Whatever the reason is I hope a few of them come back!

Not catching up. Nothing to say. Except --- I'm here with a *smooch*.

>253 richardderus: Some folks are just slow. I know. Enjoy!

062 History of Ash: A Novel (Hoopoe Fiction) by Khadija Marouazi (tr. Alexander E. Elinson)

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: An unforgettable and eviscerating novel of human frailty, brutality, and resistance as told through the first-person prison narratives of a man and a woman

History of Ash is a fictional prison account narrated by Mouline and Leila, who have been imprisoned for their political activities during the so-called Lead Years of the 1970s and 1980s in Morocco, a period that was characterized by heavy state repression.

Moving between past and present, between experiences lived inside the prison cell and outside it, in the torture chamber and the judicial system, and the challenges they faced upon their release, Mouline and Leila describe their strategies for survival and resistance in lucid, often searing detail, and reassess their political engagements and the movements in which they are involved.

Written with compassion and insight, History of Ash speaks to human brutality, resilience, and the power of the human spirit. It succeeds in both documenting the prison experience and humanizing it, while ultimately holding out the promise of redemption through a new generation.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Kafka meets de Sade in Morocco.

Cruelty is such a defining trait of human beings that I really don't understand why it still shocks me to what depths the forces of social control will sink to enforce hegemony, specifically in this case the hegemony of Morocco's royal government. It was a desire to experience the chaotic good of democracy and cultural self-determination that motivated the narrators of these separate prison stories to resist, at long last, control from above. Morocco lived with this both as a colony of France then as an autocracy. Generations of pent-up frustration on the parts of millions whose lives weren't in significant ways their own led to a repressive response. It's now called The Years of Lead, and the details of it events and abuses are stomach-churning.

What most histories forego is the personal costs of repressive regimes to their victims. As History is supposed to be academic and impartial, not immediate and visceral, this makes some sense...the issue is that history is never impartial and "academic" is coded language now for sanitized and watered down, attenuated enough to avoid letting real experiences in. This, then, is why historical novels must exist, why we must read them, and why they ought not be held to an artifical standard of "impartiality" like historiography is.

The role of fiction by academics is often a marginal one, one not centered in the commercial world for many reasons. One of them is very clear here. While Leila, an academic, relates her torture a bit more viscerally than does Mouline (the male narrator), she also uses more allusions to the vast literature of imprisonment, resistance, and injustice than does the younger, but still culturally very literate Mouline. This presupposes either familiarity with or curiosity about this body of literature in the reader. Commercially oriented publishers on the order of Simon & Schuster, to take an example much in the business news of late, can't trust this interest to exist and are certain their consumers haven't read those kinds of books. While I am not at all sure that's a reasonable thing to be certain of, I'm aware that the economics under which publicly-traded companies operate demand aiming for the lowest common denominator. Luckily this is not the only avenue for readers with either familiarity or curiosity or both to get their fix of enriching, exciting, challenging works like this one.

Hoopoe Fiction is a line of works, mainly in translation, centering Maghrebi and African more broadly voices. The American University in Cairo Press does us a great service by bringing these works to market. August being Women In Translation Month, I've centered works like this by women, and/or translated by women. My purpose is to alert the audience for book reviews that I'm grateful to say continue to find me here in their hundreds about. The Press offers great opportunities for discovery of reads that expand and furnish one's mind with viewpoints we don't come across with any regularity in US capitalist culture.

This book's deeply personal take on the prison narrative is based in the author's generational identification with the Years of Lead. She's also personally acquainted with resistance figures and prisoners of conscience, and has included details of the experiences she's learned about in this work. It is, as one can readily imagine, very hard to read the accounts of torture. It's far more difficult for me personally because I know the author isn't inventing them but transmuting the real experiences of people she's met into fiction. This is not a story for the faint of heart's amusement and delectation. It is a very hard read but one that is, in so many ways, urgent for the complacently comfortable to discover. This is what totalitarians do. Heed the warnings implicit in the existence of these two characters' narratives. They're fictional and based on fact; resist with EVERY FIBER the increasing possibility of experiencing, or knowing someone who experiences, these horrors. Learn the stakes you're risking when you don't believe political rhetoric coming from those you might agree with about some things. They mean it. And somoene will be paying an awful price for your mistake.

>239 richardderus: Boy, isn't that the truth? I still cannot get over Fort Worth ISD shutting down the entire school library while they decide whether to ban another 100 books.

>240 karenmarie: Richard and I frequently ATD, agree to disagree. The key to any successful relationship IMHO. You do not discount my beliefs and I do not discount yours indicates a healthy measure of respect, one person to another :)

>255 richardderus: Adding that one to the BlackHole. Thanks for the recommendation, RD!

((Hugs)) and **smooches**

>254 LizzieD: Hiya Peggy! *smooch*

"Slow" is less often true in the book world. You're flavor of the month or day-old salad. I ain't complainin' but I can't help being curious about why this one's got such legs....

>256 alcottacre: FWISD should be collectively and severally shamed to the ends of time.

We ATD because neither of us needs to be Right. That kind of absolute certainty, that's so utterly foundational that it MUST BE EVERYONE'S RECEIVED TRUTH, is the province of bigots. Thee and me, we've had our fill of bigotry so refuse to enact it on others.

063 Guiltless (Sandhamn Murders, #3) by Viveca Sten (tr. Marlaine Delargy)

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The tiny Swedish island of Sandhamn has always been a haven for lawyer Nora Linde. With trouble brewing in her marriage, she finds its comforts more welcome than ever, even in the depths of winter. That is, until her two young sons trip across a severed arm in the woods.

The boys’ gruesome discovery will once again connect Nora with her childhood friend Thomas Andreasson, now a local police detective. When the limb is identified as belonging to a twenty-year-old woman who disappeared without a trace months earlier, what had been a missing persons case takes on a whole new urgency.

Nora and Thomas delve deeply into the woman’s final hours, each of them wrestling not only with the case but with the private demons it awakens in them. As they do, they’ll find themselves drawn into the history of Sandhamn and the tensions that have been simmering just below the surface for more than a hundred years.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: ScandiCozy all over again...the novel, which is to say the ongoing series part of the read, is about the familial misadventures and vicissitudes of the main characters. This part of the read worked very well for me. Thomas's life as a cop is complicated enough to scare off an understanding and caring partner, let alone a self-centered one like Thomas's ex-wife. Nora the lawyer's finally bumped into the immutable reality that her snobbish doctor husband is a complete waste of her time and emotion when his ongoing infidelity is revealed (to no one's shock except Nora's). Now she needs to find a way to co-parent with someone she quite rightly despises after learning of his betrayal of her.

Thomas is at a different crossroads. His future is as unclear as his friend Nora's is, but he needs to reckon with a past that he's mostly dealt with by running from what he can't bury. His pain, that of a grieving father for his dead child, is so deep he can't let go of it. His ex-wife, Pernilla, who gets his blame for the death, is by the end of the book less shibboleth and more a flawed and also grieving person. Maybe, now that he's got some perspective, he can let go of his raw pain and move forward...we shall see. And that, right there, is the genius of this series: I care, and I want to see. I'm really invested in the characters.

The murder of a young girl, and its ties to Sandhamn's past, wasn't as successful for me. In part this is down to the fact that, while I am perfectly happy to suspend disbelief, the interrelationship of the modern crime with Nora's house and, by extension, her already troubled idea of her long-ago found family, strained the relevant emotional muscles too far. That, plus a fair-play violation in the form of a crucial interrelationship of past and present being completely withheld, left me feeling less kindly toward that aspect of the read.

I am also really discomfited by Nora's too-easy acceptance of some very shady "explanations" of a new character's deeply creeper-y behaviors. It could simply be the author felt they were sufficient...this all takes place pre-#MeToo...but they read as troubling to me because Nora doesn't seem to question the man's motives more than superficially. It's kind-of of a piece with the spoilery problem I had with book 2. This ain't, to my old-man eyes, any kind of a message I think should sit well with anyone in the 2020s.

Don't start here, but don't skip the story in its turn. It might not be my favorite of them so far, but it's got a lot going for it.

Hiya, RDear. Happy Tuesday to you.

Just another day in paradise for me… book sorting, reading, puttering.

>255 richardderus: How to describe a book to keep Karen from reading it: eviscerating, brutality, prison, cruelty. I occasionally read smut with one of the protagonists having been in prison, justified or not, but their experiences are usually through rose-colored glasses or they’re out and (mostly) adjusted.

>256 alcottacre: Hi Stasia.

>258 richardderus: You nailed it, my dear.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

064 Tonight You’re Dead (Sandhamn Murders #4) by Viveca Sten (tr. Marlaine Delargy)

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Soon to be divorced, attorney Nora Linde is finding her way as a single mother, and even falling in love again, when she’s asked by her childhood friend Detective Thomas Andreasson to help in a disturbing investigation. Marcus Nielsen, a university student, has apparently committed suicide, but it’s what he’s left behind that’s so suspicious and damning: his research into the Coastal Rangers, an elite military group where, in 1976, a young cadet died under questionable circumstances, a sadistic sergeant went free, and a case went cold.

When two of Nielsen’s contacts are also found dead—and diaries of their torturous training turn up missing—Thomas and Nora are certain that whatever happened three decades ago is unforgivable. And for someone who wants to keep those secrets buried—unforgettable. Now they must fight against time to expose a cover-up that hasn’t yet claimed its last victim.

I RECEIVED THIS AS A GIFT. THANK YOU.

My Review: Much more Thomas-centered than the previous book. The crime here, in the present day, is deceptively simple...a suicide by hanging that a grieving mother cannot bring herself to imagine is what it seems.

Surprise! It isn't what it seems.

Nora's main involvement is to be asked by Thomas to look into the some aspects of the modern case as there's a personal connection to her. As her divorce approaches finalization, she's still playing nice with the family she's almost escaped from when her son's got a birthday party coming up. On the plus side she's got someone new in her life (who's actually also her tenant). The main item that contains what we all need to know about this tragedy's historical roots is, again, a found diary with deeply relevant clues. This repetitive trope would normally be grounds for a whole-star deduction in my rating schema. The reason it isn't? The sociology of military service subplot grabbed me hard. Not incidentally, in this entry Thomas and his partner Margit come more together as a detecting team for me, relying more on each other than in the last book. I'm not all the way sure why it happened now, but their previously slightly tenuous working relationship became more solidly grounded in pursuing the sadistic, evil killer.

Thomas's last-book accidental dousing, to undersell its seriousness, and subsequent loss of toes, his stint in rehab after the accident, and his reunion with self-centered Pernilla-the-ex, all make this entry in the series much more in his focus than last time. I'm still in the camp of thinking these are more Scandicozy than Nordic Noir stories, though the awful, sadistic murderer...serial killer, actually...is matched for ferocity by the "unexpected" addition of another guilty party. I won't at all say the existence or identity of the second party was surprising. It was believable, inasmuch as any mystery story's believable.

What beggared my belief was Thomas, near the end of the book (though not the story, see below), doing something that NO rational person would do who had all the information he possessed. It was stupid of him to risk so much for no commensurate possibility of gain. As it turned out, the result of his risk-taking was...tidy...but only for now, or I miss my guess. (In other words, I don't really believe it is what I read on these pages.)

The end of the book isn't an ending so much as a stopping place. There's obviously a lot more to the life-stories I'm invested in; but I am also reasonably sure there's more of the entanglements that came to light in this book to come in future entries. They're just too temptingly dangling loose for those strands not to lead somewhere new.

Again, don't start here but don't skip this one...Thomas and Pernilla have a BIG surprise for us that you won't want to miss out on.

>260 karenmarie: Oh good, it's book-fondling day! That does more to reduce your stress levels than anything bar Djokovich losing a title match. You would need therapy for PTSD if you read >255 richardderus:, for certain.

Bigotry is so much a matter of perspective. I've been called a lot of unpleasant things including bigoted, so I've done a good deal of reading about the topic...bigots always angrily deny they're bigoted because they're Right. Like there's such a thing as Right. It's a persistent, addictive illusion, Being Right. As powerful as any narcotic, just as destructive, and harder (I contend) to kick the addiction to.

Today's pithy thought from the commonplace book of History:
The decent moderation of today will be the least of human things tomorrow. At the time of the Spanish Inquisition, the opinion of good sense and of the good medium was certainly that people ought not to burn too large a number of heretics; extreme and unreasonable opinion obviously demanded that they should burn none at all. -Maurice Maeterlinck, poet, dramatist, and Nobel laureate

>259 richardderus: Now you're tempting me Richard except I really don't need another crime series...I'll wrestle with the idea for a while and see.

>258 richardderus: Thee and me, we've had our fill of bigotry so refuse to enact it on others. Good on us, that is all I can say!

>259 richardderus: >261 richardderus: I have yet to read anything by Viveca Sten. I really need to rectify that fact and my local library is not helping me out at all. *sigh*

>260 karenmarie: Hiya, Karen!

>264 RebaRelishesReading: Of course you need another crime series, Reba! There is no such thing as too much when it comes to Mount TBR. Especially true when one considers the series mystery's greatest strength: Shelf life. People still love Poirot and his stories are over 100 years old. Join, rejoin, ignore them...they're all still there.

*happy sigh* Ain't books grand, though.

>248 benitastrnad: Fresh eggs beats WiFi woes in *my* book. Sounds fabulous.

>265 alcottacre: La Sten's books are pleasant reads, Stasia, but don't break anything gettin' 'em on the shelves. The latest one I read almost had me put it down for good, details tomorrow.

>268 richardderus: I went ahead and ordered the first in the series, so we will see if I even like them. Looking forward to tomorrow's details!

((Hugs)) and **smooches**

>267 SandyAMcPherson: Mine too! Luckily my eggs are very fresh indeed AND my wifi woes are largely bad memories after the provider replaced the main wiring leading in to the facility. SUCH a relief.

Happy Wednesday, Richard. Going out with my birding buddies this morning, taking advantage of these lovely temps. The HEAT arrives again for the weekend and will stick around for a few days. Sighs...

You sure have been reading some interesting books.

Morning, BigDaddy! Thank you so much for keeping my thread warm - meant a lot to me. Also, thanks for recommending The Rebecca Connolly Mysteries - I loved your reviews of the first two books, and I have snagged them on Kindle. *smooch*

065 In the Heat of the Moment (Sandhamn Mysteries #5) by Viveca Sten (tr. Marlaine Delargy)

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: What’s a lie among friends? It’s murder—in this riveting thriller by Viveca Sten, bestselling author of Tonight You’re Dead…

It’s Midsummer’s Eve, the celebration of the longest day of the year, and on Sandhamn it’s the longest party of the year. But the fun comes to a dead halt when a young reveler is murdered, a teenage girl is found drugged and dazed on the beach, and other young women vanish. So far, what links the victims is a mystery. For Nora Linde and her new boyfriend, Jonas Sköld, the crimes are personal: one of the missing girls is Wilma, Jonas’s daughter. And her disappearance could test Nora and Jonas’s relationship in ways they never expected.

Thrust into the investigation, they soon discover that it’s more than a case of bad blood between friends. But the truth, which has receded into a haze of carousing, drugs, and liquor, is getting harder to see. If Nora and Jonas are going to find out what happened to Wilma, they’d better do it fast—before the ebbing tides sweep away all the terrible secrets of that night on Sandhamn Island.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Another more Thomas-centered book, therefore more police procedural-like than the cozy-er Nora-centric ones...but only slightly. Thomas and Pernilla have a new daughter, and experience the stresses of parenthood all over again (remembering this is their second child together, and their long separation came after the first child's death). Thomas is the lead investigator on the murder-and-disappearance case that involves Nora's new boyfriend through his daughter being among the girls who've vanished from the high-octane Midsummer's Night revelries. Given that he was really not happy about saying yes to her badgering pleas to be allowed to party with the cool kids, he's an absolute wreck.

Wilma, Nora's boyfriend's daughter, is part of a crowd that Nora finds troubling. They're privileged, spoiled brats who use lovely Sandhamn and its close-knit community as a backdrop for irresponsible chemical-fueled partying. Nora's ex-husband and his milieu of privilege come forcefully to mind as she tries to assist Thomas in his attempts to bring a young man's murderer to justice and return the missing young women to their insanely anxious families. Her worries for her own young sons and their futures enter into the story as well. The awful ex is, unsurprisingly given that he's in the social milieu of the dead boy's parents, sticking his oar in. It seems life sans Nora isn't the fun that life with her was. She, unlike Thomas vis-a-vis Pernilla, isn't having it. This gets all the yay from me after his abusive behavior in an earlier book.

The main thread of the story, though, is Thomas and policing partner Margit methodically working to solve the case without significant details. These are all locked in the heads of the spoiled, drunk, high kids whose reactions to a dead guy and some missing gal-pals is basically to whine about being asked questions by old farts in uniforms instead of being allowed to get away from all this boring shit on Papa's yacht.

Ick ptui.

Thomas, in spite of needing to be focused on the case, is of course just as eager as the brats are to get the whole thing over with so he can go home and play with his new daughter. (I'm still deeply conflicted about this rapprochement with Pernilla, whose presentation of self makes me suspicious.) So the detective, his sidekick, and the witnesses are all conflicted and not clearly focused on the tragedy that's occurred. That presents a problem for me as a reader.

The dead boy's father, the young hellions doing the partying, and to an extent Nora's stepdaughter-adjacent person Wilma, are all really unsympathetic characters. Their collective story is woven of multiple strands of neglect and indifference coupled with overaffluence and its deleterious effect on the moral compasses of the privileged. Where this led me as a reader was into a lot of "Thomas should be home with his new baby and Margit ought to slap all of 'em" eyerolling. The author seems in a funny way to share my impatience because the end of the book feels like a rush to wrap up the threads, so isn't all that satisfying. I can assure my ma'at-lovin' readers that there's resolution to the death and the disappearances too. There will be no black armbands in the Linde ménage. I'm hopeful that Jonas, with Nora, won't repeat his mistakes and Nora will continue to shun her vile ex-husband.

This book is very much not my favorite in the series to date, and skated perilously close to becoming a DNF on several occasions. The power of Thomas and Nora as people I believe could exist and whose flaws I can invest in as I watch them overcoming, or trying to, their effects powered my drive through the read.

YMMV, of course.

>269 alcottacre: Morning, Stasia! I hope you're into a happy voyage of discovery. Though I have a caveat...see below. *smooch*

>271 msf59: Yuck ick ptui on even a few days of more heat. I'm sure it'll be a bad memory soon enough, but why we need to be grilled under the broiler for the Weather Goddess's amusement is unfathomable to me.

I hope this transitional season brings some exciting new birbs to your viewing area.

The books *have* been treating me well. The Muses have a smile for me these days.

>272 Crazymamie: Mamie me lurve! I'm so so glad you're back among us. I miss seeing you so it's a lovely treat to do so.

Yay for Skelton's books finding you! Book the next has his review coming on the fourth. Spoiler alert: I likeded it a real lot.

066 In Harm's Way (Sandhamn Murders #6) by Viveca Sten (tr. Marlaine Delargy)

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: A woman’s dangerous career comes to a chilling end in this spellbinding thriller by Viveca Sten, bestselling author of In the Heat of the Moment…

The body of world-famous journalist Jeanette Thiels is discovered the day after Christmas, frozen in a snow-spotted garden just steps from her hotel on Sandhamn Island. Detective Thomas Andreasson finds it highly unlikely that it was some bizarre accident. After all, the relentless war-zone correspondent was no stranger to conflict and controversy—both professional, and of late, very personal. Who would want to see her dead is another story.

Enlisting the help of attorney Nora Linde, his longtime friend on holiday, Thomas is anxious for the answers. But he and Nora don’t have to look far. The clues are leading them closer to home than they imagined. Jeannette may have made a career out of exposing corruption at the highest levels of world power, but she was also a woman with secrets of her own and they’re coming to light on Sandhamn. But for Thomas and Nora, unearthing the deeply rooted deceptions behind Jeanette’s death could now put those closest to her in harm’s way, too.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I now know more than I ever knew there was to know about pickled herring.

This is not an approving statement.

Again, we're police-proceduraling with Thomas and Margit. She's coalesced into more of a presence than I ever expected her to do, has our Margit; but I'm still not distracted from the mains by her involvement in investigations so I call the author's level of detail in limning her character good. The immigration issues facing Europe, the backlash from "cultural purity" proponents, the unbelievable, incredible hatred that some are consumed by for those not just like them all concatenate at the same time as Nora's Yule festivities on Sandhamn. (Why she includes the vile ex-husband is beyond me.)

After Iranian immigrant journalist Juliette dies in the snow outside her hotel on the island (you know, I love cozies and their settings, but the logical part of me says "the Swedes ain't idiots and this place would glow like Chernobyl on any statistical map of Swedish crime" like Midsomer would in England); it's not a horrible accident, of course. Juliette's work is digging into some unnerving and clearly unsavory stuff that the Powers That Be did not want exposed. Then Juliette's controlling Swedish ex-husband comes into the suspect frame; even his pre-adolescent daughter thinks he probably had some hand in her mother's death.

Enter Thomas and Margit as the lead investigators, and the police Scoobygroup we've seen before starts the interesting ferreting among the fallen leaves of this dogged, but hapless, woman's life. The work she'd been doing about the burgeoning nativist group that hates non-Nordic Swedes was reaching a critical mass and that's a reason to kill in that sick, twisted worldview. The issues between her and her ex keep the focus on the police's work in solving her poisoning; thus off the Nora parts of the plot. For those hooked in by Nora from the off, this story will feel frustrating. Her involvement in Thomas's case is pretty much nil; her plot strands are lawyering related, as her company is enmeshed in the colonial remnants of Sweden's centuries-old Baltic empire. This leads to some unpleasant, though legal, ways of making money, to Nora's deep disgust; her firm's head and she are due for a showdown over this shady, unethical entanglement (among other things, like misogyny and borderline harassment). As this echoes the main case's focus on the role of History in forming a place for better or ill, it wasn't a waste to include Nora. She doesn't play a role in the crime investigation but her moral musings and decisions do offer depth of field to the main idea behind the murder.

I am not a fan of the dithering "will-she-won't-she" style of storytelling I see all too much of in series reads. Why women should be presented as so weak as to constantly question their decisions about men is something I do not think we question as a trope nearly hard enough. Nora's ex shouldn't be up for rehabilitation after his emotional abuse of her. (Let's not even bring up The Slap. Might bring up my lunch wth it.) She's decided several books ago that the affair she discovered him having is the bridge too far. That should be allowed to be that. Her efforts not to estrange her ex-husband from their sons is admirable. But let's leave it as focused on the EX part and not so much the HUSBAND part.

That ongoing snark aside, the role of ethnicity in this story is very much the catalyst for some trademark idiotic behaviors among the investigators. Thomas in particular is, every book, doing something that unnecessarily endangers his life...and while I'm really not on board with his reunion with Pernilla, he DOES have an infant daughter to consider before haring off without backup to Get The Perp. And this time he's very much not alone, since one of the investigative Scoobygroup is an Iranian-born Swede whose dander gets up as facts of the case come to light. He decides, like his colleagues Thomas and Margit, to say "screw it" to rule-following and puts himself (and, one would think, any hope of bringing a successful prosecution) in danger.

Well, fiction ain't fact, and at least in the latter case I really got why the response was what it was.

I do want to offer one very major content warning: There is, in this entry, animal abuse that I found very upsetting. It is the reason that I rated this read lower than the one before it, when before this occurred, I was set to give it a solid four stars. I am, it's true, very averse to this subject matter, and others might not find the event portrayed as upsetting as I did. For my fellows in feeling that children and animals being harmed are not welcome events in my entertainment, be aware this occurs.

Snowy, Yule-y streets in the sweetly intimate island community of Sandhamn. The expected death. The inevitable successful resolution of the crime. The ongoing lives of characters I've come to care about. All the elements of damned fine read. And so it was.

Until the content warning stuff happened. I'll be continuing with the series but some luster got lost off my pleasure.

Hi Richard, I enjoyed reading your reviews of the Sandhamn series so far. I read 9 of 'em and then my interest faded. I started having issues with the translation (the narrative felt choppy), and structure (my review of book 9 says it had a whopping 137 chapters, in 480 pages). But the Nora character strengthened and continued to add depth, so ... as you say ymmv. Anyway it's fun to revisit the books through your reviews.

>279 lauralkeet: Hi Laura! The issue with series reads is almost always just excatly that...I call it series sag...and the thing we invested in in the first place either becomes the saggy bit or fails to drag us through the inevitable low points.

That choppiness, and the chapter-happy presentation, are (I think anyway) designed to make these books appealing to the distracted, bedtime reader. Plus they line up pretty perfectly with the scene beats in a screenplay...neither is particularly necessary for the kinds of readers aeound here.

Nora's dithering about Henrik is wearin' on my nerve, but Jonas ain't All That. And Pernilla skeeves me out. While I don't want Thomas and Nora to end up Together, it would be nice if they found some decent intimate folk for a change.

>276 richardderus: Aw, shucks. Thank you.

You are way ahead of me in the Viveca Sten books - I have read the first three. I agree with you that they are "more Scandicozy than Nordic Noir stories".

>278 richardderus: Thank you so much for the content warning - I will probably skip this one because of it.

I loved reading through all of your reviews for the series - great comments, and so fun and interesting to read that I gobbled them up like popcorn.

>278 richardderus: OK. I am not into animal abuse of any variety, so I may be giving that one a pass, should I remember it when I get to that point in the series!

>279 lauralkeet: That makes it even less likely that I continue the series. 137 chapters in 480 pages?? Geez louise.

((Hugs)) and **smooches** for today. Have a wonderful Wednesday!

‘Morning, RDear. Happy middle of the week to you.

>262 richardderus: Ever since Roger retired, I’ve completely lost interest in tennis. I’m vaguely interested in US football and will watch a Panther game or two to see if the adjective can become more than 'vaguely'. It’s Premier League football that’s got me going these days. I’m wearing my Arsenal socks even as I write this, and I have an Arsenal key chain on my cluster-o-keys.

>280 richardderus: Ah yes, series sag. Some authors get past it after only a book or two, but any author with … 5-6 or more … books in a series seems to go through it. Even Dorothy L. Sayers failed miserably with Five Red Herrings. I forgave her, though. *smile*

*smooch*

>281 Crazymamie: Of course, smoochling. You're an important part of the community. Of course I miss seeing you. The #WITMonth reviews were getting so Serious, so Good For Me, that I really needed to lighten up before I cratered. Sandhamn's problems are at sufficient remove from me that I can go there and check my unhappy at the door (well, except >278 richardderus: which you ABSOLUTELY should skip).

Seven and eight get their reviews tomorrow, be sure to come by!

>282 alcottacre: The issue is as I said in >280 richardderus:...we're not the kind of readers who use books that way and the idea of reading screenplays isn't an ordinary one around here. Certainly skip that one, but the series does have its rewards. Given the sheer volume of reading material there is, don't make yourself consume these specific ones, Stasia, nothing to be gained that way. *smooch*

>283 karenmarie: Hey there Horrible, I wonder if series sag isn't as much about us as readers as about the authors. We get a little too familiar with the joke, and feel let down...of course that means the author's to blame because perish forbid *WE* should be the ones whose apparatus is faulty.

Premier League's got such an awful social component that I get little pleasure from it. Rugby League play has hot boys in skimpy outfits and a less homophobic misogynistic culture. (Note I said "less" not "none".) Tennis isn't a focus for me but I do keep an eye on it to see who's got something interesting going on.

*smooch*

I can't get interested in football. I'll watch Rugby Union, rather than League. A sport almost designed to show men off to their best advantage imo >;-)
In terms of sport, unless it's F1 or touring cars, I dip in & out,
Tennis - I usually try and watch some of Wimbledon, but these days I prefer casually watching the doubles than the singles. Cycling, I'll watch the Tour de France, but not follow it the rest of the year. Dilettante, that's me.

Stopping by to give a late night smooch , my time . Off to the tooth grinder in the morning. Not looking forward to it . 🦷⚙️

Happy Thursday, Richard dear!

I haven't gotten to the Viveca Sten books yet, I might get to them some day. Thanks for the warning, the same was in Ocean Vuongs 'On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous' and that ruined the book for me.

I started my September thread early. I needed some distraction while worrying about my father, who got Covid :-(

Morning, BigDaddy! About to head out for a bit but wanted to stop in and wish you happy. I'll be back later to check out those promised reviews. *Smooch*

067 In the Shadow of Power (Sandhamn Murders #7) by Viveca Sten (tr. Marlaine Delargy)

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: What do the new arrivals on Sandhamn Island have to fear? Their own secrets—in this gripping novel of suspense by the bestselling author of In the Heat of the Moment.

The new summer house on Sandhamn Island is an architectural dream for its owner, Carsten Jonsson. It’s a nightmare for the locals. The venture capitalist has flouted local traditions, property lines, and the natural beauty of the coastline. He’s also too wealthy and arrogant to heed the anonymous warnings to leave.

The threats escalate when his guest lodge is burned to the ground and an unidentifiable corpse is found in the charred ruins. Detective Inspector Thomas Andreasson isn’t sure if it’s murder or a tragic accident. Until his friend attorney Nora Linde is drawn into the investigation.

Nora’s emotional investment in Carsten’s fragile and fearful wife, Celia, is yielding a new level of that the Jonssons are hiding more than anyone can imagine. Now Thomas and Nora must sift through the ashes of a puzzling crime and step into the shadows of a powerful family, whose deadly secrets are coming to light on Sandhamn.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: This entry in the series is a major shake-up of the Seriesverse. Everything I say now forward is a HUGE SPOILER. You've been warned.

Nora, previously a bank-lawyer, has switched gears and become a public prosecutor in the Economic Crimes investigations unit. This makes a lot of sense as the stories need to include her more organically. Thomas being a police inspector will, quite naturally, need to interact with her more often and on less flimsy pretexts. Given the scumminess of her boss's behavior towards her in the last book, it's a good thing she's left that bank...and even better that she's left banking.

Jonas is, four years after the last book's events, her partner and the father of her first daughter. Take that, Henrik! Of course this means she's got Wilma, Jonas's daughter the teenager, to contend with, though that's a treat for another book as she's entirely absent from this one. As her own two sons with Henrik (in this book, they're vacationing with him) enter their teens...poor lamb, she's really walked into a buzzsaw with this...she's going to face some troubles! Heaven only knows the blended-family issues this presents are fertile, if well-trodden, fictional grounds. They call these tropes "evergreens" for a reason.

On the Thomas end, the Scoobygroup's changed. Margit's been promoted and is no longer his loyal sidekick. Aram, whose foolishness in the last book earned my snorts and eyerolls, is now in Margit's spot. His Iranian ancestry sould let Author Sten do some serious soul-searching about Swedishness. Erik, another Scoobygroup character that I myownself never found interesting, has gone into the private sector and is tempting Thomas to follow him with better pay and easier working conditions. Will Thomas leave the police just as Nora joins them? Stay tuned...not in this book, though.

THIS story, the mystery we're here to watch unfold, is about Carsten Jonsson, a bigfootin' vulture capitalist whose finances are teetering, also with no taste and no class, violating Sandhamn's cultural norms. He builds his family a gigantic McMansion that's aesthetically out of place (shades of book one!) and might be legally questionable regarding property rights...but there's a suspicious fire as he invites the whole island over to "welcome" him and his family...and, of course, there's a dead body in the mix. Thomas must investigate, since it's a murder not an arson case. Nora is involved because a) prosecutor who used to work in banking, 2) longtime Sandhamner thus included in the party invitation, iii) woman whose spidey-senses have gone off at the ménage chez Jonsson because wife-component's behavior is making her very, very edgy. Was the Sandhamn neighbor who's made it his mission to oust Jonsson and family from the neighborhood guilty of setting the fire? Was the dead body killed in the fire, or dead before it? And who, exactly, was it who died?

Nora's change of career makes her involvement in the case so much more logical. It's also good that so much hinges on her banking background, where she was driven off by the shadiness of the banking business's deals with criminals. Here's a victim whose involvement in that shady, not-quite-illegal but clearly immoral world of Russian big money has led to consequences.

Things are resolved, of course, and ugly secrets kept by both the Jonssons are aired. Sandhamn's pretty surface is again revealed to be draped over the usual human ugliness. Thomas does something stupid again, but it made more sense to me this time. Or I'm just getting inured to it....

The themes of environmental change and related business turpitude are, as expected, much to my taste. I've really only got one really big "do what now" moment in this read: WHO THE HELL IS EVA?!

>287 Helenliz: Agreed about rugby, union or league...something about the way it looks...yum

Sports = baseball for me, since I'm most interested in it as a system of behavior. Tennis is the most carefully concocted sport, with its mix of individual athleticism and serious strategic thinking. Elite athletes are very interesting people to me because they're so rare.

Plus they *look* so good....

>288 vancouverdeb: UGHickptui on going to the fang grinder! *smooch* back for a reasonably painless experience.

>289 FAMeulstee: I think they'll amuse and entertain you, Anita, but like I said to Stasia, don't rush...

I'll coddiwomple over to you September thread here directly...boo hiss on Papa's covid! Here's hoping it's a short, easy trip through.

>290 Crazymamie: Hi Mamie, they're up now but I'm glad to see you no matter when you come!

068 In the Name of Truth (Sandhamn Murders, #8) by Viveca Sten (tr. Marlaine Delargy)

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A shocking abduction rocks idyllic Sandhamn Island in an enthralling novel of suspense by Viveca Sten, bestselling author of In the Heat of the Moment.

With the summer season on Sandhamn comes an unsettling mystery for Detective Inspector Thomas Andreasson. A bullied young boy has vanished from a sailing camp on neighboring Lökholmen Island. Has the terrorized eleven-year-old run away? Or, in this isolated vacation spot where strangers lurk, is it something more ominous?

The disappearance has also captured the interest of Thomas’s longtime friend, attorney Nora Linde. The missing child happens to be the son of her latest client, Christian Dufva. He is a key witness against his partner in a high-profile embezzlement trial, and Dufva’s testimony could be devastating. It’ll also be Nora’s biggest win—the next step toward a position as chief prosecutor. But with every anonymous threat against Dufva, the stakes get higher.

When new evidence surfaces in their respective cases, new questions and fears arise for Thomas and Nora. Time is running out to resolve them. So is hope of finding the boy alive. Because on Sandhamn Island, the truth is buried as deep as the secrets.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Continuing our exploration of "what was that again?" moments in this series, we have stalking, bullying, pedophilia, one runaway kid and a missing one, embezzlement, gambling, gangsters from Lithuania, relationship woes, and a wedding.

Wedding?

Jonas and Nora are getting hitched! Why, I am unsure, since their daughter Julia's school age now. And Jonas's fitness isn't, IMO, really top-notch, since he accepts a job flying to Thailand on the eve of the ceremony. Yet Nora seems not to see this as the red flag I do...though of course she's not exactly thrilled with his swanning off at that moment. Her angry repsonse felt muted and disproportionately absent the larger sense of questioning I expected. Only he could take this job? He couldn't buy a ticket on another airline to get home on time? ...???... Probably the biggest surprise to me, apart from the fact that it's happening at all, is Wilma's inclusion in the ceremony. Clearly skipping over her adolescence has let us have the nice-person end product without the factually inevitable angst.

Thomas, meanwhile, is discovering what I've thought all along: Elin's wonderful but Pernilla's a pill and rejoining his life to hers was a major goof-up. After succumbing to Erik's blandishments to leave the police, Thomas found out this didn't make Pernilla one bit less awful. Now he's back to his meaningful if lower-paying job (to Pernilla's disgust), repartnered with Aram, and his energies are focused on the summer-camp issues. As readers with any experience of series mysteries already know, there's a connection between Nora's court case over embezzlement and her star witness's son Benjamin's disappearance from said camp; what it is turned out to be a surprise to me. My original theory about what the thread was turned out to be wrong. That actually made me enjoy the read more because being surprised eight books into a series is a good thing.

The usual problem I have with these books is that Thomas or someone else police-y does something deeply stupid that risks his life...no this time so much, instead there are decisions made in investigating the camp-problems that seem particularly lunkheaded...there's a search for the missing boy that's badly mishandled...but nothing that's going to get Thomas killed. The anonymous threatening calls made to the witness and to Nora are overdetailed. Knowing they're happening is enough and there's only so many ways to threaten someone without becoming repetitive, which they do.

Possibly the biggest disappointment to me was the fact that, in pursuit of their respective crimes, Thomas and Nora really don't interact much. It makes sense given the nature of the events, but I found that I missed them spending friend-time together.

The sailing camp that Benjamin's been coerced into attending by his father is nightmarish reading, with some Lord of the Flies-level bullying that's not downplayed and a camp counselor whose mental-health struggles mislead and complicate the police investigation into Benjamin's disappearance. There's a great deal of information about sailing and its culture in Sweden that was interesting enough but might slow things down a bit for thriller readers. The local pedophile gets a look-in, of course he would since he's been put in the book, in what ends up as a truly unnecessary red herring. Oops, that's a spoiler. Well, that's life boys and girls, when reviewing book eight of a series there will be some. I expect longtime readers of the series are going to be a bit testy about the complete absence of a murder in this installment. I myownself think the evolution that's underway could be great...depending on what Author Sten does with it.

A long read with short chapters that stay on point is a good thing for most modern readers. I doubt most will see what's coming at the end. If you do see it...kudos. But don't talk about it!

August is over for me, long live August! See my recap in >5 richardderus: above or follow this link: https://www.librarything.com/topic/352864#8205667
Good reading and writing month for me.

‘Morning, RDear!

Fortunately, Idalia tracked south and east of us and all we got was a rain event, which we needed.

It’s not good to generalize, but I’m thinking about the series I love and can pinpoint at least one book in each where the trope was carried too far or the writing seemed less pristine, or the author bullied the editor and we got a bloated nothingness.

And of course, I can devour some series and have to pace myself on others. All good stuff, right?

As a rule, I don’t pay attention to the social component of any sport I’m interested in. In soccer, I do occasionally wonder about guys who aren’t married to or in a relationship with, a woman, but really don’t care about that aspect of their lives as much as I do how they perform. While watching any match I almost always have the thought that the players must love the sport enough to deal with injuries, sitting on the bench, and the humiliation if they perform poorly.

I think the first book I read about a top-level athlete was Sudden Death by Rita Mae Brown, a thinly disguised memoir about her relationship with Martina Navratilova. There was quite a bit about how an athlete had to prepare for a game and the sacrifices made.

I saw the clip about Goff berating the chair ump at the US Open the other day, with the crowd cheering her for challenging the time keeping rules violations the chair ump allowed.

Lunch with a friend, other than that just the usual.

*smooch*

>298 karenmarie: Enjoy your pleasantly active day, Horrible. I'm still basking in the glow of achieving my reading and writing goals. That improves my mood so much, as expected, so I'm thinking about how to do it again for September.

The social aspect of the sport I was referring to is less about the players than the fans. They misbehave on an epic scale, do soccer fans, in some particularly repugnant to me ways. The players who're gay don't come out because the fans are, in addition to their other unappealing qualities, mostly homophobic.

Gauff was right.

RMB's books are delighfully popcorny reading, aren't they? I loved and still love Six of One the best. Such an amazing read to my teenaged self! I didn't care as much for Sudden Death and, unsurprisingly, don't read the cat books.

I'm back - LOVED the reviews!! So fun to read through them, and I don't mind the spoilers because I have already watched the tv series versions. Interesting what they change and don't change with the tv series, which I think I like better than the books for the most part - I love the casting, and the setting is so full of gorgeous. I never liked Jonas - Nora has terrible taste in men for the most part. I agree with you about Pernilla - what a loser pants, and I can't believe that Thomas falls for her twice, but I guess sometimes there is comfort (or insanity!) in having a history with someone - you get to skip all the getting to know you stuff and just jump back in. Oof.

I am sad that there are only 10 books in the series because that means only two more reviews. *sob* Selfishly hoping you stumble onto another murder mystery series that has you gobbling it up and posting reviews as fast as you can.

>300 Crazymamie: Happy that you liked them! I've still got the DRC for book 9, In Bad Company, so I might put that in my mystery-reviewing month. Also the second of her newest series (The Åre Murders) is DRCd up, called Hidden in Shadows. Still pondering what to do there, read 'em now or wait for the month?

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the next Douglas Skelton read, fourth in that series, over the weekend. There's you some new gobbleable reads! *smooch*

Love your reviews (and your writing in general, actually -- always ends up making me smile) and this series is calling to me...but do I need another 10-book series? Nope, I do not. Will I cave? Perhaps

>302 RebaRelishesReading: That's a lovely compliment, thank you, Reba! I'm glad you enjoy reading my reviews.
***
The new thread is up:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/353340

>239 richardderus: Ha!

>263 richardderus: pppooets, what's going on RD?

>304 Caroline_McElwee: I was briefly abducted by the heptapods from Arrival. I disavow allknowledge of how Rilke came to be on a thread of mine.