What are you Reading Now: January 11, 2025

Currently working on Imprudent King. The Masquerades of Spring and Disasterology will follow.

Starting Delta of Power.

I'm just past the halfway point of Enemies, a Love Story by Isaac B. Singer. Lots of good writing, but a nudnik protagonist.

I've been reading 3 books this week: The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride at home because it's a big hardcover, Island Wisdom by Annie Daly at lunch, and A Tree a Day by Amy-Jane Beer.

Sending love to anyone affected by the fires in California.

I'm about halfway through The Harps That Once...: Sumerian Poetry in Translation.

I am currently rereading The Oracle Glass by Judith Merkle Riley

started this eBook via Libby ~

On Call: A Doctor's Journey in Public Service
by Anthony Fauci M.D.

Last night I finished the excellent novel Enemies, a Love Story by Isaac B. Singer about Holocaust survivors in post-war New York City. You can find my review on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

Next up for me will be The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka.

A Slow Fire Burning – Paula Hawkins
Book on CD read by Rosamund Pike.
3***

If you like unreliable narrators, this is the book for you. Hawkins gives us not one, not two, but a plethora of unreliable narrators to tell this twisty tale of dysfunctional families and murder.

It begins when Miriam, a middle-aged woman living aboard a narrowboat on an English canal, discovers the body of a young man on a neighboring boat. For her own reasons, she takes a piece of evidence from the scene before calling the police. Then there is Laura, a disturbed young woman, suffering from traumatic brain injury as a result of a hit-and-run accident when she was ten. Laura has anger management and impulse control issues, and had engaged in a one-night stand with the deceased. The victim’s aunt, Carla, and her husband, Theo, are seemingly successful; he’s a writer of a best-seller, though apparently suffering writer’s block. She’s been secretly visiting with Daniel aboard his boat, feeling guilty about the death of Daniel’s mother, her sister a short time before Daniel was murdered. And finally, we have Irene, an elderly woman whom Laura has befriended and who was friends with Carla’s late sister. Irene seems to be showing some early signs of diminished memory and occasionally seems quite confused.

Hawkins changes points of view among these various characters, giving us clues to their background, their relationship with the deceased and with each other, and keeping the reader (as well as the police) off balance.

It’s not great literature, but it certainly held my attention.

Rosamund Pike does a fine job of narrating the audiobook. She has a lot of characters to deal with, most of them female, and she was up to the task.

The Children Act
Ian McEwan
4/5 stars
Wonderful book about Fiona Maye, a judge who has to decide a case of whether or not a young man who is sick should decide his fate of living or dying. Books Off My Reading List

Artistic License – Julie Hyzy
3***

Adapted from the book jacket: Two months ago, Annie Callaghan made a mistake. She thought she’d planned for every contingency. After five years in a bad marriage she filed for divorce, began to pursue her dreams of being a full-time artist, and quit her job to work for herself. Now, well on her way to a brand-new start with her fledgling mural painting business and her handsome new client, life finally holds promise again. But, now she is in the center of a maelstrom of intrigue involving a stolen masterpiece, a powerful lawyer with questionable connections, and a murder for which she’s the prime suspect.

My reactions
I came to know Hyzy through her White House Chef cozy mystery series. A challenge to read an author’s debut work had me looking back at a number of favorite author’s first works, which is how I came across this one.

I liked Annie Callaghan, though I wanted to slap her several times for her poor decision-making. I also really liked her new love interest, a stand-up guy who is mature and steady and genuinely concerned about her. The other characters, including the detective, seemed a little too cookie-cutter and/or straight out of central casting. The lawyer’s wife was a stereotypical bimbo, her kids were complete brats, the bodyguard and lawyer came from every bad Mafia movie, and her ex-husband and his best friend (the complete loser, Pete) had disaster written all over them.

Don’t misunderstand, though. I got hooked on the storyline and was entertained by the entire book. It was a quick, fast read that didn’t require much thinking. Perfect for an escape from all the stuff that’s going on in real life right now.

Taste – Stanley Tucci
Book on CD read by the author
4****

Subtitle: My Life Through Food

This a delightful memoir of Tucci’s life, told through his relationship with food. From growing up in an Italian-American family, to his travels around the world for his work as an actor / director / writer /producer, he relates the important foods and memorable meals of his life.

At times irreverent, even downright profane, Tucci does not hold back in expressing his love of certain dishes, restaurants and traditions. The love/hate relationship with the traditional Christmas timpano is a perfect example. He also shares quite a bit about his life, including the two women he has loved and his own bout with cancer.

He writing is warm, inviting, informative, funny, and charming.

Tucci narrates the audiobook himself. I cannot imagine anyone else doing a better job.

Second Chance Grill– Christine Nolfi
2.5** rounded up

From the book jacket: Dr Mary Chance needs a sabbatical from medicine to grieve the loss of her closest friend. But, when she inherits a struggling restaurant in Liberty, Ohio, she isn’t prepared for Blossom Perini. Mary can’t resist falling for the precocious preteen – or the girl’s father.

My reactions
Perfect light romance for the days when I was laid low by a virus. Some of the characters are a bit too over-the-top eccentric to ring true, but it’s clear that Liberty is a community that comes together when one of its residents needs support.

The plot is both typical and unrealistic (think Hallmark movie), but it fit a couple of challenges, and kept me entertained. Glad to get this one off the tbr.

The Tropic of Serpents – Marie Brennan
Digital audiobook narrated by Kate Reading.
3.5***

Book two in the “Memoirs of Lady Trent” alternate history / fantasy series. It is written as a memoir by the elderly Isabella Camherst, recalling her youth and adventures as a natural historian specializing in dragons.

Brennan has created a world that somewhat resembles Victorian-era England (Skirland in the book) and its colonies on the continent of Africa (Eriga in the book). This episode of Lady Trent’s “memoirs” takes place some three years after the first book. Defying her family, she embarks on a study the dragons of Eriga, accompanied by Natalie, the expedition sponsor’s granddaughter, and Thomas, a dragon scholar she met on an earlier adventure. Her family was right to object; the trio have all sorts of dangerous adventures, some due to the rugged terrain (jungle, savannah and swamp) and wild animals (including dragons), others due to human interactions.

I like how Brennan has framed these books as Isabella’s memoirs. As such, she is a woman looking back on her youth, able to point out her mistakes in hindsight, but relaying them, nonetheless. She has a wonderfully sarcastic tone to her storytelling and is not above some self-deprecating comments.

Isabella is a wonderful heroine. She’s intelligent, intrepid, confident, tenacious, resilient and courageous. I do wish that Natalie had had a bigger role. It seemed she was completely forgotten in some segments of the book, though she certainly played a key role in one fantastic episode near the end. I also really appreciated how Brennan wove in some political issues involving colonialism, economics, the cultures of different indigenous groups, and the devastation of fragile ecological systems in the name of “progress.”

Kate Reading does a marvelous job of performing the audiobook. She has quite a variety of different “languages” and cultures (all invented by Brennan) to interpret in addition to the “Skirlings,” and she is up to the task.

The new thread is up over here.