What are your reading now: February 7

Still working on The Last Dynasty. Caesars Palace Grand Prix will come next.

The Serviceberry and Queen Demon are on deck.

Love Anthony – Lisa Genova
Book on CD narrated by Debra Messing
3***

Two women, each struggling with grief and change, meet on Nantucket one summer.

Olivia’s life was upturned when her son, Anthony, was diagnosed with autism at age three. He was nonverbal, almost never made eye contact, and didn’t want to be touched. And just as Olivia was beginning to come to terms with her son’s condition, he died. Now, her marriage having broken apart, she retreats to Nantucket, trying to find a way to recover.

Beth was a married woman with three beautiful daughters when she received a note: “I’m sleeping with Jimmy.” Yet she has come to realize that ever before the affair, she felt alone in her marriage. She turns to an early passion and begins writing.

I have really enjoyed the other books by Genova that I’ve read. As a neuroscientist, she is well able to explain and explore the ramifications of various diagnoses. Where she shines, in my opinion, is in relating how the person afflicted with a particular condition processes and responds, and how that condition affects those who are in contact with and love the afflicted person. The parts of this novel told from the perspective of an autistic boy are really touching and illuminating.

Still, this book didn’t quite hit the mark for me. The coincidence of Beth writing about an autistic boy, a voice that just came to her seemingly out of nowhere, and then meeting Olivia, with a background in editing / publishing, and sharing the draft of the book with her just seemed a little unbelievable.

Debra Messing does a fine job of narrating the audiobook. With two women to voice, there wasn’t much difference in tone, so I had to pay attention to ensure I was in the right woman’s frame of reference. But the parts that directly told Anthony’s story were wonderfully performed.

I'm still reading Stride Toward Freedom by Martin Luther King, Jr.
I also started reading Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew Sullivan for book club in 2 weeks.

I'm close to the 3/4 point of the Icelandic classic, Independent People by Halldor Laxness. I'm enjoying it very much. It's a long novel designed, I think, for slow and thoughtful reading.

Future Boy: Back to the Future and My Journey Through the Space-Time Continuum
Michael J. Fox
5/5 stars
I enjoyed this autobiography by Michael J. Fox from movies and his time on Family Ties. It is a quick read. Entertainment/Autobiography

I finished up Between Two Rivers by Moudhy Al-Rashid this week. This is an interesting popular introduction to Mesopotamian civilization which lasted for four millennia. She centers her book around an archeological site from the first millennium BCE which appears to have been a museum which housed artifacts that were thousands of years old even at that time. The artifacts from this museum were uncovered when the Babylonian king, Nabonidus, rebuilt a temple in Ur and made his daughter priestess. The archeological site contained items with vastly different ages all in one room, but the kicker was a cuneiform tablet that described a baked mud brick with an almost two thousand year old Sumerian inscription that was translated into the Akkadian language of the Neo-Babylonian empire.

I also read Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. The book was beautifully written but is problematic. Pretty much any book that old is going to exhibit casual racism that feels jarring when you run up against it in the text. The book is a collection of vivid stories about Saint-Exupery's experiences flying mail routes in the the Sahara in the 1920's and '30s. The centerpiece is his tale of crashing in the desert and surviving on minimal water for several days. It's a gripping story.

Just finished Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie. I'd seen the original and the newer movies but never read the book. It of course was better than both movies.

Current reading Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival Christopher Marlowe by Stephen Greenblatt which is really good. Well written and a bit of a page turner. It's not only about Marlowe but also that era.

Mystery (Alex Delaware, #26)
by Jonathan Kellerman
This is another Alex Delaware mystery and this time a battered woman's body was found and there was no DNA to match. Milo Sturgis is also on the case. Not my favorite book of his but I liked it. Mystery

Three Wild Dogs (and the Truth)
by Markus Zusak
What a wonderful book by Markus Zusak who wrote about his dogs and his family! I highly recommended it!
Biography

The new thread is up over here.