Whart are you reading now?: June 13, 2026

Wrapping up Bernardo de Gálvez (not as interesting as hoped) and will be starting Dream Car. Saltcrop will follow.

While my wife and I were in California this week visiting friends, I finished the Argentinian noir thriller, No-one Loves a Policeman by Guillermo Orsi. First published in 2007, with action taking place beginning in December 2001, this mystery has plenty of action, but is also to a great extent a narrative about the chaotic nature of the many Argentinian government upheavals of the time period. You can find a longer review on the book's work page and on my Club Read thread.

I've now started a biography, Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader by Jonathan Penslar. Growing up Jewish in America in the 1960s and 70s, I've frequently heard Herzl's name bandied about. An assimilated German Jew, Herzl is known as one of the most important figures in the early days of the Zionist movement in Europe in the early 20th century. I've always heard contradictory things about him, and been interested in learning about the actual person, what he really did or didn't stand for, and how his views may have evolved over his relatively short (44 years) life. I have a good friend here in New York who is a professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Colgate University. I asked him how accurate thought I would find the information in this bio, and he told me that Penslar is "as good as it gets" as far as being an authority on the history of the Zionist movement, so I feel like I'm in good hands.

Old-Fashioned Christmas Murder 3 Meredith Curtis

The Undomestic Goddess
Sophie Kinsella
3/5 stars
Samantha Sweeting has messed up her job as a lawyer, so she decides to leave her job to become a cleaning/lady and a housekeeper. However, she finds herself living with a family who help her and finds a man she is interested in. I enjoyed it. 2005

>2 rocketjk: Hannah Pick-Goslar mentions her family's connection to Theodor Herzl in her memoir My Friend Anne Frank.

>5 princessgarnet: Interesting! Does she have anything specific to say about him?

I started reading Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon by Melissa L. Sevigny this morning.

>6 rocketjk: Her grandfather worked with Mr. Herzl if I recall from the book. When Hannah Pick-Goslar moved to Israel following the end of WWII, a prominent Jewish newspaper noted that.

The Sentence – Louise Erdrich
Book on CD read by the author
4****

From the book jacket A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls' Day, but she simply won't leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading with murderous attention, must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning.

My reactions
Gosh, but I love Erdrich’s writing! Here she uses more magical realism than in some of her other works and I am definitely a fan of this writing style.

Tookie is a marvelous character. She’s made mistakes, and she has paid for them. Now she has a number of friends and coworkers who support her (and whom she supports). I loved all her book recommendations (and special thanks to Erdrich for including a list at the back of the book).

Can Tookie figure out why Flora’s ghost is focused on her? Can she find a way to set Flora’s spirit to rest?

This specific personal drama takes place during a time of unrest and uncertainty in the world and particularly in Minneapolis. The COVID 19 pandemic plays a significant role, as does the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.

This may be my favorite of Erdich’s books.

The audio is narrated by the author. Erdrich does a fine job of telling this story, with good pacing and a clear sense of where the story is going and how she wants the story to unfold.

Somewhere, a Boy and a Bear: A Biography of A.A. Milne and Winnie the Pooh
by Gyles Brandreth
4/5 stars
Wonderful book by Gyles Brandreth about the history and creation of Winnie-the Pooh Bear and also about the writer A.A. Milne! I could not put it down! Biography/Non-Fiction

Sisters Of the Sari – Brenda L Baker
3***

Kiria Langdon, an American executive on holiday in India, gets lost and is helped by Santoshi, a former slave living in Chenai. They form an unlikely alliance which becomes genuine friendship, changing each other’s lives, and the lives of many other women in the city.

In some respects, Kiria acts like the great white savior; she has difficulty understanding the cultural mores of the women she seeks to help. They, in return, have difficulty trusting her and her motives . Both sides need to find a way to recognize the other’s perspective before they can come to a true understanding.

This is a story of women coming into their own and taking charge of their own destinies.
I enjoyed the book. It’s a solid debut and I’d be interested in reading more from this author.

For anyone interested in the history of the early Zionist movement in Europe, I can recommend the excellent short biography, Theodore Herzl: The Charismatic Leader by Derek Penslar. Growing up Jewish in America in the 1960s and 70s, I've frequently heard Theodore Herzl mentioned, mostly reverently, in Jewish settings of all kinds. Herzl, an assimilated German Jew who was active in the latter part of the 19th century, was one of the most important figures in the early days of the Zionist movement in Europe during that time. I've always heard contradictory things about him and been interested in learning about the actual person, what he really did or didn't stand for, and how his views may have evolved over his relatively short (44 years) life. My full review can be found on the book's work page and on my Club Read thread.

I've now begun Flood, a crime thriller and the first in Andrew Vachss' 18-book private eye series, Burke, because what I really needed was still another series to be in the midst of. :) Anyway, I'm about a third of the way in and enjoying the reading very much.

I finished Angels Flight by Michael Connelly and thought it was a very good police procedural, set in LA in the late 90's. I think the next book I'll read is The Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner, since it is #2 on the list of her Riverside series.

>12 rocketjk: I love the Burke series! And I've even thought of re-reading them starting from the very beginning as well. Great minds!

>13 threadnsong: Cool! Good to have confirmation about Burke. I'm about 2/3 through Flood and enjoying it. I'll be interested to see where Vachss takes the character over the series' worth of novels.

The new thread is up over here.

Totally slipped my mind.