Tidy Tidbits: Favorite Books & A Play

PURE ESCAPISM 

Crazy for You at the Asolo Theatre

(Sarasota Magazine)

With music and lyrics by the Gershwin brothers, this classic of American musical theater was an afternoon of romance, some hijinks, and lots and lots of dancing!  In 1930 in a dead-end town in Nevada, earnest Bobby Child tries to revive the theater he’s been sent to shut down.  Captivated by Polly Baker, the town’s postmistress, and indulging in some theatrics of his own, he and the cast tap dance their way to a successful finale. Along the way are some all-time favorite songs such as “Someone to Watch over Me” and “Embraceable You.”

(Sarasota Herald-Tribune)

It isn’t profound drama, the plot is simple and predictable, but overall, it’s uplifting and a great respite from the politics of today.  If you’re local, see it before it closes in early January!  

SOME FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2023

(courtesy Basmo)

I liked many of the books I read this year, so it’s hard to choose, but here are a few that have stayed with me. Happy reading to you!

NOVEL ABOUT A HOT BUTTON ISSUE

Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult & Jennifer. F. Boylan

NOVEL BY A FAVORITE AUTHOR

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

NOVEL BY A NEW AUTHOR

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

NOVEL THAT READS LIKE A MEMOIR

Hang the Moon by Jeannette Walls

MYSTERY

Exiles by Jane Harper

Runners upSmall Mercies by Dennis Lehane

And White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear

HISTORICAL NOVEL

Horse by Gwendoline Brooks

Runner up: Bookbinder by Pip Williams

NOVELLAS

Foster by Claire Keegan

And Small Things Like These, also by Keegan

NONFICTION/MEMOIR

Enough by Cassidy Hutchinson

Runner up: Giving up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel

To all my readers, best wishes for a most happy, healthy holiday season!

Note: Header photo of open book courtesy of Unsplash.

Summer 2023: Reading Roundup

WHAT I ACCOMPLISHED

(downtowngreensboro.org)

I set myself a goal of reading 12 books from the summer reading list I created.  True to form, I did not read all the books on the list, but I read some other good books in addition.  Here’s my reading report.

I did well on the fiction side and read seven of the nine titles.  They were as follows:

Fiction

Many Rivers to Cross by Peter Robinson (this instead of the listed mystery I discovered I’d already read)

Hang the Moon by Jeannette Walls (excellent!)

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano (4 stars)

Horse by Geraldine Brooks (5 stars)

Trespasses by Louise Kennedy (3 stars)

Trust by Hernan Diaz (appreciated it after I finished it)

The White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear (Winspear is back on her game!)

Note that I still plan to read This Other Eden and Three.

Nonfiction

As for nonfiction, I still have The Grimkes and The Lobster Coast on my stack.  I read a long Atlantic excerpt of The Best Minds and so decided to skip reading the entire book.

(wired.com)

OTHER NOTEWORTHY READS

Fiction

The Majority by Elizabeth Silver (Supreme Court justice loosely based on RBG, a fast read)

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (coming in a future post)

The English Teacher by Lily King

Think of Horses by Mary Clearman Blew

Nonfiction

Left on Tenth by Delia Ephron (memoir of illness & love, coming in a future post)

Giving Up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel (memoir)

The Codebreaker by Walter Isaacson (biography of Jennifer Doudna & history of gene editing; reading currently)

Note: Header image of row of readers is courtesy of lifeisthisway.com

Maine Memo: Maui, Mystery & Memoir

BEAUTIFUL MAUI

Menu cover at the yacht club

Like many people, the Chief Penguin and I have fond memories of visiting Maui over the years and being treated to insider tours with good friends.  It is wrenching to see the wildfire destruction of so much of historic Lahaina and its residential neighborhoods. 

On those earlier trips, we enjoyed meandering Front Street, checking out the small shops, and then tucking into a tasty lunch at the fun and funky Lahaina Yacht Club, now completely gone.  

Other club pennants on display in Lahaina

Our hearts and thoughts are with those who have lost loved ones and their homes. (Our friends were fortunate that their property was not affected.)

RECENT READING

A WOMAN WITH AN INTRIGUING PAST

The White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear

Author Winspear (Mystery Scene)

This latest novel by Winspear is a standalone one.  I’ve owned it for several months but put off reading it.  Now I wonder why as I found it fascinating, engaging, and occasionally suspenseful.  Elinor DeWitt, also known as Elinor White, was a practically a child during the First World War I when she and her sister were recruited to help the Resistance effort in Belgium.  Their assignments completed, not without danger or continuing mental anguish, they and their mother were taken safely to London, their mother’s early home.  

Elinor completed her education and embarked on a career as a language teacher before being importuned to assist the war effort, this time against the Nazis.  The book goes back and forth in time between the war years, and the present London setting in 1947.  Elinor finds herself drawn to investigate a neighbor family’s business dealings. This leads to re-connections with former colleagues and reflections on her wartime experiences.  

I found Winspear’s more recent Maisie Dobbs’ mysteries a bit tired.  Thus, I was pleased that Elinor White is a complex and intriguing character.  I stayed involved wondering what her fate and that of others would be.  Recommended!  (~JWFarrington)

CREATIVITY OUT OF MISERY

Giving Up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel (Published in 2003)

Author Mantel in 2000 (ew.com)

It was an interesting pairing to read Winspear’s novel right after Hilary Mantel’s haunting, graphic, and sharp-edged memoir.  Mantel was born in 1952 in a Britain still suffering the shortages and exigencies of the Second World War.  Much of her childhood was spent in a politically provincial village outside Manchester.  The tensions between Protestants and Catholics reigned supreme, and which you were governed your schools and your daily routine.  Living near multiple sets of older relatives, Hilary received much in the way of family lore and readily accepted that there were ghosts, even recounts personally experiencing sightings.  And to a great extent, she took the teachings and warnings of the family’s Catholicism to heart.

As a teenager, her mother moved her and her siblings to another town along with her live-in partner, Jack.  A life that was already fraught (her father and Jack had both lived with the family before the move) continued to be so in the new setting as Hilary worked to stay under the radar and quiet, if not invisible. Plagued by illness which became severely painful in her late teens, she spent years being misdiagnosed, mistreated, patronized, and ultimately operated on.  

Having lost the ability to have children, she turned to writing.  For anyone who has read Wolf Hall or Bringing Up the Bodies, award-winning novels in Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy, it’s easy to see the seeds of those historical works here in her approach to life.  

This is an unconventional and brilliantly written memoir.  Those novels came much later. Hilary Mantel died in 2022 at the age of 70. Thanks to my friend Margaret for passing this book on to me.  (~JWFarrington)

West coast of Maui, Wailea

Note: Unattributed photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved)

Maine Musings: On Screen & Page

DUPLICITY IN THE GEM WORLD

Rough Diamonds (Netflix)

Noah & Adina (Times of Israel)

Rough Diamonds is a fascinating and gripping Belgian series set in the Diamond District in Antwerp in the present day.  The Wolfson family, very orthodox Haredi Jews, have a diamond trading business that’s in trouble.  Unbeknownst to Father Ezra, head of the company, the youngest son Yanki has made some questionable deals.  Estranged son Noah who left the family and his religion some years before, returns from London to mourn a death.  

As their father’s health diminishes, Noah, his sister Adina, and his ineffectual older brother Eli, unite to try to save the company midst a web of corruption, violence, and tainted goods.  Meanwhile, prosecutor Jo Smets is investigating the Albanian mafia and stolen jewels.

It is hard at first, maybe even at the end, to interpret all the various strands of the plot.  Why does Noah work for his mother-in-law at all?  Are the bad guys the Albanians or some of the Wolfsons?  Has the prosecutor Smets overreached in her investigative efforts with Eli?  

With these elements swirling around, one of the most compelling aspects of this series is cultural. It’s the interlocking relationships among siblings and cousins, between spouses, and between the Wolfsons and the other Jews in their temple community.   There are 8 episodes, and summaries online indicate there will be a Season 2.  Suspenseful and recommended!

RECENT BOOKS

CRIME IN YORKSHIRE

Many Rivers to Cross by Peter Robinson

British crime writer Peter Robinson penned twenty-eight novels featuring Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks.  The setting is a small town in Yorkshire.  Over the years, I’ve read many of Robinson’s books, and I enjoyed the TV series, DCI Banks. based on several of them.  

Many Rivers to Cross is near the end of the series and the second to feature the intriguing Zelda.  Beautiful, from Moldova, trafficked as a teenager and sexually abused, she shows up in the U.K. as a pavement artist.  Partner to the much older artist Raymond Cabbot, father of DI Annie Cabbot, Zelda and Raymond are friends of Banks.  

The crime that opens the initial investigation is finding a young Arab boy’s body in a rubbish bin.  Trying to identify the boy and how he came to be there leads to drug activity in the area, a second death, and examining the roles of various community members.  The book begins slowly, almost meanderingly, and then picks up speed as links with Albanian mobsters appear, and players from Zelda’s past seem to be involved.  

Part of the attraction of this series is the character of Alan Banks himself.  He loves music of all types from classical to rock, and the reader is regularly treated to comments on what he is listening to.  A fully drawn complex character, he has two grown children and several past amours, one of whom is still a colleague.  He is compassionately thorough in his investigations, a decent man, with a good moral sense. 

In his lifetime, Peter Robinson received many book awards and was noted for his literary bent (he earned a Ph.D. in English from York University).  Sadly, he died late in 2022.  Wanting to know more about him, I found this lovely tribute by his wife, Sheila Halladay.  Be forewarned, there are a few spoilers about his last books.  You can find it at Crime Reads.

ROM-COM FUN

The Bodyguard by Katherine Center

(CultureMap Houston)

For a complete change of pace, I recommend Katherine Center’s new novel, The Bodyguard. Written during the pandemic, It’s fun, humorous, and ultimately sweet, but not icky.  I read in the “Watching” column about a new film on Netflix, Happiness for Beginners, based on one of Center’s books. I haven’t watched the film yet, but that mention led me to this novel. Center grew up in Texas and the ranch she describes belongs to her grandparents.

Hannah Brooks is a highly trained personal protection agent or bodyguard.  Stunned and grieved by the recent death of her mother, she is given a local assignment in Houston, rather than her preference for something far away.  Her client is Jack Stapleton, a well-known movie star back home to spend time with his ill mother.  

Prepared to provide protection, Hannah is initially incredulous when she is required to pose as Jack’s girlfriend in front of his family.  That’s only the beginning of the antics when this skilled agent must try things she’s never encountered like riding a horse and trying to maintain professional distance in a close relationship.  

Hannah and Jack each have some heavy baggage, but how their relationship evolves is both amusing and heartwarming.  The book is written in the first person in Hannah’s voice.  My only quibble is that I found the epilogue a bit overdone in terms of life lessons.  It’s a fast read, perfect for a summer afternoon!

Note: Header image of summer dahlias ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)