Tag: reading

Book List: January-May 2016

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By popular request and for your reference (as well as my own), I’ve created an alphabetical list of all of the books I’ve mentioned or commented on since the beginning of the year; i.e. January through May, with one title that will appear in another posting this month.  List includes the genre and the date of the blog post in which it appeared.

It is possible to search my blog by the tags, “books” or “reading,” for example, and get the posts that have those tags, but this does not provide an organized list.  And you can see all the posts that are categorized as Books or Reading, but that again just gives you the entire post.  So here’s the first list of authors and titles.  I’ll do this periodically throughout the year.

BOOKS CITED 2016, Jan-May

Addair, Lynsey           This is What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love & War

(memoir) 3/20/16

Coutts, Marion           Iceberg (memoir)  2/20/16

Fair, Eric                     Consequence (memoir) 5/18/16

Fechtor, Jessica         Stir: My Broken Brain & the Meals That Brought Me Home (memoir) 5/18/16

Gawande, Atul           Being Mortal (nonfiction) 2/20/16

George, Elizabeth      Banquet of Consequences (Inspector Lynley mystery) 5/18/16

Groff, Lauren             Fates and Furies (novel)   2/14/16

Harrod-Eagles, C.     The Dancing Years (historical novel, Morland Dynasty) 4/29/16

Haslett, Adam            Imagine Me Gone (novel) 5/30/16

Kalanithi, Paul           When Breath Becomes Air (memoir)

Kinsley, Michael        Old Age: A Beginner’s Guide (memoir) 5/22/16

LeBan, Elizabeth       The Restaurant Critic’s Wife (novel) 5/18/16

Lee, Janice Y. K.        Expatriates (novel) 3/5/16

Markham, Beryl        West with the Night (memoir) 2/14/16

Newman, Janis C.    Master Plan for Rescue (novel) 1/29/16

Ng, Celeste                Everything I Never Told You (novel) 3/5/16

Norris, John              Mary McGrory, The First Queen of Journalism (biography) 1/22/16

Nuland, Sherwin       How We Die (nonfiction) 2/20/16

Nutt, Amy Ellis          Becoming Nicole (nonfiction) 1/9/16

Redniss, Lauren        Radioactive (graphic biography) 4/23/16

Reisman, Nancy        Trompe L’Oeil (novel) 1/9/16

Sansom, C. J.             Dissolution (Tudor mystery) 5/22/16

Strout, Elizabeth        My Name is Lucy Barton (novel) 4/23/16

Tallent, Elizabeth      Mendocino Fire (short stories)

Traister, Rebecca       All the Single Ladies… (nonfiction) 4/15/16

Walker, Walter          Crime of Privilege (mystery) 2/20/16

Warlick, Ashley          Arrangement (historical novel) 3/20/16

Winspear, J.                Journey to Munich (Maisie Dobbs mystery) 4/23/16

 

Booknote: Dance & Detectives

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Since I’m traveling, my reading gets a bit neglected, but here are two recent book recommendations I’m happy to share.

Astonish Me by Maggie Shipstead. Shipstead is the author of Seating Arrangements and this is her second novel. It takes the reader into the somewhat cloistered world of ballet. The main character is Joan, who had a short-lived career as a ballerina and then left when she realized she wasn’t good enough. She marries and raises a son. Her compatriot Sandy with whom Joan has a somewhat ambivalent relationship, makes a career as a dancer. Added to this mix is a Russian dancer whom Joan helped to defect. Stir in some other complex relationships—that of Joan with her husband and son and that of Joan and Sandy with the defected dancer and you have lots of interplay. I liked this book the farther along I got and had figured out the “surprise” revelation.

To Dwell in Darkness by Deborah Crombie. This latest mystery is one of Crombie’s best in my opinion. Very up-to-the-minute with its themes of environmental activism and potential terrorist threats, it brings together British detectives Gemma Jones and Duncan Kincaid and several of their colleagues from earlier books to solve two crimes. When a protest in the busy St. Pancras train station results in an unexpected death, there are questions of suicide, murder, an unintended victim, and multiple threads to unravel. What I especially like about Crombie’s mysteries is that even the secondary characters (the other detectives, for example, and Jones and Kincaid’s children) are well fleshed out and you get a portrayal of the daily life of these people when they are not tracking down or interviewing a suspect.

Maine Musings: Winding Down of Summer

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We just ended a week of house guests as we wind down our Maine time. My sister and her husband were easy to have and together we visited the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, ate lobster as often as possible, and enjoyed another excursion to Pemaquid Point.

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We then welcomed our 3 year old granddaughter (and her wonderful parents) who provided nonstop commentary on what she and everyone around her was doing. That was when she wasn’t making up family stories about sticks, stones, and her dolls or involving her grandmother as playmate in various scenarios: going to the dentist, lying on the beach, being sick and requiring a trip to the hospital in an ambulance, making pancakes (clementines stood in for the pancake batter), and arranging a tea party. She and I did all of these things and we even read a few books together; for the one she especially liked, it was, “again, Grandma, again.”

We also made blueberry pancakes for breakfast (for real) and spent many hours in the children’s garden at the aforementioned botanic garden. A lively visit and a real gift of their precious time.

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What I’m Not Reading

Despite a recent article in the Wall St. Journal about the demise of the summer reading list, I still try to read tomes on vacation that I don’t attempt the rest of the year. This summer I have one of Trollope’s novels on my stack which I will start soon.

I also subscribe to a first editions book club and receive an autographed novel in the mail each month. I seldom read these books as soon as they arrive and over time I accumulate a small stack of them. I brought two with me to Maine. I have started both of them and abandoned both of them, probably for good. I anticipated being absorbed and even engrossed in them, but not so.

The first one is about a young woman who masquerades as a man and goes off to fight in the Civil War. She leaves her husband and their farm behind. The writing is spare and the images of war are graphic and bloody. The author keeps the reader at a distance and I didn’t stay engaged. Maybe not just the right time or mood for me, so perhaps I’ll return to it. It is Neverhome by Laird Hunt.

The second novel, Flying Shoes, by Lisa Howorth, is a first novel built around the re-opening of a murder case in the 1980’s that was the actual murder of the author’s brother. It’s set in Mississippi and has a sassy, what I would characterize as southern, tone. I found the narrator’s voice too flippant and saucy; hence it’s on my discard pile.

One of the liberating aspects of this stage of life is that I don’t need to finish every book I start. I sample fifty to a hundred pages and if I don’t like what I’ve read, I give myself permission to set it aside without guilt. Life is short and there are too many books I want to read to get bogged down in one that is not compelling or enjoyable in some way!

Maine Musings: Restaurants & Reading

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LAZY DAYS

Being in Maine promotes being lazy—watching the lobster boats circling to check their traps, observing the patterns of sun and shadow on the garden lilies, letting the hours slink by without any pressure. It’s also getting together with friends, shopping at the weekly farmers’ market, and exploring new venues.

This week we returned to Portland for lunch at the Blue Spoon with new Florida friends. The café is small and serves good food that is more interesting than the usual sandwiches and burgers. It’s located on Munjoy Hill in a section of the city we hadn’t previously discovered. After lunch we walked down the hill to the waterfront and strolled along the Eastern Promenade. Stately old frame houses with widows’ walks and porches line the opposite side of the promenade, several with condo for sale signs. A tempting prospect.

We also had dinner at the Newagen Inn, the place we came to stay twenty-five years ago for the first of our annual visits. The inn has changed over the years and become more elegant—the latest addition an impressive portico and re-worked entrance drive. What hasn’t changed, however, is its lovely location on the point of land known as Cape Newagen. The casual restaurant has a cozy bar area and a porch-like section with big windows perfect for admiring the view to the sea. You can also sit outdoors on a wrap around porch with umbrella tables. We all enjoyed the excellent halibut on a bed of risotto studded with sundried tomatoes and greens. The chef, a tall young woman in a ball cap, came out to chat and enthusiastically shared her plans for future menus.

BEACH READS

With the relaxed pace of these weeks comes the desire to indulge in good stories, novels that are absorbing with convincing characters and a strong narrative arc. Here are two I read this week, one definitely better than the other.

Haven Lake by Holly Robinson. This novelist is also a ghost writer and she was new to me. Set in the Berkshires in Massachusetts, this is a novel of complicated family dynamics—an estranged mother and daughter (both adults and the mother a sheep farmer), an unhappy teenager, and a surgeon fiancé who seems obsessed with his work. Add to this a mystery about two deaths that occurred twenty years ago and you have an intriguing slew of emotions. I thought the portrait of 15 year old Dylan was especially well drawn.

Silver Bay by Jojo Moyes. I like Moyes’ work and thought Me Before You was an exceptional novel due to its subject matter. I also enjoyed The Last Letter from Your Lover. This novel is one of her earliest and it shows. It isn’t as tightly constructed and, to my lights, could have used more focus and more editing. That said, it’s set in Australia at a hotel that attracts tourists who come to see the whales and the dolphins on Silver Bay. When a developer has plans to build a new hotel and retail complex, there is immediate conflict between the outside firm and the local whalesavers and environmentalists.