Book Report for April, May, and June 2020

I realized the other day that another three months had swanned past, and I could share some of the books I'd read with you.  I enjoy doing this, mostly because I often forget just exactly what I did read, and I like revisiting what I thought about each book.  I hope if you add any titles to your to-read lists after these posts, you don't feel that my opinions were misleading.  But if so, that's how the world works, right?  😉

Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen.  Fanny Price is the eldest daughter in a family of many children.  When she is sent to live with her cousins at Mansfield Park to provide some financial relief for her birth family, she moves into a completely different type of atmosphere than where she started.  She grows up with her cousins, but is not really considered at the same level as they are regarding most social activities.  Fanny becomes a sweet but meek young woman, who is mainly considered to be the companion to her aunt by the family.

As the cousins mature and go out into the world, Fanny is left behind, and her uncle not only becomes more aware of her, but begins to think of her more as a daughter.  When Fanny refuses a proposal from young Henry Crawford, who along with his sister Mary has become a friend of the family, her uncle is shocked and dismayed that she has ignored the chance to increase her social status and make a match that would improve her standing, as well as benefit the family.

A series of scandals and a severe illness of the family's eldest son throws everything about their lives into complete disarray, and what everyone believed about themselves and about Fanny is seen in a different light.

Being that this is a Jane Austen novel, things generally work out for most of the characters by the end of the book.  But not before Austen provides commentary through the story about the rules of society during that time, and provides her characters with lines that make it clear who are the fools and who are the people to admire.

Girls Like Us : Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon - and the Journey of a Generation, by Sheila Weller.  This book was a gift from a friend, sent to me shortly after it came out.  So since it's 500+ pages, and I'm in the house for quarantine isolation, I decided it was time to give it a shot.  I'm so glad I did, and I'm glad I read it at a time when I could spend time with it, and not only read it in small snippets.

Sheila Weller has written the stories of Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon to illustrate their amazing talents and influence on modern music - rock and roll, folk, and even the standards.  We get to know each woman in a fairly in-depth way, and see how/when/with whom they intersected.

Since I am a big fan of all of these women, I found the book to be really interesting and also fascinating.  Each of them had aspects of their lives that really surprised me, and their circles of friend and acquaintances were incredibly broad.

This is also one of those books that drives my husband crazy, since I'll be reading along and then all of a sudden say, "Did you know _____?" because I have just read an interesting factoid about the people involved, or the people they knew (Professor Irwin Corey knowing Lenny Bruce = Mind Blown).

If you are a fan of music you will enjoy this book in general.  If you are a fan of these women, you will enjoy it in particular.

Bettyville, by George Hodgman.  Just so you know before you decide if you want to read this, you should know it is very, very bittersweet.

George Hodgman left Manhattan and a high life lifestyle to go back to Missouri and take care of his elderly mother, Betty.  At first, he thinks it will be a relatively short visit, but it turns out that he is there for the long run.  Betty has always been a force to be reckoned with, and never really accepted the fact that her son was gay.  But now she suffers from dementia, which adds another layer to both her behavior and their relationship.  The book goes back and forth between Hodgman's life growing up with his parents, and his life as the caretaker of his mother after his father has died.

The book has moments that are really funny, moments where you realize that mother and son truly care for one another, but also moments that illustrate how life has changed and will likely continue to change in smaller towns in America.  Loss of jobs, community, local institutions and the effect on those who remain.

I enjoyed this book, even though sometimes it was hard to read.

This Must Be the Place, by Maggie O'Farrell.  This is the story of Daniel Sullivan, a linguistics professor, and his family - or rather,  families.  He has spent most of the lives of his younger children away from them.  Kept away by his ex-wife after a contentious divorce.  Then he met and fell in love with Claudette Wells, a movie star that simply vanished from the world it seems, that he meets during a trip to Ireland where she lives with her young son Ari in a remote area.  They marry and have two more children.

The stories are told in each chapter by a different person who is either part of Daniel's life or past, or is on the periphery of said life or past.  Each one tells you something different about Daniel and his relationships, and the chapters all take place in different places at different times.  Daniel himself narrates some of the story.  But mostly the book shows us how two of the characters - Daniel and Claudette - have a relationship that is so tenous, and so affected by previous relationships, that their marriage is always on the brink.

I found this book really interesting, and a good read.  The characters were interesting, and though not all of them were particularly likable, learning about them was pretty fascinating.

Songs Without Words, by Ann Packer.  This started with an interesting premise, but I as much as I tried, I just couldn't get up enough interest to finish it.  There wasn't even a character I felt interested in enough to try to find out what happened.

The Daughters of Erietown, by Connie Schultz.  I am a big fan of Connie Schultz, and follow her on Twitter and on Instagram, so I really wanted this book to be a good one.  I had heard pre-publication comments about it, and it sounded like something that would appeal to me.  But I am always worried when I have high hopes for books, because so often they are OK at best, and really disappointing in the end.

This is not the case with this book.  In her first novel, Schultz introduces us to Brick and Ellie, two teenagers in a working-class community in Ohio during the 1950s, who are in love but also have big plans.  Brick is a star basketball player, with the chance to attend college, making him the first in his family to do so.  This also means that he can leave home and not be a victim to the whims and actions of his abusive father.  Ellie, who was raised by her grandparents after her father's new wife didn't want her around, has a dream of going to nursing school, and knows it could happen since she has the best grades in her class.

But everything gets changed around completely when Ellie gets pregnant.  Dreams of furthering their educations are abandoned for both her and Brick, and they get married while Brick gets work as an electrician in the union working at a local plant.  Their daughter Samantha ("Sam") is born, and we see most of the rest of the story through her eyes.

Sam has to grow up fast, because when Brick and Ellie start having marital issues, Ellie wants her to help.  When her younger brother is born, she is responsible for taking care of him.  Their home life is OK, but tenuous in lots of ways, as their parents' marriage experiences ups and downs.

As Sam watches her parents, and learns more about their lives, she decides that her life will be different.  She is able to be the one who goes to college, though she ends up at Kent State University, rather than her first choice, Smith College.  She receives a full scholarship to Smith, but her father refuses to allow her to accept "charity."  So she attends Kent, and her dreams and opinions expand and change, even if in the end she finds herself right back in her hometown achieving them.

This books is good not just because of its base story, but because it is an exploration into the lives of regular people who want a nice life but instead of the life they planned, they have to deal with the life they were given.  For some, it means their ambition is increased; for others, frustration and irresponsible behavior begin to define their existence.  The story illustrates life during a period when so much changed in the world and in the lives and expectations of women.  And it describes the life of working people who may have big plans and dreams, even if they have to be deferred.

There is a lot to like in this book.  The characters are interesting, and even if they are not always sympathetic, you realize that it is largely because they have the failings that most humans do.

Waste and Want : A Social History of Trash, by Susan Strasser.  I actually finished this book a while ago, but forgot to update.

This was a truly readable book, about the social history of trash.  Trash as we know it is almost a modern kind of thing.  It used to be that people did their best to use every single bit of something, because materials and money were more scarce.  Particularly since the Industrial Revolution, the decision to throw things away rather than repurpose or reuse them has become the norm.

There was a lot in this book to make you think, and I feel that for anyone trying to be better about sustainability in all aspects of their lives, this would be a useful book to read.

A Royal Pain, by Rhys Bowen.  Lady Georgiana is considering a trip to London, since she is growing bored with her brother and sister-in-law in Scotland.  But she needs to figure something out.  The she finds out that her money-making scheme - opening up and preparing closed houses before the London season opens - gives her both a job and an excuse.  However, she is soon summoned by the Queen for assistance.  The Princess of Bavaria is coming to stay for two weeks and the Queen is hoping that the presence of a young, beautiful, vivacious girl will distract the Prince of Wales from that "awful Simpson woman."  She wants the Princess to stay with Lady Georgiana, so she has a chance to be around some younger, more lively people.

After Georgiana manages to find a "staff" for her own London house, the Princess arrives.  Georgiana finds her pleasant, if not puzzling, and some strange and tragic things begin to happen after her arrival.  It's up to Georgiana to not just try and pair her up with the Prince, but find out what happened that caused a couple of deaths.

With the Wallis Simpson aspect, the rise of Hitler, and the influence of Communists, there's a lot happening in this book.  But it's a highly enjoyable read, and gives you a feel for the time period.

Murder by the Book, by Lauren Elliott.  When Addison Greyborne moves to the small coastal New England town where her great-aunt left her an estate, it's a chance to leave sad memories in Boston, but also open her own shop, dealing with old/rare books and interesting curios.  But trouble finds her on the very first day the shop opens, and soon a lot of people in the town are blaming her for a rash of crimes, including murder.

This was an interesting cozy mystery.  It had interest to me since part of what Addie is interested in is books and their backgrounds.  The problems she had and that seemed to follow her around were ones that you knew had to somehow involve her and her past, even if they seemed to be unrelated to one another.  And there were enough "moving parts" so to speak, to keep my interest.

This one veered very close to new-woman-in-town-falls-for-hunky-cop, but at least in this installment, that was only where it seemed to be headed, not where it ended up.  But I would not be at all surprised if in the next book that just happened from the get go.  We'll see.

But this particular one had a lot in it that I liked.

A Pure Clear Light, by Madeleine St. John.  Simon and Flora Beaufort have been married for a while, and have three lovely children.  In this book, Simon finds himself having an affair with a young accoutant he meets through a mutual friend while Flora and the children are in France for the summer holidays.

Upon their return, the affair continues, but what worries Simon the most is that Flora seems to be leaning towards going to church regularly.  She was raised Roman Catholic, which Simon finds appalling, but converted to the Anglican church when they were married.  And they only got married in a church to appease their parents, and have since lived a completely secular life.

Throughout the book, Simon comes across as a controlling, self-centered heel.  His needs, wants, and opinions are what he thinks should count above all else.  He wants Flora to stop going to church and is really upset when the children start going with her.  He wants to keep the affair going, and is annoyed when the young accountant seems to be drifting away, living her life with her friends.  He is, in a word, a douchebag.

Flora seems to sense that something is off, but cannot put her finger on it.  She finds that going back to church fills her with a feeling that there is something other in the world, not just her life and her worries.  One of her friends spots Simon and his girlfriend in a cafe, and though the woman's husband says yes, of course Simon is cheating, no one wants to tell Flora.

The book goes back and forth, though it mainly spends time presenting the story from Simon's point of view.  But St. John is clearly doing this on purpose, to show us not just how self-centered Simon is, but how his wife and family are only important to him at *his* convenience.

The story is interesting, and well-written, with some true sardonic wit that will make you chuckle to yourself when reading it.  St. John is able to present the characters without making any of them perfect, but while also letting you appreciate their feelings and inner thoughts.

Devoted Ladies, by Molly Keane.  I tried, I really did but it's just not doing it for me.  The people are awful and there aren't enough amusing bon mots to read more.

As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner.  Another read-aloud book for us.

First of all, I have to say that unlike most people, I have only read one other thing by William Faulkner - for whatever reason, it was never part of any literature classes I took in school.  But I did like the one other thing I read.

I liked this book as well, primarily because the language was so amazing.  It's the story of the Bundren family, and their journey from their home across some of Mississippi to bury the mother, Addie.  Different chapters are narrated by different characters, including Addie, and there is a mix of sadness, some funny things, and a lot of frustration.

I can't say I really liked any of the characters.  The whole family in particular seemed like they would be very frustrating to be around, and I particularly found the father to be annoying.  But as I said, the language of the story was worth any amount of frustration with the characters.

Dead in Dublin, by Catie Murphy.  Megan Malone is a native born Texan, but has been living in Dublin for the last three years, working as a driver for a limo service.  When one of her customers, a popular food blogger, is found dead near the restaurant where she and her husband just ate dinner (a restaurant owned by one of Megan's good friends), initial suspicions are food poisoning.  Well - the poisoning part is right, but soon there's another victim - the co-owner of the restaurant!

Megan's friend asks her to see if she can find out anything, so she has an idea of whether or not her restaurant is finished.  As Megan starts to look into things and ask around, she learns that for everyone involved, there was a lot more going on than met the eye.

This was a fun read, and just about what my brain could handle at this time.  The killer turned out to be someone that I hadn't even thought about, and having been to Dublin, it was also fun to know places that the author referenced in the book.

Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers.  I've known about Dorothy L. Sayers and Lord Peter Wimsey for what seems like forever, but I finally read one of them, the first in the series.

As the book opens, Lord Peter is on his way to a rare book auction, when a call from his mother asking him to help an acquaintance of hers waylays him.  It appears that the man, Mr. Thipps, an architect, has discovered a body, naked but for a pince-nez, in his bathtub.  Mr. Thipps has no idea of who the person is, and the local inspector is suspicious that Thipps is involved.

This was such a fun read!  Lord Peter is quite the character, and the mystery was a good one.  As the book was published originally in 1923, some of the language may bother people today, but taken as a time capsule, I was not offended.  Sayers has created a witty, erudite, and interesting character, and this is a strong start to the series, if you ask me.

Law of Attraction, by Allison Leotta.  I almost put this book down, because the first few chapters were just annoying to me.  But once I got past that, it was a pretty good book!

Anna Curtis is an Assistant United States Attorney in Washington, DC, specializing in domestic violence.  One day she runs into a former law school classmate, and they begin a torrid romance.  However, when she takes on a case and finds that the former classmate is defending the attacker, and actually manages to get him freed, she ends the relationship.

Shortly afterwards,  Anna's client is found murdered, and all signs point to the boyfriend.  When Anna joins the case, which is now a felony murder case, she starts to learn more about both the deceased and the defendant.  Her investigation loops around several times, before we get to the resolution of the case and her story.

Once I got past the beginning, the story had a lot of interesting bits and ups and downs.   I'm glad I stuck with it, though I don't know that I'll go crazy reading any more in the series.

Murder on Cape Cod, by Maddie Day.  Mackenzie "Mac" Almeida owns a bicycle shop on Cape Cod and is looking forward to the summer tourist season, when she is able to make the money to keep the place open for the rest of the year.  She also belongs to a book club, the Cozy Capers Book Group, who only read cozy mysteries.

On her way home one evening, she nearly trips over the body of a local handyman, Jake Lacey.  He has been stabbed to death, and Mac recognizes the knife used as belonging to her stepbrother.  In addition, many people witnessed Mac having a disagreement with Jake earlier in the day at a food kitchen.

This was a pretty decent read - their were quite a few possibilities who the killer may have been, and the story took a couple of turns I didn't expect.  However, I found the end somewhat unsatisfying because although we learned the identity of the murderer, we didn't learn enough about the motivatios of that person, or several others mentioned in the book.

Murder in the Manor, by Fiona Grace.  On the day that Lacey Doyle receives her divorce papers to sign, she decides on a whim that she is taking a trip to the small seaside England town where her family had a wonderful vacation right before her father left for good.

When she arrives, the little town is much as she remembered it, and she feels happy and comfortable there.  Once she realizes that a storefront is available for purchase, she decides to apply for a working visa, buy the place, and open an antiques shop like her father had.  With her work and educational background in antiques and the approval to stay, she opens her dream shop and starts to feel that she has made the right decision to stay.

When a customer stops in and asks her to come to the local manor house to appraise some items, Lacey is thrilled.  However, when she arrives the woman is dead, and of course the local police find Lacey to be a perfect suspect.  Her store suffers because everyone suspects the outsider.

This was a pretty interesting mystery, not just because the small town sounds lovely and the author writes about it in a very evocative manner, but because the mystery keeps taking twists and turns.  And at the very end, we *may* have found someone who can tell Lacey something about her father ... but that will have to wait until the next book?

The Burgess Boys, by Elizabeth Strout.  Another good one from Elizabeth Strout.  The Burgess Boys grew up in Maine, with their sister and their mother, after a traumatizing incident in their childhood killed their father.  Both are now men, living in New York City - Jim, a mover and a shaker in a large law firm, and Bob, a low-key, divorced lawyer doing appeals work.  Jim has always been the one that people have admired, and who - for all intents and purposes - is living the American dream, with a perfect wife and family.  Bob lives a quieter, more internal life, being more sensitive than both his brother and his twin sister, who still lives in Maine, with her son Zach.

When Zach gets into some very serious legal trouble, the brothers are called on to help him.  As the story continues, we see each brother deal with it in his own way, and also realize how their childhood roles may not have been based on what they each believed.

This book covers a lot, but it also demonstrates how each person in a family can live their lives according to their perception of things as a child.  It also shows how families react when they are forced to come together as adults after being apart for a while.

This book was a good read.

A History of the World in 6 Glasses, by Tom Standage.  I enjoyed this book so much!  Sometimes non-fiction books are good, but not that enjoyable, but this one was both.  Standag looks at the history of the world by looking at how six beverages made such a huge difference in civilization.  This is social history at its best.

What are the six glasses?  Beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola.  He takes us through time beginning in the Stone Age, to show us that each of these beverages showed up at a place and time pivotal to life.  They are also representative of the shift from a primarily agricultural existence to one which is clearly more industrialized and where more people live in urban settings than before.

Not only do you learn the history of people and places, but this book helps you realize how everyday things can be as much of a catalyst for change as anything else we do or create.

The Drowning House, by Elizabeth Black.  This was one of those, "If you enjoyed X, you might like this" recommendations, and it sounded intriguing to me.  It turned out to be really interesting.

Clare Porterfield has returned to her childhood home in Galveston, Texas, after being away for many years.  Her young daughter died in a freak accident, and though she and her husband Michael moved to a new place, their marriage has never recovered.  When she has the chance to do a photographic exhibition in Galveston, it's the perfect way to restart and regroup.

Once she arrives, not only does she feel like she can figure out what to do next, but she reconnects with the people and the place.  And hopes to see her childhood friend Patrick.  When they were younger, they caused lots of trouble together, and after "the fire," he was sent to Europe to study and Clare was sent to her grandmother's in Cleveland to finish school.

Her return leads her to try and figure out what happened - with her and Patrick, with her family members, with the history of the places and people there.  It leads to a series of revelations that mean that what Clare had always believed was not necessarily the case.

Overall, it's a good book.  Clare is a difficult person to really care about - at least for me - but the story is interesting, and the history of Galveston woven through is extremely evocative.

If I Should Die, by Grace F. Edwards.  Grace F. Edwards died recently, and when I was reading her obituary in the New York Times, it mentioned that she had begun writing a mystery series when she got older that was groundbreaking in the way that it captured the lives of everyday people living in Harlem and their relationships not just with society at large, but with the police.  So I decided to give this book a try.

The book takes place in the late 1990s, in Harlem, when the crack epidemic is in full force.  Mali Anderson is a former cop who is pursuing a Ph.D. in social work, and has spent her entire life in Harlem.  Her father is a well-known jazz musician and she lives with him and her nephew Alvin, who was orphaned when Mali's sister and her husband died in a climbing accident in Europe.

Mali left the police force when she filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against a fellow officer.  One day when she is walking to pick up Alvin from choir practice, she happens upon what seems to be an attempted child abduction.  She manages to scare away the kidnapper, but realizes that the choir director is lying in the street dead, after he was shot while also trying to foil the kidnapping.  Her instincts from years of being a police officer kick in, and she starts to try and find out what is going on.  Some of her old department contacts are assigned to investigate, but they don't seem to be following procedure as she knows it.  When a former colleague reaches out, and they become romantically involved, she is able to learn a bit more.

But as other murders happen, and an attempt on the life of Mali's dear friend happens, it seems there is a whole lot more going on than originally seemed to be the case.  Things start to get really dangerous, really quick.

The murder mystery is interesting, but the best part of this book is the historical information about Harlem and its people, as well as its depiction of families and family life.  If you didn't know they were black, you would be appalled at some of the things that they have to endure.  But since you know that they are, it just reinforces the fact that though they lives lives similar to everyone else, there is an undercurrent of fear, prejudice, and the feeling that society sees them as the "other."

I liked this book and plan to continue with the series.

Starling Days, by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan.  When this book opens, we meet Mina, who is standing on a bridge over the Hudson River, thinking about dying.  When she throws one of her flip flops over the side of the bridge, she is (unwillingly) pulled off the bridge by a couple of cops and taken to an EMT station where she calls her husband Oscar to come and get her.

Oscar and Mina have been married for a short time, and though in many ways their life together seems fine, they are together in a very tenuous way.  Mina suffers from severe depression, and Oscar spends a lot of his time making sure she is OK.  As a matter of fact, on their wedding day and on what should have been their wedding night, Mina overdosed on pills and had to be in a psychiatric hospital for a while.

A kind of redemption happens shortly after the river incident, when Oscar's father asks him to go to London on business (Oscar works for his father's company).  They stay in a flat owned by the company, and Oscar sees this as a chance to start fresh.  Oscar grew up in England, and his mother currently lives in Inverness, Scotland.  He has many friends there.  Oscar himself is interesting, as he is the result of a one-night-stand between his mother and father.

Not long after their arrival, Oscar is called back to the States briefly for a business meeting with this father.  The book takes place primarily in this period.  In the beginning, Oscar is torn between working with his father and worrying if Mina is OK back in London.  Mina, in the meanwhile, becomes involved and infatuated with the sister of one of Oscar's friends.  As it turns out, Oscar ends up staying in the U.S. for a longer period of time, going to California to stay a bit with his father and his stepmother.  Mina becomes more enamored of her friend Phoebe, and they have a brief affair.  Eventually, Oscar returns, and he and Mina both are changed.

This book was really interesting, moving back and forth between Oscar and Mina.  It does an excellent job of illuminating what living with depression, and what living with someone with depression, can be like.  It shows how people and families can all have secrets, and relationships of all kinds can be long or brief, happy or sad, and how outside influences can change things suddenly.

I don't know if this is a book you can "like" per se.  But it was interesting and well-written.

Fashionopolis : The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes, by Dana Thomas.  After reading this book, you will want to slap anyone who ever says, "I have nothing to wear." (I say that all the time, and yes, I want to slap myself.)

Clothes used to be valued, and even for wealthy people, they were used and reused because replacing them was not an automatic response.  With the rise of fast fashion, all of that went out the window.  This book talks about that, but also discusses how so many of the companies that claim to be "ethical" are walking a fine line on that definition.

Having said that, I understand why people purchase fast fashion, because it is what you can afford.  For instance, I am lucky if I can purchase something of quality in any given year.  But during that year, I also need things to wear because so much is worn out - and I wear my fast fashion purchases until they do wear out.  It becomes a vicious circle of sweatshops continuing because the resulting pieces are affordable to a large swath of the population.  Which means that they have no reason to stop, because the company they are producing for is continuing to make money.

I will say that this book will likely make you think about what you buy and if you really truly need it.  For the most part, it was interesting, but there were sections that were so packed with statistics, my eyes tended to glaze over.  But if you buy clothes, care about people, and the planet, this is well worth reading.

******

So there you go - a couple of duds, but most of the others were at a minimum readable.   What have you read lately?  Anything you particularly do or do not recommend??