Wow, August was full of books, because unbelievably, the dog is still in the hospital, which means I continue my habit of reading to him (as I do the animals at home every night) for two hours. This month was characterized by its variety.
Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver I borrowed this book from my boss in January, but I had to put it aside for a few months after my mother died since the main character begins the novel reflecting on how the death of her mother has affected her. It was a very good book, but my boss and I both preferred the story of Thatcher and Mary to the modern story of Iano and Willa. The unremitting bad luck of their lives paralleled mine a little too much. The overt political stance of Willa and Iano as contrasted with Iano's father, with which I happen to agree, did become annoying after a while. Some of that should have been sacrificed for more interaction between Iano and his father, I think, even though Willa is the protagonist of the modern half of the story. The modern story is filled with more characters and more chaos, which exemplifies Willa's life at the moment, but there is so much going on that I think the threads became too many to weave together as effectively as the simpler, less chaotic story of Thatcher and Mary. I'll end with one of my favorite, and most devastating quotes: "When someone matters like that, you didn't lose her at death. You lost her as you kept living."
Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie, annotated edition by Maria Tatar My book group's selection for the summer. I'd never read Peter Pan and I didn't like the Disney movie as a child (in fact, I don't think I've ever seen the whole movie). I didn't like the story (abandoned children never reunited with their families is upsetting to me as a adult and I think that's why I didn't like it as a child), although I did appreciate the creativity Barrie had in spades. What I really liked about this edition was all the footnotes and the estra chapters on the original Arthur Rackham illustrations, the history of the play, and the other tangents Tatar explored.
40 Timeless Knits by Norah Gaughan Great new compilation of Norah Gaughan knit designs, with samples from her career presented chronologically. Perfect for knit lovers, with good photographs, charts, and written directions.
The Old Success by P.D. James James' mysteries are being reissued in electronic form, and that makes it even easier to enjoy these well written, erudite mysteries. I admit to having a huge fictional crush on Richard Jury, so I enjoy all of her novels. This isn't one of James' strongest, as it can get confusing keeping the interconnections between all the characters straight, but it is marked by one of James' most sympathetic supporting characters,Tom Brownell. I don't remember if Diane's ex-husband, George Jenks, makes any reappearances in other novels, but I hope he does. She is one of my least liked characters but I did enjoy their interactions.
My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich by Ibi Zoboi Young adult novel that is aimed at the same age group as Jason Reynolds, but it falls a little short. Set in the 1980s, in Alabama and New York City, the story follows Ebony-Grace Norfleet Freeman who leaves her mother and beloved grandfather in Alabama to spend a few weeks with her father in New York City. When her grandfather becomes ill, Ebony-Grace must stay in NYC, and face what she has avoided successfully by retreating into a fictional world she and her grandfather created--growing up. Some sections dragged on a little too much, and this nerdy child-now-adult thought Ebony-Grace's transition from her space fantasy to reality happened far too quickly. All the 1980s references were amusing to me, but would be meaningless to the targeted age group. I liked the comic book-style illustrations, but I wished they had furthered the story rather than recapitulated scenes we'd already read.
Felicity Carrol and the Murderous Menace by Patricia Marcantonio I think Marcantonio wanted to create a female Sherlock Holmes--an independently wealthy polymath, Felicity has no family ties to force her to adhere to late Victorian propriety, and she has decided to help Scotland Yard solve mysteries. In this, which I think is the second novel in the series, Felicity's Scotland Yard friend has made himself sick over his inability to catch Jack the Ripper. Felicity decides to do that in hopes of restoring him to health. I won't go into the details of how, but Felicity tracks the Ripper to Montana, where she meets an attractive lawman and tries to understand the Wild West. Felicity was extremely annoying, especially in the first half of the novel, and if I read the phrase "her remarkable memory" one more time I was going to give up. Marcantonio makes a number of mistakes that detract from the time she's trying to recreate: Felicity throws twenty and fifty dollar notes around as if they were pennies, and that would have attracted a lot of attention in a mining town, Felicity and the Hunky Marshal get physical, which would never (okay, maybe never but rarely) happen to a wealthy Victorian maiden without consequences, and uses the concept of profiling the murderer which was used in the Ripper case but I wonder if the term profiling was used (I suspect not) as Marcantonio uses it. I do giver the author props for an original conclusion to the identification of Jack the Ripper, which saved the book.
Revolutionary Brothers by Tom Chaffin Interesting and well-written biography of the Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson and their relationship both during and after the Revolutionary War. The book is well-researched and easy to read, although I wish my advanced reader's copy had illustrations or maps to help describe some of the events. I enjoyed the appearance of my favorites, John and Abigail Adams, and their intersection with both Lafayette and Jefferson in Paris after the war, developing the United States' early diplomatic relationship with France; Jefferson and Abigail seem to have had a mutually admiring relationship. The book ends rather abruptly, and disappointingly, during a tour of southern France by Jefferson, without any mention of what happened to both gentlemen after their role as diplomats ended, what happened to Lafayette during the French Revolution, or Jefferson's election as president.
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