Middle Sister's October Books

First, let me get the word out that the other sisters are fine; without power after Hurricane Sandy, but fine. Our mother never lost power. No one's house has, to my knowledge, any damage. They may be cold and bored, but they are fine--and hopefully that means they will have a lot of books to discuss when they are back online. On to the books.

My offerings may be few, but they're pretty diverse:

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce Nominated for the Man Booker Prize, this amazing and charming and well-written book is a delight from beginning to end. Harold, Maureen, Queenie, David--with just a few well-chosen words, Ms. Joyce creates characters that we know, that we may see in the mirror every morning. Harold's pilgrimage is inspiring and tear-jerking and contemplative. Read this book. That's it, just read this book.

A Woman's Guide to Menopause and Perimenopause by Mary Jane Minkin and Carol V. Wright  Good, solid guidebook to the physical, mental, and emotional changes that accompany menopause and the years leading up to it (for some of us, it's been 10 years of perimenopause and frankly, we're ready for this phase to be over). Some of the medical information is outdated (e.g., there are some meds that are now off the market because of negative side effects), but overall, this guide will help women navigate this next phase of life successfully. A plus is the inclusion of many real-patient scenarios presented by Dr. Minkin, with her reasoning why some paths are more suitable for this particular case than others.

A Deadly Row to Hoe by Cricket McRae The latest in the Sophie Mae Home Crafting mystery series. Sophie Mae and her husband are trying to have a baby and still living with her friend Meghan and Meghan's daughter; and now, with the addition of Meghan's boyfriend, that house is starting to get really crowded.  This book capitalizes on the current proliferation of CSA (community-supported agriculture) groups, as Sophie Mae finds a murder victim while putting in her volunteer hours at the CSA farm to which she and her family belong. I like how the author tries to put Sophie in more unusual situations for her mysteries, which gets more difficult the longer a series continues. I liked the ending. Although I had guessed the murderer, the way the denouement played out was novel and, in some ways, far more realistic than this genre usually supports. I didn't like the way the police department was treated as composed of idiots (Sophie has to tell her policeman husband to put a guard on the hospital door of an assault victim--really? And her husband isn't insulted and Sophie isn't embarrassed when she finds out that he actually had already done this, being a professional? Oy vey!), and I got quite tired of the baby-making angle. I'm not sure I like the direction the author seems to be taking Sophie Mae's character at the end, but given that there are only so many home crafts one can do, she really has no choice if she wants the series to continue. The idyllic home life is getting to be a bit too saccharine for me. No one squabbles over whose turn it is to cook the exquisite healthy meals they eat, or clean the toilet, or take out the trash. Oh, and Meghan, words of advice: if your 12-year-old daughter is only trying make-up now for the first time, the better response is not the blow up and yell at her, but to show her how to use make-up correctly. Be grateful it's just make-up; lots of other 12-year-olds are pregnant or drug users. A little excess mascara--nothing at all.

My Bookstore edited by Ronald Rice I worked in an independent bookstore for 11 years, and I love bookstores. I also love ereaders. I don't understand why so many supposed book lovers feel it has to be an either/or situation. This paean to the independent bookstores has many essays (most good, some average, a couple bad) that share one common thread:  most rhapsodize how much the author loved visiting their local bookstore, where they could read for hours on end undisturbed by the salesclerks. Which leads me to wonder how many of these people love bookstores, or just love having their own 'private' library where there are no reserve lists for any title. No waiting, anticipation building, for that book you've been dying to read to come in. I don't want to see bookstores disappear either, and I'll say it again--there's no need unless the publishing industry decides to use the music industry as its model rather than the telephone industry (Tower Records is gone, but Sprint managed to move from landline provider to cell provider and flourish). The democratization of reading that ereaders and independent publishing offers carries Gutenberg's revolution one more step further. I hope bookstores don't get left behind. On a personal note, I was delighted to see the name of someone I went to high school with in the book--my seven degrees from celebrity, I guess. The pen and ink drawings of every bookstore were enchanting. And  I did discover some new-to-me authors whose work I'll now track down. If one measures the success of a book by how well it gets the reader to want to read more, well, then, this book succeeded. And yes, I did read it on my Kindle. So there.

Middle Sister's August Books

Not so many books read this month, as I was reading some textbooks and rewriting lectures for this semester's class. Here are the few books on the fiction/nonfiction front I managed to squeeze in.

1. The Agony Column by Earl Derr Biggers Fun historical mystery from 1916, Biggers is best remembered for his Charlie Chan novels, but he also wrote stand alones, including this and Seven Keys to Baldpate (one of my favorite classic films). Our narrator is a young man about the town drawn into a mystery in London when he decides to pursue a chance acquaintance. The plot twist is key: he falls madly in love with a woman he sees in a restaurant, writes a note to her via the newspaper's agony column (today's personals), and then writes her a series of letters describing the perilous mystery swirling around him. Extremely enjoyable! I recommend this one highly.
2.  Lye in Wait by Cricket McRae (2007) First in the Home Crafting mystery series, this cozy introduces us to Sophie Mae Reynolds, her friend Meghan, and Meghan's daughter Erin, all sharing a house outside Seattle. When the neighborhood handyman is killed in Sophie Mae's soap making workroom, she's drawn into a mystery that threatens everyone she loves. Naturally, the investigating officer becomes her love interest (really, authors, this is getting to be a boring cliche), and the coincidences that come with the identification of the murderer are a little farfetched, this is not a bad introduction to the series and the characters. 
3. The Knitter's Life List by Gwen W. Stenge (2011) Nicely illustrated and laid out introductory guide for new knitters, this books stakes its own claim to the over-saturated knitting book market by providing life lists to introduce each chapter. These life lists include yarn goals, pattern goals, and other bucket list entries (Who came up with the silly term bucket list anyway?). Honestly, this was the part of the book I disliked. I am not less of a knitter because I have no inclination to learn to knit socks; I only wear socks out here for about 3 weeks of the year. Heavy on Internet-promoted designers, with only a few of the older, pre-web designers mentioned. Limited in the kinds of patterns it discusses (scarves, sweaters,socks,, gloves, and bags) when there are tons of other things one can knit.  But, great photos, great hand drawings illustrating the different kinds of sweaters and how their constructions differ (surely a big help to new knitters or those who've never tried a wearable), and hooray for the discussion on various knitting styles and how they are all the right way to knit if it's comfortable to you.Nice bibliography.
4. The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook by Deborah Robson and Carol Ekarius (2011) Great guide to all animals that provide fleece that can be carded and processed into yarn. This is a unique addition to the knitting literature out there. While it's for serious spinners and weavers out to expand their horizons, knitters with a passing interest in what they are working with will find the book useful for its easy to follow, well executed layout, great photography, and inclusion of more breeds of sheep than I knew existed. The authors included chiengora (spinning dog fur, and yes, they include a photo of a gorgeous Samoyed!), rabbit fur, and other unusual fiber options. Love the photo spreads showing the unprocessed raw fleece, the spun fiber, and gauge swatches for each fiber source. I don't harbor secret fantasies of living on a sheep farm to get all the yarn I want, but maybe some knitters and crocheters do, and if so, this is the book for them. To the rest of us, it's a handy reference to what a qiviut really is.
5. All Wound Up by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (2011) Latest collection of essays by the Yarn Harlot of blog fame. Pearl-McPhee muses on yarn, stashes thereof, and other mysteries of life. Fans of the Yarn Harlot will love this latest collection. Enjoyable light read. I was only disturbed to find that Pearl-McPhee can't even have dinner with her husband and children without knitting. Really, Stephanie, it's okay to let the needles lay and enjoy the moment. Those girls will be all grown up soon, and gone, and you'll wish you remembered more more about restaurant dinners with them than what socks you were working on. Hopefully, the socks will trigger a memory of the jokes they told, the food they ate, they way their eyes twinkled. But too many new knitters take the words of Serious Knitters like Pearl-McPhee to heart and think it's okay to knit anywhere, including church services, concerts, and anywhere they want to. It's just knitting, folks. You won't die taking an hour off from your current WIP.

I'm hesitant to include the next title, which sucked up several nights of precious reading time. It's one of the few books I've ever stopped reading. Cooking the Books by Bonnie S. Calhoun has a great premise: woman's mother dies, leaves her a bookstore (love that location for a mystery), and as daughter is looking to restart her life, she decides to at least give running the bookstore a try, despite not knowing anything about the business nor being interested in it.This backstory takes place before the book opens. When the story starts, Sloane has already been at the bookstore for a few months, has met a doctor she's romantically interested in, and is trying to figure out what to do with the bookstore. Some developers are trying to buy out the local small business owners to turn this block of Brooklyn into a high rise development, and Sloane is determined not to sell when she knows her mother would have resisted. Sounds great, right? But the book was in need of serious editorial help. After having read one-quarter of the the book, the most mystery we've had is two threatening emails. The author spends an inordinate amount of time trying to develop her characters into quirky, one-of-a-kind eccentrics but failed. Typos, grammatical errors, and ridiculous copy--no thirty-four-year old, even one who doesn't cuss, is going to use the phrase "great googa-mooga!" repeatedly. I stopped reading this galley, the first I've had to decline from NetGalley. As a first draft, this showed some promise, but it needs a lot of editing. A lot.