American Master Ursula K LeGuin, Storied Life of AJ Fikry Movie, Quote of the Day, The Great Unexpected by Dan Mooney, The Last Word by Samantha Hastings, Waisted by Randy Susan Meyers, and Dungeon Crawl by Annie Bellet

I've been an Ursula LeGuin fan since the early 70s, when I discovered her amazing science fiction and fantasy novels. I had the chance to meet her twice, once at a book event that used to take place in one of the warehouses on the pier in Seattle, and then later at another book event in Bellevue. Both times I was stunned by her insights and intellect and her ferocious feminism. Now that she's gone, they're doing shows about her life and work, and I can hardly wait to see them...this one in particular sounds marvelous.

TV: American Masters--Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin

American Masters--Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz41283411 will premiere on Friday, August 2, on PBS, pbs.org/americanmasters http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz41283412 and the PBS Video app. The film had its world premiere at the Sheffield Documentary Festival and has been shown internationally at dozens of festivals.

Produced with Le Guin's participation over the course of a decade, American Masters--Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin explores the personal and professional life of the notoriously private author through conversations with Le Guin as well as her family, friends and the generations of writers she influenced, including Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, Michael Chabon and David Mitchell.

The film also illustrates the dramatic real-world settings that shaped Le Guin's invented places using original animations over her own readings of her work.

American Masters--Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin is a production of Arwen Curry in association with the Center for Independent Documentary and THIRTEEN's American Masters for WNET. The film is directed by Arwen Curry, who is also a co-producer with Jason Andrew Cohn and Camille Servan-Schreiber. Michael Kantor is American Masters series executive producer.

I enjoyed reading this book when it first appeared on shelves, and then again with my library book group. I sincerely hope that the movie version captures the great characters Zevin created in the novel. 

Movies: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Naveen Andrews (The English Patient, Lost) will star in The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz41337291, based on the 2014 novel by Gabrielle Zevin. The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Zevin adapted her own screenplay, and her frequent collaborator Hans Canosa will direct. Canosa told THR it was a priority to stay true to the novel and cast an actor of South Asian descent in the lead role.

It has been scorching hot outside for the past couple of weeks, and right now they're experiencing higher than normal temps all over the east coast and midwest. So this quote is particularly apt. I know that I have been staying inside where there is AC and plenty to read.

Quotation of the Day

"Let's pretend it's not a million degrees. Hope everyone survived the heat this weekend. Remember to stay hydrated and not to over exert yourself... read a book instead http://www.shelfawareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz41337238.

Love, Spiral.--Posted yesterday on Facebook by the Spiral Bookcase Philadelphia, Pa. 

The Great Unexpected by Dan Mooney was recommended to me by someone who knows that I enjoy books, like A Man Called Ove, about spunky curmudgeons who live and learn to love their fellow humans through extraordinary/hilarious circumstances. While I've enjoyed books by Mitch Albom and Elizabeth Berg (the latter wrote The Story of Arthur Truluv, which I read, and loved, twice) about older gents and ladies, I find that the more such books proliferate, the more the quality of that particular type of book tends to decrease. Fortunately, Mooney won me over from the start with the irascible Joel and the flamboyant Frank. Mooney's prose is elegant and strong without being melodramatic or preachy, and his plot was surprising and poignant. Here's the blurb: A curmudgeon and his eccentric new roommate join together to plan an epic escape in this charming, poignant tale.

Joel lives in a nursing home, and he’s not one bit happy about it. He hates being told when to eat, when to sleep, when to take his pills. He’s fed up with life and begins to plan a way out when his new roommate, a retired soap opera actor named Frank, moves in and turns the nursing-home community upside down.

Though the two men couldn’t be more opposite, a fast friendship is formed when Frank is the only one who listens to and stands up for Joel. When he tells Frank about his burgeoning plan, they embark together on a mission to find the perfect escape, and along the way will discover that it’s never too late for new beginnings.

Filled with colorful characters, sparkling humor and deep emotion, The Great Unexpected is the story of friendship, finding oneself later in life and experiencing newfound joy in the most unexpected places.

This novel had it all, a page turner that I couldn't put down with characters that I fell in love with and situations that had me roaring with laughter one moment and sobbing the next. I'd give it an A, and recommend it to anyone who enjoys a well told tale full of the universal truths of aging, friendship, life and death.

The Last Word by Samantha Hastings is an almost-steampunk YA novel of romance and a fiesty female protagonist whose love of stories forces her into an adventure that will change her life. Here's the blurb:

Set against the smoky, gaslit allure of Victorian London, this sweetly romantic historical debut is full of humor and stars a whip-smart female heroine ahead of her time.

Where one story ends, another begins.
1861. Miss Lucinda Leavitt is shocked when she learns the author of her favorite serialized novel has died before completing the story. Determined to learn how it ends, Lucinda reluctantly enlists the help of her father’s young business partner, Mr. David Randall, to track down the reclusive author’s former whereabouts.
David is a successful young businessman, but is overwhelmed by his workload. He wants to prove himself to his late father, as well as to himself. He doesn’t have the time, nor the interest, for this endeavor, but Lucinda is not the type to take no for an answer.
Their search for the elusive Mrs. Smith and the rightful ending to her novel leads Lucinda and David around the country, but the truths they discover about themselves―and each other―are anything but fictional.
Chosen by readers like you for Macmillan's young adult imprint Swoon Reads, The Last Word by debut author Samantha Hastings is a fun yet intellectual romp through Victorian London―the perfect book for book-lovers.

Spirited Lucinda is one of those heroines who stays with you and worms her way into your heart early on. The prose is delightfully light and airy while also keeping the complicated plot grounded and on track. I was able to read this book in an afternoon, and it provided a much needed respite from the more serious books I'd been reading that left me with a bit of a dark cloud over my head. A well deserved A here for this inspired story, and a recommendation to fans of Gail Carriger and Lilith Saintcrow's Bannon and Clare series to give it a shot.

Waisted by Randy Susan Meyers, a Seattle 7 author, was a book I anticipated reading because it was purported to be about body size acceptance, women, dieting and weight, all subjects near and dear to my larger lifestyle. I've become, like so many women in society, an expert on diets and exercise and loathing myself for years because I was too big to fit into what society's definition of a "normal" female form (I have learned to love myself just as I am in the ensuing years). Never mind aspiring to the ridiculous beauty standards foisted on every girl the moment she is old enough to hold a womens/teen magazine in her hand. So I was expecting great insight and that the female protagonists would come to accept themselves no matter their size. I was stunned and disappointed when that didn't happen, and instead, these women are brutalized into a program that starves them, forces them to exercise for 9 hours a day and take 'diet pills' (amphetamines) which were taken off the market as they had significant side effects detrimental to the health of the woman taking them. Of course, the participants dropped weight, but once they broke away from this prisoner program, they all loved that they were thinner and tried to find ways to stay slender for their crappy husbands or so they could fit into smaller clothing or be accepted by society. Here's the blurb: In this provocative, wildly entertaining, and compelling novel, seven women enrolled in an extreme weight loss documentary discover self-love and sisterhood as they enact a daring revenge against the exploitative filmmakers.
Alice and Daphne, both successful and accomplished working mothers, harbor the same secret: obsession with their weight overshadows concerns about their children, husbands, work—and everything else of importance in their lives. Scales terrify them.

Daphne, plump in a family of model-thin women, learned only slimness earns admiration at her mother’s knee. Alice, break-up skinny when she met her husband, risks losing her marriage if she keeps gaining weight.
The two women meet at Waisted. Located in a remote Vermont mansion, the program promises fast, dramatic weight loss, and Alice, Daphne, and five other women are desperate enough to leave behind their families for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The catch? They must agree to always be on camera; afterward, the world will see Waisted: The Documentary.

The women soon discover that the filmmakers have trapped them in a cruel experiment. With each pound lost, they edge deeper into obsession and instability...until they decide to take matters into their own hands.

While Meyers has her characters set up a program to help young women/girls learn to love themselves as they are, and they all seem to want to help future generations become less obsessed with weight and self image, there was still the underlying message that they'd all become happier with their "new" figures, though they'd gotten them in a dangerous and completely unhealthy way, through unsustainable rapid weight loss. The reality is that 95% of diets fail, and that number comes perilously close to 100 percent when you track weight loss over a period of 5-10 years. Then there are the health factors, such as medication side effects, menopause, PCOS and thyroid deficiencies that plague many women, that create weight gain that can't be addressed by simple diets or exercise. There were also points that Meyers didn't address, such as why it is socially acceptable for a man to want to separate or divorce his wife if /when she gains weight, while he's allowed to become bald and fat and abusive, and still be seen as desirable. I felt that Alice's husband was a jerk, and obviously not perfect himself (no one is, but men are allowed imperfections women are not), but she was willing to do anything to get him to have sex with her again and see her as desirable, which I found to be pathetic and weak and needy. In the words of vocal artist Lizzo, "If he don't love you anymore, walk your fine a** out the door." Anyway, the prose was smooth, and the plot dramatic and transparent, but I didn't really love the characters or their superficial views of life. I'd give this book a B, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes weight loss reality TV shows.

Dungeon Crawl by Annie Bellet is the 8th book in the Twenty-sided Sorceress series. I've read all of the previous books, and I had assumed the series was over and done. Much to my surprise, there is yet another book after this one that I also didn't know about, and now have on hold at the library. This particular novel starts while Jade and Alec have almost completely rebuilt their comic/gaming store, and are hoping that life lets everyone heal up and relax for awhile. Of course, it doesn't and this tale goes into necromancer and zombie territory in a big way. Here's the blurb: New Rule: Never owe a vampire a favor... Nearly a year after defeating her evil ex, sorceress Jade Crow has found some peace running her comic book store and gaming with her friends. Until the vampire who helped her win against Samir comes knocking and wants the favor repaid. The Archivist's request looks simple on its surface. Go into an empty house and check for magic items. There's just a tiny problem: simple is not Jade's forte. There are lies around every turn and soon she's neck deep in undead. Not all quests are what they seem and laid to rest doesn't mean the dead stay buried... Dungeon Crawl is the eighth book in The Twenty-Sided Sorceress urban fantasy series.

As usual, Bellet's prose is bouncy and full of vigor as it zooms along an acrobatic plot. AT nearly 260 pages, it doesn't take more than an afternoon to read, and yet it is one of those books that once started, you can't put it down, even if you have other things to do. I'm really looking forward to the next adventure in the series, and I'd have to give this one an A, though I hate zombie stories. I'd recommend it to anyone who plays Dungeons and Dragons and likes kick-butt female protagonists.