ABA Board Member's Resolutions for 2020, RIP Christopher Tolkien, Kittens at Canadian Bookstore, RIP Jim Lehrer, Michele Obama's Becoming Wins Grammy, Touch the Dark by Karen Chance, A Cruel Deception by Charles Todd and A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult

There's a lot of  upper respiratory infections and pneumonia going around in my household, so while I've been too sick to do a lot of things that I normally do, I have at least been able to read some of the books in my TBR and watch the premier episode of Star Trek Picard on CBS All Access (and I loved it, of course. I am really looking forward to the third season of Star Trek Discovery, which should be starting soon). So this blog post is late, but I am just glad that I am able to feel good enough to sit in front of the computer and write at all.  Here's the latest tidbits and reviews.

As 2020 began, Bookselling This Week asked ABA board members for their New Year's resolutions http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43074072 Kelly Estep, co-owner of Carmichael's Bookstore http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43074073, Louisville, Ky., said: "My resolution this year is to more clearly connect with our community in a way that will ultimately support our business and keep it growing. We are opening a dedicated event space and that will mean an expanded events schedule with some of those possibly being non-book related.

In 2007, around the time of Wi2 in Portland, Ore., I wrote: "Publishing industry headlines are still rife with closing indie bookstores and evolving technology that may threaten the very existence of 'fiber-based' texts. Should we be afraid, like medieval peasants terrified by the prospect of what army or disease might be coming over the hill to annihilate their village next? I don't think that way. It is, as it always has been, the end of some worlds and the beginning of other worlds. The peasants adapt to survive. So do the artists."

Oh, one last item from the NRF conference: Forbes reported that "this year, at the retail show, the country's largest retailers are talking about their plans to use robots http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43074074 artificial intelligence, computer vision, and machine learning as a way to let their human staff do what humans do best, and connect with other humans--their customers."

I read and loved all of Tolkien's fantasy novels when I was still in grade school. I was so glad that his son carried on with publishing his father's posthumous works.  It's so sad that these two great writers have passed on, but their work is a legacy that will last for generations yet to come.

Obituary Note: Christopher Tolkien

Christopher Tolkien http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43102690, the son of J.R.R. Tolkien, "who guarded his legacy and brought forth monumental posthumous works, like The Silmarillion," died January 15, the New York Times reported. He was 95. After his father died in 1973,

Tolkien "worked to keep alive the world he had created in The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1949).... In all, he edited or oversaw the publication of two dozen editions of his father's works, many of which became international bestsellers."

In addition to being his father's literary executor, Tolkien spent four years organizing and compiling the myths and legends his father was creating to accompany The Lord of the Rings, eventually publishing them in 1977 as The Silmarillion. He is also credited with creating the 1954 map of Middle-earth, a copy of which is now held by the British Library.

Corey Olsen, a Tolkien expert, said, "This opened up a wealth and depth of Tolkien's imaginative world that was breathtaking." In 1996, Christopher Tolkien produced the 12-volume The History of Middle-earth, a compilation of drafts, fragments, rewrites, marginal notes and other writings culled from 70 boxes of unpublished material, which "showed that virtually everything he had published had come from his father's hand."

Thomas Shippey, a British professor who has been writing and lecturing on Tolkien for 50 years, said, "Without Christopher, we would have very little knowledge of how Tolkien created his mythology and his own legendarium."

HarperCollins UK CEO Charlie Redmayne told the Bookseller http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43102691: "Christopher was a devoted curator of his father's work and the timeless and ongoing popularity of the world that J.R.R. Tolkien created is a fitting testimony to the decades he spent bringing Middle-earth to generations of readers. The most charming of men, and a true gentleman, it was an honor and privilege to know and work with him and our thoughts are with his family at this time."

Tolkien Society chair Shaun Gunner observed: "We have lost a titan and he will be sorely missed."

I so want to visit this bookstore full of fluffy little loves! I'd have to take a ton of antihistamines, but it would be worth it!

Canadian Bookstore 'Full of Kittens & You Can Bring One Home'

Canadian bookseller Otis & Clementine's Books & Coffee http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43127722 in Upper Tantallon, Nova Scotia, "is a heavenly stop for bookworms and cat-lovers alike http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43127723" that "provides the adorable felines with a temporary home until they can be adopted," Narcity reported. Owner Ellen Helmke said they "have several kittens and usually a mama cat as well," provided by the South Paw Conservation Nova Scotia, a local rescue group. She added that "all the kittens are in and out fairly quickly, as they are adopted."

 My parents and I used to watch the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour every week for years. Jim Lehrer was the real deal, a journalist with integrity. RIP.

Obituary Note: Jim Lehrer

Longtime PBS anchorman and author Jim Lehrer http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43155792, "who for 36 years gave public television viewers a substantive alternative to network evening news programs with in-depth reporting, interviews and analysis of world and national affairs" on The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour and, later, NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, died January 23, the New York Times reported. He was 85.

Lehrer was the author of more than 20 novels, "which often drew on his reporting experiences," as well as four plays and three memoirs. The novels include White Widow (1996), No Certain Rest (2002), Eureka (2007) and Super (2010). His memoirs are We Were Dreamers (1975), A Bus of My Own (1992) and Tension City: Inside the Presidential Debates (2011).

The Times noted that "writing nights and weekends, on trains, planes and sometimes in the office, Mr. Lehrer churned out a novel almost every year for more than two decades: spy thrillers, political satires, murder mysteries and series featuring One-Eyed Mack, a lieutenant governor of Oklahoma, and Charlie Henderson, a C.I.A. agent. Top Down (2013) revolved around the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which Mr. Lehrer had covered as a young reporter in Dallas."

"His apprenticeship came at a time when every reporter, it seemed, had an unfinished novel in his desk--but Lehrer actually finished his," Texas Monthly said in a 1995 profile.

I really want to read this book, but haven't gotten the chance yet. I've seen Mrs Obama in many interviews reading from her book, though, and it sounds wonderful. I am thrilled that our former first lady won a Grammy for the audiobook edition of her book Becoming. Congrats to the greatest FLOTUS of the 21st century.

Grammy Spoken Word Winner: Becoming by Michelle Obama

The winner in the Best Spoken Word Album category at the Grammy Awards http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43181288 last night was Becoming by Michelle Obama (Penguin Random House Audio). This was the former First Lady's second Grammy nomination: her book about the White House garden, American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America, was a Best Spoken Word album nominee in 2013.

Obama, who narrated the winning audiobook, commented: "I had plenty of doubts about sharing so much of myself in Becoming, but this moment is another reminder that when we own the truth of who we are, we give ourselves the chance to connect with others in real, meaningful ways."

Touch the Dark by Karen Chance, is the first book in an urban fantasy/romance series about Cassie Palmer, a young woman who was raised by some sketchy vampires after her parents were killed. She's got powers that she can't control, of course, and in this book she learns about the genesis of her powers and that she's heir to even stronger powers of divination, though of course she wants nothing to do with them, or the people who covet these powers and want to use her for their own gain. Here's the blurb: Cassandra Palmer can see the future and communicate with spirits—talents that make her attractive to the dead and the undead. The ghosts of the dead aren’t usually dangerous; they just like to talk…a lot.

The undead are another matter.
Like any sensible girl, Cassie tries to avoid vampires. But when the bloodsucking mafioso she escaped three years ago finds Cassie again with vengeance on his mind, she’s forced to turn to the vampire Senate for protection.
The undead senators won’t help her for nothing, and Cassie finds herself working with one of their most powerful members, a dangerously seductive master vampire—and the price he demands may be more than Cassie is willing to pay....

Though this kind of urban fantasy is usually right up my alley, I found this particular novel to be a bit too rote, paint-by-numbers and cliched. Of course the master vampire has the hots for Cassie, and of course he's Dracula's older, hotter brother, so there are the requisite seduction scenes that read like a trite romance novel. There's also Cassie's strange reluctance to engage in hanky-panky, though she's very world weary and cynical, due to her upbringing, the rest of the time. It's a standard sexist interpretation of romance, in that men have to pursue women and talk them into having sex, because good girls don't like or want sex, right?! (WRONG!) There's also a great deal of info-dumping in this book, primarily to set up Cassies world and how it works. That's fine, but it's better to show through action and dialog than it is to just narrate page after page of "This is how this species works, this is what vampires are really like, or the fae, or were-creatures," because that gets boring, fairly quickly, and slows the plot to a crawl. So while I ultimately liked the book, I don't want to expend any more energy reading more of the series. It didn't enchant me enough. I'd give it a B, and recommend it to fans of Merry Gentry who like clothing descriptions and lots of sexual tension in their urban fantasies. 

A Cruel Deception by Charles Todd is the 11th Bess Crawford mystery, and this one takes place at a crossroads, with Bess wondering if she will continue working as a nurse now that the end of World War 1 has come about. Here's the blurb: In the aftermath of World War I, nurse Bess Crawford attempts to save a troubled former soldier from a mysterious killer in this eleventh book in the beloved Bess Crawford mystery series from New York Times bestselling author Charles Todd.

The Armistice of November 1918 ended the fighting, but the Great War will not be over until a Peace Treaty is drawn up and signed by all parties. Representatives from the Allies are gathering in Paris, and already ominous signs of disagreement have appeared.
Sister Bess Crawford, who has been working with the severely wounded in England in the war’s wake, is asked to carry out a personal mission in Paris for a Matron at the London headquarters of The Queen Alexandra’s.
Bess is facing decisions about her own future, even as she searches for the man she is charged with helping.  When she does locate Lawrence Minton, she finds a bitter and disturbed officer who has walked away from his duties at the Peace Conference and is well on his way toward an addiction to opiates. When she confronts him with the dangers of using laudanum, he tells her that he doesn’t care if he lives or dies, as long as he can find oblivion. But what has changed him? What is it that haunts him? He can’t confide in Bess—because the truth is so deeply buried in his mind that he can only relive it in nightmares. The officers who had shared a house with him in Paris profess to know nothing—still, Bess is reluctant to trust them even when they offer her their help. But where to begin on her own?
What is driving this man to a despair so profound it can only end with death? The war? Something that happened in Paris? To prevent a tragedy, she must get at the truth as quickly as possible—which means putting herself between Lieutenant Minton and whatever is destroying him. Or is it whoever?

The Todds (A mother/son writing team) always manage to write such hearty and fulfilling stories in their stalwart and beautifully simple prose, that I eagerly await the next installment of this series and always spring for the hardback first edition. Bess Crawford, like Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs, is a smart, sensible and caring nurse who has a gift for healing and for tracking down a mystery and examining it for answers. I enjoyed this book's look at 1919, when everyone in Europe was recovering from wars devastations, because that's a part of history we don't hear much about. I'd give this novel an A, and recommend it to anyone who has read any of the other Bess C Mysteries. 

A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult is the February book for my Tuesday night book group at the local library. I was not aware that this book takes place in an abortion clinic after a shooting by a "pro-life" madman, otherwise I would have kept it off the reading list, because there are both liberals and conservatives in our group, and we try to stay away from political hot button topics so there are no angry feelings and ugly arguments during our discussions.  Our January discussion was cancelled due to a snowstorm that forced a library closure, so I was hoping we could discuss both books, but now that I've read "Spark" I know that no one is going to want to discuss January's book, and things could descend into chaos right from the get-go. Ugh. Still, I can't deny that both sides of the debate were brought up, and the prose was clean and clear, which made the flashback plot all the easier to navigate.Here's the blurb: The warm fall day starts like any other at the Center—a women’s reproductive health services clinic—its staff offering care to anyone who passes through its doors. Then, in late morning, a desperate and distraught gunman bursts in and opens fire, taking all inside hostage.

After rushing to the scene, Hugh McElroy, a police hostage negotiator, sets up a perimeter and begins making a plan to communicate with the gunman. As his phone vibrates with incoming text messages he glances at it and, to his horror, finds out that his fifteen-year-old daughter, Wren, is inside the clinic.

But Wren is not alone. She will share the next and tensest few hours of her young life with a cast of unforgettable characters: A nurse who calms her own panic in order to save the life of a wounded woman. A doctor who does his work not in spite of his faith but because of it, and who will find that faith tested as never before. A pro-life protester, disguised as a patient, who now stands in the crosshairs of the same rage she herself has felt. A young woman who has come to terminate her pregnancy. And the disturbed individual himself, vowing to be heard.

Told in a daring and enthralling narrative structure that counts backward through the hours of the standoff, this is a story that traces its way back to what brought each of these very different individuals to the same place on this fateful day.

One of the most fearless writers of our time, Jodi Picoult tackles a complicated issue in this gripping and nuanced novel. How do we balance the rights of pregnant women with the rights of the unborn they carry? What does it mean to be a good parent? A Spark of Light will inspire debate, conversation . . . and, hopefully, understanding.

While I'm generally not a fan of thrillers, I was impressed by Picoult's handling of such a tough topic in a sensitive manner while going backwards in time through the narrative. That said, I loathed the pro-life "mole" Janine, who was a heinous hypocrit whose ignorance and duplicity were fostered by her religious zealotry. I was also angry that we never find out how Dr Ward fares, or Izzy, and things are left up in the air for several other characters. The least that the author could do after dragging us through the tensest day possible, is to let readers know what happened to the main characters after the smoke cleared. Being a long time supporter of a woman's right to choose, I was glad that many of the myths and lies about abortion were shown to be false in this book, but I wish we'd had a cleaner ending to look forward to. I'd give this book an A, and recommend it to anyone interested in the debate on women's reproductive rights.