Cool Christmas Idea, National Intelligence Director is a Former Bookseller, Leading Men Movie, Defending the Galaxy by Maria V Snyder and Fortune Favors the Dead by Stephen Spotswood

I have been having a rough time reading lately, mainly because so many of the books I bought in the past few months are not, as advertised, engrossing or well written. My disappointment abounds. Yet there have been some diamonds among the charcoal, and I will just have to write about two of those in this installment of my blog. Thank heaven it's almost December, when I can get all the books on my wish list for my birthday and Christmas!

This is one of the best holiday gift ideas I've ever heard! I really want this, and I wish some bookstore around here or in Oregon would do this!

Cool Christmas Idea: the English Bookshop http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46518888 in Uppsala, Sweden, is featuring a festive option for the holiday season: "ENJOY THE WAIT for Christmas even more this year with The English Bookshop Advent Calendar (by Stina)! FOUR SECRET and numbered gifts, one for every week until Christmas, each containing a book, a 50 gram bag of loose leaf tea and a sweet snack. All books are hand-picked by Stina, teas and snacks provided by Tehoumlrnan Uppsala (www.teshop.se). THREE THEMES to choose between: Comfort & Joy (Feelgood), In the Bleak Midwinter (Mystery) and lastly Winter is Coming' (Fantasy)."

 This is just delightful, that our new and wonderful POTUS (and the amazing VPOUS) has chosen a former bookseller as a member of his cabinet. There's been such a dearth of intelligent and thoughtful people in the White House these past four years, it's refreshing to see the change that is already happening as the boil is lanced and that creeper Trump and his cronies have their poison removed from American society for a healthy new start in 2021.

Biden's Director of National Intelligence Nominee a Former Bookseller

Among the cabinet picks announced by President-elect Joe Biden yesterday was Avril Haines, who will become the first woman to serve as Director of National Intelligence if confirmed. The Baltimore Sun http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46518905 reported that Haines had also been the first woman to be deputy director of the CIA and served as former President Barack Obama's principal deputy national security adviser. She has worked with Biden for more than a decade.

Bookselling is part of her resume as well. By the time she was 24, Haines had studied physics at Johns Hopkins University after receiving a degree in physics from the University of Chicago, the Sun noted, adding: "In the mid-1990s, tired of studying physics, she opened Adrian's Book Cafe in Fells Point, an eclectic bookstore cafe at 714 S. Broadway, with her future husband, David Davighi. The store paid tribute to her mother, featuring her paintings." Among the store's events were monthly erotica literature readings, which some media have highlighted.

But there was much more, of course: Adrian's Book Cafe sold classics, popular fiction, magazines, coffee and light fare."I picked a professional," Biden said. "A fierce advocate for telling the truth and leveling it with the decision makers.... I know because I've worked with her for over a decade. Brilliant. Humble. Can talk literature and theoretical physics, fixing cars, flying planes and running a bookstore cafe, all in a single conversation--because she's done all of that."

This looks exciting, and I've always wondered about the life of Tennessee Williams.

Movies: Leading Men

Playwright Matthew Lopez (The Inheritance) will write a film adaptation of Christopher Castellani's novel Leading Men http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46571344, which centers on playwright Tennessee Williams and his longtime partner Frank Merlo, for Searchlight Pictures, Variety reported. The film is produced by Luca Guadagnino and Peter Spears, who previously teamed for Call Me By Your Name.

There is currently no director attached to the project. Searchlight's senior v-p of production and acquisitions Katie Goodson-Thomas, v-p of production Taylor Friedman and creative director Pete Spencer will represent the studio on the film.

Defending the Galaxy by Maria V Snyder is the third and final installment of her Sentinels of the Galaxy series, which I've really enjoyed reading over the years. Her protagonist Ara is one tough teenager, whose smart and intuitive thinking and hacking capabilities render her something of a super heroine. Here's the blurb: Year 2522. Oh. My. Stars. Junior Officer Ara Lawrence here, reporting for duty. Again. It's situation critical for the security team and everyone in the base - including my parents - with a new attack from the looters imminent, a possible galaxy-wide crime conspiracy and an unstoppable alien threat. But this all pales in the face of my mind-blowing discovery about the Q-net. Of course, no one believes me. I'm not sure I believe me. It could just be a stress-induced delusion. That's what my parents seem to believe...Their concern for me is hampering my ability to do my job. I know they love me, but with the Q-net in my corner, I'm the only one who can help the security team beat the shadowy aliens from the pits we discovered. We're holding them at bay, for now, but the entire Milky Way Galaxy is in danger of being overrun.With battles on too many fronts, it's looking dire. But one thing I've learned is when people I love are in jeopardy, I'll never give up trying to save them. Not until my dying breath. Which could very well be today.

With stunning prose that blasts along the plot like a fire on greased rails, Snyder shows us that courage comes in small and young packages. I was only annoyed by two things, Ara's nasty mother, who seeks to imprison her daughter to "keep her safe" and keep her away from all her fellow security officers/friends and boyfriend, which, along with her weak-ass father makes for some very trying moments where the story nearly stalls out, and Ara's ferocious lust for her boyfriend, which sees her throwing herself at him constantly, almost in a sexually harassing way. I have never known teenage girls to be so focused on sex, especially when they're under siege and there are lives on the line. But, perhaps in the future (and the present, it's been a long time since I was a teenager) young women are more comfortable being open and aggressive about their sexuality. Back in my day (cringe, I can't believe I'm starting to sound like my mother) it was always the guys who were trying to get into a girls pants and were hyper-focused on sex and female bodies. At any rate, this was a doozy of a space adventure, and I'd give it an A and recommend it heartily to anyone who has read the other two books in the series. All of Snyder's books are marvelous, though, so you can't go wrong with any title of hers that you might pick up at the local bookstore or library.

Fortune Favors the Dead by Stephen Spotswood is a wonderful noir-style mystery set in post WW2 England, with a disabled PI sleuth and her assistant, a lesbian named Will Parker who has grown up in the circus, and now lends her whip-smart brain and street-smart connections to solving mysteries with her boss, Lillian. The prose is pure Dash Hammet and Lillian Hellman, and the plot has just enough twists and turns to keep the reader turning pages until the wee hours. Here's the blurb: A wildly charming and fast-paced mystery written with all the panache of the hardboiled classics, Fortune Favors the Dead introduces Pentecost and Parker, an audacious new detective duo for the ages.

It's 1942 and Willowjean "Will" Parker is a scrappy circus runaway whose knife-throwing skills have just saved the life of New York's best, and most unorthodox, private investigator, Lillian Pentecost. When the dapper detective summons Will a few days later, she doesn't expect to be offered a life-changing proposition: Lillian's multiple sclerosis means she can't keep up with her old case load alone, so she wants to hire Will to be her right-hand woman. In return, Will is to receive a salary, room and board, and training in Lillian's very particular art of investigation.
    Three years later, Will and Lillian are on the Collins case: Abigail Collins was found bludgeoned to death with a crystal ball following a big, boozy Halloween party at her home--her body slumped in the same chair where her steel magnate husband shot himself the year before. With rumors flying that Abigail was bumped off by the vengeful spirit of her husband (who else could have gotten inside the locked room?), the family has tasked the detectives with finding answers where the police have failed. But that's easier said than done in a case that involves messages from the dead, a seductive spiritualist, and Becca Collins--the beautiful daughter of the deceased, who Will quickly starts falling for. When Will and Becca's relationship dances beyond the professional, Will finds herself in dangerous territory, and discovers she may have become the murderer's next target.

This novel was engrossing and fun right from the first page, which I appreciate now, during these final days of the coronavirus pandemic quarantine, when everyone, myself included, is restless and searching for new distractions from the horrific news stories on radio and TV. I loved Will and Lil, and Lil's struggles with MS and being debilitated and exhausted really resonated with me as someone who struggles with many autoimmune diseases that handicap me in some way every day. I don't want to spoil the mystery for anyone, but I will say that I didn't see the end, or the killer, coming until the final 1/3 of the book. Usually I catch on much faster, but Spotswood is a real pro here, keeping the red herrings coming and the list of bad guys growing until it's absolutely necessary to the plot to do the reveal. I'd give this beautifully written mystery an A, and recommend it to anyone who likes "hardboiled" detectives and yet longs for inclusive characters in their fiction.  

 

Love, Kurt: The Vonnegut Love Letters by Edith Vonnegut, BookIt Nook Opens in Poulsbo, WA, Let Him Go Movie, Shakespeare and Company Saved by Booklovers, Dash& Lily at the Strand Bookstore in NYC, Promised Land Playlist, Eleanor of Aquitaine on TV, NBA Winner Walter Mosley, and Where Dreams Descend by Janella Angeles

Happy Thanksgiving week to all my fellow bibliophiles. I've been battling bladder and UTI and skin infections for the past two or three weeks, so I've neglected my book blog, and I've spent too much time watching movies and musicals on Netflix (Jingle Jangle was a stand out spectacular!) and not enough time reading through my TBR stack. I've also encountered some disappointments in my selections, so I have had to move on from book to book, trying to find something satisfying and uplifting and warm to read in these cold and grim times, when the COVID virus is rampaging again, taking more people from us than ever, especially in the Midwestern states, where my elderly mother lives: *YIKES* Anyway, here are some reviews and a lot of tidbits about the world of words.

I'm a huge Vonnegut fan, and have been since I started reading his works when I was a teenager in the 70s. His prose is glorious, his characters fascinate, and his books are classics of the SF genre and literature in general. His essays are legendary. So I was thrilled to read of this book that compiles his love letters to his wife, which I imagine are romantic and lovely. 

Review: Love, Kurt: The Vonnegut Love Letters, 1941-1945

While browsing through the contents of her mother's attic, Edith Vonnegut made a remarkable discovery in the form of a white gift box. Inside this battered vessel she found 226 love letters written by her father, Kurt Vonnegut, to her mother, Jane Marie Cox, between 1941 and 1945.

At 19, the couple met at a dance at the Woodstock Country Club in Indianapolis and, from Kurt's letters, they seemed to form a swift and strong connection. Kurt was studying engineering at Cornell, always floating on the edge of academic probation; Jane studied literature at Swarthmore devotedly. Their letters--some typewritten, some written in pencil, many composed in some combination of the two with Kurt's drawings adorning the margins--represent not only a young love developing in the precarity of wartime, but the pure, imaginative work of a young writer who had yet to discover the extent of his talent.

Because the letters that make up this collection are written by Kurt to Jane, there is a natural imbalance in the narrative. Readers have access to Kurt's perspective, while Jane's can be interpreted only through Kurt's often meandering responses. But, as Edith Vonnegut points out in one of her occasional asides, Kurt's letters outnumbered Jane's six to one. She characterizes her father as the "primary pursuer." He often addresses her as "wife" and asks her to kiss sections of his letters to return to him. He drafts their future family crest, which features not just their names but a frothing mug of beer. He writes to her while on deployment, "I saw the Northern Lights for the first time in my life tonight. It was pretty much like kissing you." Kurt's letters contain no shortage of treacly proclamations of love. But they are pristine, wholesome expressions of youth communicated with the whole force of his being. His dexterity with language, his endlessly creative ways of conveying his obsession were early signs of his phenomenal talent.

In December 1944, Kurt was captured in the Battle of the Bulge and held as a POW in a Dresden slaughterhouse. His release in May 1945 marked a crucial change in his relationship with Jane. They married that September, and their remaining letters, written from Fort Riley, where Kurt was finishing his army obligations, reveal a mutual intimacy hard to find in earlier correspondence. Kurt's letters, once filled with poems, drawings and pleas designed solely to win the love of Jane, become the means by which Jane reads and edits Kurt's earliest stories. -Emma Levy, writer 

Though I've only been to Poulsbo a couple of times, I am thrilled that they have a new and inclusive bookstore opening up!

BookIt Nook Opens in Poulsbo, Wash.

BookIt Nook http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46322381, an independent bookstore in Poulsbo, Wash., held its official grand opening this weekend. The store has around 2,000 square feet of selling space and carries general-interest books for children, teens and adults. BookIt Nook also offers a variety of non-book items, including tea, art and gifts.

Owner Jenna DeTrapani said the store will focus on promoting books and other products by people of color, LGBTQ+ authors and independent artists. DeTrapani plans eventually to carry used books as well, but those plans are on hold due to the pandemic. She expects to start buying used books from community members in late 2021.

The store has a drive-thru window, and once BookIt Nook's website goes live later this month, customers will be able to place orders online and then pick up their titles without leaving their vehicles. DeTrapani and her team have already set up a quick-service counter, allowing for easier checkout and order pick-up.

DeTrapani has lived in Poulsbo--often called "Little Norway"--for about five years. She has a background in marketing and in bookselling, having been the children's buyer and store manager at Eagle Harbor Book Co. in Bainbridge Island. She called Poulsbo a "quaint tourist destination," adding that the year-round community is very well-read. And though there are two other indies in Poulsbo already, they are both located in the city's downtown, while BookIt Nook is located on the "fringes" of the city, near the local community college and the site of a planned hotel and events center.

The store's opening weekend went "above and beyond" expectations, DeTrapani continued, and visitors have responded quite positively. She and her team have also been pleased that visitors are following all Covid-19 safety precautions.

On the subject of the store's logo, which features the ouroboros symbol of a snake eating its own tail, DeTrapani explained that for many readers, every book is like living a new life again and again, hence the ouroboros.

Though I can't risk going there myself until I've been vaccinated against the coronavirus, I think that this movie sounds fantastic.

Movies: Let Him Go & Mitchell Kaplan

"No matter what you're buying in this pandemic year, 'shop local' has become something of a mantra," the Miami Herald noted in reporting that the theory goes for movie tickets as well. Last Friday, Let Him Go http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46353016, based on the novel by Larry Watson and starring Kevin Costner and Diane Lane, opened at Coral Gables Art Cinema, directly across the street from Books & Books. The bookstore is owned by Mitchell Kaplan and the new film is from the Mazur Kaplan Company, which he runs with Paula Mazur."I loved the fact it was basically a love story between two mature people and a road movie at the same time, plus it's also a thriller, which gives it more of a wonderful kick," said Kaplan, who did a q&a session after the 7:30 showing of the movie. He's also introducing some of the evening showings.

Releasing a movie during a pandemic is not easy, but Kaplan credited studio Focus Features for its attention to details leading up to the release, the Herald noted. Originally scheduled for August, the film is opening on 2,500 screens in theaters operating at 25% or 50% capacity.

Kaplan said the health and safety of the audience was a priority for Coral Gables Art Cinema: "They've really done an excellent job in making it safe. You can't take your mask off at your seat, and they're taking seats away for social distancing. I feel very comfortable inviting people to come see it."

 I LOVE that my fellow book lovers are moving en mass to help save iconic bookstores like Shakespeare and Company from extinction!

Shakespeare and Company http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46356341 bookshop in Paris, which "had to shut with sales down 80% as a result of the first lockdown, [and] has since converted its poetry section into a packaging station piled high with books and tote bags. After a social media plea for support, the store is entering this shutdown with hundreds of online orders per day, up from less than 10."

"The first time, we all hit the pause button and waited to see what would happen," said Krista Halverson, publishing director at Shakespeare and Company. "For myself and my friends, we're asking the question, 'How do I keep moving forward?' "

The response to the bookshop's initial appeal for help has been so robust http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46356343 that it had to temporarily close the online bookstore "until we can catch up with orders and correspondence. We anticipate it reopening December 1,"

Shakespeare and Company noted. "We're truly touched by the outpouring of support, and are now working to fulfill shipping orders as quickly as possible. It may be a few weeks yet as it's proving quite the task for our small team (especially with health and distancing rules)."

This week the bookseller launched Friends of Shakespeare and Company http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46356343, a one-year membership program created to support the shop, "financially and spiritually," through 2021, with membership starting at about $53.

"Along with our eternal gratitude, we'll deliver--four times a year, straight to your inbox--a bit of the bookshop, made especially and exclusively for members," the bookseller wrote. "To give you a taste, a quarterly installment might include four or five pieces--a mix of video, audio, and new writing--such as a conversation with a celebrated author, a video tour of the bookshop by proprietor Sylvia Whitman, a new poem from a renowned writer, a slideshow of never-before-seen pieces from our archives, and a short story read by a much-loved actor.... We are truly excited to embark on this new chapter at the bookshop with all of you!"

I watched this show on Netflix and was immediately overwhelmed with jealousy for the characters able to use New York City's famed Strand Bookstore as the setting for their game of romance. Books have always seemed to be sensual objects to me anyway, and I've long fantasized about sex among the stacks/shelves, so this show kind of scratched an itch for me. At any rate, Dash & Lily is a delightful program that I highly recommend.

Dash & Lily Team Celebrates the Strand Bookstore

Dash & Lily http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46356399, the new Netflix series based on the YA novel Dash & Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, "bookends its central love story between festive Lily (Midori Francis) and grinchy Dash (Austin Abrams) at the iconic New York City bookstore the Strand," Deadline reported."Everyoneknows the Strand," said Abrams. "It is a little bit romanticized in terms of a bookstore in New York, so I think it does lend itself to that."

Producer Shawn Levy observed: "I know that not everyone gets excited and enamored of bookstores, but I certainly do. The more unique the bookstore, the better. We know what a chain bookstore looks like. We know how the aisles look, the smell of the place, the feel of the floorboards. It's just different than independent, long-standing, baked-into-the-community bookstores and the Strand is that. You feel it in the bones of the place and in the details of the place. And that's what we tried to capture in the show."

Dante Brown (Boomer) said, "I love how they tied the Strand into the story and they're giving a business like that a chance to get some traction, especially right now."

Troy Iwata (Langston) added: "I've lived in New York for six years and the Strand is definitely a staple of the city. I know a lot of people that just hang out there. It's a place of refuge for a lot of people to go and find a new book."

Levy also noted that the production team has been doing its part to support the Strand's efforts to stay afloat: "It's just so great to have this beloved, iconic, New York establishment as the centerpiece to the series. It's especially poignant now to see the outpouring of love from New Yorkers and people in other states as well. It's really beautiful and I'm thrilled to play a small part in the love letter to the Strand the show provides."

 I love that our former wonderful POTUS has a bunch of great music selections to listen to while reading his latest book. What a Renaissance man!

Barack Obama's A Promised Land Playlist

To celebrate today's release of his new book, Barack Obama shared his A Promised Land playlist http://www.shelf awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46401461, saying: "Music has always played an important role throughout my life--and that was especially true during my presidency. While reviewing my notes ahead of debates, I'd listen to Jay-Z's 'My 1st Song' or Frank Sinatra's 'Luck Be a Lady.' Throughout our time in the White House, Michelle and I invited artists like Stevie Wonder and Gloria Estefan to conduct afternoon workshops with young people before performing an evening show in the East Room. And there were all sorts of performances I'll always remember--like Beyonce; performing 'At Last' for our first dance at our inauguration, Paul McCartney serenading Michelle in the East Room with 'Michelle' and Bob Dylan flashing me a grin before vanishing after his performance of 'Times They Are a-Changin.' So in honor of my book, A Promised Land... I thought I'd put together a playlist with some of those songs. Hope you enjoy it."

 I used to study Eleanor of Aquitaine, she was such a strong woman and a fascinating Queen. I've also been somewhat interested in the history of the most infamous diamond, said to bring a curse upon anyone who owns it.

TV: Eleanor of Aquitaine; Koh-i-Noor

Starz has optioned the rights to Alison Weir's 1999 biography Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life http://www.shelfawareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46432797 and 2010 novel Captive Queen for a drama from writer Susie Conklin (A Discovery of Witches, Cranford) and Playground Entertainment, Deadline reported. The project will be the first in a series inspired by "extraordinary women of history." Conklin will adapt and serve as an executive producer, alongside Scott Huff and David Stern for Playground Entertainment.

"This slate of series will focus on lesser known but undeniably exceptional female historical figures while continuing the exploration of fierce characters in history," said Christina Davis, president of programming for Starz. "Alison Weir's novels are the perfect jumping off point for this collection of series from Playground, who are known for their sophisticated storytelling."

Conklin added: "I'm thrilled at the opportunity to bring Eleanor's story to life--the drama and adventures she experienced are truly epic. I'm also captivated at how a woman who lived over 800 years ago can be so strikingly modern. She's determined to live her life on her own terms, and the way she goes about that are extraordinary."

Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World's Most Infamous Diamond http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46432798 by William Dalrymple and Anita Anand has been optioned for a TV drama series adaptation by 185 Carat Films, Deadline reported.

Producers Koel Purie Rinchet, Raquel Carreras and Kamayani Punia, who are currently interviewing potential show-runners and writers, said: "This famous and cursed diamond wreaked untold devastation as it was viciously ripped from one royal hand to another," the producers said. "It has ended up in its final home, the Tower of London, after being gruesomely wrested from the hands of its last owner, a nine-year-old Maharaja. The international TV and Web space has never witnessed a historical story of this magnitude, where bloodshed, love, sex, intrigue, beauty and cruelty all come together to create a layered narrative. This story, rooted in South Asia and traversing countries like Afghanistan and Iran, has a unique international appeal. It is a timely story of greed, power and appropriation regardless of cost." 

Brilliant acceptance speech by a great writer, Walter Mosley. Congratulations to him on this long overdue award.

National Book Awards: Walter Mosley

In accepting the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, Walter Mosley said in part, "I love writing, its slippery slopes and foolish errands and silly puns and bone-shaking metaphors, its ability to offer over the millenia of the deep well of human invention in defiance of despots, wars, poverty and ever-encroaching technobabble. Stories can be transmitted via fiber optics, but they have yet to be surpassed by that or any other medium. Stories keep their deep connection to the human heart word by word, sentence by sentence. We, my fellow writers and I, and our readers, talk about love and solitude and dreaming and reality and truths that might not ever be uttered except by the word and the book that we read, that we write, that we interpret."

 

Saying there is "a great weight hanging over the reception of an award" by "the first black man to receive" the award, he continued: "We the people who are darker than blue have been here on this continent, in this storm, for 400 years. As a matter of course, we have been chained, beaten, raped, murdered, robbed of our names, our history and often even our dignity. This has been an ongoing process, an unending anguish... Is [my winning this award] a dying gasp or a first breath? Is today different from any other day over the past 400 years? I prefer to believe we are on the threshold of a new day, that this evening is one of 10,000 steps being taken to recognize the potential of this nation."

 

Where Dreams Descend by Janella Angeles is a beautiful but strange fantasy/romance novel about a woman with magic who is trying to escape her previous life of being imprisoned in a golden cage with a charismatic club owner who sounds like a demon come to life (he manifests himself as a shadow with only smoke for legs). Here's the blurb:

"Vibrant imagery, jaw-dropping set pieces, sizzling romantic tension, and unstoppable heroine Kallia bring this ambitious debut novel to spectacular life. Fans of Caraval and The Night Circus will be delighted!" - Claire Legrand, New York Times bestselling author of Furyborn

In a city covered in ice and ruin, a group of magicians face off in a daring game of magical feats to find the next headliner of the Conquering Circus, only to find themselves under the threat of an unseen danger striking behind the scenes.

As each act becomes more and more risky and the number of missing magicians piles up, three are forced to reckon with their secrets before the darkness comes for them next.

The Star: Kallia, a powerful showgirl out to prove she’s the best no matter the cost

The Master: Jack, the enigmatic keeper of the club, and more than one lie told

The Magician: Demarco, the brooding judge with a dark past he can no longer hide

Where Dreams Descend is the startling and romantic first book in Janella Angeles’ debut Kingdom of Cards fantasy duology where magic is both celebrated and feared, and no heart is left unscathed.

"[A] spellbinding melody of a book, and the true magic is how Angeles puts all the best parts of an enrapturing theatrical performance onto paper and ink. From the gripping twists in the first pages all the way to the final, heartbreaking crescendo, Where Dreams Descend will surge you to your feet in a standing ovation.” – Sara Raasch, New York Times bestselling author of the Snow Like Ashes trilogy

I agree with Sara Raasch in her review about the book being spellbinding and melodious, because the prose is like a hypnotic song that leads you on through the plot as if you're in a fever dream. However, there is no resolution at all to the book, so by the end we are still left with the great mysteries of who Kallia is, and how Demarco is going to get her back. There was a lot of drama, but not a lot of resolution to the beats of the stage performance, and I felt somewhat cheated by that. Still, like the Night Circus, it's a beautiful book full of lush and gorgeous descriptions and magical happenings. If you like stage magic and "real" magic and strong female protagonists, you won't want to miss this book. I'd give it an A-, and recommend it to the aforementioned magic lovers.

Quote of the Day from the late Sean Connery, RIP Rachel Caine, Elliott Bay Book Company Moment, Voting Quote of the Day, Breakfast At Tiffany's Goes to Court, Murder in the Margins by Margaret Loudon, Sphere Song by Tricia O'Malley, and The Courage to Care by Christie Watson

Good day to you, my book loving compatriots! I've been busy with a lot of new health concerns and a resurgence of Coronavirus infections, which is, frankly, terrifying for those of us who are immune compromised. So it looks like I will be quarantined until March or April of next year, when the vaccine is slated to become available. So keep wearing masks, washing hands and social distancing, my friends! It saves lives of more than just the elderly. Meanwhile, here are some tidbits and three book reviews.

Sean Connery died last week, so I wanted to honor his love of books and wanted to remember him as the first and best James Bond incarnation. RIP you handsome Scotsman.

Quotation of the Day

Sean Connery: 'Books and Reading Changed My Life'

"I spent my South Pacific tour in every library in Britain, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. And on the nights we were dark, I'd see every play I could. But it's the books, the reading, that can change one's life. I'm the living evidence."--Sean Connery, from an interview with the Houston Chronicle in 1992, quoted on Saturday in a New York Times obituary http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46202059, discussing a reading list given to him by a mentor during his first acting gig after a hardscrabble early life.

 I've been a huge fan of Rachel Caine's Great Library series, and I was stunned to hear of her death at the young age of 58 a couple of weeks ago. Cancer sucks, and between the Coronavirus and cancer deaths, it seems like every day brings more bad news of someone's passing too soon. RIP RC.

Obituary Note: Roxanne Conrad, aka Rachel Caine

Roxanne Conrad, http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46204060, who wrote under the names Rachel Caine, Roxanne Longstreet and Julie Fortune, died on Sunday, November 1, at the age of 58. She had been fighting an aggressive form of soft tissue sarcoma.

Conrad was best known as Rachel Caine and for her Weather Warden and Morganville Vampires series. The Weather Warden made its debut in 2003 with Ill Wind and continued with eight more volumes. She had planned a 10th book in the series, funding it through Kickstarter, but canceled the project when her health declined.

The Morganville Vampires, a YA urban fantasy/vampire series, began in 2006 with Glass Houses and grew to 15 books. Conrad sold TV rights, but eventually turned to Kickstarter to produce a webseries with Geek & Sundry in 2014.

Her other popular works include the Great Library series and the Stillhouse Lake adult thriller novels. In 2011, she co-edited Chicks Kick Butt with Kerrie L. Hughes.

Conrad published her debut novel, Stormriders, set in the same world as the Shadow World roleplaying game, and several other novels in the 1990s. However, it was only after 2000 that her career bloomed. Altogether she published 56 novels and many short stories.

As publisher Tor noted, in 2006, Conrad said she had resisted writing early in her life and was focused on a career in music instead: "Oh, I wrote in secret, in private, and finally in 1991 a friend of mine sent me to go 'talk to some writers' because he couldn't believe that I wrote so much and didn't plan to do anything with it," she said. "Writing was just something I did for fun."

Those writers changed her mind. After talking with them, "I got so excited about it that it began to take over my life, and finally I decided I had to make a decision about which dream to follow. I chose the writing. Must have been the right choice, because within a year, I'd sold my first book."

The family is making arrangements for a virtual memorial service and will release details in the coming weeks. In lieu of flowers, the family asked for donations to be sent to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of American Emergency Medical Fund http://www.shelfawareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46204061

 I love fall, it's my favorite season, and one of the things I love about it is setting the clocks back an hour so we get an extra hour of sleep. It also marks the beginning of the holiday season, and spending time cozy by the fire or under a blanket with hot tea or hot cider, reading a good book.

Bookseller Moment: Elliott Bay Book Company

Posted on Facebook Sunday by Elliott Bay Book Company http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46204076, Seattle, Wash.: "Maybe it's the blue skies, maybe it's the extra hour of sleep, but the bookstore is looking extra special to us today! The holidays are just around the corner and this season is crucial after the year we've all had--we hope you'll let us help you find the perfect gifts for your loved ones. We've got a pretty stellar gift guide coming soon, but in the meantime we're open from 10:00-7:00 everyday (and our website is open 24/7)."

 Thank heaven record numbers of people voted out the current fascist administration and voted in Joe Biden and the first female person of color VP, Kamala Harris. Now we can start to heal the nation divided by the racism of the Trump administration and we can start to get a handle on the Coronavirus and climate change.

Quotation of the Day

"Whatever happens, we are with you.... Voting is one of the many essential tools we possess in our toolbox for building the world we all deserve. We also possess the tools of community organizing, care work, information sharing, and learning from art, culture, and story. We believe that now is the time to use all of the tools at our disposal and to continue to dream intergenerational, strategic, liberation dreams, knowing that the choices we make today can help our people in this lifetime and in lifetimes we will not personally see. Our duty to one another includes voting, absolutely, and is so much grander and more beautiful than voting alone...."Today, we want you to know we see you. We see you in your exhaustion, in your struggle, in your terror, and in your brief flickers of hope. Whatever you have lost this year we mourn with you. Whatever lessons you have gained, however hard won, we cherish with you. We have no idea what the next few days hold. What we know is you, our people, who show up for our world, who put their talents to use, who give of their time and their money no matter how meager. We believe in you. No matter what comes, we will be here with you on the other side of this election. Fighting, dreaming, planning, and scheming until the systems of this world are generous and human enough to contain all the beating, messy hearts within it."--Charis Books and More , Decatur, Ga., in a Facebook post on Election Day http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46242632

I am amazed that so long after it's publication, Capote's novel is still the subject of legal action. Paramount is so greedy, shame on them!

Breakfast at Tiffany's Goes to Court

The rights to Truman Capote's novella Breakfast at Tiffany's http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46282601 are the subject of a Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit. Deadline reported that the "suit contends a charity trust set up by Capote before his death owns the rights to develop a prequel, sequel or television series inspired by the 1961 film." Alan Schwartz, the trustee of the charity, alleges that rights to the work reverted to Capote's executor after his death in 1984. The rights were then transferred to the charity.

According to the complaint, in 1991 "Plaintiff and the Capote Estate entered into an agreement with Paramount, whereby Paramount optioned certain sequel and prequel rights, among others, with respect to the film. The agreement provided that, if a motion picture was not produced within a certain amount of time, the rights would revert back to Plaintiff."

Although no film was made, Paramount claims it had no obligation to make one, but purchased the right to do so for $300,000. Deadline noted that "the lawsuit claims it has been approached by numerous producers who have interest in developing a television series based on the novella. Paramount claims it intends to do a film and sell it to a streamer."

Murder in the Margins by Margaret Loudon is the first "Open Book" mystery in a series about a young woman from America who moves to England to work in a small town bookstore (The Open Book) and do a writing residency program that she hopes will rid her of the pesky writers block that's keeping her from completing her second mystery novel. While I enjoyed reading about the characters in the town and the wonderfully cozy bookstore, I found the protagonist, the alliteratively named Penelope Parish, to be somewhat bland and stupid. She knows the tropes of mysteries, and knows that certain actions put her at risk, yet she does them anyway. Why? It makes little sense. Here's the blurb: The plot thickens for American gothic writer Penelope Parish when a murder near her quaint British bookshop reveals a novel's worth of killer characters.

Penelope Parish has hit a streak of bad luck, including a severe case of writer's block that is threatening her sophomore book. Hoping a writer in residence position at The Open Book bookstore in Upper Chumley-on-Stoke, England, will shake the cobwebs loose, Pen, as she's affectionately known, packs her typewriter and heads across the pond.

Unfortunately, life in Chumley is far from quiet and when the chairwoman of the local Worthington Fest is found dead, fingers are pointed at Charlotte Davenport, an American romance novelist and the future Duchess of Worthington. Charlotte turns to the one person who might be her ally for help: fellow American Pen. Teaming up with bookstore owner Mabel Morris and her new friend Figgy, Pen sets out to learn the truth and find the tricks that will help her finish her novel.

The prose was decent, while not terribly innovative or exciting, and the plot was easy to navigate. I'd give this book a B-, and recommend it to those who want an easy mystery that will pass the time. 

Sphere Song by Tricia O'Malley is the fourth and final book in her Isle of Destiny series. I've read all the other books, which are paranormal romances and are filled with ridiculous sexual drama, so I figured I might as well finish the series, though I find the whole "love at first sight" and "attraction so intense it's legendary and mind blowing" to be unrealistic and insane, almost laughably so. "It's your destiny to be together!" is such a cliche, with the resultant stereotypical woman giving up everything for her man rearing it's ugly head that I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Here's the blurb: The dramatic and heartwarming conclusion to the Isle of Destiny Series.

Neala O’Riordan is no stranger to the sweet and spicy things in life although that’s more to do with running a highly acclaimed bakery in Kilkenny than because of having any semblance of a dating life. In lieu of romantic entanglements, Neala instead pours her love and attention into her rapidly growing business and the in-demand sweets she concocts.
When a distraught man storms into her bakery one morning, Neala’s life is turned upside down. In moments, she’s plunged into a fairytale world – and she’s the star of the show. When she learns that the fate of Ireland, if not the entire world, rests on her shoulders, Neala is ready to turn tail and run for the hills – but she’s stopped in her tracks by the storm she sees in the eyes of her handsome protector, Dagda.
With one look, Dagda challenges Neala to stay and fight – to accept her destiny – and to change the course of the future. Unable to resist a challenge, Neala throws caution to the wind and joins an unlikely group of magickal humans and fae alike as she finds herself pulled into the adventure of a lifetime. It’s a race against the clock to end a centuries-old curse, and Neala does her best to keep her heart from falling for the quiet charms of her alluring protector. Though her battle to resist her attraction to Dagda may be a lost cause, Neala refuses to lose the fight against the dark fae. With the help of friends from Grace’s Cove, Neala holds fast to her belief that – no matter what – love will always light the way against darkness. 

The silly love story and "formerly sane woman loses her mind for love" trope aside, these books have sturdy and well wrought prose with an adventurous and swiftly moving plot that will keep you reading into the wee hours. I initially liked Neala the protagonist a great deal, because she was happy running her own business and living her life. But once things start to get crazy with magic and a big testosterone-poisoned doofus of a protector (who of course is wounded and needs her love to heal him so that he can love again! UGH, how cliche!), I watched in horror as she went from being smart and independent to being a glassy-eyed idiot who is willing to give up her business and her life for said doofus protector because, of course, it's her DESTINY! Blech. Sexist and stupid and sad. It's always the woman who gives up everything for love, never the man. Still, it was a swift read, and I'd give it a C+ because it wrapped up the whole series in a neat little HEA. I would only recommend it to those who want simplistic cis-het romances that add a lot of sexist tropes to their pages. 

The Courage to Care by Christie Watson is a non fiction memoir of a nurse in England working within the National Healthcare system, or NIH that they have there, which gives every citizen free healthcare for life. Watson fancies herself something of a prose stylist, and tries to gussy up her otherwise depressing book with a lot of lengthy paragraphs on the beauty of everyday things and people and places. She tries a bit too hard in places, though, and I began skimming over her attempts at being poetic. the rest of her prose is workmanlike, although she skips back and forth in time a great deal, which can be confusing. Here's the blurb: In the Courage to Care, bestselling author Christie Watson reveals the remarkable extent of nurses work. A community mental health nurse choreographs support for a man suffering from severe depression.A Teen with stab wounds is treated by the critical care team, his school nurse visits and he drops the bravado. A pregnant woman loses frightening amounts of blood following a car accident; it is a military nurse who synchronizes the emergency department into order and focus. Watson makes a further discovery; that time and again, it is patients and their families, including her own, who show exceptional strength in the most challenging times. We are all deserving of compassion, and as we share in each other's suffering, Watson shows us how we can find courage, too, the courage to care. 

Having worked as a CNA alongside my mother, who was a nurse for over 40 years, I have some inside knowledge of what it takes to be a nurse and care for others as well. 

While I laud Watson's journey to becoming a compassionate nurse and a single parent to two children (one adopted), there were points in her narrative where I wanted to shake her by the shoulders and shout "NOT EVERYONE DESERVES COMPASSION!" Especially pedophiles and insane people who hurt or kill others. Or parents who willfully kill their children by being idiots and not vaccinating them against preventable diseases, such as measles or diptheria, and then expect sympathy when their child dies of those preventable diseases, or worse, become so severely handicapped that they will live a short and miserable existence full of suffering and pain. How can you possibly not see that as murder by stupidity on the part of the parents? And when the mother of one of these unfortunate children says "It's all my fault," Watson struggles to find something comforting to say to her, while I was shouting "YES, it IS your fault, you idiot!" There is just no excuse for allowing your child to die of a preventable disease when there are vaccines. Scientists and Doctors are in 99 percent agreement on this, and anyone who tells you differently is either someone who has had their license revoaked or a celebrity or religious nut who passes along false information out of sheer stupidity and gullability. In these dark days of COVID 19, which is infecting and killing more people than ever (during the second surge/wave that scientists and doctors saw coming and warned us about), we cannot afford to fall prey to weak minded idiocy and belief in lies and falsehoods! Lives are at stake! 

Anwyay, other than her pathological need to be compassionate to those who don't deserve even an ounce of her kindness, I liked reading about Watson's nursing experiences and her career path, particularly with handicapped children and premature infants (My own son was 2 months premature). I'd give this book, which moved along at a brisk pace that was unusual for non fiction, a B, and recommend it to nurses and caregivers everywhere, but especially those who live and work in England.

American Gods Season 3, Shakespeare and Company, Powell's Books introduces it's own cologne, Midnight Sky movie, Song of Living Poem, Educated by Tara Westover, Happiness for Beginners by Katherine Center, Funny Girl by Nick Hornby,and the Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop by Fannie Flagg

Welcome to November, book lovers! I have a lot to write about, though most of it isn't good, unfortunately. I'm glad it's November, though, because October sucked, and November has my husband and son's birthdays and Thanksgiving, all celebrations that I love! 

I figure if you don't like anything the fantastic Neil Gaiman has written, there is something wrong with you. He's written and developed TV shows so many times, and he's such a versatile and wonderful wordsmith, I love just about everything he's done...and I'm excited that there's another season of American Gods coming up.

TV: Gaiman on American Gods, Season 3

The third season of American Gods http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46157504, the Starz series based on Neil Gaiman's 2001 novel, will debut January 10, 2021. Deadline reported that the new season starts in Chapter Nine of the novel, with Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle) "hiding out from the New Gods in a sub-zero Badger State town where mystical forces and the body count both seem to be rising," as the war between Odin's (Ian McShane) Old Gods and the New Gods "has apparently taken on new significance for Gaiman in this year of election."

In a letter about the new season, Gaiman wrote: "When we embarked upon making Season Three of American Gods, we had no idea how timely it would turn out to be.... We knew also that we wanted to continue to root the show in the landscapes of America. To explore what 'America' means to its people and to talk about immigrants--about the very different people who came to this remarkable land and brought their gods with them. The new gods of phone and app and glitter demand our attention and our love, and the old gods want to mean something again.

"America must be for all of us, and American Gods must reflect that. This season truly feels as if it does.... The struggles of the gods and the people in Season Three of American Gods are the struggles of America. We didn't think it would prove as timely when we plotted it, nor did I think the novel would still be relevant when I wrote it over 20 years ago. But I'm glad it's happening now, in a year when it feels as though diverse stories are being heard, and honored, and allowed to change the future."

 Shakespeare and Company is an iconic bookshop that all bibliophiles long to visit during their lifetimes (even if you're not a huge fan of the French). I think it's awful that they're having to struggle, like most bookstores, during the coronavirus quarantine, but I would imagine their fans from all over the world will be ordering from their website and donating to their cause.

Legendary Paris bookstore Shakespeare and Company http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46167460 is appealing to customers for help to counter losses incurred during the Covid-19 pandemic. In a letter to friends of the bookshop the bookseller expressed appreciation to supporters who have already reached out, but added that "we are struggling, trying to see a way forward during this time when we've been operating at a loss, with our sales down almost 80% since March. With this in mind, we would be especially grateful for new website orders from those of you with the means and interest to do so....

"Today, each morning, taking down the wooden shutters, opening those same doors, and welcoming readers and writers--whether travelers from across the world or the Parisians who are still able to visit us--always feels like an immense privilege. Because, as well as being a bookshop, Shakespeare and Company is a community, a commune (often literally), of which you are all a part. We are here today, almost seventy years after that first morning, because of you. We send our best wishes for your health and safety. May we all thrive together soon."

Proprietor Sylvia Whitman told the Guardian: "We're not closing our doors, but we've gone through all of our savings... which we were lucky to build up, and we have also been making use of the support from the government, and especially the furlough scheme. But it doesn't cover everything, and we've delayed quite a lot of rent that we have.... Right now our cafe and bookshop is open, but it's looking like we will have to close both because bookshops are considered non-essential. The one big difference is that we're adamant this time we're going to be ready to keep the website open."

Since the letter went out, Whitman said the shop had been deluged with offers of support as well as online orders: "I think it's going to give us a real boost in getting through this next chapter. We haven't said anything publicly before because we just feel so aware everyone is in difficult situations. We just want to ask people to help us do what we do, which is sell books."

I imagine that this perfume smells delicious, because there is nothing sexier than the smell of a bookstore full of books (at least to me). 

'Want to Smell Like a Million Books?' Try Powell's by Powell's

Powell's Books in Portland, Ore., is introducing its own limited-edition unisex fragrance, Powell's by Powell's http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46169401, promising a scent that "contains the lives of countless heroes and heroines. Apply to the pulse points when seeking sensory succor or a brush with immortality." Available for preorder now on Powells.com, it will be sold in stores beginning November 27.

"With notes of wood, violet, and biblichor, Powell's by Powell's comes in a 1-ounce glass bottle nestled in a faux book," the bookseller noted. "Just a few dabs to the pulse points will deliver the wearer to a place of wonder, discovery, and magic heretofore only known in literature."

 This movie sounds awesome, and I can hardly wait for it to reach Netflix before Christmas!

Movies: The Midnight Sky

Netflix has released a trailer for The Midnight Sky http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz46169418, based on the novel Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton. IndieWire reported that George Clooney, who starred in sci-fi films Solaris and Gravity, "is finally ready to tackle outer space from the director's chair with his upcoming adventure." The ensemble cast includes Clooney, Felicity Jones, Kyle Chandler, David Oyelowo, Tiffany Boone, and Demian Bichir.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, Clooney said one of the things he had learned about space from working with Alfonso Cuaron on Gravity was that "once you're in the antigravity kind of world, there is no north and south or east or west, because it doesn't exist in space. Up isn't up, and down isn't down. So the camera can be upside down, characters can be upside down, and it's hard to do, because you're constantly rotating the camera, and hoping you're not doing it so much you make everybody sick. Alfonso did it just beautifully."

The Midnight Sky will premiere December 23 on Netflix, following a limited theatrical release.

This is a beautiful funerary poem that I wish I'd known about before my father's funeral a couple of years ago. 

A Song of Living

Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.
I have sent up my gladness on wings, to be lost in the blue of the sky.
I have run and leaped with the rain, I have taken the wind to my breast.
My cheeks like a drowsy child to the face of the earth I have pressed.
Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.

I have kissed young love on the lips, I have heard his song to the end,
I have struck my hand like a seal in the loyal hand of a friend.
I have known the peace of heaven, the comfort of work done well.
I have longed for death in the darkness and risen alive out of hell.
Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.

I gave a share of my soul to the world, when and where my course is run.
I know that another shall finish the task I surely must leave undone.
I know that no flower, nor flint was in vain on the path I trod.
As one looks on a face through a window, through life I have looked on God,
Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.

Amelia Burr
1878-1968

Educated by Tara Westover is the non fiction memoir that my book club is reading for November. Having never heard of Ms Westover, I was unsure what to expect from this lengthy memoir. I certainly didn't expect the horrific level of blood, gore and sheer misogyny, not to mention the physical and mental abuse detailed on nearly every page of the book, and visited upon the author, who grew up with insane Mormon parents and siblings. These children were not allowed to go to school, to go to the doctor or hospital even if they were critically ill, and they were forced to endure endless abuse from one another and from their father, while their mother stood by and let it happen. If that weren't nauseating enough, the author doesn't get away from this insanity until the end of the book. She keeps making excuses to go back to her abusive household, though she has to know her father and brother will never really change their ways, and her father will always consider her, especially, expendable (as in he puts her, repeatedly, in harsh and dangerous situations where she could be killed, and he considers it "Gods will" if she does die). Here's the blurb: Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

Bill Gates called this book amazing and inspiring (perhaps it's because he grew up in the exact opposite situation to Westover, being from a wealthy family who were supportive and caring). I consider it neither. It took me nearly all month to read it because it was just a litany of horrors, and Ms Westover didn't seem to be smart or strong enough to break away from her insane family, even though they repeatedly abused her and accused her of being a "demon" and a "whore." There was nothing inspirational about reading the insane ramblings of her father or hear about the latest abuse perpetrated by her psychopathic brother Shawn. She continually makes excuses for her father, her brother and her lame, idiotic mother who lies to her daughter and doesn't lift a finger to help her when she's being beaten or shoved into some hellish machine by her father. I loathed this family and their use of religion as a justification for keeping women illiterate, enslaved and abused. SHAME on them all. Anyone who finds it inspirational is a ghoul who enjoys reading about pain and suffering inflicted on women and children by religious fanatics. Though I am glad that Westover managed to finally get her PhD and become educated, I am not a fan of her constant whining about "losing her family" and not fitting in with the other students. Seriously, anyone who was raised as she was wouldn't fit in because they were so isolated by their abusers. I just can't fathom why she kept going back for more. I thought the prose was pretentious and the whole book a serious waste of paper and ink. I'd give it a D-, and I can't recommend it to anyone because it is just too awful.   

Happiness for Beginners by Katherine Center is the third book of hers that I've read. This one is something of an adventure/romance, and while it's about extreme camping and wilderness shenanigans, I still found the romantic through-line, along with the personal growth of the main character, fairly satisfying. Here's the blurb: Helen Carpenter can’t quite seem to bounce back. Newly divorced at thirty-two, her life has fallen apart beyond her ability to put it together again. So when her annoying younger brother, Duncan, convinces her to sign up for a hardcore wilderness survival course in the backwoods of Wyoming—she hopes it’ll be exactly what she needs.

Instead, it’s a disaster. It’s nothing like she wants, or expects, or anticipates. She doesn’t anticipate the surprise summer blizzard, for example—or the blisters, or the rutting elk, or the mean pack of sorority girls. And she especially doesn’t anticipate that her annoying brother’s even-more-annoying best friend, Jake, will show up for the exact same course—and distract her, derail her, and . . . kiss her.

But it turns out sometimes disaster can teach you exactly the things you need to learn. Like how to keep going, even when you think you can’t. How being scared can make you brave. And how sometimes getting really, really lost is your only hope of getting found.Happiness for Beginners is Katherine Center at her most heart-warming, captivating best—a nourishing, page-turning, up-all-night read about how to get back up. It’s a story that looks at how our struggles lead us to our strengths. How love is always worth it. And how the more good things we look for, the more we find.

Center's prose is evocative and engaging, and her plot full of moments of tenderness alternating with moments of sheer terror. I found Helen's brother extremely annoying and I would not have forgiven him for being the ultimate screw up, especially when he kills her pet. I also think her brothers friend Jake, who has basically been stalking her since he first saw her (he's 10 years younger than she is) isn't as much charming as he is creepy for much of the book. The fact that her grandmother and her brother support his infatuation makes it even creepier, but eventually I assume that his adulation of her blooms into actual love, because of course they end up together (trust me, that's not a spoiler, it's obvious that they'll end up together from the first part of the book). I'd give it a C+, mainly because of the sudden change of attitude toward the sh*tty brother and his machinations with grandma. I'd recommend it to anyone who has tried to reinvent themselves and discovers that they just needed to grow up.

Funny Girl by Nick Hornby is the second novel of his I've read. But I should warn my fellow readers that, because this book takes place in the mid to late 60s and early 70s in England, there's a great deal of sexism and male BS, often put in an "aw shucks, wasn't life great back then" nostalgic light by Hornby, who, like most men, can't really write women characters with 100 percent accuracy, and seems to appreciate a time when women had to fight to get a career amid all the sexual harassment perpetrated by their male contemporaries. Anyway, here's the blurb: A brilliant novel from the bestselling author of High Fidelity, About a Boy, and A Long Way Down.
Set in 1960's London, Funny Girl is a lively account of the adventures of the intrepid young Sophie Straw as she navigates her transformation from provincial ingénue to television starlet amid a constellation of delightful characters. Insightful and humorous, Nick Hornby's latest does what he does best: endears us to a cast of characters who are funny if flawed, and forces us to examine ourselves in the process.

Barbara/Sophie is one of those dazzlingly beautiful young women who found Lucille Ball of I Love Lucy fame to be a huge inspiration, and this story is the often wry and witty tale of her determined rise to stardom via that new medium of television. While I loved Sophie's devotion to becoming a TV comedienne, I found her capitulation to what her fans and her PR people wanted (ie a romance/engagement with her nasty co-star, who man-shores around with every woman he sees) to be lame and weak and ultimately disappointing. Hornby's prose is engaging and his characters/plot enthralling, as I couldn't put the book down until I knew what happened to Sophie and her writers and costars on the TV series "Barbara (and Jim)." Sophie's encounter with the actual Lucille Ball is sad, and her actual marriage and sacrificing career for family also struck something of a sour note with me, though I know that was common at the time. Still, this book deserves a B, and I'd recommend it to anyone who is curious about London and  BBC TV in the late 60s. 

The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop by Fannie Flagg is the long awaited sequel to her bestselling Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, which was made into a fantastic and delightful movie about 25 years ago. Flagg's prose is smooth as silk, and her plots always move along beautifully toward an HEA that will have you weeping tears of joy and sorrow. Here's the blurb: A heartwarming novel about secrets of youth rediscovered, hometown memories, and the magical moments in ordinary lives, from the beloved author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

Bud Threadgoode grew up in the bustling little railroad town of Whistle Stop with his mother, Ruth, church-going and proper, and his Aunt Idgie, the fun-loving hell-raiser. Together they ran the town’s popular Whistle Stop Cafe, known far and wide for its fun and famous fried green tomatoes. And as Bud often said of his childhood to his daughter Ruthie, “How lucky can you get?”

But sadly, as the railroad yards shut down and Whistle Stop became a ghost town, nothing was left but boarded-up buildings and memories of a happier time.

Then one day, Bud decides to take one last trip, just to see what has become of his beloved Whistle Stop. In so doing, he discovers new friends, as well as surprises about Idgie’s life, about Ninny Threadgoode and other beloved Fannie Flagg characters, and about the town itself. He also sets off a series of events, both touching and inspiring, which change his life and the lives of his daughter and many others. Could these events all be just coincidences? Or something else? And can you really go home again? 

For once I agree with the blurb that this is a heartwarming novel full of flashbacks to the 30s and 60s and 80s, so we find out the fate of all the great characters who populated Fried Green Tomatoes. I was especially delighted that Dot Weems kept writing to everyone in the gang, first with a kind of newsletter and later with a Christmas letter and then emails. And Buddy was such a sweet guy, right up until his death, that I loved reading about all that his daughter and her friend did for him in revitalizing Whistle Stop and the Cafe for him and for posterity. The kindness and general decency of people in Whistle Stop, even once they live elsewhere, is truly inspirational. I loved every page of this book, and I know that my mother, who also loves all of Fannie Flagg's novels, will love it, too. I'd give it an A, and recommend it to anyone who wants an uplifting and heartwarming tale that will keep you engrossed and engaged for hours.