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
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.
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