Hiya Book Lovers! It's the middle of November, and though it's pretty chilly and dark outside here in the PNW, it's primo reading time, with cozy chairs, warm sweaters and roaring fires providing the perfect settting for a good long book reading jag with a cup of hot cocoa or tea by your side. I've been downloading a lot of books to my Kindle Paperwhite, which is a great space saver as my bookshelves are stacked full of physical books. Anyway, lets get to the tidbits and reviews!
This is exactly how I feel about opening a bookstore someday...and I love that the bookstore dogs name is Chomsky!
Backwater Books https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAbZl-8I6aljJRl_SA~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jBC5anpoMLg-gVdw> will launch soon at 8156 Main Street in Ellicott City, Md. The Baltimore Banner reported that Matt Krist, co-owner of the shop with his wife, Alli Krist, said he is looking forward to bringing back the written word to the building, once home to the Howard County Times newspaper.
The Krists are former teachers who left education during the pandemic, and are longtime readers and lovers of mystery novels for whom the idea of opening a bookshop seemed like a good fit.
"There's something very educational about bookstores. It's definitely kind of a romantic idea as well," Matt Krist said, adding that while the area has a used bookstore, Gramp's Attic Books, the historic district currently lacks a place to buy new titles.
In addition to a place to stock up on the latest thrillers, the Krists envision Backwater Books and the upstairs bar as a community gathering place with events for adults and children alike, the Banner noted.
Another draw will be the bookstore dog, Chomsky, who will greet shoppers as they browse. "We hope people come by and take him for walks," Matt Krist said. The bookstore is set to open sometime in this month, with the bar opening at a later date.
Though I'm not a huge fan of the SP mysteries, I think it's great that Costco has picked Evanovich's 29th book as their November book club selection.
Costco Picks: Going Rogue
Alex Kanenwisher, book buyer at Costco, has selected Going Rogue by Janet Evanovich as the pick for
November. In Costco Connection, which goes to many of the warehouse club's members, Kanenwisher writes:
"Stephanie Plum is good at what she does, but it takes the disappearance of a colleague to figure out just how good she is.
"In Going Rogue, Janet Evanovich's 29th Stephanie Plum novel, the bounty hunter has to find office manager Connie Rossoli and a special coin that has gone missing. As the stakes grow higher, Stephanie taps into her circle of family and friends before deciding to do things her way."Evanovich truly gives readers her thrill-ride best."
This sounds like a great book, especially in these dark times. I will keep my eye out for a copy.
Book Review: The Fun Habit
Climbing the ladder toward happiness may, in truth, be scaling the wrong wall. That's the persuasive case Mike Rucker makes in The Fun Habit: How the Disciplined Pursuit of Joy and Wonder Can Change Your Life, a lively and engaging argument for escaping the "happiness trap," by trading the pursuit of an elusive mental state for the effort to inject more fun into your everyday life.
If there's an overriding theme to Rucker's book, it's that there's a strong element of intentionality in the quest for more fun. In aid of that effort, for example, he recommends creating a "Fun File" of activities in the upper two quadrants of something he calls the PLAY Model (just one of the book's several helpful acronyms)--things that are easy to execute and enjoyable ("Pleasing") and those that are more challenging ("Living"). And rather than detracting from enjoyable pursuits, he points out that it's critical to schedule time for fun, "looking carefully at the choices you're making about how to spend your time and considering whether they are in alignment with what supports your well-being, now and in the future."
The Fun Habit blends abundant, but concise, accounts of contemporary scientific research, stories drawn from Rucker's life--including the sudden death of his brother, his participation in an Ironman competition in New Zealand and the hip surgery that brought his athletic career to a premature end--and a profusion of practical tips on how to consciously bring more joy into our "critically fun-starved" lives. "Happiness is a state of mind," he writes, "but fun is something you can do."
Rucker helpfully includes a chapter on having more fun as a parent (making it child-centric is a key) and devotes another to fun at work, pointing out that there's greater value to "engaging with your work more playfully," than there is to dutifully attending yet another happy hour with your colleagues. And in a moving epilogue on life's finitude, he reminds readers that "Fun allows us to cope with life's pain, and even sometimes transcend it, by more fully experiencing life's gifts."
Though he holds a Ph.D. and is a charter member of the International Positive Psychology Association, Rucker writes in a conversational style that makes The Fun Habit feel more like advice over a coffee from a well-informed, thoughtful friend than a dry academic treatise. He leavens his insights with substantial doses of humor, even nominating several candidates to an imaginary "Hall of Fun," among them Albert Einstein and Chris Hadfield, the first astronaut to create a music video in space, for their willingness to approach life with a sense of whimsy.
There's ample fun to be found in Rucker's book, but the real delight will begin when you put its prescriptions into practice. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer
Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn is a witty and sophisticated thriller about a group of 60-something assassins who discover that someone in their agency (The Museum) has put out a kill order on them all, and they've got to pull together like the A Team and make a plan to get the bad guys before they end up on the wrong side of the grave. It's billed as "The Golden Girls Meets James Bond" which is kind of sexist, but accurate all the same. Here's the blurb:
Older women often feel invisible, but sometimes that’s their secret weapon.
They’ve
spent their lives as the deadliest assassins in a clandestine
international organization, but now that they're sixty years old, four
women friends can’t just retire – it’s kill or be killed in this
action-packed thriller by New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-nominated author Deanna Raybourn.
Billie,
Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie have worked for the Museum, an elite
network of assassins, for forty years. Now their talents are considered
old-school and no one appreciates what they have to offer in an age that
relies more on technology than people skills.
When the foursome
is sent on an all-expenses paid vacation to mark their retirement, they
are targeted by one of their own. Only the Board, the top-level members
of the Museum, can order the termination of field agents, and the women
realize they’ve been marked for death.
Now to get out alive they
have to turn against their own organization, relying on experience and
each other to get the job done, knowing that working together is the
secret to their survival. They’re about to teach the Board what it
really means to be a woman—and a killer—of a certain age.
The prose was stellar in this novel, as usual for Raybourn, and the plot flew by on jet fueled wings. I could NOT put this book down...it was a delight from start to finish. I was particularly excited to read about women my own age (I will be 62 next month) who still know how to kick ass and take names. Though they are heir to all the physical changes that happen to women over 60, like menopause, hot flashes, aching joints and fatigue, they also brought to bear 40 years of training, experience (you can learn a lot from failure as well as success) and adaptability to the literal fight of their lives. Their honesty and memories are both hilarious and heartbreaking. I was particularly fond of the narrator of the tale, Billie, whose cynical but accurate view of her comrades and those around her at their agency made for some fascinating profiles, and though the sexism was laid bare, Raybourn still had the villains colored in shades of gray. I was also amused to learn how many ways you can kill a guy with regular household items, LOL. I'd give this book an A, and recommend it to anyone who is over 50 a yearns to read about heroines of a certain age.
Silent in the Grave and Silent on the Moor by Deanna Raybourn are books 1 and 3 (I'd read #2 first by accident) of her Lady Julia Gray series of romantic mysteries. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed Raybourn's Belle Epoch English mysteries, starring the stubborn but sly Lady Julia (and her enormous family of eccentric siblings, parents, aunties, cousins, etc) and her amour and eventual husband the half Romany heartthrob Nicholas Brisbane, who is a winning combination of Sherlock Holmes and a swarthy Errol Flynn-style pirate. This hottie sparks in many ways with the graceful and cool lady Julia, but their sassy dialog is Moonlight or Bones-level funny/feisty. Here are the blurbs: “Let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave.”
These
ominous words are the last threat that Sir Edward Grey receives from
his killer. Before he can show them to Nicholas Brisbane, the private
inquiry agent he has retained for his protection, he collapses and dies
at his London home, in the presence of his wife, Julia, and a roomful of
dinner guests.
Prepared to accept that Edward’s death was due to
a long-standing physical infirmity, Julia is outraged when Brisbane
visits and suggests that her husband was murdered. It is a reaction she
comes to regret when she discovers damning evidence for herself, and
realizes the truth.
Determined to bring the murderer to justice,
Julia engages the enigmatic Brisbane to help her investigate Edward’s
demise. Dismissing his warnings that the investigation will be
difficult, if not impossible, Julia presses forward, following a trail
of clues that lead her to even more unpleasant truths, and ever closer
to a killer who waits expectantly for her arrival.
Silent on the Moor: Despite his admonitions to stay away, Lady Julia arrives in
Yorkshire to find Brisbane as remote and maddeningly attractive as ever.
Cloistered together, they share the moldering house with the proud but
impoverished remnants of an ancient family—the sort that keeps their
bloodline pure and their secrets close. Lady Allenby and her daughters,
dependent upon Brisbane and devastated by their fall in society, seem
adrift on the moor winds, powerless to change their fortunes. But poison
does not discriminate between classes….
A mystery unfolds from
the rotten heart of Grimsgrave, one Lady Julia may have to solve alone,
as Brisbane appears inextricably tangled in its heinous twists and
turns. But blood will out, and before spring touches the craggy northern
landscape, Lady Julia will have uncovered a Gypsy witch, a dark rider
and a long-buried legacy of malevolence and evil.
The blurbs don't give enough credit to the marvelous mind of Nicholas Brisbane, who, due to sexist societal rules, is able to go places and interrogate people that Julia cannot. Julia also involves at least one of her 9 siblings in her sleuthing plots, and they always seem to keep her on track and focused, because Lady J, though she's smart, is somewhat flighty and a daydreamer who tends to moon and pine over Brisbane in every chapter. And while I love and adore the eccentric and witty English people, their classicism and casual racism becomes a bit like eating a lot of sweets all at once...at first it's a little offputting, and then it becomes nauseating and progresses to horrifying, especially when the author treats it as normal (and perhaps it was for this time period...still, this is fiction, and one can always arrange to have things be more enlightened.) I was hoping that Raybourn would at least make an attempt at cleaning out the cobwebby, musty cliches of the Empire, but she stuck with those nasty Victorian values to the bitter end. Raybourn is a deft and magical wordsmith whose prose is clean and beautiful, and her plots never falter or flag. I'd give these two installments of this mystery series an A, and recommend them to anyone who loves a good woman-lead Victorian mystery. I'd also recommend it to fans of her delicious Veronica Speedwell mysteries and her stand-alone novels, one of which is reviewed above.
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