Karen
Alice and Eileen are two young Irish women who have been friends since college, now out making their way in the world. Alice is a novelist who has published two successful novels and has recently recovered from a mental breakdown. She's renting an old rectory in a seaside village 3 hours from Dublin. Eileen works for a literary journal and shares an apartment in Dublin with roommates. Part of this novel is the text of the long emails they exchange about how they're feeling about life, with existential questions like what one should do about the suffering of people living in deep poverty or under oppressive regimes. The rest of the novel follows Alice and Eileen as they navigate their relationships with young men Felix and Simon. Alice meets Felix, a warehouse worker who doesn't read novels, on Tinder. Although their first meeting is inauspicious, they keep meeting and surprisingly, Alice asks Felix to come with her on a work trip to Rome (and equally surprisingly, he agrees). Eileen has known and loved Simon since she was a young girl, but although they are close friends and occasionally have sex, they have never been in an acknowledged Relationship.
There are occasional romantic moments, but these relationships are spiky and uncomfortable. Alice and Eileen are smart and capable young women, but they are both uneasy with their places in the world and with the vulnerability that is necessary for "Relationships" to grow. The epistolary parts of the novel are the easiest to read, I think because Alice and Eileen are comfortable with representing themselves in writing, where they have control over how they come across. Their in person interactions with each other and with Felix and Simon are painful at times, because all their insecurities, resentments, and fears are so close to the surface. So, I admire this book, but it is not a cozy read.
Alice and Eileen are two young Irish women who have been friends since college, now out making their way in the world. Alice is a novelist who has published two successful novels and has recently recovered from a mental breakdown. She's renting an old rectory in a seaside village 3 hours from Dublin. Eileen works for a literary journal and shares an apartment in Dublin with roommates. Part of this novel is the text of the long emails they exchange about how they're feeling about life, with existential questions like what one should do about the suffering of people living in deep poverty or under oppressive regimes. The rest of the novel follows Alice and Eileen as they navigate their relationships with young men Felix and Simon. Alice meets Felix, a warehouse worker who doesn't read novels, on Tinder. Although their first meeting is inauspicious, they keep meeting and surprisingly, Alice asks Felix to come with her on a work trip to Rome (and equally surprisingly, he agrees). Eileen has known and loved Simon since she was a young girl, but although they are close friends and occasionally have sex, they have never been in an acknowledged Relationship.
There are occasional romantic moments, but these relationships are spiky and uncomfortable. Alice and Eileen are smart and capable young women, but they are both uneasy with their places in the world and with the vulnerability that is necessary for "Relationships" to grow. The epistolary parts of the novel are the easiest to read, I think because Alice and Eileen are comfortable with representing themselves in writing, where they have control over how they come across. Their in person interactions with each other and with Felix and Simon are painful at times, because all their insecurities, resentments, and fears are so close to the surface. So, I admire this book, but it is not a cozy read.
Because her mistress shows her off to her dinner guests, Luzia Cortado's "milagritos," little pieces of magic that make her life of drudgery as a kitchen maid a bit easier, get her noticed by a nobleman who is trying to win the favor of King Philip of Spain. She gains a patron and is entered in a contest for holy magicians, the winner of which will be presented as a gift to the King. In preparation, her patron's servant (or familiar) Santangel, who is a striking man with white hair, light eyes, and a presence that strikes fear in people's hearts, gives her lessons in how to develop her magic.
Everyone in this book has a very human longing for something--a better social position, a more secure life, a life with beauty and pleasure in it, a chance to be powerful, love, what have you. The longing propels them, but it doesn't lead them where they expect or hope to go. This fact of life is explicit in the story. It's Valentina's longing that gets everything started, and at the end almost everyone's life has been completely altered.
The Familiar turned out to be more of a romance than I expected, but it's well written, with an unusual plot. I enjoyed the historical setting of late 16th century Spain, with the shadows of King Philip, Elizabeth I of England, and the Inquisition.
Because her mistress shows her off to her dinner guests, Luzia Cortado's "milagritos," little pieces of magic that make her life of drudgery as a kitchen maid a bit easier, get her noticed by a nobleman who is trying to win the favor of King Philip of Spain. She gains a patron and is entered in a contest for holy magicians, the winner of which will be presented as a gift to the King. In preparation, her patron's servant (or familiar) Santangel, who is a striking man with white hair, light eyes, and a presence that strikes fear in people's hearts, gives her lessons in how to develop her magic.
Everyone in this book has a very human longing for something--a better social position, a more secure life, a life with beauty and pleasure in it, a chance to be powerful, love, what have you. The longing propels them, but it doesn't lead them where they expect or hope to go. This fact of life is explicit in the story. It's Valentina's longing that gets everything started, and at the end almost everyone's life has been completely altered.
The Familiar turned out to be more of a romance than I expected, but it's well written, with an unusual plot. I enjoyed the historical setting of late 16th century Spain, with the shadows of King Philip, Elizabeth I of England, and the Inquisition.
This biography of Virginia Hall tells an amazing story of a tough, independent young American woman who was out to blaze a trail for herself in the 1930s working abroad for the State Department when she suffered a disabling accident that effectively ended any chance she might have had to become a diplomat. However, she went on to distinguish herself working for first British and then American intelligence during World War II by organizing and aiding the French Resistance as an undercover agent. She endured physical and emotional hardships living in occupied France, evaded capture by the Gestapo and the French police in spite of their best efforts to find her, and was instrumental in helping to liberate France from the Nazis. There are many edge-of-your-seat moments, both for Virginia Hall herself, and for her many comrades who weren't able to evade capture. The book has an index, end notes, and a bibliography, plus photos.
The one thing that disappointed me was that at times the tone of the book was a little too much like a fan magazine. I thought the facts spoke well enough for themselves that I didn't need to be told repeatedly in so many words what a hero she was, and that sexism held her back in her career. Otherwise, highly recommend this book about a war hero I had never heard of before.
This biography of Virginia Hall tells an amazing story of a tough, independent young American woman who was out to blaze a trail for herself in the 1930s working abroad for the State Department when she suffered a disabling accident that effectively ended any chance she might have had to become a diplomat. However, she went on to distinguish herself working for first British and then American intelligence during World War II by organizing and aiding the French Resistance as an undercover agent. She endured physical and emotional hardships living in occupied France, evaded capture by the Gestapo and the French police in spite of their best efforts to find her, and was instrumental in helping to liberate France from the Nazis. There are many edge-of-your-seat moments, both for Virginia Hall herself, and for her many comrades who weren't able to evade capture. The book has an index, end notes, and a bibliography, plus photos.
The one thing that disappointed me was that at times the tone of the book was a little too much like a fan magazine. I thought the facts spoke well enough for themselves that I didn't need to be told repeatedly in so many words what a hero she was, and that sexism held her back in her career. Otherwise, highly recommend this book about a war hero I had never heard of before.
This novel is a genre bender. Or maybe it would be better to say it has some of almost every genre in it. It has prose narrative from almost every perspective, in different styles, from a doctor's case notes to true crime tabloid, and plenty of third person omniscient that flows along so seamlessly that you might forget that you are reading as you are mesmerized by the stories of a house on a plot of land in the western Massachusetts woodlands and the succession of people (and animals and insects) who lived there over the years since colonization. There is poetry, song, photography, thwarted romance, and an unabashed ghost story. Some of this sits together a little awkwardly. When you start to get comfortable in one section of the book, look out, because you are about to be unseated and it may take you a while to settle in again. I found the end pulled everything together for me, though, so the disparate parts made a convincing, beautiful, slightly melancholy whole.
This novel is a genre bender. Or maybe it would be better to say it has some of almost every genre in it. It has prose narrative from almost every perspective, in different styles, from a doctor's case notes to true crime tabloid, and plenty of third person omniscient that flows along so seamlessly that you might forget that you are reading as you are mesmerized by the stories of a house on a plot of land in the western Massachusetts woodlands and the succession of people (and animals and insects) who lived there over the years since colonization. There is poetry, song, photography, thwarted romance, and an unabashed ghost story. Some of this sits together a little awkwardly. When you start to get comfortable in one section of the book, look out, because you are about to be unseated and it may take you a while to settle in again. I found the end pulled everything together for me, though, so the disparate parts made a convincing, beautiful, slightly melancholy whole.
This family drama concerns the Madigans, an 21st centurt Irish family whose four children are coming home from far flung places to visit their mother, Rosaleen, for Christmas. Rosaleen has hinted that she is going to sell the house they all grew up in, so there is some consternation among the siblings, Dan, Emmet, Constance, and Hanna. We get to see the siblings as children together, and then individually as adults, before we see them back together as a family. We see their weaknesses and faults, their attempts to manage their relationships with their mother and siblings, and where the family rifts are. Rosaleen is a formidable character herself, with the power to raise storms within her family and then quiet them. If you like complex family relationships, this is a great book for you.
This family drama concerns the Madigans, an 21st centurt Irish family whose four children are coming home from far flung places to visit their mother, Rosaleen, for Christmas. Rosaleen has hinted that she is going to sell the house they all grew up in, so there is some consternation among the siblings, Dan, Emmet, Constance, and Hanna. We get to see the siblings as children together, and then individually as adults, before we see them back together as a family. We see their weaknesses and faults, their attempts to manage their relationships with their mother and siblings, and where the family rifts are. Rosaleen is a formidable character herself, with the power to raise storms within her family and then quiet them. If you like complex family relationships, this is a great book for you.
The Complete Father Brown
This is a collection of ALL of the Father Brown stories by GK Chesterton. In retrospect, although I mostly enjoyed them and I finished the book, 718 pages was too much for me. The stories contain quite a bit of social criticism--of people's ideas about science and the supernatural, the place and purpose of religion in life, among other things.
The stories are full of melodrama and strangeness. Quite a few of them involve characters from former British colonies, especially India, or British people who had served in the colonies. A common framework for one of these stories has a somewhat lurid atmosphere and characters who are afraid that supernatural forces are at work. Father Brown, a Catholic priest who seems to have a lot of time off from his regular duties, serves in these stories as the dispeller of superstition. He applies reasoning to his astute observations and shows how an ordinary human being accomplished the crime and why. As he does this, he also cautions his observers that the answers he provides are not less disturbing than the supernatural explanations they originally feared.
The copyright on this volume is 1963, with copyrights from the original books starting in 1911. The attitudes towards people and ideas from the former British colonies reflect the attitudes from those times. Racial slurs are used with no consciousness that they are offensive.
I also have a bone to pick with the publisher, Penguin, who calls Father Brown "Fiction's best loved amateur sleuth" on the cover of this volume. I would argue that title belongs to Sherlock Holmes.
This is a collection of ALL of the Father Brown stories by GK Chesterton. In retrospect, although I mostly enjoyed them and I finished the book, 718 pages was too much for me. The stories contain quite a bit of social criticism--of people's ideas about science and the supernatural, the place and purpose of religion in life, among other things.
The stories are full of melodrama and strangeness. Quite a few of them involve characters from former British colonies, especially India, or British people who had served in the colonies. A common framework for one of these stories has a somewhat lurid atmosphere and characters who are afraid that supernatural forces are at work. Father Brown, a Catholic priest who seems to have a lot of time off from his regular duties, serves in these stories as the dispeller of superstition. He applies reasoning to his astute observations and shows how an ordinary human being accomplished the crime and why. As he does this, he also cautions his observers that the answers he provides are not less disturbing than the supernatural explanations they originally feared.
The copyright on this volume is 1963, with copyrights from the original books starting in 1911. The attitudes towards people and ideas from the former British colonies reflect the attitudes from those times. Racial slurs are used with no consciousness that they are offensive.
I also have a bone to pick with the publisher, Penguin, who calls Father Brown "Fiction's best loved amateur sleuth" on the cover of this volume. I would argue that title belongs to Sherlock Holmes.
Isaac Fitzgerald's memoir of growing up in Massachusetts, first in Boston, and later in a rural part of the state, is a unique story about growing up with a troubled childhood. His family was colossally unhappy, and although he describes the unhappiness in ways that make his father and maternal grandparents look pretty bad, the book is anything but bitter. He describes using drugs and alcohol from the age of 12, and for long periods his use was heavy, but he never describes himself as an addict or as realizing that he needs to stop, although his drinking and drug use apparently destroyed some important relationships. I would describe this book as the most joyful memoir of growing up with a troubled childhood I've ever read. Not that his experiences growing up were joyful, but the author's attitude towards his younger self is forgiving and compassionate.
Isaac Fitzgerald's memoir of growing up in Massachusetts, first in Boston, and later in a rural part of the state, is a unique story about growing up with a troubled childhood. His family was colossally unhappy, and although he describes the unhappiness in ways that make his father and maternal grandparents look pretty bad, the book is anything but bitter. He describes using drugs and alcohol from the age of 12, and for long periods his use was heavy, but he never describes himself as an addict or as realizing that he needs to stop, although his drinking and drug use apparently destroyed some important relationships. I would describe this book as the most joyful memoir of growing up with a troubled childhood I've ever read. Not that his experiences growing up were joyful, but the author's attitude towards his younger self is forgiving and compassionate.
Birnam Wood has been described as a thriller, but I think it might be more accurate to call it a tragedy in the old fashioned literary sense.
There are some great things in this book, especially the development of the main characters. I loved the ambivalent relationship between Mira and Shelley, which is the center of the novel. There is obviously friendship chemistry between them, but there is also offhanded contempt and resentment to complicate it. From the beginning I had more sympathy for Shelley, but I was rooting for them to work it out by the end of the novel.
The dynamics of the environmental activist group Birnam Wood would be recognizable to anyone who has been involved in similar endeavors. Mira and Shelley's relationship fits so well into the tensions between remaining true to principles and the drudgery of sustaining activism when you're always on the edge of flaming out. When Tony, a former Birnam Wood member who has been away for a few years, arrives back on the scene just as Mira announces that the billionaire Robert Lemoine is offering to fund them, those tensions boil up into an argument about whether the group can stay true to itself if it takes the money.
There are discussions about various aspects of that question throughout the book: what are the things you just wouldn't do, no matter what? How important is it to be authentic, versus doing what is expected of you? Is it better to say "sorry" or to thank someone for their patience, forbearance, etc?
The characters are struggling with self awareness, how to be in relationship with each other (even if they've been married for decades), and how to hold true to their own visions of how things should be.
We learn early on that Robert Lemoine has no scruples about being authentic or having a relationship with another person, and my question as I read the book was whether any of these normal human characters would be able to hold onto themselves as they encountered him.
I really hated the ending. It seemed like such a waste of all that character development to have everyone die. The only way I could make sense of it is to think of this story as a tragedy, where character flaws (of the kind that are discussed throughout) lead people to not be able to do what they should do. I'd be interested in what others think about this.
Birnam Wood has been described as a thriller, but I think it might be more accurate to call it a tragedy in the old fashioned literary sense.
There are some great things in this book, especially the development of the main characters. I loved the ambivalent relationship between Mira and Shelley, which is the center of the novel. There is obviously friendship chemistry between them, but there is also offhanded contempt and resentment to complicate it. From the beginning I had more sympathy for Shelley, but I was rooting for them to work it out by the end of the novel.
The dynamics of the environmental activist group Birnam Wood would be recognizable to anyone who has been involved in similar endeavors. Mira and Shelley's relationship fits so well into the tensions between remaining true to principles and the drudgery of sustaining activism when you're always on the edge of flaming out. When Tony, a former Birnam Wood member who has been away for a few years, arrives back on the scene just as Mira announces that the billionaire Robert Lemoine is offering to fund them, those tensions boil up into an argument about whether the group can stay true to itself if it takes the money.
There are discussions about various aspects of that question throughout the book: what are the things you just wouldn't do, no matter what? How important is it to be authentic, versus doing what is expected of you? Is it better to say "sorry" or to thank someone for their patience, forbearance, etc?
The characters are struggling with self awareness, how to be in relationship with each other (even if they've been married for decades), and how to hold true to their own visions of how things should be.
We learn early on that Robert Lemoine has no scruples about being authentic or having a relationship with another person, and my question as I read the book was whether any of these normal human characters would be able to hold onto themselves as they encountered him.
I really hated the ending. It seemed like such a waste of all that character development to have everyone die. The only way I could make sense of it is to think of this story as a tragedy, where character flaws (of the kind that are discussed throughout) lead people to not be able to do what they should do. I'd be interested in what others think about this.
I really enjoyed this detective story, where Elizabeth II is the detective behind the scenes. The main characters are well fleshed out, so I felt I got to know them as I read the book. One of the characters who was almost universally disliked was humanized by the Queen (for the reader, not for the characters in the book). Each time I thought I knew where the story was going, it went somewhere else instead. As far as mysteries go, it was not formulaic, nor was it too cozy. Apparently this is book #2 in a series, and I am thinking about looking around my library system to see if the first book is available. I would definitely read another book by this author.
I've been keeping my reading light this summer because I have a lot of stressful stuff on my plate. I read this in my back yard over 3 days.
I really enjoyed this detective story, where Elizabeth II is the detective behind the scenes. The main characters are well fleshed out, so I felt I got to know them as I read the book. One of the characters who was almost universally disliked was humanized by the Queen (for the reader, not for the characters in the book). Each time I thought I knew where the story was going, it went somewhere else instead. As far as mysteries go, it was not formulaic, nor was it too cozy. Apparently this is book #2 in a series, and I am thinking about looking around my library system to see if the first book is available. I would definitely read another book by this author.
I've been keeping my reading light this summer because I have a lot of stressful stuff on my plate. I read this in my back yard over 3 days.
I'm not a big romance reader, but sometimes life calls for it. I read this in my back yard over about a day and a half. It isn't demanding, but it is enjoyable. My one major disappointment with it was that there weren't any explicitly non-white characters as there are in the TV show. I didn't mark this as historical fiction because, although it is set in a specific historical period, there is so much about it that is anachronistic. If you read it expecting it to be historically accurate in any way, you'll be disappointed. However, it does deal with some real issues that challenge people's relationships with loved ones, especially shame and unresolved anger. I liked it.
I'm not a big romance reader, but sometimes life calls for it. I read this in my back yard over about a day and a half. It isn't demanding, but it is enjoyable. My one major disappointment with it was that there weren't any explicitly non-white characters as there are in the TV show. I didn't mark this as historical fiction because, although it is set in a specific historical period, there is so much about it that is anachronistic. If you read it expecting it to be historically accurate in any way, you'll be disappointed. However, it does deal with some real issues that challenge people's relationships with loved ones, especially shame and unresolved anger. I liked it.