Karen

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.

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'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.

This emotional novel tells the story of an interracial family from the perspective of Birdie Lee, the light skinned, straight haired daughter of Sandra Lodge Lee, a white woman who comes from an old Boston "blueblood" family, and Deck Lee, a Black man who went to college at Harvard. Birdie's older sister, Cole (Colette), has much darker skin and tightly curled hair, and the two sisters experience different treatment from the people in their lives based on how they look. Early in the book, the girls' parents split up. Sandra is involved in political activism that Deck thinks is too risky. Eventually, Sandra decides she needs to flee Boston and go into hiding because of her political activities, so the girls are separated. Cole goes with Deck and his Black girlfriend Carmen to Brazil, and Birdie goes on the run with Sandra. Along the way she learns that she will present herself as a white Jewish girl as part of her mother's disguise, since the authorities will be looking for a white woman with a Black daughter.

This is an emotional, reflective novel, but it is also a story well told. Sandra and Deck Lee are likeable people with their own complicated histories and motives, but the consequences of their choices for their daughters are profound.

** spoiler alert ** This retelling of The Children of Lir is in the voice of Aife, the woman (foster child of Bodhbh, sister of Aebh, wife, after Aebh, of Lir) who turns her stepchildren into swans for 900 years. I picked this book up not knowing the original story, so I was frustrated by the narrator referring to and ruminating on "what I did" for a good 98 pages before the deed was done. After that, I thought the writing and narration was strong. This book has been called a "feminist retelling" of the story, and that makes me want to read other versions to compare.

Niamh Power was born in Ireland, immigrated with her parents to New York as a young girl in the 1920's, and then lost her parents and the rest of her family in a fire when she was 9. The Children's Aid Society took her in and then shipped her and other orphaned children out to the Midwest to be "adopted." In Niamh's case, and others', adoption meant being brought to someone's farm, home, or place of business to work.

Niamh's story is told alongside Molly's, a 17 year old modern day foster child who is having conflict with her foster mother. When Molly steals a copy of Jane Eyre from her high school library, she has to do community service. The mother of her boyfriend arranges for her to help the elderly lady she works for clean out her attic, and Molly and the elderly lady strike up a bit of a friendship.

The two stories illustrate the vulnerability of foster children, and how, although the surrounding culture has changed, many things about being a foster child have not. Although this is not specifically marketed as a YA book, it is empathetic about the issues that young adults face, especially in a foster family. It might be a good choice for a teen.

A widowed white Irish American father and his two black adopted sons are at a Jesse Jackson event in Boston when they are involved in an accident. Another person involved in the accident, seemingly an unrelated bystander, turns out to be much more connected to their family than they initially thought. On top of that, the ne'er do well estranged older son (not adopted) chooses that night to reappear at home. Family drama ensues.

This is family drama, but it is very polite, well behaved drama. Characters disagree with each other vehemently, but there is no yelling, banishing/disowning each other, or even cursing. Still, the characters are interesting people and the story is compelling. The title, "Run," refers both to the sport and running for office, with a pleasant bit of ambiguity, since the widowed father is a former Mayor of Boston and would like one or both of his adopted sons to become President of the United States. My one complaint about this book is that it becomes hard to believe the eleven year old girl is really only eleven as the story advances.

I read this book because I encountered James Rebanks on Twitter and enjoyed his posts about raising sheep in England's Lake District. Rebanks writes about how his experience of the Lake District as his ancestral home, where his family has been raising sheep for hundreds of years at least, is different from the romantic vision that non-farmers have of the place. As he describes the work he does throughout the seasons, the relationships he has with his parents and neighbors, and a bit of the history of sheep farming in his part of England, you gain some appreciation of what he means. The book is engaging, even for a non-farmer. Well worth reading.