A Life of Reading Words
DATE: 1/6/26
Challenge Titles Finished (Totals To Date):
Titles Finished: Totals for 2025:
All titles left to go for Challenge: 3,540
Next count: 1/1/27
Heinlein, Robert A. The Door Into Summer. Doubleday & Company, 1957.
Reason read: October is Star Man Month. Okay, so I admit I had to look this one up. I had no idea what I meant by “Star Man Month.” Guess what! I still do not know what I was talking about. To Google Star Man brings up…me. Meh.
In the 1950s Daniel Boone Davis is a brilliant yet naive engineer with a knack for inventing futuristic household chore helpers. While ideas and designs come easily to him, the business side is murky so he enlists the help of a business partner and Daniel’s fiancé. What could possibly go wrong? Of course the pair double cross Daniel and steal his company. Heinlein introduces his readers to the idea of cold sleep, a form of suspended animation for humans wanting to preserve themselves for the future. This is the perfect way to get Daniel out of the way, making the company takeover complete.
There is a scene in The Door Into Summer that made me think of the movie, “The Lake House” starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. In Door into Summer Daniel is trying to explain to Ricky how he will meet her in thirty years into the future. She has to trust that he will be there when he tells her where to go. Totally like the Lake House except for the fact Ricky is only eleven years old.
As an aside, I loved the nine year old Tomcat named Petronius the Arbiter (Pete for short) and I loved that he understood human speech and drank ginger ale.
Quotes I liked, “Cats have no sense of humor, they have terribly inflated egos, and they are very touchy” (p 42). Yes, yes there are. Here is another, “I am smart enough to appreciate real genius when I meet it” (p 141).
Music: “Time On My Hands.”
Author fact: Heinlein died in 1988 at the age of 81. To read the small bio on the back flap of Door Into Summer, it sounds like an unbelievable fiction. Did he really own a silver mine and when he tried to sell it was the buyer murdered the night before? Did he really know chess before he could read? Was he really friends with eight murderers?
BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Time Travel” (p 220). In the beginning, I had to question if Door Into Summer was really a time travel book. D.B. Davis simply took the deep sleep and “waited” for time to march by. Thirty years later he “woke” the same age as he was when he entered the long sleep. It’s not like he jumped thirty years into the future. Later in the book there is an authentic time jump. Phew!
Stewart, Mary. Airs Above the Ground. William Morrow & Company, Inc. 1965.
Reason read: Vienna’s National Day is in October.
It all begins when an old school chum asks Vanessa March to travel to Vienna as a chaperone for her seventeen year old son. Tim Lacy won’t stop nagging his mother to see his father in Austria. Coincidentally, Vanessa has just spotted her husband of two years on a news broadcast about a circus fire in Vienna. Lewis was supposed to be in Stockholm, Sweden. Curious about the young woman Lewis had his arm around in the newsclip, Vanessa agrees to travel with Tim. Together they make a wonderful pair of liars. Tim told his mother that his father was meeting him in Vienna and Vanessa said she was going to Austria for a planned meet up with her husband. Nothing could have been further from the truth for either of them. Tim and his father fell out of touch some time ago. Vanessa suspects her husband of lying to her, but doesn’t understand why. Neither father nor husband know of Tim and Vanessa’s arrival.
Vienna proves to be an adventure for Tim and Vanessa. Upon finding the circus Vanessa learns of an elderly horse in desperate need of surgery. She happens to be a surgical veterinarian who had given up her career to get married. While befriending several members of the troupe, Vanessa and Tim find themselves in the middle of a mystery. Turns out, the lame horse is a prized Lipizzaner disguised as an old piebald. By the way, readers will get a history of the Lipizzaner Stallions, but not in a didactic way that is dry and boring. Tim’s knowledge of the Lipizzaner culture is beautiful for someone so young. Confessional: I searched for videos demonstrating the Schulen uber der Erde.
Second confessional: I was wary of Sandor Balog from the beginning and I was convinced the muttering parrot would hold the key to solving the case.
As an aside, I had to giggle when Tim mentioned Archie Goodwin being his favorite amateur detective. Since I am hip deep in the Rex Stout canon, it was like having a new friend tell you about their favorite hairdresser who happens to be your best friend.
Those crazy Europeans! I can’t imagine having supper at 11pm.
Favorite lines or moments, “She dimpled at him” (p 57). Charming!
Author fact: Mary Stewart’s photograph makes her look like she is just about ready to hail a waiter for a second cup of coffee.
Book trivia: I have to admit Airs Above the Ground served as a wealth of knowledge for me. I didn’t know what “airs above the ground” meant (it is a move the L stallions perform); I didn’t know you could not walk by a horse that is lying down without it getting to its feet; the use of a car horn is forbidden in Austria unless it is an absolute emergency; there is always one bay in the Lipizzaner show.
Music: Offenbach, Suppe, Strauss, Schubert, the Rosenkavalier, Mendelssohn’s “Hear My Prayer,” and Boccherini.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the very simple chapter called “Vienna” (p). Incidentally, this is the first book I am reading for this chapter!
Stout, Rex. Black Mountain. Bantam, 1983.
Reason read: I am still sloggin through Rex Stout’s canon of Nero Wolfe mysteries.
In the Rex Stout series, Nero Wolfe is known for being a recluse. He does not like leaving his brownstone apartment for anyone or anything. In Black Mountain Wolfe not only leaves his residence and his beloved New York City, Nero leaves country. There are a whole bunch of firsts in this book. Nero at the morgue. Nero on a train. Nero on a boat. Nero making dinner. Nero hiking in the dark through a “jungle of rock” in Montenegro, as Archie called it. Hiking so long and so far that Nero’s feet bleed. Nero taking care of Archie. Nero taking on a case where he is his own client. I should back up a little.
Marko Vakcic, a reoccurring character in the Nero Wolfe series is found murdered. This is a personal blow to Wolfe as he and Marko were childhood friends in Montenegro. His death brings back a memory of climbing Black Mountain, a peak he first summited when he was nine years old. Of course, Nero and Archie must travel back to the Balkans to find Vakcic’s killer and bring them to justice. Along the way readers learn more about Nero’s past and political views.
Line to make me laugh, “the day that Wolfe would like to climb steps to look at children will be the day I would like to climb Mount Everest” (p 119).
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the never ending chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 289).
Renault, Mary. Last of the Wine. Vintage Book, 1984.
Reason read: Mary Renault was born in September. Read in her honor.
Enter life in 5th century B.C. The sweeping backdrop to Last of the Wine is the ancient world of Greece during the final battles of the Peloponnesian War. The focus is on a young man from a well to do family named Alexias from Athens. From a young age he has been a curious learner and is soon captivated by the teachings of Sokrates. It is at one of these lectures that Alexias meets Lysis and together the two young men become athletes and warriors and lifelong best friends and lovers. They attend the Olympic Games, fight in the wars against Sparta, and survive famine, siege, and societal betrayals. Despite marrying women and starting families, their passion for one another is one of loyalty and respect. What I appreciated the most about Last of the Wine was the clever mix of fictional and potentially factual characters. Renault’s imagination breathes life into the ancient world.
As an aside, Renault includes an abbreviated glossary. I say abbreviated because words like hetaira were not included.
Personal connection to Mary Renault’s work – I read The King Must Die in high school. It was one of the first books in my freshman English class.
Quote to quote, “But serious matters broke in on us and, blew such follies way” (p 239). Her is another, “They met and wrestled with me love and envy of an excellence beyond my reach” (p 252). One more, “Everything is change; and you cannot step twice into the same river” (p 288).
Author fact: Mary Renault trained as a nurse.
Book trivia: Last of the Wine has been compared to I, Claudius by Robert Graves (which, incidentally, I finished last month).
BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Alpha Beta Gamma of Greece” (p 10).
Miller, Ron K. Resonance: Why Music Moves Us. Open Channel Press, 2026.
Reason read: LibraryThing has this Early Review Program for members. I chose Resonance for its musical theme (obviously).
Music is powerful. We have all heard it before. Music has the ability to change someone’s emotion, their perspective on life, or even their entire future. Music can bring people together with a commonality or introduce new (and sometimes lasting) relationships. Music can be a bodily experience with synethesia or frisson. How people absorb, process and release music can be a physiological response. Music as medicine for patients with Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease. Miller delves into all of this and much, much more in Resonance: Why Music Moves Us. He starts with recognition; how music can evoke an emotion or recall a memory. Later, Miller discusses reverence – how culture, science and technology is shaped by music. Even though I enjoyed Resonance a great deal, some chapters went deep enough into the science to become didactic and dry. A smaller complaint is the repetition (word for word) of some sentences which leads me to believe AI had a hand in the writing.
Some highlights for me were: Miller’s relationship to music on every level; exploring the psychology of a walk-up song in baseball, learning that there is a thing called musical anhedonia, and there are people out there who become archaeoacoustics researchers. A startling concept was the idea that music is an art form that dies as soon as a piece is over. It’s true. It drifts away like campfire smoke. It saddens me that some songs I loved as a teenager might never hit my ear again because I cannot recall the name, melody or performer. That piece of music is lost to me forever, especially if it wasn’t a radio hit at the time of its release. Maybe it was a B-side on a mixed tape someone made for me…now long lost?
Confessional: Miller once burned cds of themed music. I wish he shared the playlist of both the funeral and songs that “pulled [him] toward something better.” I am always on the hunt for new music. Further confessing: a friend of mine committed suicide recently. Before she left this world she and I shared dozens of songs that meant something to us. It is too painful to listen to any of them, but someday I hope they soothe my broken heart.
Author fact: Further proof I was paying attention. Miller is a father to a son with Down syndrome and he has a cat. When I read about his interaction with Jack White I cringed. I too had a similar experience with Natalie Merchant. Eye contact. Her turning away as disappointed; as if I missed my cue to have a greater connection.
Book trivia: I could see this being a textbook for music theory courses.
Music (and if you know what Resonance is about then you know the list is long): AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells,” Andrew WK’s “Party Hard” and “She is Beautiful,” Angine de Poitrine, “As Tears Go By,” Bach’s D Minor Chaconne, “Baa Baa Black Sheep,” Barney Theme Song, Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Get Back,” Beethoven’s Ninth and Pastoral Symphonies, Bob Weir, Bobby McFerrin, Brahms, Brian Wilson, Bruce Springsteen, Charlie Puth, Chopin, Chris Thile’s Not All Who Wander Are Lost, the Cure, Dave Matthews, David Gray’s “Babylon,” Depeche Mode, Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You,” Don Henley, Don McLean’s “American Pie,” Duran Duran’s “Rio,” Ed Sheeran, Eddie Vedder’s “Guaranteed,” Elvis, Emmylou Harris, Europa Singers, Five Foot Two, George Jones’s “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” “Go Rest high On That Mountain,” Grateful Dead, Howard Jones’s “Things Can Only Get Better,” Isley Brothers’ “Shout,” Jack White, Jackson Browne, Jeff Buckley, Jerry Garcia, Jewel’s “You Were Meant for Me,” (cowritten by Steve Poltz), Jimmy Buffett, John Cage’s 4’33”, John Cale, Jonh Lennon’s “Across the Universe,” John Mayer’s “3×5,” “Heavier Things,” “Clarity,” and “Room for Squares,” Joni Mitchell, Jorge Calderon, Karen Carpenter, Keith Richards, Korn’s “Blind,” Lead Belly’s “Goodnight Irene,” Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” Liebestraum, M83’s “Reunion,” Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On,” Maurice Ravel’s Bolero, Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” and “Master of Puppets,” Miles Davis, Moody Blues’ “Your Wildest Dreams,” Mount Eerie’s A Crow Looked at Me, Neil Peart, Nick Drake, Niel Gow, Neutral Milk Hotel’s “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea,” Nine Inch Nails, Pat Metheny, Paul McCartney’s “Yesterday,” “Pete Yorn’s musicforthemorningafter, Pink Floyd, Prince, R.E.M.’s “Everbody Hurts,” Rolling Stones’ “(Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” Rush, Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love,” Steve Winwood, Sting, Sturgill Simpson’s “Turtles All the Way Down,” and “Mutiny After Midnight,” Stravinsky, Sufjan Stevens’ “Casimer Pulaski Day” and “Should Have Known Better,” Supergrass, Syd Barrett, Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life,” Tom Petty, Tom Waits, Toto’s “Rosanna,” Townes Van Zandt, Trent Reznor, “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” Warren Zevon’s “Keep Me In Your Heart,” Whitney Houston, “Wild Thing,” and Yoko Ono.
As an aside, here are the songs and/or musicians I was hoping Miller would mention. These are some of my favorites. “Paper Moon” by sirsy, “Vincent” by Don McLean, “Boston” by Dermot Kennedy, “”King of May” by Natalie Merchant, “Verdi Cries” by 10,000 Maniacs, “Willing and Able” by Noah Kahan, and “Henrietta, Indiana” by Josh Ritter.
McGoogan, Ken. Fatal Passage: The Story of John Rae, the Arctic Hero That Time Forgot. Carroll and Graf Publishers, 2001.
Reason read: the hero of the story, John Rae, was born in September.
McGoogle writes with a vivid imagination about what John Rae’s world must have been like. To orientate the reader to the times, McGoogan rattles off the Who’s Who of the day: Gottschalk, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and Charles Dickens (more on him later). John Rae’s story reads like an action thriller as if he is side by side with Rae the entire time. Chosen to look for the lost Franklin on March 25th, 1848, Rae sounds a bit like Superman: impervious to the cold (temperatures sometimes falling to below negative sixty degrees Fahrenheit), legendary snowshoer and hiker, skilled doctor (qualified to be a surgeon at aged sixteen), successful hunter, fastest of the long-distance canoe-and-boat pilots, able to display impeccable timing when it came to deciding when to turn back or push onward. The list goes on. The one attribute Rae did not possess was the ability to communicate with tact. How he chose to describe Franklin’s demise was his downfall. Researchers questioned Rae’s reports; accusing him of leaving out key details or saying too much (like announcing the probability of cannibalism among Franklin’s men). Lady Jane Franklin never forgave Rae for the latter and successfully sought to ruin him and his reputation.
Despite Rae’s downfall it cannot be disputed that he was the first explorer to rightly surmise that Victoria Land was actually an island. Rae was the first to discover relics from the Franklin expedition. Rae also discovered the hidden gateway to the Northwest Passage. Unfortunately, it was Amundsen some fifty years later who would positively confirm it.
Later in life, John Rae was hired to survey the proposed route for telegraph lines over 2,000 miles from the East Coast and over the Rockies. Sadly, the Hudson Bay Company never did build the telegraph route that Rae proposed.
As an aside, clearly, McGoogle wants justice for John Rae. By default he was not kind to Lady Jane Franklin in his descriptions of her or Charles Dickens. I had an on odd sense of vindication for Rae when McGoogan was able to travel to the very spot of Rae’s cairn and place a plaque in his honor.
Quote that had me giggling, “In 1843, Sir John Franklin, derided as a victim of petticoat domination…” (p 222).
Author fact: McGoogan has a website here (the coolest thing I learned is that McGoogan is also a musician).
Book trivia: Fatal Passage was a best seller in Canada.
Music: “Jenny Lind,” and Gottschalk.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “To the Ends of the Earth: North and South” (p 230). This is obviously to the North.
Fuller, Alexandria. Don’t Let’s Go To the Dogs Tonight: an African Childhood. Random House, 2001.
Reason read: Recognizing Levy Mwanawasa Day.
There is no question that Alexandria Fuller led a particularly unique childhood growing up on a farm in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) in the 1970s. How many can say their mother habitually slung an Uzi over her shoulder whenever trouble arose? Even Alexandria was photographed with an Uzi in her hands like it was a bouquet of flowers. Fuller and her family seemingly moved with ease through the violence of war, hatred, and death whether it be blowing the head off a venomous snake or fighting off squatters on their land during the Rhodesian Bush War (more of the tamer encounters for the Fullers). They stayed not because they enjoyed the turmoil. It was just what they were accustomed to as a matter of survival because they loved the land. What is so striking about Fuller’s memoir is how candid she is about life in Africa and her family’s daily existence in survival mode. She does not sugarcoat her mother’s alcoholism and subsequent decline into mental illness after losing three children. She does not make light of the droughts and extreme poverty they caused. By the end of the of the Rhodesian Bush War in 1980 the Fuller family moved to Malawi and Zambia. From here Alexandria’s memoir accelerates. She and her older sister, Vanessa, grow up, marry and have kids. Life goes on.
Favorite line, “The world looks better when your belly is full, brighter and more hopeful” (p 184).
Author fact: Fuller is my age.
Book trivia: There are a smattering of black and white photographs of Fuller and her family in Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight and a film of the same name was released in 2024.
Personal connection: when Alexandria mentioned the Cat Stevens song “Morning Has Broken” I was immediately transported to my childhood. My piano teacher loved that song and would play it often.
Setlist: “Flower of Scotland,” “Ole, I am a Bandit,” Beatles’ “Yesterday,” “Ipi Tombi,” Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, Chopin, Roger Whittaker’s “I’m Gonna Leave Ole London Town,” “Morning Has Broken,” “D’ya Think I’m Sexy?” Eric Clapton’s “Cocaine,” “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” “Hallelujah,” “Jingle Bells,” Bizet, Puccini, Chopin, Brahms, Debussy, and Rachmaninoff.
BookLust Twist: First, from Book Lust in the chapter called “Dreaming of Africa” (p 76). Then, twice in Book Lust To Go in the chapters “Africa: the Greenest Continent” (p 7) and “Zipping Through Zimbabwe/Roaming Rhodesia” (p 268).
Lodge, David. Small World. Warner Books, 1984.
Reason read: September is traditionally back to school month and since Small World is about academia, why not?
Meet the academics in Small World: Persse McGarrigle is seen as the epic hero. At a typical conference full of pompous blowhards in Rummidge, he has fallen in love with a fellow conference attendee, the mysterious Angelica Pabst. He chases her all literally over the world to the point where it becomes farcical. Professor Morris Zapp is always appalled that he isn’t presenting his paper to a larger audience. He thought for sure the title of lecture, “Textuality as Striptease” would surely bring listeners into the room. [As an aside, the entire book is continuously dominated by various sexual situations.] Then there is the mystery of Joy Simpson. Her old lover thinks she is dead yet she is alive and well somewhere on the planet. Dempsey talks to a computer as if it is his therapist and becomes obsessed with her replies (readers should keep in mind this is the early 1980s and predates Siri or Alexa). I could go on, but I’ll leave the rest of the characters for you to discover.
Critics have called Small World “delightful” but I wouldn’t go that far. Even though this is supposed to be a satire about academia I was annoyed by the characters. The more verbose and didactic the dialogue, the more I tuned out. I will say my favorite scene was when Persse travels to Tokyo and learns of karaoke. Even though he is hellbent to find the woman of his dreams he manages to find time for a little fun. I won’t say whether Persse ever got his girl. It’s more about the journey than reaching the destination! Do not fret, the ending is satisfying!
Line I liked, “Professor B agreed that a law of academic life was that it was impossible to be excessive in flattery of one’s peers” (p 173). So true!
Author fact: David Lodge was an honorary professor of Modern English Literature at the University of Birmingham and it shows.
Book trivia: the title of the book, Small World, surfaces when Persse tells Akira it is a small world on page 335.
Music: Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Lay Lady Lay,” and “Blowin’ in the Wind,” Bee Gees, Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson,” Beatles’ “Hey Jude” and “Hard Days Night,” and Diana Ross’s “Baby Love.”
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Academia: The Joke” (p 3).
Sheers, Owen. Resistance. Nan A. Talese, 2007.
Reason read: Sheers celebrates a birthday in September. Read in his honor.
The year is 1944 and Sheers has introduced his readers to an alternate World War II in which Germany has all but won the war. For perspective, D-Day landings are an utter failure, Dewey wins the presidency of the United States, and Britain is almost completely German occupied. In the far reaches of a remote sheep-farming countryside all of the Welsh menfolk have abruptly disappeared, leaving their wives to farm the land alone just before the harsh arrival of winter. At the center of the story is young Sarah Lewis, not yet thirty and a sheep farmer’s wife of two years. Her antagonist is a German soldier, Albrecht Wolfram, who has come with a band of soldiers to the valley in search of a map. Incidentally, this map is real. It is the Hereford Mappa Mundi, a priceless medieval map of the world. But, back to Albrecht. He is not your average World War II villain. He loves books, nature, and music. The war has made him sick of fighting; he just wants to hide from the war and Sarah’s world is the perfect hideout. It is if Sheers wants you to like Albrecht just a little despite the side he is supposed to be on. Incrementally, the sentiment is felt for all of the soldiers under Albrecht’s command. As winter approaches, the local women and the German soldiers must work together to survive. Their mutual necessity for each other forms strange relationships. Sarah and Albrecht perform a dance of growing trust and lingering suspicion while Sarah tries to hang onto the hope that her husband is still alive and will return. In the end, the community of women face a heartbreaking betrayal. There is much more to the story, but I will leave that alone.
As an aside, one of my favorite scenes in the book is when Albrecht brings Sarah a gramophone and plays her cello music of Bach. It is like a seduction for the senses as well as the heart.
Quotes to quote, “The shrapnel had numbed his world” (p 99) and “…despite his blunted senses, which had left him feeling less human than ever” (p 99). These two sentences sent shivers down my spine as they alluded to something farm more ominous about Mr. Wolfram.
Author fact: Resistance is Sheers first novel. He is also a poet which makes me wonder if he put himself in the story as the poet Sarah remembers from childhood.
Book trivia: because Resistance takes place on a sheep farm readers learn a great deal about tupping, dipping, and foot rot. Resistance was made into a movie in 2011. This is one I would definitely see.
The music is very important in Resistance. Bach’s Cello Suites No. Four, the Allemande, the Courante, the Sarabande, and the Intermezzo.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Wales Welcomes You” (p 248).
Deighton, Len. Berlin Game. Pushkin Publications, 2023.
Reason read: The National Security Act of 1947 was signed in July, but most of the provisions went into effect on September 18th.
Len Deighton’s Berlin Game is the first book in the Game, Set, Match trilogy which is part of two other trilogies, Hook, Line, Sinker and Faith, Hope, Charity. In Berlin Game, Bernard Sampson is a married father who works for the secret intelligence service in London, the M16. His wife also serves as an agent, but she outranks Bernard which does not seem to bother him.
Bernard has had a desk job for years, but when Brahms Four, a British agent behind the Iron Curtain (obviously, Berlin Game takes place back with there was an East and West Germany) asks to be rescued by Bernard he cannot say no. Brahms saved his life twenty years earlier and now Bernard must return the favor. What follows is a new game of cat and mouse where everyone could be a traitor, including his own wife. Deighton lines up the suspects, each one more likelier than the last. It’s a fast moving drama, perfect for the big screen.
Confessional: I thought the ending was a little too predictable.
Author fact: Len Deighton was born on February 18th, 1929. He died earlier this year.
Book trivia: Berlin Game is the first book in the Game Set Match trilogy.
Audio book trivia: Berlin Game was read by James Lailey. Confessional: I thought his accents were terrible. I couldn’t tell if a character was German or Russian. I switched to the book format after a while.
Music: Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden,” Haydn’s Seventy-Seven C Major, and “the Trout.”
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust twice. First, in the chapter called “Cold War Spy Fiction” (p 61) and again in the chapter called, get ready, “Spies and Spymasters: the Really Real Unreal World of Intelligence” (p 223).
McCullers, Carson. Member of the Wedding. Library of America, 2001.
Reason read: September is Southern Gospel Month, or at least I read that somewhere. McCullers is the epitome of southern fiction.
Frankie Jasmine Addams wants people to stop calling her Frankie as if her rough and tomboy nature can be erased overnight by the new name, F. Jasmine Addams. Some would call her cheeky or obstinate in her behavior, but at times she is downright wild and violent. She should be just a twelve years old girl, dreaming of a bigger, more exciting life outside her small town. Instead, Frankie is a knife throwing, pistol toting confused preteen; impressionable and immature. Convinced Frankie is going to live with an older brother after his wedding, she repeatedly tells her father, cousin, and live-in housekeeper she is going to leave them. As the wedding date moves closer the tension builds with anticipation. Because Frankie is without any real parental supervision it seems highly possible she will make good on her threat to run away. Her widower father barely registers a parental word. Her cousin is only six and the housekeeper has her own grief to manage.
Bernice’s prayer sent shivers down my spine, “No stiff corpses hanging from the Europe trees and no Jews murdered anywhere” (p 546). Amen to that.
Favorite quote, “She planned it so that people could instantly change back and forth from boys to girls, whichever way they felt like and wanted” (p 547).
Author fact: In many of Carson’s photographs she is smoking. Despite dying at the young age of fifty in Nyack, New York, lung cancer was not the cause. She suffered from alcoholism, breast cancer, and other ailments.
Personal connect: I lived in New Jersey for a bunch of years. Every time I traveled North I went through the town of Nyack.
Book trivia: Member of the Wedding was made into a movie in 1952.
BookLust Twist: from two different books. First, in Book Lust in the chapter called “Girls Growing Up” (p 101) and again in Southern Fiction” (p 222). Pearl thought it best to also include it in More Book Lust in the chapter called “You Can’t Judge a Book By Its Cover” (p 237). Indeed! My copy has a photograph of Carson McCullers, looking all of twelve years old, smoking a cigarette.
Watson, David. Forward Only: A Memoir. Self Published, 2026.
Reason read: as a member of LibraryThing’s Early Review Program I am sometimes asked to read interesting books. This is one such book. I would read this one again.
What makes a person land on the illegal side of the law time and time again? What makes a person chose to do the absolute wrong thing each and every chance they get? Sometimes there are people who love them; people who care about them. People who give them the world and still it is not enough.
David Watson lost his grandfather at an age when he needed a father figure the most. It was as if losing his grandfather sent David down a road to perpetual ruin. At age twelve David tried to run away. At age fifteen he stole money from a McDonald’s cash register and went on the run again. After that, it was a series of escapes time and time again. No matter how much his grandmother loved him, David insisted on sometimes stealing from her, lying to her and always letting her down. When David reached dating age he found girlfriends who were willing to be his partner in crime. He latched onto women who would go along with his schemes and scams. Each and every time he would swear this woman was the love of his life. The problem was he did not know how to love. David didn’t know how to be anything but a smooth talker, always wheeling and dealing. Detention, jail, and even years in prison could not stop him. Becoming a father didn’t stop him. Almost being murdered by a Mexican cartel only slowed him down. There was always another scam to be played out. His pattern of hustle was so destructive I couldn’t imagine him ever climbing out of his self imposed hell. His story kept me turning the pages to see what happened next.
If it were not for a cousin who could not or would not (?) stay out of trouble I wouldn’t believe David’s story. It seems impossible that someone could take advantage of the loved ones who are constantly bailing people like this out of sticky situations. But it happens.
Author fact: David Watson has a social media presence.
Book trivia: I don’t know if the final published copy will have photographs, but the ARC did not.
Trollope, Anthony. Phineas Finn: The Irish Member. Gebbe and Company, 1901.
Reason read: to continue the Palliser series started in honor of Trollope’s birth month in April.
I feel like Phineas Finn (all three volumes) covers all the same themes as Can you Forgive Her? The male characters are vying for seats in parliament, the women are looking for financially stable men, and everyone is breaking someone else’s heart, sometimes intentionally. Every story has a hapless, heavy in debt, political wannabe who is unlucky with the women. Enter Irishman Phineas Finn. As a lawyer from Ireland he has political ambitions to be in Parliament. Lady Laura Standish, the object of Phineas Finn’s initial affections marries someone else for the convenience of wealth. Luckily, they remain friends and Laura turns out to be one of Phineas’ biggest champions. Ever the naive romantic, Phineas then turns to Violet Effingham who was supposed to be promised to Laura’s brother. Of course there needs to be a duel over Violet. It solves nothing. In the end Phineas does not win the heart of Laura or Violet. Who he turns to next is amusing and oddly beautiful.
The question remains: what is Trollope’s fascination with scheming women? Why are the female characters always bailing the men out of debt? Lady Laura marries Robert Kennedy so that Laura’s brother’s debts can be paid off.
Other similarities: weird names (Mr. Shortribs?), Trollope steps out from the narrative curtain to voice regrets in the novel, and there is even an accident during a hunt that is very similar to the accident in Can You Forgive Her?
Favorite lines, “There was to be an early dinner out in tents at five, and after dinner men and women were to walk about, or dance or make love, or hay, as suited them” (p 152). Oh those crazy Victorians! Here is another, “I think you will acknowledge that if there be a difference of opinion between you and me as to any question of social intercourse, it will be better that you should consent to adopt my opinion” (p 307).
Author fact: Trollope was just as involved in voter reform as his characters in Phineas Finn.
Book trivia: Phineas Finn contains photogravures/illustrations by C.R. Grant, Victor Perard, Hy. Leonard, and R.B. Morrison.
BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Barsetshire and Beyond” (p 15).
Fani, Eamon. Lifeguard: Absurd Tales and Minimals. Word Vulcan Press, Inc. 2026.
Reason read: as a member of the Early Program for LibraryThing it is my responsibility to write a review in exchange for reading interesting books.
Fani takes readers into a world of absurd and strange with tongue-in-cheek humor and sleight-of-hand doses of life lessons. Because there is very little substance to each story it is difficult to linger on deeper meanings. I could not become attached to characters or their stories as much as I tried. I really didn’t care about the lessons they were apparently trying to teach. Much like the person who takes your ticket as the amusement park, the characters could be anyone. All you care about is the ride. Lifeguard is definitely a ride to remember.
Short stories in no particular order:
Author fact: Fani is funny. You can tell just by his dedication in Lifeguard.
Book trivia: this is volume one of Lifeguard so one can only assume there will be more.
Krentzel, Elise. Rogue Entrepreneur: Building a Life the World Didn’t Have a Name For. Kumi Books, 2026.
Rogue Entrepreneur is the second book in a trilogy. Under My Skin: Drama Trauma and Rock and Roll was the first. Confessional: I didn’t read it and I probably won’t read the third. So little time for so many books!
What an adventurous life Elise Krentzel has led! There are so many things to unpack in Krentzel’s memoir Rogue Entrepreneur, I am not sure where to begin. Throughout Rogue Entrepreneur she was portrayed as an odd mix of poet and trouble maker; risk taker and romantic. Imagine being taken to court for not following laundry rules in your apartment building or being swindled out of shares of a company she owned with her first husband! Most of Rogue Entrepreneur takes place in the 1980s and 1990s, a era when women were not respected in the music industry (or any business for that matter). Krentzel upped the ante by not only chasing a career in music, but she chose punk as her genre and decided to make a name for herself in Japan. After Japan she moved onto Queens (New York), Switzerland, Germany, Africa and the Netherlands. With the changing times came changing ventures. Krentzel was able to reinvent herself time and time again. She enjoyed challenges and took crazy risks.
I try not to judge an author by the lines they write, but I couldn’t help thinking Krentzel really wanted to emphasis her callousness when she described carelessly leaving one man for another. She wanted to paint the picture of being a hardcore badass. When she had a child at age forty-four, I somehow knew she would end up a single parent.
Even though Krentzel does not frequently orientate her readers to the changing times in Rogue Entrepreneur, her description of the phonebook hanging from a public payphone chain put the timeline into perspective. So did her ability to smoke in the hospital while recovering from peritonitis.
My favorite portion of the book was the advice she gave at the end. She’s not wrong! The was such a fun book that I now want to be friends with her!
I am sure this will be cleaned up in the final edit, but there is some repetition in one of the footnotes, whole sentences were repeated (“Uelie played piano…”) and key words (like a verb) were missing from sentences. I was confused by one inconsistency: Krentzel met Ueli in the spring when flowers were blooming, but says she watched snow falling while at a party that same day. The Land of Mud was as clear as mud to me.
Book trivia: Rogue Entrepreneur should have been published by August 27, 2026.
Music: Al Jolsen, Robert Plant, Bob Geldof, David Bowie, “1-800-273-8255” by Logic, B52s, Baby Grand, the Band, Barry Manilow, the Beatles, Bob Marley and the Wailers’ “Redemption Song,”, Brinkley Schwartz, Bruce Springsteen, Chopin, Earth Wind and Fire’s “That’s the Way of the World,” Eddie and the Hot Rods, Elvis Costello and the Attractions’ “Allison,” Emerson Lake and Palmer’s Tarkus, George Sand, Graham Parker and the Rumours’s “Stick to Me,” “Squeezing Out Sparks,” “Don’t Ask Questions,” “I’m Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down,” “Thunder and Rain,” and “Discovering Japan,” Grandmaster Caz, Herc, Iggy Pop, Joe Jackson’s “Black and White,” John Lennon, Kiss, Leif Garrett, Lene Lovich, Masayoshi Takanaka’s “Sexy Dance,” Muddy Waters’ “Mannish Boy,” “Hoochie Coochie Man,” “Champagne and Reffer, and “Honey Bee,” Nick Lowe, Noel Pointer, Peter Frampton’s Frampton Comes Alive album, Pink Lady’s “Kiss in the Dark,” the Plastics, Prince, Ryuichi Sakamoto, “Soldier of Love” by Sade, Sex Pistols’ “Never Mind the Bollocks,” Sinead O’Connor’s version of “Nothing Compares 2U,” Steve Khan, the Stranglers, Tot’s “Africa,” Talking Heads, Whipper Whip, Yellow Magic Orchestra, and Yoko Ono.
