Author: gr4c5

I write. I read. I cook. I run. That's me, in a nutshell.

Two Years Before the Mast

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Dana, Jr., Richard Henry. Two Years Before the Mast: a Personal Narrative of Life at Sea. Fearon Publishers, 1971.

Reason read: June is Celebrate Oceans Month. Maybe that is a made up reason to read about the ocean, but I’m going with it because it is a good time to sail.

Two Years Before the Mast is the true story of Richard Henry Dana’s two years spent at sea first, on the brig “Pilgrim,” bound for California via coastal South America. Using his journal to write Two Years Before the Mast, one has to remember this is August 14th, 1834. Time before canals and motorized vessels. California was not part of the United States. In 1934, California was part of Mexico. As a Harvard student, bound for a career in law, Dana had to take a hiatus from his studies when an illness affected his eyesight. Doctors recommended some time away from the books to allow his eyes to rest. The brig “Pilgrim” is in the business of transporting animal hides and furs. Once on the “Pilgrim,” Dana quickly learned about life on the ocean on the fly: getting over seasickness, learning to push through fatigue, finding his sea legs. Once settled into a life at sea, Dana then had to desensitize himself to a tyrannical captain who flogged sailors ruthlessly and without provocation, long days of continuous work, and making the most of shore leave.
This is a great account of life at sea as well as in ports. As an aside, I had to laugh when Dana’s vessel could not get over a sandbar at low tide due to the unusually heavy load they were carrying. They had to wait until low tide in order to be released from the channel.

Lines I liked: said of San Francisco – “If California ever becomes a prosperous country, this bay will be the centre of its prosperity” (p 194).

Confessional: I have spent most of my life on the ocean so when Dana described dolphins swimming just a few feet below the surface of the water I could picture every color.

Author fact: Dana was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Book trivia: Two Years Before the Mast was illustrated by Dennis Dierks and my copy provided a biographical sketch by Dana’s grandson, H.W.L. Dana.

Playlist: “O Pescator”, “Onda”, “All in the Downs”, “Poor Tom Bowline”, “The Bay of Biscay”, “List, Ye Landsmen”, “Heave, to the Girls”, “Nancy O!”, “Jack Crosstree”, “Cheerily Men”, “All in the Downs”, “Poor Tom Bowline”, “The Bay of Biscay”, and “List, Ye Landsmen”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “See the Sea” (p 201).

Civil to Strangers

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Pym, Barbara. Civil to Strangers: and Other Writings. Edited by Hazel Holt. E.P. Dutton, 1987.

Reason read: Pym was born in the month of June. Read in her honor.

We owe the publication of Civil to Strangers to the loving family and friends of Barbara Pym. As literary executor Pym’s sister made sure Pym’s words lived on. It is a good thing because Pym was a master at showcasing the true sense of small community. The silent dislikes and quiet jealousies; a society full of disappointed and disappointing people. No one wants to be taken for granted and yet they are, repeatedly. These are the stories of a microcosm of flawed people. In the main story, Civil to Strangers, Cassandra March-Gibbon wants her husband of five years to pay more attention to her. As a writer, Adam is terribly preoccupied. Cassandra thinks by pretending to have feelings a new stranger from Budapest she will force Adam to be more demonstrative of his love for her. The plan backfires when Adam encourages the relationship with Stefan Tilos. The situation goes from bad to worse when Tilos develops feelings for Cassandra (as one is apt to do when someone is lavishing unprovoked attention on them). Tilos in turn needs to make Cassandra jealous when she does not show any sign of wanting to commit to a relationship. Cassandra is not making Adam jealous. Tilos is not winning over the girl. Nobody is getting exactly what they want. By taking separate holidays, Adam and Cassandra allow themselves to take stock of their marital situation.

Other writings in Civil to Strangers include:

Gervase and Flora
“Home Front Novel”
So Very Sweet
“So, Some Tempestuous Morn”
“The Christmas Visit”
“Goodbye Balkan Captain”
Across a Crowded Room
“Finding a Voice” – a radio transcript.

Quotes to quote, “…but now, since her marriage, she had felt less tempted to break out” (p 17).

Author fact: Pym was twenty-three when she wrote Civil to Strangers. It was her second novel.

Book trivia: Civil to Strangers was unpublished at the time of Pym’s death. It and several other writings were publishing posthumously. The working title was Adam and Cassandra. Seems simple enough.

Music: Haydn’s Creation. That’s it.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Pym’s Cup Runneth Over” (p 195).

The Temple

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Spender, Stephen. The Temple. Harper and Row Publishers, 1987.

Reason read: June is Pride month. Read in honor of love, no matter how you find it.

To know that The Temple is a semi-autobiographical fiction gives weight to Spender’s words. Most everything that happens to the main character, poet Paul Schoner, in The Temple is something that happened to Spender in and around 1929. He thinly disguises his relationship with other writers (most significantly W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood) as he travels to Hamburg from Oxford. It is important to remember that in the 1920s censorship was prevalent in England. As a homosexual, Spender needed to live his life in lies. His true identity was hidden like a secret. Germany in 1929, while more forgiving about lifestyles, was also going through its own dark period. Spender includes the growing sense of foreboding as Hitler comes to power. Though fascists and Nazis Spender paints a picture of a society that foregoes the history of friendship for the sake of power. It’s violent ending is a sign of dark days ahead.

Author fact: Spender was the first non-American to serve as Consultant in Poetry in English to the Library of Congress.

Book trivia: The Temple could be a movie.

Setlist: Cole Porter’s “Let’s Fall in Love”, Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet, Wagner’s Ring cycle, Beethoven, and Schubert.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Oxford” (p 170). As an aside, I am not sure I would have included this in the Oxford chapter. I would have thought it more appropriate it a chapter on Germany or homosexuality.

Orange Fish

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Shields, Carol. The Orange Fish. The Fourth Estate, 2004.

Reason read: June is short story month.

  • Orange Fish – a couple finds their marriage saved by a lithograph of a fish.
  • Chemistry – a group of people join the YMCA Winter Enrichment Program to learn the recorder.
  • Hazel – after her philandering husband dies of a heart attack, Hazel learns to live again. As an aside, my father was the same age as Brian when he died, at fifty-five.
  • Today is the Day – the planting of the blisterlily.
  • Hinterland – Meg and Roy Sloan of Milwaukie, Missouri travel to France.
  • Block Out – Meershank has writers block so travels to Portugal with his wife, looking for inspiration.
  • Collision – Marta is waiting for Malcolm Brownstone, the Recreation and Resort Consultant, to arrive.
  • Good Manners – Georgia Willow oversees instructing people on Canadian manners.
  • Times of Sickness and Health – Kay is surrounded by people always telling her what to do.
  • Family Secrets – when family secrets are all that you have, you tend to protect them.
  • Fuel for the Fire – a daughter lets her aging and widower father burn anything he can find in her glorious fireplace.
  • Milk Bread Beer Ice – Barbara and Peter Cormin are a sad couple with nothing to say after thirty-plus years of marriage.

Author fact: I found a Carol Shields Literary Trust website here. Really cool site.

Book trivia: Orange Fish is comprised of twelve short stories about friendships and relationships and won the Marian Engel Award in 1990.

Quote to quote, “How was he to know she would mistake a random disruption for lasting attachment?” (p 136).

Confessional: I just lost my Papa-in-law last week. When the protagonist of Orange Fish confessed that he wanted to run a dude ranch, I thought of Papa. He, too, had cowboy fantasies.

Setlist: Mozart, Haydn, Bach, Chopin, Handel, and Vivaldi.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Carol Shields: Too Good To Miss” (p 197).

Queen Victoria

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Longford, Elizabeth. Queen Victoria. Harper & Row, 1965.

Reason read: Queen Victoria celebrated a birth in May. Read in her honor.

Using private papers, journals, and letters, Elizabeth Longford has written thorough biographies of Queen Victoria several times over. Queen Victoria is more concise and compact than Longford’s other books on the subject of Victoria. If you are looking for a shorter version than Strachey or Hibbert, this is it. Longford touches on all the points: born Alexandrina Victoria in 1819, Victoria went on to have a long and thrilling life. She ascended the throne at eighteen, proposed to her beloved Albert a year later, had nine children, and went on to rule Britain, India, and Ireland. After the death of Albert, widow Victoria went into seclusion for eleven years. Twenty-nine years later, she dies. Backfill with the politics of the time (Disraeli, Bonaparte, Crimea, Prussia, and the Year of Revolutions), and Queen Victoria is a good representation of England from 1819 to 1901.

As an aside, I never thought about having someone wear a sprig of holly pinned to the neck of their dress in order to force one to keep her chin up.

Author fact: Elizabeth Longford has a literary prize named after her.

Book trivia: Do not confuse Queen Victoria with Queen Victoria: Born to Succeed (published one year apart).

Lines I loved, “…she would have married him anyhow, whatever the consequences” (p 139). Confessional: I would like to adopt Queen Victoria’s phrase, “We are not amused” (p 64).

Music: “God Save the King”, “The Wolf”, and Haydn’s “Funeral March”.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Queen Victoria and Her Times” (p 191).

Note to Self

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Nova, EV and Freya Sharp. Note to Self. Harbor Lane Books, 2025.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review Program I get to read interesting books from LibraryThing. This is one such book.

Think of Note to Self as a collection of tiny pep talks geared mostly towards women. Yes, you can read the entire book in one sitting, if you want. There are only fifty affirmations. I would caution against inhaling the whole book at once because every chapter becomes more repetitive as time goes on. The five clearest messages are 1) you are not alone, 2) every ending is a new beginning, 3) you are capable, worthy, and loveable, 4) it is okay to say no, especially if saying yes means sacrificing selfcare, and 5) breaking down only means building up or said another way, every ending is a new beginning. E.V. Nova and Freya Sharp take turns doling out the sage advice.
In short, this is a cool little book to pick up anytime you need a little pick me up. Tell your friends!
Author fact: Freya Sharp’s bio is a must read!

After Life

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Ellis, Rhian. After Life. Amazon Encore, 2000.

Reason read: After Life takes place in New York, a city rich in culture. The Puerto Rican Day Parade also takes place in New York in the month of June.

I am the type of person who tries to look at a situation from every angle before making a judgment about it, good or bad. I want to walk around it, peer under it, climb over it and look down from above; I want to make sure I haven’t missed a single detail. So when Naomi Ash says “First I had to get his body into the boat” in the very first line of After Life I did not immediately assume she intentionally murdered her boyfriend, Peter Morton. Nowhere does she say as much on page one. Maybe Peter Morton had an accident, like falling off the roof or a fatal health episode, like a heart attack. And maybe, just maybe, since Naomi Ash lives in such a remote area she needed to illegally dispose of his body. Thinking a little darker – maybe Peter and Naomi fought and things went horribly sideways. Or maybe his death was a suicide, but he made it look like murder because he wanted to frame her. In the first two hundred pages of After Life the reader cannot be sure of anything at all. For two hundred pages Naomi slowly navigates the story of her childhood, her teenage years, how she became a medium, and her current life in the community of Train Line. She carefully parses out the details of everything but Peter Morton’s death. The mystery of what happened to her boyfriend stays tightly under wraps for a good portion of the book.
But the story is worth the wait. In the meantime Ellis writes with an other-worldly aura that keeps the reader entertained. She moves through language with languid grace, like slow moving water. Take for example, the way Ellis describes a voice falling flat in a deep snow-covered landscape. She is correct. If you have ever stood in a winter white landscape you know if the snow is deep enough it has a way of making sound plummet into an eerie depth of alien silence.
The plot of Ellis’s short book is simple. Naomi Ash, following in her mother’s footsteps, is a medium. She lives and practices her craft in a community called Train Line in the fictional town of Wallamee, in upstate New York. She has let readers know that she continues to carry the secret of disposing of the body of her boyfriend, Peter Morton. The secret has laid buried, just like Peter, for a decade. Like all skeletons, in the closet or otherwise, they eventually resurface and when Peter’s bones are discovered, the whole town buzzes with the mystery. Meanwhile, coincidentally, Naomi’s mother’s trade is growing stale and people are tiring of her. Her radio show is about to be canceled. What better way to jump start a failing career than to solve the mystery of the bones?

Confessional: as the hostilities towards Naomi grow I found myself becoming more and more anxious for her. First the child she babysits in the afternoons starts to turn on her, then Officer Peterson takes a curious dislike to her.

As an aside, when I first saw the title I immediately thought of Ricky Gervais and his show of the same name. They are not the same.
As another aside, the harvesting of grapes made me think of my wedding. All of the wine came from the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York.

Lines I immediately identified with, “My mother’s good moods could be more bewildering than her bad ones” (p 64), and “You could life up one of her lies and find a truth beneath it, and then find beneath that truth another lie, and spend your whole life pulling away layers and never get to the bottom of it” (p 122), and one more, “Mothers and daughters are put on Earth to tear each others hearts out” (p 249). Enough about mothers. Here is another good quote completely unrelated to mothers, “…but opening my mouth on that subject would gain me no friends” (p 96).

Author fact: After Life is Rhian Ellis’s first and only novel.

Book trivia: the version of After Life that I picked up was a Nancy Pearl Presents a Book Lust Rediscovery. She wrote the introduction to this edition. Confession: I had never heard of Book Lust Rediscovery and wonder how many other books are republished as such.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “First Lines to Remember” (p 86).

Children of the Arbat

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Rybakov, Anatoli. Children of the Arbat. Little, Brown and Company, 1988.

Reason read: Victory Day in Russia is celebrated on May 9th.

This is 1930s Moscow. The Arbat is the intellectual and artistic community of Moscow and Sasha Pankratov, a member of the Young Communist League, has been arrested for alleged subversion. He has been exiled in Siberia for his political activities and the counterrevolutionary conversations he didn’t even know he was having. Even his uncle who wields considerable political power as could not alter or commute his sentence of three years. (As an aside, Sasha’s mother, Sofya Alexandrovna, broke my heart while she was preparing for Sasha’s exile.)
Intertwined with Sasha’s story are the other residents of the Arbat. These characters are also affected by the current political climate. For example, the chance of Yuris getting job placements could be hindered by the fact he has an older brother in prison. Boys are entering the Red Army to prove themselves to Stalin. The Arbat neighborhood struggles to survive the political games. Children of the Arbat also delves into the psychology of Joseph Stalin’s true-life growing paranoia. As history tells us, his was a sickness that went unchecked and as a result, mushroom into a full-blown psychotic break from reality. You could be severely punished for any criticism of Stalin, however small. Just ask his dentist.

As an aside, I wonder how much truth is embedded in The Children of Arbat. Did Stalin actually say, “To lead is to see ahead”? It was interesting to learn that he wrote poetry under an assumed name.

Phrase I liked, “…memories…too human for prison…” (p 136).

Author fact: Rybakov lived on Arbat Street when he was a child. He was also exiled like Sasha. You could say Children of the Arbat is autobiographical.

Book trivia: Children of the Arbat was suppressed by the Soviet Union for over twenty years. Today, it is considered a classic. It was also made into a sixteen-part television series.

Confessional: Lena reminds me of myself in my early days, say 20s. I’m the one to leave a lover in the early morning hours, just before dawn.

Music: “Mr. Brown”, “Black Eyes”, “Oh Little Lemons”, “Forgotten and Abandoned”, Melkhov, Vertinsky, “Ramona”, Leshchenko, Stravinsky, Diaghilov, Pavlova, Tchaikovsky & Jacob Polonsky

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Russian Heavies” (p 210). Interestingly enough, in Book Lust Rybakov’s first name was spelled Anatolii, with a double i at the end. Nowhere in the pages of my copy of Children of the Arbat is it spelled that way.

Black Orchids

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Stout, Rex. Black Orchids. Books on Tape, 2007.

Reason read: to continue the series started in November. We’ll be here awhile.

We all know Nero Wolfe is loath to leave his New York City brownstone. The few exceptions readers have seen so far are when Wolfe thought Archie’s life was in danger or when orchids were involved. This time, it is the allure of three rare hybrid black orchids at a flower show. Wolfe cannot resist their siren song. Lewis Hewitt is the wealthy business man who has three variations of a black orchid showcased at the exhibition, and Wolfe wants them all for himself. During this exhibition, additional entertainment includes a strange exhibit of a couple miming a picnic. Day in and day out, the couple pretends to enjoy a garden lunch. When the male companion, Harry Gould, is murdered, Wolfe sees an opportunity to gamble with Hewitt for the orchids. Hewitt is facing murder charges when it is discovered his walking stick was used in the commission of the murder. All evidence points to Hewitt as the guilty party.

Author fact: Rex Stout enlisted in the Navy.

Book trivia: Black Orchids was published as a novella along with a second story, Cordially Invited to Meet Death.

Book Audio trivia: Michael Pritchard narrates the audio book I listened to in the car. Someone digitized the cassette tapes so every once in awhile Michael will say, “this book is continued on cassette number three, side A” or “this audio is continued on side B. Please turn the tape over.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 226). Here is the weird thing about this addition – Black Orchids is a novella and since Cordially Invited to Meet Death is not on my Challenge list, I am not reading it.

Likeable Badass

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Fragale, Alison. Likeable Badass: How Women Get the Success They Deserve. Penguin Random House, 2024.

Reason read: just for the fun of it.

Here are my takeaways: Fragale talks about fixing a bad reputation or a misconception about yourself right away. Don’t let a bad opinion linger. What if you have no idea? What happens if you have no concept of what people think of you, good or bad? What if you believe one thing and the opposite is true so you are actually the one with the misconception? Confessional: I do not know how to read a room. I had this friend once who never gave me any indication she was pulling away. She just vanished. There were no signs to tell me what I did or didn’t do. Ironically, this same person falls in with another piece of advice from Fragale and the norm of reciprocity. I would have to say that sometimes does not work. I sent this friend (the one pulling away) a package of expensive crafting paper. I never received so much as a confirmation of delivery; never mind a thank you or a reciprocating gesture. Like I said, the crafting paper was of high quality and shipping to another country was not cheap. My mistake for sure.
Anyway, back to Fragale. Another takeaway from reading Likeable Badass was the collection of connections. Keeping important people close in case you need them later. I get that. That’s what LinkedIn is all about.

Music: “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi (featuring Daddy Yankee).

Simplest Ways to Develop Consistency and Healthy Habits That Last

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Yung-Abu, Samson. The Simplest Ways to Develop Consistency and Healthy Habits That Last: Healthy Growth is Achieved Through Consistent Flow. Publish Nation, 2025.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review program for LibraryThing, I get to review interesting books.

Simplest Ways to Develop Consistency and Healthy Habits That Last is, by phone, a 425 page book divided into two parts. Part one is an examination of what it means to be consistent. Part two delves into cultivating healthy habits or breaking unhealthy habits while focusing primarily on exercise. The entire book is jam packed with good advice and common sense (be smart about your goals) as well as some oddball tips: sleep in your gym clothes, keep your dumbbells in the kitchen). It is also an autobiography of Yung-Abu’s fitness routines and goals.
I found the narrative to be verbose. Each element is described in several different ways. Take the subject of making exercise fun, for example. Yung-Abu states that fun is a key ingredient; fun is essential; you need to incorporate a touch of fun; fun transforms everything; you need to incorporate fun into the process; provide fun; make exercise fun-focused. The word fun was mentioned a few more time in the section, but you get the point.
Once I became comfortable with the wordiness of Simplest Ways to Develop Consistency…I started to appreciate the nuggets of knowledge. I found the connection between consistency and respect to be interesting. I also loved the idea of figuring out a workout sequence – which exercises flowed easily with others.
A fair amount of Yung-Abi’s information could be seen as common sense. Healthy habits are widely known to impact overall health and cognitive brain function. Not ever exercise book will give you an anatomical breakdown of the brain, though.

Head scratcher moment – Yung-Abu said microwaves are “fundamental to keeping us in the flow of not starving.” Weird way to put it, but what concerned me more was that Simplest Ways to Develop Consistency is supposed to be a book about healthy habits. In my opinion, cooking by microwave is not healthy, never mind fundamental. Some of the sentence structures and phrasings seemed off. It indicated that English is not Yung-Abi’s dominant language or that there was some AI assistance.

My personal connection to consistency is through Tommy Rivs. He is constantly talking about making small deposits in the bank of health. If you practice consistency you will see results.

Author fact: Yung-Abu has a law background.

Glamorous Powers

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Howatch, Susan. Glamorous Powers. Harper Collins Publishers, 1996.

Reason read: to continue the series started in April in honor of Easter.

The world is teetering on the fringe of World War II. Abbot Jonathan Darrow experiences visions that tell him he must leave the Order. He has had the Glamorous Power of second sight since he was fourteen years old. (Readers will recognize Darrow as the pivotal spiritual advisor to Charles Ashworth in Glittering Images.) Despite his vision calling him to leave the Order, Darrow must undergo a thorough psychological analysis. Only Abbot-General Francis can grant his release and only after Francis determines it is in Darrow’s best interest to leave. The decision cannot be one borne out of spiritual crisis or impulse brought on by false visions. It is such a twist of fate from the pages of Glittering Images when it was Jonathan Darrow analyzing and healing Charles Ashworth’s psyche.
One of the delectable elements of the Stargate series is how soap opera dramatic the writing is. Emotions are turned up to eleven and events are earth-shattering. Words like terror, shock, harrowing, disastrous, horror, hostile, garish, rage, disturbed, diabolical, disgraceful, despair, doomed, menace, monster, disaster, tragedy, troubled, appalling, cruel, chaos, and crisis. Everyone trembles, feel faint or actually does faint, or gasps loudly in utter dismay. Some of Darrow’s angst is warranted. He experiences sensory overload while visiting his modern daughter. He is not used to the sharpness of the outside world. In time, Darrow discovers the work he is supposed to do on the outside. Glamorous Powers examines the sins of the father, handed down. Who will break the cycle?

Confessional: the miscommunications and assumptions Jonathan experiences with his wife filled me with anxiety. Their marriage was fraught with one misunderstanding after another and I constantly questioned if it would survive.

Lines I loved, “People always know when they’re not loved” (p 106). Indeed. Here’s another, “I’m busy learning how to kill people and I hope you are pleased” (p 267).
Two words I loved together, “emotionally dislocated” (p 235).

Author fact: Glamorous Powers is the thirteenth novel of Susan Howatch’s.

Book trivia: like Glittering Images, Howatch begins each chapter of Glamorous Powers with a quote from an individual who inspired the story. In this case, William Ralph Inge, an intellectual and Dean of Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London (1911-1934). She includes a brief biography of Inge at the end of Glamorous Powers.

Music: Straus

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Fathers, Mothers, Sisters, Brothers: The Family of the Clergy” (p 87). Also from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Entering England” (p 76).

In-Between World of Vikram Lall

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Vassanji, M.S.. The In-Between World of Vikram Lall. Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.

Reason read: Vassanji’s birth month is May (30th).

During a retreat from the world, Vikram Lall, a self-professed corrupt man, wishes to tell his story from childhood. It is a tale full of violence and torture, political corruption and redemption, ethnic prejudice and long-standing tradition. His world is a clash of cultures from his earliest memories. Vikram’s childhood starts innocently enough with friends of various backgrounds and skin tones. Not black like his Kenyan friend, Njoroge, or white like his British friend, Bill. Vikram’s family settled in Kenya after Vikram’s grandfather arrived as a Indian railway worker along with his British overseers to lay tracks in Kenyan landscape. Kenya had been trying to break free from British rule ever since.
Vikram learns early on that one has to be careful of causing too much suspicion. No one wants to be accused of being involved with the guerilla group, Mau Mau. As Vikram grows up, he learns survival does not always mean being honest. It is better to cause the heartbreak than to endure it.

An absolutely brilliant line full of foreboding. Early on Vikram says, “But my times were exceptional and they would leave no one unscathed” (p 3). He is admitting his destruction of other people.

Confessional: in the beginning of The In-Between World of Vikram Lall, Vikram withholds the source of his infatuation. It is as if he wants her to stay shrouded in mystery for a little while. However, if the reader has been paying attention, her name has already been revealed.

Author fact: Vassanji also wrote The Book of Secrets. I plan to read that three years from now.

Book trivia: The In-Between World of Vikram Lall should be a movie.

Music: Bing Crosby, Talat Mahmood, “Onward Christian Soldiers”, “Che Sear, Sera”, Bach, Berlioz, “Never on a Sunday”, Hemant Kumar, “Baa, Baa Black Sheep”, “It’s a Long Way to Tipperaree”, the Beatles, Elvis, “Wherever I Lay My Hat”, and “Dead Man’s Chest”.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Africa: a Reader’s Itinerary” (p 2).

Imagine If…

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Vale, Lucien. Imagine If…Tupac Did Not Go To Vegas. Shattered Mythos Press, 2025.

Reason read: I am a member of the Early Review program for LibraryThing. I occasionally get to review interesting books and this was one of them.

The one thing to keep in mind when reading Lucien Vale’s Imagine If series is that it is pure fiction. You are imagining an alternate ending to a well-known story. Everyone knows Tupac was murdered in Las Vegas. Vale is simply flipping the script and imagining a scenario where Pac would decide against that fateful trip. Vale cleverly finds a real life story and imagines an alternate ending. I don’t really care if the events in New York City mirror fact or not. The whole idea is to ask what if? and to be entertained. The action of Imagine If is tightly wound and fast paced. It reads like a movie with exaggerated dialogue full of gangster lingo and drama. If entertainment was Vale’s goal, he succeeded.

Confessional: one of my favorite movies is Sliding Doors starring Gwyneth Paltrow. It is the story of Helen’s two very different lives: the life she would lead if she had caught the train going home and the alternate where she misses it.

Author fact: Lucien Vale has also written an “Imagine” book about Bruce Lee.

Book trivia: Imagine If… is a very short 77 pages long.

Murder in the Museum of Man

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Alcorn, Alfred. Murder in the Museum of Man. Zoland Books, 1997.

Reason read: May is a traditional graduation month for colleges and universities. Read in honor of commencements everywhere.

Wainscott University is your typical institutional of higher education full of snobbery intellectuals, grant-fueled competition, and academic politics. Add crime to the list when Dean Cranston Fessing goes missing. When it is revealed that Fessing was not only murdered but cannibalized, Museum of Man (MOM) secretary Norman de Rateur turns amateur detective to solve the crime. Then another dean is decapitated. Murder in the Museum of Man turns to mayhem. Through de Ratuer’s journal we follow the action.
Norman is an interesting character. He pines for an old girlfriend who wrote him a Dear John letter while he was serving in the military decades earlier. And speaking of the girl, I won’t give it away, but the ending was my favorite.
Confessional: why is it that I have a lukewarm dislike of academic satires? The names of characters are always ridiculous and the snarkiness is at a level I cannot enjoy. Ethnopaleosiphonapterology? The study of fossil fleas? Really? Chimpanzees making sexual advances towards humans and drinking their beer? Really?

Author fact: According to Google, Alfred Alcorn is former director of travel at Harvard University’s Museum of Natural History. 

Book trivia: Murder in the Museum of Man is part of a series. I am only reading the one.

Setlist: Dvorak Piano Quintet in A, Brahms, and Schubert’s Die Unterscheidung.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Academic Mysteries” (p 4).