The Mandarins

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de Beauvoir, Simone. The Mandarins. Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1956.

Reason read: Wyoming passed the first woman suffrage law on December 10th, 1869.

The Mandarins has been called Ms. de Beauvoir’s most famous novel. Taking place in the mid 1940s, France’s City of Lights society is getting back to some semblance of normalcy at the end of World War II while the rest of Europe continues to struggle under the weight of devastating death and destruction. Loosely based on de Beauvoir’s relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre, Mandarins is a biting commentary on politics, philosophy, and psychology of the times. Two different plots run simultaneously. First, there is the struggle to keep a once popular war-time leftist newspaper relevant after the war. Then, there is the first person account of Anne’s romance with an American author (autobiographical sketches of Simone herself with Sartre). In truth, I found all of the characters outrageously annoying. War has brought Henri and Paula together and peacetime begins to pull them apart. As World War II draws to a close, Henri sees it the prefect opportunity to escape France and ultimately leave his ten year relationship with Paula. Henri has decided they are no longer the same people and their relationship has worn too thin for mending. He considers himself a man who needs to say something, not only to the world around him, but to the future world not yet realized. He does most of his talking through the language of sex with other women. Paula constantly forgives Henri his affairs of the body because she thinks his heart belongs to her. I could go on, but I’m not sure what the point would be. Blah blah blah rubbish.

Author fact: Simone also wrote The Second Sex which I read for the Challenge.

Book trivia: The Mandarins has been called a classic by some.

Nancy said: Pearl did not say anything specific about The Mandarins.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “100 Good Reads, Decade By Decade: 1950s” (p 177).

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On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

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Vuong, Ocean. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. New York: Penguin Press, 2019.

Reason read: Are you holding onto your hats? Are you sitting down? I’m going off the Challenge list for this one. Why? Basically, I will read everything my sister recommends. Why? She’s cool and she doesn’t waste her time with boring books.

Is it enough to say that On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is heartbreakingly beautiful? I could go on to elaborate: the language is harsh yet poignant, stark yet lush, truthful yet magical. Little Dog writes a letter to his mother to…what? Explain his choices? Tell her how her life has shaped his? Make a declaration of love to the world around him? His motives are unclear, but the language stirs the heart. For example, the imagery of a lighthouse: seen as both shelter and warning. Could a woman be both monster and mother?

Lines I loved: “We sidestep ourselves in order to move forward” (p 53). If I were a lecturer and I had actually coined that phrase I would repeat it and ask the audience to let the words sink in. There is more truth in those eight little words than I care to admit. One more to quote, “Maybe we look in mirrors not merely to seek beauty, regardless of how illusive, but to make sure, despite the facts, that we are still here” (p 138).

Book trivia: this should be a movie. Seriously. For something completely random, Vuong thanked Frank Ocean. I am wondering if this is the same Frank Ocean Dermot Kennedy thanked for the song, “Swim Good.”

Author fact: According to the back flap of On Earth… Vuong lived in Northampton in 2019. I am not a stalker so I don’t know if that’s still true. If it is, this author is less than 30 minutes from me. Cool. In a more widely (undisputed) fact, Vuong is a poet which is abundantly obvious in On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.

Playlist: Khanh Ly, Neil Young, 50 Cent, Etta James, Curtis Jackson, Chopin, Justin Timberlake, Miles Davis, Black Eyed Peas’ “Where is the Love?,” Led Zeppelin’s “Get Rich, or Die Tryin’,” “His Eye Is On the Sparrow,” “This Little Light of Mine,” and “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.”

Organizational Behavior Essentials You Always Wanted to Know

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Self Learning Management Series. Organizational Behavior Essentials You always Wanted to Know: Master Organizational Behavior Concepts with This Self-Study Book and Become a Leader of Better Management Practices. Vibrant Publishers, 2021.

Reason read: As a member of LibraryThing’s Early Review Program, I requested this book in exchange for an honest review.

I have to say, right off the bat, it is off-putting to have two pages of advertising followed by four pages of what the experts say at the beginning of any book. In total there are fourteen pages wasted before you get to any actual text.
What follows is a historical overview of organizational behavior, including global perspectives. Buzzwords like diversity and inclusion are thrown in along with the concept of shared services (been there, done that). I did appreciate the idea of virtual cross functional learning and the emphasis on diversity to allow for varying perspectives and opinions. There was more a focus on global than I expected and while I appreciated the concept of a reward system that not only looks at monetary incentives but a reward of a sense of belonging there was no clear example of how to reward when the practice of making employees feel like they belong should be the norm.
Everyone is all abuzz about assessments these days and Organizational Behavior is no different. The book includes quizzes but unfortunately the numbering was full of typos. Question #9 was missing option C (and, you guessed it, C was the correct answer). Another complaint was the lack of authorship. How does one critique authority when there isn’t an author to review? One last complaint was how difficult it was to download my copy. I was told I needed to read it on a Kindle. Guess what? I don’t have one of those…

High Altitude Breakfast

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Hampton, Nicole. High Altitude Breakfast: Sweet and Savory Baking at 5,000 Feet and Above. West Margin Press, 2021.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing, I requested this book because I have a friend who opened a restaurant that features sweet and savory pies and oh yeah, she lives in Colorado Springs (elevation 6,035 feet).

This is a gorgeous cookbook with delicious-sounding recipes. I say “sounding” because I am not in a high-altitude area and have yet to try a single recipe. I chose to review Hampton’s cookbook in hopes of a) learning more about the science behind high-altitude baking and b) converting some of the recipes for a sea-level kitchen because I am a huge fan of breakfast. I’m always looking for a new way to celebrate my favorite meal of the day. High-Altitude Breakfast does not a great deal of information about conversion aside from a chart in the back and a few tips in the beginning, but that is not to say the recipes won’t come out fantastic with a little practice. Every recipe sounded wonderful and the photography had me drooling. As an aside, I do have a friend in the restaurant business who happens to live in the Mile High City. I am hoping she will test Ms. Hampton’s creations and report back.

Author fact: Nicole Hampton writes a food blog called “Dough Eyed” and has already written a similar cookbook, Sugar High: Sweet and Savory Baking in Your High Altitude Kitchen. I’m wondering if High Altitude Breakfast is an extension of one or both of those projects.

Based on Hampton’s opening statements, I am a fan and would like to hang out in her kitchen. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day and I can eat it any time of the day.

Lucky Jim

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Amis, Kingsley. Lucky Jim. New York: Penguin Classics, 1993.

Reason read: December is traditionally the month for final exams in secondary schools. Read in honor of those poor students slogging through their tests.

James Dixon is in a plum position to earn a decent spot as a lecturer in his college’s History Department. The only problem is he is falling in love with his boss’s son’s girlfriend.
You can’t help but laugh out loud during certain scenes in Lucky Jim. Amis has a way of painting the picture so clear you are in the room with the characters, whether you want to or not. The snobbery and pretentious nature of ambition on academia permeates the plot. The description of Dixon’s hangover, filled with images of excrement and death’s decay, had me smirking with remembrance. Been there, done that. I am not a smoker, but Dixon trying to ration his cigarettes gave me a chuckle as well, especially when he’s on the cigarette he should be enjoying a whole day into the future. Sadly, my accolades end there. I found almost everything else about Lucky Jim to be a bore.

Lines I liked, “The sight of her seemed an irresistible attack on his own habits, standards, and ambitions: something designed to put him in his place for good” (p 39) and “As soon as Dixon recognized the mental envelope containing this question he thrust it away from him unopened…” (p 60).

Author fact: rumor has it Amis was not a nice person. I’ve never met him so I can’t comment. He did win the Somerset Maugham Award for Lucky Jim. So there’s that.

Book trivia: One of my favorite illustrators, Edward Gorey, created a cover for an edition of Lucky Jim.

Playlist: Mozart, Richard Strauss, and “Onward Christian Soldiers,”

Nancy said: Pearl called Lucky Jim a classic.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Academia: the Joke” (p 3).

A People’s History of the United States

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Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States. New York: HarperPerennial, 2003.

Reason read: Justice John Jay, former governor of New York, was born in December. Read in his memory.

Zinn sums up A People’s History of the United States perfectly in his first chapter, “My viewpoint, in telling the history of the United States, is different: that we must not accept the memory of the states as our own” (p 10). He is willing to look at the whole truth of our nation, as ugly as it may be. There is a lot of dirt to be dug as Zinn is heavy on the quotes and extensive in his expansive research. But, fear not. This is a not a dry textbook account of our people’s history. Zinn is just as quick to insert humor and small amusements such as, “when a[n] [Iroquois] woman wanted a divorce, she set her husband’s things outside the door” (p 20). Interesting characters from all walks of life grace the pages of Zinn’s extraordinary masterpiece. More than a textbook, this should be on everyone’s reading list…even today.

As an aside, I want to ask Mr. Zinn this one question: could you ever imagine our sorry state of national affairs, as they are today, when you first penned the question “Is it possible for whites and blacks to live together without hatred?” I just have three little words: Say. Their. Names.

Author fact: Zinn lived in Massachusetts at the time A People’s History was published.

Book trivia: most people consider A People’s History of the United States a textbook.

Nancy said: Pearl said people rave about Zinn’s A People’s History and Pearl called it revolutionary.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “American History: Nonfiction” (p 19). As an aside, If you had two chapters called “American History” in the same book and the subtitles were Fiction and Nonfiction, which would come first in an alphabetized book?

Memoirs of a Geisha

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Golden, Arthur. Memoirs of a Geisha. New York: Vintage Books, 1997.

Reason read: Confessional – this is a reread for me. My sister loaned this book to me back in 1997 and I haven’t given it back. However…my rule is if I can’t remember the ending of the book, I have to reread it for the Challenge. So, in honor of Japan’s Culture Day on November 3rd, I am rereading Memoirs of a Geisha.

The concept of Memoirs of a Geisha is brilliant. One of Japan’s most celebrated geisha decides to tell her life story from the beginning. Even as a very young child Chiyo Sakamoto was smart. She knew her mother was dying of cancer and her father was too elderly to support her future. A chance encounter with Mr. Tanaka Ichiro put Chiyo and her older sister on a much different trajectory than if they had stayed in their poor seaside village. At nine years old because of her startling gray-blue eyes, Chiyo is sold into a geisha house. There she is forced to live like a 18th century scullery maid, catering to the glamorous geisha of the house. Another chance encounter, this time with a wealthy businessman nicknamed the Chairman, leads Chiyo to becoming one of the most famous geisha in all of the Gion geisha district.

Line to like, “I was just a child who thought she was embarking on a great adventure” (p 96).

Author fact: Golden started his Japanese journey studying the culture’s art.

Book trivia: Everyone knows Memoirs of a Geisha was a national best seller and was made into a movie in 2005. What people may not remember is that Memoirs of a Geisha was Golden’s debut novel. Pretty spectacular.

Nancy said: Pearl compared Memoirs to Snow Country as a romantic portrait. In the More Book Lust chapter “Men Channeling Women” (p 166), Pearl includes Memoirs in a list of good books.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Japanese Fiction” (p 131), and More Book Lust in the chapter called “Men Channeling Women” (p 166). As an aside, Memoirs of a Geisha could have been included in the chapter called “Maiden Voyages” as it is Golden’s first novel.

First World War

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Keegan, John. The First World War. New York: Vintage Books, 2000.

Reason read: November 11th is Armistice Day. Read for the veterans.

World War One rocked our planet to its core. There wasn’t a corner of the globe that didn’t feel its effects in some way or another. Historians like John Keegan call it the Great War because it left over ten million people dead and countless others shattered both mentally and physically beyond recognition. As Keegan explains, it was the first time world powers used ferocious modernized brutality to subdue their military enemies along with innocent women, children, and livestock. No living creature stood a chance against this new age of warfare. Keegan pushes you into the muddy trenches, onto the blood soaked battle fields, and into the intimate lives of courageous but doomed soldiers. Against this bloody backdrop Keegan also brilliantly sheds light on secret political and religious negotiations, heated war-room strategies, and closed-door council room debates. With Keegan you travel to the Western front, East Africa, the Carpathians and beyond. This is a comprehensive history of one of the most polarizing events known to man.

Confessional: I am usually not a history fanatic, especially when it comes to war of any kind.
Second confessional: I am not a proofreader by any means, but this seems a little too obvious a mistake to overlook, “The French did not speak English, French scarcely any French; General Henry Wilson, Deputy Chief of Staff, translated” (The First World War p 103).

Author fact: Keegan is the master of historical warfare. I am also reading The Second World War for the Challenge.

Book Trivia: The Frist World War offers three sections of photographs and a bunch of maps, all in black and white.

Plat list: “Sambre et Meuse,” and “Le Chant du depart”

Nancy said: Pearl said there are many good general military histories and Keegan’s is one of them.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “World War I Nonfiction” (p 251).

Echo Maker

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Powers, Richard. Echo Maker. London: Picador, 2007.

Reason read: November is National Writing Month. I chose Echo Maker for the category of National Book Award Winner.

What would you do if your only brother, the younger sibling you have protected since birth, has a terrible automobile accident that leaves him utterly convinced you are not kin; that you are an imposter? According to him you are a replica, a fake, a fraud, a well trained actor down to the very last identifying detail. Maybe even a highly technical robot with lifelike emotion and memory? Mark’s neurological condition is called Capgras and he swears Karen is a copy of his flesh and blood sibling. Despite facing haunting hometown memories and more than six months of Mark not recognizing her, Karen separates from her job and sells her home in order to become his legal guardian. Even world-famous neurologist and best selling author, Gerald Weber, is stumped by Mark’s condition. He comes to study Mark not only to answer Karen’s cry for help, but to stroke a faltering ego. The introduction of Dr. Weber allows author Powers to include such psychological disorders as Fregola Syndrome, Synesthesia, Pleiotropy, Agnosia, Dyscalculia, Tinnitus, Acrophobia, Sundowner Syndrome, Amnesia, Charles Bonnet Syndrome, Aphasia and Klurer-Bucy Syndrome. It gets a little heavy at times. Then there’s too-good-to-be-true Barbara. She arrives on the scene as an aide in the hospital but something seems off with her as well. People cannot help but fall in love with her without really understanding why. If Mark’s medical condition wasn’t enough of a plot, Powers has thrown in a political and ecological battle over a preserve with tourist-drawing cranes which migrate to the area every year. Are the cranes and Mark’s accident connected?

Confessional: I would have liked Dr. Weber’s story to start earlier in the book. He arrives on the Nebraskan scene after Karen invites him to study her brother’s case. From there, he is intertwined with the saga but it would have brought more context to his involvement if the reader had been able to follow his journey sooner than meeting Mark.

Lines to like, “Home was the place you never escaped even in nightmare” (p 8),”Disaster trumped the past and gave her temporary asylum” (p 46), and “She curled into the threat of doing this again” (p 58). I could go on and on and on. Echo Maker has dozens of great one-liners.

Playlist: Brahms, Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Schubert…and I am sure there were more. For the first time in my life I lost a library book. I have no idea what happened and it confounds me.

Author fact: I have a total of nine works to read by Richard Powers. I have finished three with six to go.

Book trivia: This should have been a movie. It was almost a Pulitzer winning book.

Nancy said: Pearl called Echo Maker brilliant and thought provoking.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Nebraska: the Big Empty” (p 148).

Unsheltered

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Kingsolver, Barbara. Unsheltered. New York: HarperCollins, 2018.

Reason read: I needed a book for the Portland Reading Challenge in the category of “A book you have yet to read by an author you love.” Kingsolver is it.

Contrary to the title of the book, this is the story of one particular shelter – a house called Vineland that sheltered two different families over 140 years apart. A house that stood the test of time until it couldn’t.
Modern day: Willa and Iano’s marriage is unsheltered from harsh realities. Behind Willa’s every thought of Iano is a trace of disappointment. He doesn’t respect her privacy. He is hardly the breadwinning husband even though she is the out-of-work journalist. As a professor with adoring students and a history of infidelity, Willa cannot trust him. Adding to the stress Iano’s very ill father has come to live with them in their condemned (no longer sheltering) house. Then there is Willa’s son. Zeke has his own share of trouble. His live-in girlfriend has committed suicide, leaving him with a newborn son and a pile of debt. Helene was the one with the income while Zeke was a student at the Harvard Business School. Guess who is left to care for the newborn? This is the opening shot across the bow for Unsheltered. Kingsolver delves into so much (so much!) more as the story unfolds. Historical plot follows the life of real-life naturalist Mary Treat and her quest to study the world around her. Charles Darwin has page time and even the nomination of a tyrant for a President of the United Sates gets a mention. I don’t want to say anymore except that Kingsolver is a master of words.

Lines I loved, “The silence has extended beyond her turn to speak” (p 2), “Marriages tended to harden like arteries, and she and Iano were more than thirty years into this one” (p 37), “The dangerous allure of novelty might have sparked this torment, but in the eye of the storm they held on hard to the world they knew” (p 242).

Author fact: I follow Kingsolver on the insty and she takes breathtakingly beautiful pictures.

Book trivia: Despite loving this book it took me a really, really long time to read.

Playlist: Nikki Minaj, Beyonce, Steely Dan, David Bowie, Keith Jarrett, “Tea for the Tillerman,” “Into White,” “Moonshadow,” “Hard Headed Woman,” and “Wild World” by Cat Stevens.

Amigoland

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Casares, Oscar. Amigoland. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2009.

Reason read: November 1st is Day of the Dead in Mexico.

Welcome to the elderly world of brothers Don Fidencio and Don Celestino. Sustaining through years of stubborn memory are so long ago fabled events that the brothers cannot come to an agreement of truth. At the center of their debate is the brothers’ grandfather and a terrific century-old tale of kidnapping, murder, scalping, a ranch called El Rancho Capote, and a bear in a circus. The story is so fantastic, and each memory is so faulty, it has taken on a life of its own. So much so that Don Celestino’s much younger paramour (and housekeeper), Soccoro, convinces the brothers to take a trip to Mexico to settle the debate once and for all. Soccoro and Don Celestino spirit Don Fidencio away from his nursing home without medications, identification, or money. The both heartwarming and heartbreaking problem is time is running out for both cantankerous men (Don Fidencio is over ninety). The moral of Amigoland is when you tell a story long enough it becomes fact, even if your memory is faulty.

As an aside, I would not know anything about the game of Bunco (mentioned in Amigoland if it weren’t for a friend of mine. She plays Bunco with a group of women once a month.

Author fact: Casares is a graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop

Book trivia: Amigoland is Casares’ first novel.

Playlist: Narcisco Martinez

Nancy said: Pearl called Amigoland “warm and funny.”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Postcards from Mexico” (p 183). As an aside, Pearl could have included Amigoland in More Book Lust in the chapter called “Maiden Voyages.”

Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

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Twain, Mark. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Reason read: Mark Twain was born in the month of November. Read in his honor

There is so much to unpack in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. When one thinks of Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, science fiction doesn’t readily come to mind. Sarcastic? Humorous? Yes. But certainly not science fiction in my book. The plot is simple. Nineteenth century mechanic Hank Morgan gets a conk on the head that sends him back to the 6th century. At first he thinks it is all a joke (“Get back to your circus,” he tells a knight in full armor riding an armored horse). Once convinced he has truly traveled back in time he realizes he can use his knowledge of the “future,” like an upcoming solar eclipse and the invention of electricity, to his advantage.
Woven throughout the plot is Twain’s celebration of democracy while at the same time condemning humankind through observations about social and human inequalities. He attacks British nobility and rails against poverty and slavery.
How it all ends? The divine right of the King is the be settled in another book. Good news for Twain fans. That kind of ending is like your favorite musician hinting that they are working on a new album. Stay tuned. There is more to come.

Author fact: As an aside, Mr. Twain had a killer mustache. Everyone knows that but I’ve never really looked at it before. Another confession: I have not been to his house in Hartford, Connecticut.

Book trivia: In my edition of A Connecticut Yankee there is a great deal of extra fanfare before you get to the actual story. There is an editor’s note, a foreword, and an introduction. If that wasn’t enough, there is an afterward as well. But the cooler thing to mention is that my copy is a facsimile of the original publication. Illustrations and texts are unaltered.

Nancy said: Pearl included A Connecticut Yankee as an example of the writings of Mark Twain.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Literary Lives: the Americans” (p 144). Technically, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur‘s Court is not a biography of Mark Twain so it shouldn’t be included in this chapter.

Notes of a Native Son

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Baldwin, James. Notes of a Native Son. Boston: Beacon Press, 1990.

Reason read: November is National Writing Month. I chose Notes of a Native Son under the category of essays.

I have to start off by saying Notes of a Native Son was way too short. I felt that Baldwin could have kept writing and writing. His essays held such clarity and truth they could have been written last year, last month, or even last week. Ranging from an analytical commentary of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin to remembering the time he was jailed in Paris for allegedly stealing a bedsheet, Baldwin expresses his place in society with the utmost frankness. The most tender of moments came when writing about his father, a man with which he had a complicated relationship.

Quotes to quote about hate, “Hate is a very fertile yet dangerous place from which to draw creativity” (p 37), and “I imagine that one of those reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, that they will be forced to deal with pain” (p 91). So true.
Another line I liked, “This seals the action off, as it were, in a vacuum in which the spectacle of color is divested of danger” (p 45).

Author fact: Did you know Baldwin was a preacher for three years, from the age of 14 to 17, or that he was a waiter at 22?

Book trivia: Baldwin talks about writing his first novel. It was interesting to hear about the process.

Nancy said: Pearl said Baldwin is an essayist not to miss.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Essaying Essays” (p 80).

Beowulf

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Anonymous. Beowulf. Translated by Seamus Heaney. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001.

Reason read: Another Halloween story.

Everyone raves about Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf and I have to wonder, is it just the translation or could the accompanying gorgeous illustrations and photography have something to do with it? Everyone knows the story of Beowulf the mighty warrior from an English lit class. As a poem, it is the courageous story of a man who learns of a King’s annual nightmare. A monster named Grendel destroys fifteen knights a year without fail and has been doing so for the past twelve years. Beowulf, upon hearing this sad tale, takes it upon himself to vanquish Grendel only to face Grendel’s vengeful mother. Yeah, he kills her, too. Then there’s the fire-breathing dragon (think Bilbo Baggins) who tragically wins over Beowulf. In truth, I had forgotten the graphic violence of men being mauled by the monster Grendel. The clash is pretty dramatic. It would make a great movie. Wait. Knowing my knowledge of movies…it probably is.

As an aside, I have to wonder if this was ever made into a movie? Think about it. The battles full of violence…the claw of Grendel’s as a trophy. What a great prop for the big screen!

Lines I liked, “But it was mostly beer doing the talking” (p 37),”He is hasped and hooped and hirpling with pain, limping and looped in it” (p 65). Even though hasped and hirpling are not used in everyday vocabulary, you can envision the monster in sever pain.

Author fact: No one has ever been given credit for writing Beowulf although hundred of people have translated it.

Book trivia: Heaney’s translation won the Whitbread Award.

Nancy said: Pearl said Heaney’s translation of Beowulf beautiful.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Poetry: a Novel Idea” (p 186).

Three Junes

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Glass, Julia. Three Junes. New York: Pantheon Books, 2002.

Reason read: November is National Writing Month so I chose Three Junes in honor of the category of debut novel.

You start Three Junes by following widower Paul McLeod on a guided tour of Greece where he meets a woman who will change the course of his life. Six years later Paul’s passing brings his sons, Fenno, and twins, Dennis and David, to Scotland for his funeral. Fenno, a normally reserved New York West Village gay man, faces a family he barely knows while remembering a father he has always wanted to know better. Both of his brothers are married and living very different lives. The mourners who approach Fenno present difficult choices. For a good chunk of the book Fenno’s story is told in first person, bouncing back and forth in time as we follow his complicated relationships with cerebral friend, Mal, dying of AIDS and sexy photographer, Tony, who remains uncommitted despite near daily sexual encounters.
Speaking of Tony, he appears in the last chunk of the book as Fern’s lover. This relationship circles the story back to Paul, as Fern was Paul’s chance encounter in Greece. Artfully written, Glass plays with chronology and people’s emotions. You want unreachable resolutions and conversations that don’t or won’t happen.

Quote I liked, “There the letter ends, as if he wrote himself over the cliff” (p 55).

Author fact: Three Junes is a debut novel for Julia Glass.

Book trivia: “Collies,” the first section of Three Junes was originally a novella and earned Glass the 1999 Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society Medal for Best Novella.

Playlist: “Flowers of Scotland,” “Gone Away,” Gome to the Ground,” “Skye Boat Song,” Lotte Lehman, Pavarotti, Streisand, Bee Gees, Gershwin, Porter, Jerome Kern, Gene Kelly’s “‘S Wonderful,” Kenny Rogers, Stravinsky, Copeland, Hendrix, Holiday, “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” by Bob Dylan, Elton John’s “Daniel,”, Maria Callas’s “Violetta,” Bette Midler, Van Morrison, Lyle Lovett, “100 Years From Today,” and “And If I Were Like Lightning.”

Nancy said: Pearl included Three Junes in her list of “wonderful books.”

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Maiden Voyages” (p 158).