Tag: book review

Truth and Beauty

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Patchett, Ann. Truth and Beauty: A Friendship. Read by Ann Patchett.

Reason read: December is a time for gifts. This is one I give to myself. Confessional: I read Lucy’s autobiography a long time ago. I was supposed to read Truth and Beauty directly afterwards for comparison. I may have to return to the review I wrote for Autobiography of a Face.

In a nutshell: this is the story of an unconventional friendship. Ann Patchett was befriended by the charismatic and neurotic Lucy Grealy when they were students at Sarah Lawrence College. From the age of nine, Grealy suffered from Ewing carcinoma of the jaw which left her terribly disfigured. She endured over thirty surgeries and multiple rounds of chemotherapy. Throughout her life, Lucy didn’t know who she was without her illness, her cancer, her surgeries. Due to her low self esteem, Grealy overcompensated by seeking out people to adore and worship her. She thrust her personality onto anyone who would listen, daring them to love and accept her. Confessional: I don’t know what to make of Truth and Beauty. There is a sheen of jealousy that lightly covers the entire narrative. It is if Patchett wants to paint Grealy as a self-centered narcissist while Patchett is the unconditional, sane, patient, all-loving friend. By sharing Lucy’s letters and hardly ever her own replies, Patchett skillfully makes the relationship seem off-balance and schizophrenic. Grealy’s low self-esteem forces her to constantly seek approval and love affirmations from Patchett. The two may have been friendly before they became successful writers, but Patchett’s word choices convey hints of resentment towards Lucy’s fame and even towards Lucy herself throughout the entire story. Every compliment comes across as backhanded and contrived, as if Patchett really wanted to say Lucy used her debilitating disease as a means to be coddled and cared for by everyone around her. I got the nagging sense that Patchett only tolerated Lucy and her illness because she knew Grealy’s story was a gold mine. In truth, I have no doubt there was affection shared between the two writers but I feel it was a more honest relationship before the drive to publish and the desire to be famous kicked in.
As an aside, I lost track of how many times Patchett referred to Grealy’s height and weight, as if she was envious of Grealy’s childlike stature.

Author fact: I am reading three books by Ann Patchett. Oddly enough, Bel Canto is not on the Challenge list.

Book trivia: There are no heartwarming photographs of any kind.

Playlist: the Talking Heads, Kylie Minogue, Rush, and Leonard Cohen.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Other People’s Shoes” (p 182).

Flashpoint

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Barnes, Linda. Flashpoint. Hyperion, 2001.

Reason read: to continue the series started in October for leaf peeping time.

Flashpoint opens with cop-turned-private-investigator Carlotta Carlyle finding a man in her tub. It’s a kitschy beginning meant to throw the reader off from the true mystery. You think the man in the tub is going to be the problem to solve, but the real case doesn’t reveal itself right away. Here is how it all starts: Carlotta owns a Victorian outside the city of Boston. Oddly enough, this Victorian doesn’t have more than two full bathrooms. Carlotta’s roommate and PI assistant, Roz, has been painting with a man who passes out in Carlotta’s bathtub. Instead of asking Roz to clean up her gentleman friend in her own bathroom, Carlotta goes to the Y to shower. She has a regular game of volleyball with a team. There, she is approached by a volleyball teammate to help an elderly woman with locks on her apartment door. Carlotta knows nothing about teammate Gwen or why she is asking Carlotta help old lady Valentine Phipps with her locks. As a private investigator, I expected Carlotta to be a little more curious or cautious because Ms. Phipps ends up dead a short time later. Here is the real mystery. Did the elderly woman die of a heart attack or was she murdered? All evidence points towards murder since real estate developers are eyeing her apartment building for demolition…if only the old woman would leave.

As an aside, it is nice to have more of an explanation for Carlotta’s relationship with Paolina.

As an aside, Carlotta asks about where to buy black sheets. Times have certainly changed, girlfriend. You now can buy black anything from Amazon. Carlotta made a comment about New England being chilly in October. Newsflash! You can now wear shorts in November.

Author fact: Barnes has written at least eight Carlotta Carlyle mysteries. I am only reading three. This is my penultimate CC mystery.

Playlist: Ray Charles, Chuck Berry’s “Maybelline”, Wilson Pickett, Paul Rishell, Little Anne Raines, Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, “Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe”, and Chris Smither.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “New England Novels” (p 177).

Neither Here Nor There

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Bryson, Bill. Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe. Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio, 2009.

Reason read: Bryson celebrates a birthday in December. Read in his honor.

Unlike other travelogues that are bogged down by dry and didactic narratives and mind-numbing historical perspectives, Bryson’s Neither Here Nor There none of those things. Instead it is conversational and as funny as a drunk standup comedienne. Bryson is more concerned with where to find a beer than he is about regurgitating stale facts and figures about an ancient city. It is if Bryson has stuffed you into his backpack and all you can do is eavesdrop on his hilarious monologue as he traipses across the Continent. This isn’t his first rodeo. Bryson first went to Europe in 1972. He went again in 1992. Both times, he was capable of traveling around Europe without planned transportation or hotel reservations or even a clear itinerary. As an aside, I asked myself what it must have been like to backpack across Europe in the 1970s. Did Bryson and his longtime friend, Stephen Katz, find what they were looking for? Were they even looking for something in the first place? But, I digress.
Bryson went back, twenty years later, this time on his own, retracing his journey across Europe. He makes a point to stop in every major city across the Continent; he’s a rock star on the Grand Tour of humor.
My only complaint? No photographs!

As an aside, would Bryson still sell his mother to 45 in exchange for the Italian view?

Author fact: I have to wonder if Bryson still lives in New Hampshire?

Book trivia: Could they make a movie of this epic vacation? As an aside, there are other movies with the same name. Definitely not the same topic, though.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Explaining Europe: the Grand Tour” (p 82).

Interview with the Vampire

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Rice, Anne. Interview with the Vampire. Buccaneer Books, 2006.

Reason read: The movie version of Interview with the Vampire was released in November. Read in honor of the event I did not attend.

This was supposed to be an interview with a very young reporter who wants to write the biography of a vampire. Louis de Pointe du Lac the Vampire agrees to sit down with the unnamed interviewer and share his life story. I was expecting more of a dialogue; a back and forth of questions and answers. Instead, in more of a monologue, Louis shares the romantic history of his vampire beginnings in New Orleans in 1791. Despondent after the death of his family, Louis meets Lestat who convinces him to chose immortality over suicide. With Vampire Lestat as his cruel creator and mentor, Louis learns to avoid the sun, sleep in coffins and experience the exquisite pleasure of the hunt; learning how to drink blood to stay alive (their immortality is conditional on that detail). Yet Louis can not let go of his humanness, drinking the blood of animals and avoiding humans altogether. He is too kind for his kind. Young, beautiful and extremely clever Claudia is his first human feasting. As a child vampire, she is full of grace, passion and intelligence. Louis becomes infatuated with her. It is she who convinces Louis that together, they must kill Lestat and run away to Europe (Transylvania) to find more vampires like themselves. The “couple” end up in France where they find a troupe of vampires and even more danger than they bargained for. The France section of Interview with the Vampire drags quite a bit. Some vampires finally die and I’ll leave it at that, as I will be reading Lestat’s biography next.
Confessional: I did not expect Interview with the Vampire to be so sensual. The act of drinking blood was portrayed as borderline erotic. Yet, “Louie” is a goofy name for a vampire who has lived over 200 years.

Author fact: Rice was an atheist for thirty-eight years. Interview with the Vampire was a search for God and her first novel. Brava!

Book trivia: as mentioned before, Interview with the Vampire was made into a movie starring Tom Cruise. Brad Pitt and Kirsten Dunst in 1994.

Music: Mozart

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror” (p 213).

Caught in the Web of Words

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Murray, Katherine Maud Elisabeth. Caught in the Web of Words: James A.H. Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary. Yale University Press, 2001.

Reason read: November is National Writing Month. It makes sense to include a book about words since words make sentences that eventually (hopefully) turn into books.

Elisabeth Murray wrote a biography of her grandfather. While it is a straightforward birth to death biography, I was hoping for a more personal memoir filled with stories of James Murray, the family man instead of just focusing on the fact he was one of the greatest lexicographers of all time. Katherine Murray reveals that her grandfather had wanted to write down “a narrative of his life and memories” (prologue). Maybe that is why I expected more. Anecdotes of Murray’s personal life were no more than a few sentences here and there and a smattering of black and white photographs of James (mostly at work in the Scriptorium). However, James was a religious family man and proud father of eleven children with a sly sense of humor.
Having said that, the most annoying pebble in my shoe: I couldn’t help but notice the number of times Murray put her grandfather on an extremely high pedestal: James had a higher standard of accuracy than with anyone else he worked alongside; James was too meticulous; James worked harder than anyone else and worked longer hours than anyone else. To be fair, James Murray did dedicate over thirty-five years of his life to editing the Oxford English Dictionary. He worked under trying conditions – never had enough time, space, or money for the endeavor. Every day was a constant struggle. He employed his own children when the project started to fall behind. Even though he died before the project was finished, Murray was without a doubt, the godfather of etymology.

Author fact: according to the back cover of Caught in the Web of Words Murray was Principal of Bishop Otter College of Education in Chichester, England.

Book trivia: there is a typo in the copyright statement of my version of Caught in the Web of Words. Mine is missing the word ‘not.’ It literally says “This book may be reproduced in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form…without written permission from the publishers.” Woops.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter obvious called “Words to the Wise” (p 249) and again, in More Book Lust in the chapter called “Dewey Deconstructed: 400s” (p 68).

Roughing It

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Twain, Mark. Roughing It: a personal narrative. Harper and Row, 1913.

Reason read: to celebrate Twain’s birth month.

Originally published in 1872, Roughing It is most commonly presented as a two-volume travel adventure. Twain, ever the storyteller of exaggerated fact and humorous fiction, takes us on a epic journey across the country; an exercise that he called “variegated vagabondizing.” This would seem to be a nonfiction, but you really cannot trust Twain with his stories of Slade, the Rocky Mountain desperado and the outrageous shootouts Twain supposedly witnessed. My personal eye roll story was when Twain and a companion rowed 12-15 miles to an island…in the middle of a storm. I am from an island ten miles out to sea and I can tell you it takes 70-75 minutes to go that far with an engine-powered boat in flat calm weather. My favorite moment was a Winnie-the-Pooh situation when Twain and his companions were thinking they are being stalked by a growing group of men when really it was their own footprints multiplying as they wandered around in circles. Did Milne get the idea from Twain?
But. I digress. Back to Twain’s western adventure. Beyond California, Twain journeyed to Utah, Nevada and Hawaii. [As an aside, when Twain described the scorpions and the centipedes (with forty-two legs on each side), I found myself lifting my feet high off the floor.]

Quotes to quote, “Three months of camp life on Lake Tahoe would restore an Egyptian mummy to his pristine vigor, and give him an appetite like an alligator” (p 158). Does the tourism board of Lake Tahoe know that Twain said this? What a great endorsement! Here is another line that made me laugh. This one on the subject of polygamy: “Take my word for it, ten or eleven wives is all you need – never go over it” (p 109).

Author fact: We know Twain was born Samuel Clemens and that he worked as a steamboat captain. he also married Olivia Langdon and became filthy rich.

Book trivia: Twain spends an entire chapter discussing the Mormon bible.

Playlist: “Shining Shire”, “Coronation”, “Praise God From Whom All Blessings”,

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Western Memoirs” (p 241).

League of Frightened Men

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Stout, Rex. The League of Frightened Men. Farrar & Rhinehart, Inc. 1935.

Reason read: I kicked off the Nero Wolfe series because League of Frightened Men begins in the month of November. I will continue to read the series in honor of Rex Stout’s birth month in December.

While in college, years ago, a fraternity of men pulled a prank that left one of their brothers horribly handicapped. The fraternity men spend the rest of their lives trying to make amends to Paul Chapin, until years later, one by one, brothers are winding up dead or missing. Has their scarred-for-life brother finally decided to seek revenge? It certainly seems that way when poems appear after each death, cryptically pointing the finger back at the group and the accident suffered so long ago. Nero is hired to find a missing fraternity brother and stop the killings before the entire league of frightened men is wiped out.

Because I will be spending a lot of time with Nero Wolfe, I thought I would keep track of his traits. For example, here is what I know so far: Nero likes beer for breakfast. He is considered obese. He has lived at West 35th Street in New York City for the last twenty years (thirteen alone and the last seven with his sidekick, Archie) and it takes an act of god to get him to leave his apartment. Nero is an avid reader and likes tending to his orchids. His right hand man, Archie, is a long time friend and they yell at each other and bicker like an old married couple. As an aside, Archie drinks a lot of milk; almost as much as the beer as Nero puts away.

As an aside, be forewarned! There are several examples of unflattering name calling that, by today’s standards, would be considered politically incorrect.

Line I liked, “You must not let the oddities of this case perplex you to the point of idiocy” (p 158).

Author fact: According to Wikipedia, Rex Stout died in Danbury, Connecticut.

Book trivia: League of Frightened Men was first serialized in the Saturday Evening Post.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the long awaited chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 226).

Diane: True Survivor

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Lassoe, Ward V.B. Diane: True Survivor. Koehlerbooks, 2024.

Reason read: As a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing, I see out interesting books to review. This definitely caught my eye.

Diane might seem like every other uneducated, down-on-her-luck woman who used sex in her early years to get ahead. True, she continuously lashes out, made poor choices in men, and had several abortions as a teenager, but instead of her misguided beginnings, we should see Diane as a determined, courageous, and spiritual woman who tried to do the right thing as she got older. Despite suffering sexual and physical abuse, abandonment, and financial hardships, she is like all of us. All she ever wanted was to be loved and respected. It took her some time to realize that self-worth comes from self-love. Respect will come from within when you truly love yourself. Her strength and capacity for sincere forgiveness was amazing.
It is important to remember that Diane: True Survivor started as an interview with a classmate and friend. Lassoe’s style of writing is not a style at all, but rather the words of Diane echoing back through Lassoe’s writing. Lassoe accomplishes the allusion of a conversation between Diane and the reader because Diane is the one doing all the remembering and Lassoe has kept the narrative honest. Diane’s pain is apparent in every sentence she utters, starting with her early years in foster care and ending with the death of her mother.

Author fact: Lassoe started as a classmate of Diane but in the end could call himself a friend.

Book trivia: Diane: True Survivor includes photographs.

Music: Cliff Richards’ “Congratulations”, “God Save the Queen”, “My Country Tis of Thee”, Isaac Hayes’ “Chocolate Chip”, “Ave Maria” and Tom Jones.

Stern Men

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Gilbert, Elizabeth. Stern Men. Read by Allyson Ryan. Books on Tape, 2008.

Reason read: a book about Maine in honor of me trying to get home for Thanksgiving.

I found myself stuck after reading Stern Men. I could not describe it to people the way that I wanted to. It is and it isn’t a story about two warring lobstering communities, battling over the same Maine waters for the same lobsters. Taking place on two fictional islands, Fort Niles and Courne Haven, twenty miles out to sea and only separated by a narrow channel, that plotline seemed plausible enough (especially if you know anything about Matinicus Island). Lobster wars are definitely part of the story, but these battles are not significant enough to drive the main storyline. More transparently, Stern Men is the story of eighteen-year-old Ruth Thomas. She is a Fort Niles resident, newly returned to the island after completing high school at a boarding school in Delaware. She has returned to the island unsure of her next steps. She fakes her feelings towards lobstering despite it being her father’s profession. She will not let anyone dictate her future, especially the wealthy Ellis family who have a hold on Fort Niles. She is ambivalent towards most things until she meets silent lobsterman, Owen Wishnell, from Courne Haven.
I would say the community of Fort Niles is the best part of Stern Men. Mrs. Pommeroy, the woman who took Ruth in when her parents were divorcing; Mrs. Pommeroy’s twin sons, sweet Simon, who wants to create a Fort Niles museum, and cranky Angus, the toughest and meanest lobsterman in all of Maine – to name a few.

Confessional: whenever I read about a Maine island, I always compare it to Monhegan. It doesn’t matter if the island is fictional or real, I still stack up the story against Monhegan and its community. Monhegan is only ten miles out to sea and takes an hour to get to. Fictional Fort Niles and Courne are twenty miles out to sea and take four hours to get to. Interesting. Monhegan’s largest wildlife is the muskrat. Somehow fox have landed on Fort Niles and Courne. How did they get there? As an aside, Monhegan is mentioned very briefly in Stern Men. Maybe I am too close to the particular subject of warring lobstermen. My island went to battle with an adjacent island and it got so heated both parties ended up in court. The end result was a mandate that Monhegan’s lobstermen cannot fish beyond a two-mile radius. That also means the rest of Maine cannot come within those two miles for their lobsters.]

Author fact: Gilbert has been compared to Dickens, Emerson, Austen, Tyler, Irving, Heller, Elkin, and Hoffman!

Book trivia: Stern Men is Gilbert’s first novel.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “The Maine Chance” (p 135). Pearl uses a lot of cute titles for each chapter but I have to admit this one was lost on me. I had to look it up to discover that there was a 1969 television drama called “The Main Chance.” Oh.

Fortunate Life

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Facey, A.B. A Fortunate Life. Viking, 1981.

Reason read: we celebrate Veteran’s Day on November 11th. I wanted to celebrate Bert Facey as a veteran of World War I by reading his autobiography.

Facey’s autobiography is broken out into six different parts starting in 1884 and ending in 1976. His life started in tragedy when his father died when he was two years old. He and his siblings were sent to live with their grandparents but their grandfather passed just two years later. Facey’s grandmother tried to keep the family together, but by the time Facey was nine, he was farmed out to another family where he was told lies and horrible abused to the point of near death. By the time he was thirteen, Facey had lived with three different families, each just as terrible as the one before. A year later, he started to learn how to read while helping a cattle rancher move his livestock to a different region of Western Australia. Every time, Facey proved to be a hard worker who could learn new skills quickly. Early in his teenaged years, Facey learned these traits were keen survival skills. Knowing how to judge a character was also important to him and saved his life several times over, including when dealing with his money-hungry and manipulative mother or the time he had to fistfight a man three times his size.
True to the memories of the elderly, Facey could recall his childhood clearly and focused more detail on these formative years. His time spent as a boxer, soldier, and employee of a tram company are not as detailed or drawn out. Even his days as a union man and political leader are not given the same attention. His marriage and subsequent fatherhood of eight children are not given a great deal of narrative, either. However, it is interesting to note his remarkable relationship with his wife, Evelyn. As a complete stranger, she sent him socks during his military deployment in Gallipoli. When they met years later, they court, marry, and go on to have several children. Evelyn was his first and only love and they were married for nearly sixty years. Facey ends his autobiography after the event of her death.

Quotes of character, “…I never asked him anything of his business because if he wished to tell me, he would” (p 190) and “A sort of love and trust in one another developed in the trenches” (p 281).

Author fact: Facey lived for nine months after publication of A Fortunate Life. I hope that he was proud of his achievements.

Book trivia: the majority of illustrations in A Fortunate Life are advertisements for products like velvet soap, Oh Boy Brand flour, Mills and Ware biscuits, Amgoorie tea, Hugh Nichols’ suits, Trewhella’s Monkey Grubber (whatever that is), A.W. Barlow Shoe Company, and Colemane & Sons eucalyptus oil. I could go on and on.
A Fortunate Life was made into a television miniseries and there is a short YouTube video about A.B. Facey’s life, as well.

Music: “Son of the Sea”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the obvious chapter called “Australia: the Land of Oz (nonfiction)” (p 26).

Facing the Congo

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Tayler, Jeffrey. Facing the Congo: a Modern Day Journey into the Heart of Darkness. Ruminator Books, 2000.

Reason read: read in honor of Mobutu’s birthday in October. He was Zaire’s first and only president.

What began as a discovery of V.S. Naipaul’s novel, A Bend in the River became an adventure of a lifetime. Jeffrey Tayler takes a hand-carved pirogue down the Congo River, much in the style of Henry Morton Stanley’s journey one hundred and twenty years before. The 1990s were different times, and for his safety, Tayler must bring a guide who turned out to be an essential addition to Tayler’s expedition. Desi was a strong pilot and could handle the pirogue better than Tayler. He added to their comfort aboard the pirogue by making proper tea and building sturdy shelves for their belongings. Desi cooked the meals and set up shelter when they camped. Tayler needed Desi for protection as Tayler’s white skin was a sign of the devil and the natives didn’t trust him. Sometimes Desi could speak the language of the natives they encountered. Other times he had to communicate by holding a gun high. While Facing the Congo makes for a thrilling adventure story, I could not help but think Tayler was naïve about his abilities, in denial about his safety, and completely selfish when it came to needing the people around him. No matter how many times he was warned about the various dangers, he ignored them all.

Author fact: despite being born in the United Stated, Tayler makes his home in Moscow, Russia.

Book trivia: Facing the Congo has a smattering of black and white photographs. As being the one with the camera, Tayler is not in many of them.

Playlist: Bob Marley and “Amazing Grace”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Congo: From Colonialism to Catastrophe” (p 69). Also in More Book Lust in the chapter called “True Adventures” (p 223). As an aside, Tayler is spelled wrong in the index. Pearl has it right in the body of the text.

Cold Case

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Barnes, Linda. Cold Case. Delacorte Press, 1997.

Reason read: Cold Case takes place in Boston. Massachusetts is beautiful this time of year. Read in honor of the leaves turning.

Carlotta Carlyle is a private detective and part time cab driver. A case comes to her that is as confusing as an overgrown corn maze. Thea Janis disappeared twenty-four years ago when she was only fifteen years old. After much digging Carlotta discovered Thea was a precocious and promiscuous teenager who published a book of poetry to wild success when she was fourteen. In the span of two weeks of working on the case, Carlotta uncovers a tangle of family secrets. Thea’s name was actually Dorothy Cameron, a gardener from the Cameron family employee also went missing at the same time as Thea, Thea’s sister is a schizophrenic, Thea’s brother is a politician running for office while his marriage falls apart, and more than one murder has taken place.
Maybe this is a premise I have seen too many times, but the wealth of the Cameron family bored me. Rich woman with an icy demeanor and impeccably dress code has a stranglehold on her adult son, who does nothing but disappoint her. Her beloved daughter went missing twenty-four years ago and has been presumed dead ever since a serial killer confessed to her murder. Her second daughter is in a mental facility battling with schizophrenia. What secrets are hidden beneath the cover of wealth?
On top of all this is a subplot involving Carlotta’s little sister and the mafia. Because Cold Case is the seventh Carlotta Carlyle mystery but my first, maybe I’ve missed some key details outlined in an earlier mystery.

As an aside, throughout the entire book I found myself asking does Carlotta ever drive a cab in Cold Case? Answer is yes, but not for hire.
As another aside, Liberty Café was a real place. Too bad it closed. I’m sure fans of Linda Barnes and Carlotta Carlyle would continue to see it out.
Third aside, and I would need an expert to weigh in on this but, when you open a casket after twenty four years, would the smell of death still be so strong that you would need a rag soaked in turpentine to mask the stench? Just curious.

Quotes to quote: there were a few really thought-provoking lines I would love to share, but due to the copyright language, I cannot. Too bad because they were really good.

Author fact: Linda Barnes, not to be confused with the character on Criminal Minds, has written other mysteries series.

Book trivia: as I mentioned before, Cold Case is actually the seventh book in the series. I am reading seven, eight, and nine for the Challenge.

Playlist: “Aint No More Cane on the Brazos”, Beatles, Blind Blake, Black Velvet Band, Chris Smither’s “Up on the Lowdown”, “Hard Times Blues”, Mississippi John hurt, Mozart, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, and Rory Block’s “Terraplane Blues”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “I Love a Mystery” (p 117). Also from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Boston: Beans, Bird, and the Red Sox” (p 40).

Denver

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Cordova, Kimberly Burk. Denver Dossier: Themed Adventures for Every Traveler.

Reason read: As a member of the Early Review program for LibraryThing I review books from time to time. This is my second time receiving an audio book.

Cordova calls this a comprehensive guide to Denver. I cannot completely agree. While each chapter holds a beautifully descriptive (wordy!) essay about each landmark, the audio version is not a useful guide. There is nothing visual to serve as reference, like a map. I would have to write down specific landmarks if I wanted to remember them for my next trip to Denver. Luckily, I have friends and family who live near the mile-high city and my partner travels there for work 4-5 times a year, so I know where the public bathrooms are located. I know how to navigate public transportation. I know the different seasons and how to dress for an altitude city.
Repetition. There is a great deal of repetition in Denver Dossier. Cordova may use different words and phrases but really she is saying the same thing eight different ways. She uses words like diversity, heritage, and culture over and over again. Maybe it’s an AI thing or maybe it’s a quirk of the author…but here are the phrases I noticed that were used over and over and over and over again: “Fill-in-the-blank is a testament to fill-in-this-other blank.” The testament statement was used over thirty times. Even more repetitive than testament was “fill-in-the-blank is not just a fill-in-this-other blank,” or “blank is more than just a blank…” That similar phrasing was used over one hundred and ten times. The more repetitive the words or phrases, the more I became aware of them.

Aside from the verbosity of the narrative, Cordova lists an impressive number of sights to see. She does not provide hard facts like admission fees, location addresses, or contact information for museums or parks. In the restaurant section she does mention very specific dishes that may or may not be still on the menu when you visit; and she gets little fanciful when she suggests you engage with a mural. There is nothing about banking, bathrooms, hospitals, or cheap places to stay.
Here are a bunch of places mentioned in Denver:

  • Colorado State Capital
  • Molly Brown House
  • Five Points
  • Capital Hill
  • Larimer Square
  • Union Station (several times in different chapters)
  • Red Rocks (several times in different chapters)
  • Confluence Park
  • Hiking Trails
  • Bicycle rental stores and locations
  • Botanical Gardens
  • Denver Zoo
  • Children’s Museum
  • Elitch Park
  • Denver Aquarium
  • Dinosaur Ridge
  • Denver Nature and Science Museum
  • Denver Art Museum (a few times)
  • Butterfly Pavillion
  • Denver Public Library
  • Denver Escape Room
  • History of Colorado Museum
  • Cherry Creek
  • An impressive list of breweries and distilleries
  • Music venues, both popular and obscure
  • Sports arenas and stadiums
  • Specific foods local to Denver/Colorado

As an aside, I am also reviewing Cordova’s book about Santa Fe. The two travel books cannot be any different.

Playlist: Billy Holliday, Duke Ellington, John Denver, U2, Church Fire, Beethoven, and Belvederes.

Santa Fe

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Cordova, Kimberly Burk. Santa Fe: Read by Hannah Stone. Kimberly Burk Cordova, 2024.

Reason read: As part of the Early Review program for LibraryThing, I specifically requested Santa Fe because I love the Southwest.

Santa Fe is full of practical information, explained almost as if to a foreigner to the United States. Time zone, how to get to New Mexico by airplane, train, or bus, local customs, cultural etiquette, dining etiquette (eat slowly!), emergency contacts, tipping, public transportation, what to pack for each season (comfortable walking shoes), even how to drive (right side of the road, wear a seatbelt, do not use your phone unless you are hand-free, and so on) and how to take photographs. Most of this information is readily available on Google so I found myself speeding up the narrative to get to the stuff I didn’t know…like the margarita trail, the top ten tourist traps, and the popularity of blue doors!
As with other travel guides written by Cordova, there was a plethora of information that was often repeated. Certain excursions for toddlers, teenagers, and young adults were mentioned more than a few times (the Georgia O’Keefe Museum and the Botanical Garden, to name two). The sample itineraries seems to be filler. The plans for if you have three, five and seven days in Santa Fe were the most basic and, while the fourteen day seems to include everything from the other days, it had more detail, like specific restaurant names.
Having an audio travel guide is not practical. At least for me, it is definitely not. Case in point, the restaurant list. Cordova gives the mailing address (complete with zip code) for every single place on her list. While some of the places sound fantastic, I would never remember them without writing them down somewhere. Plus, I need maps.

As an aside, after trying to navigate the Roman public bathrooms for my friend with digestive issues, I now would like every travel guide to talk about public toilets. Banks and hotels wouldn’t hurt, either. Especially when Cordova suggests an overnight in Taos if you have fourteen days to spend in New Mexico.

Author fact: Cordova shares a couple of intimate details of her own life, like where she exchange wedding vows in Santa Fe and her favorite restaurants.

Book trivia: Santa Fe is not limited to Santa Fe. Cordova includes Taos and Albuquerque.

Yiddish Policemen’s Union

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Chabon, Michael. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. Narrated by Peter Riegert. Audible Productions, 2016.

Reason read: November is Imagination month. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union takes us to an alternate history which is quite imaginative.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union takes place in an alternate history when the Germans do not surrender the Second Great War for another four years past reality and President Kennedy is not assassinated from the grassy knoll. In this alternate history Kennedy ends up marrying Marilyn Monroe (of course he does). Sitka, Alaska is the site of a federally mandated safe refugee location for European Jews. The area was created at the height of World War II and sixty years later, the safe haven still exists. Only, now Alaska wants their territory back. The plot is great, but the characters of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union are what makes the novel hum. Chabon’s characters exude personality. To name a few: Meyer Landsman, the main protagonist, was a character I loved. This flawed policeman whose life is a mess cannot let go of one particular cold case, the murder of a drug addled chess prodigy and supposed messiah. Landsman is supervised by his ex-wife, Bina and she has ordered the force to abandon all cold cases now that the safe haven for refugees is being dismantled. Berko Shemets, his partner is half Jewish, half Tlingit and all intimidation.

As an aside, listen to the audio version narrated by Peter Riegert. Additionally, there is an interview with Michael Chabon that is not to be missed.

Author fact: Michael Chabon is also a screenwriter.

Book trivia: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union won a Hugo Award in 2008 and a Locus Award that same year.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Travel to Imaginary Places” (p 236).