Rose City Reader: 2024

Thursday, September 5, 2024

Object: A Memoir by Kristin Louise Duncombe -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Object: A Memoir of Childhood Abuse and a Shocking Cover-Up at the Highest Ranks of Government by Kristin Louise Duncombe

Thank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

You are twelve years old; it is dusk on a weekday evening, and your parents are drinking gin and tonics in the living room.

-- from Object: A Memoir of Childhood Abuse and a Shocking Cover-Up at the Highest Ranks of Government by Kristin Louise Duncombe.

I like those kinds of openings that put you immediately into the scene. And don't worry, if you are like me an are not a fan of second-person narration, Duncome drops it after the short Prologue and switches to first-person narration for the rest of the book.

Object is the difficult story of Duncome's sexual abuse as a preteen, the coverup that protected the perpetrator, and how she dealt with the trauma as she grew older. It's powerful stuff!

I loved Duncome's two earlier memoir about moving to Africa and then France, Trailing and Five Flights Up. She is an excellent storyteller, even when sharing the most personal details.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 is a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings. The idea is to share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your featured book. If you are reading an ebook or audiobook, find your teaser from the 56% mark.

Freda at Freda's Voice started and hosted The Friday 56 for a long, long time. She is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. Please visit Anne's blog and link to your Friday 56 post.

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Object:

Over time, I became terrified people could tell, just by looking at me, that I was hiding something. I became animated, funny, big, to distract them from the truth about me.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Object is a coming-of-age story twice told: once when a little girl grows up too fast, and a second time, in middle age, when the woman she has become finally heals. This important book is a fierce indictment of the silencing of girls and women in the United States and abroad.

Thursday, August 29, 2024

James by Percival Everett -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

James by Percival Everett

-- from James by Percival Everett.

My book club is reading this one for our next get together. It is a "reimagining" of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim the runaway slave, Huck's companion in adventure. Last week I reread the original before I read this one. The original is such a delight, I have mixed feelings about a retelling. But I like the concept so am looking forward to it.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

THE FRIDAY 56

Nothing could have prepared me for what she said next. She said, "Miss Watson told Judge Thatcher that she was going to sell you to a man in New Orleans."

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

While many narrative set pieces of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river’s banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin…), Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.

Thursday, August 22, 2024

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter.

--from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

My book club is reading James by Percival Everett for our next get together. James is a "reimagining" of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim the runaway slave, Huck's companion in adventure. I wanted to reread the original before I read the new novel.

I decided to read Huck Finn with my ears this time. The story depends so much on the dialects used that I want to hear them instead of imagine them in my head. I am about six chapters in and know this was a good decision. I have loved the book since I first read it in high school. The narrator of the audiobook, Patrick Fraley, really brings the story to life.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

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THE FRIDAY 56

When breakfast was ready we lolled on the grass and eat it smoking hot. Jim laid it in with all his might, for he was most about starved.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

In recent years, neither the persistent effort to "clean up" the racial epithets in Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn nor its consistent use in the classroom have diminished, highlighting the novel's wide-ranging influence and its continued importance in American society. An incomparable adventure story, it is a vignette of a turbulent, yet hopeful epoch in American history, defining the experience of a nation in voices often satirical, but always authentic.

Thursday, August 15, 2024

The Cheesemaker's Daughter by Kristin Vukovic -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

The Cheesemaker's Daughter by Kristin Vukovic

Marina gripped the rental car's wheel just as the heavens opened.

-- from The Cheesemaker's Daughter by Kristin Vukovic.

This debut novel just came out. It is the story of a woman in a shaky marriage who travels to Croatia to help her father with his cheesemaking business. It sounds charming! And it will count for a Croatia book for the European Reading Challenge. I've never read a book set in Croatia.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

THE FRIDAY 56

-- from The Cheesemaker's Daughter:

Luka picked up the heavy box with ease. She couldn't help but notice his fine build, how his biceps flexed under his black T shirt.

Oh, looks like there's more to the story than cheesemaking! Romance and travel -- a perfect book for the summer.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

In the throes of an unraveling marriage, New Yorker Marina Marzic returns to her native Croatian island where she helps her father with his struggling cheese factory, Sirana. Forced to confront her divided Croatian-American identity and her past as a refugee from the former Yugoslavia, Marina moves in with her parents on Pag and starts a new life working at Sirana. As she gradually settles back into a place that was once home, her life becomes inextricably intertwined with their island's cheese. When her past with the son of a rival cheesemaker stokes further unrest on their divided island, she must find a way to save Sirana--and in the process, learn to belong on her own terms.

Tuesday, August 13, 2024

Home Library -- BOOK THOUGHTS

BOOK THOUGHTS

Home Library

The story of a library . . .

Back in 2009 when my husband and I bought a then almost-100-year-old house, I really wanted a home library. We could live with a dark, rabbit warren of a kitchen and a couple of outdated bathrooms, even with Burnt Sienna tile counters. Converting a bedroom into a home library was my priority. Well, along with getting rid of the asbestos pipe insulation in the basement. Before we moved in, we spent eight months on crucial renovations. And yes, the library was one of them.

We converted one of the bedrooms on the second floor by removing a closet and installing built-in book shelves on three walls. The fourth wall had an existing bay window that definitely had to stay. It was quite a project, made more difficult (no doubt) by my insistence on fixed shelving. Fortunately, we had an incredible architect/builder who designed the library and had a finish carpenter build the shelves. Each section of the shelves was built off site, installed as a piece, and then trimmed out with crown moulding, etc., when they were built into the walls.

The big problem was that the section pieces wouldn’t fit up the staircase. All ten of them had to be hauled up through the window on a complicated, counter-balanced, sled-like contraption built for the purpose. It was quite a project.

After all that effort, we hit an impasse. I really wanted to hang art from the shelves, in front of the books. I love that look. My husband was adamant that I should never hammer any nails into the shelves. That made sense, given what it took to get the shelves in there.

But since then, I’ve always had in the back of my mind the idea of hanging a picture or two on those shelves. The other day, I found a framed picture at one of my haunts. It was pretty, went with the room, and was lightweight enough for what I had in mind. Yes! It worked! I hung the picture from the wire on its back over a very heavy, well-balanced, bronze knickknack sturdy enough to hold the picture. No nails! And I can move it easily when I need to reach the books.

I have loved and used the library for 15 years. It is my favorite room in the house. Now I finally finished decorating the shelves the way I envisioned so long ago. The new picture is the cherry on top. It might seem like nothing to you or anyone else who sees it, but it makes me happy every time I go in there.

Thursday, August 8, 2024

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

While the present century was in its teens, and on one sunshiny morning in June, there drove up to the great iron gate of Miss Pinkerton's academy for young ladies, on Chiswick Mall, a large family coach, with two fat horses in blazing harness, driven by a fat coachman in a three-cornered hat and wig, at the rate of four miles an hour.

-- Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray.

I am finally, really reading Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair is one of those books I always think I’ve read but I haven’t. I’ve seen adaptations and started reading it a few times, but I’ve never actually read it. It's on my Classics Club II list of 50 classics to read in five years.

This time, I’m going read it with my ears, even though I have this pretty Modern Library edition. I like to read big classic doorstops as audiobooks. A good narrator parses those long sentences for me, so I can appreciate the writing without tripping over all the commas, and makes the story come alive with the different voices and all. I just sit back and enjoy the story.

I’m almost three quarters of the way through and love it. I need the paper copy (and the wikipedia article) with me for when I get tangled up in the dozens of characters. But it’s such a treasure!

Have you read Vanity Fair?

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

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THE FRIDAY 56

-- from Vanity Fair:

Old Miss Crawley was certainly one of the reprobate. She had a snug little house in Park Lane, and, as she ate and drank a great deal too much during the season in London, she went to Harrowgate or Cheltenham for the summer.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

No one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth and worldly success than the alluring and ruthless Becky Sharp, who defies her impoverished background to clamber up the class ladder. Her sentimental companion Amelia, however, longs only for caddish soldier George. As the two heroines make their way through the tawdry glamour of Regency society, battles--military and domestic--are fought, fortunes made and lost. The one steadfast and honourable figure in this corrupt world is Dobbin with his devotion to Amelia, bringing pathos and depth to Thackeray's gloriously satirical epic of love and social adventure.

Wednesday, August 7, 2024

July 2024 -- MONTHLY WRAP UP

MONTHLY WRAP UP

July 2024

July was a blur. The month started well, with a super fun neighbor party at our house for Independence Day. But right after, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ordered supplemental briefing in the big Boy Scout bankruptcy case I'm working on. I spent the rest of the month feverishly pecking away at that brief and not paying attention to anything else.

Even through the blur, I somehow managed to read 12 books, which surprised me.

See anything here you’ve read or want to?

Men at Arms by Evelyn Waugh. This is the first book in Waugh's somewhat autobiographical Sword of Honor trilogy, based roughly on Waugh's service during WWII. It is less serious than his earlier satirical novels like Decline and Fall and Vile Bodies, but not as lyrical and contemplative as later books like Brideshead Revisited. I had a great time reading it with with a Waugh Together Now group on Instagram. It is also on my Classics Club II list.

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett was a fun little bon bon about the Queen of England discovering her love of reading. It was a lot of fun, although not as delightful as I had anticipated. I think my expectations were too high.

Phineas Redux by Anthony Trollope is the fourth book in his series of six Palliser Novels, also known as the Parliamentary Novels. It's wonderful to get caught up in Trollope's world where all the characters swirl around over the many volumes.

Out of the Shelter by David Lodge. I'm a big Lodge fan and this is his first book. It's the semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story of a young man in post-war England who takes his first steps into adulthood during a holiday with his sister in Heidelberg where she works for the American army. It is a charming story. This was on my TBR 24 in '24 stack.

The Dark Vineyard by Marin Walker. This is the second in his Bruno, Chief of Police series set in a small French village. Now that I wrapped up Louise Penny's Three Pines series and Ian Rankin's John Rebus series, I have time to tackle this one.

Unjust Debts: How Our Bankruptcy System Makes America More Unequal by Melissa Jacoby. This one was for work, obviously, but still fascinating. I was pleased as punch to see that she cites one of my briefs in the Boy Scout bankruptcy!

Brighton Rock by Graham Greene. I am working away at all Greene's books. This one is so good but so sad.

J by Howard Jacobson is an odd book. It is a story of dystopian antisemitism set in the not-so-distant future. It is excellent, but a little murky, and the ending disturbed me. I feel like I missed the significance of part of the ending. This was another TBR 24 in ’24 pick.

NOT PICTURED

I also read a few books with my ears. I always have an audiobook going.

God in the Dock by C. S. Lewis is a collection of all his essays that had not been collected before. I read it as another Instagram group read as part of my effort to read all his books. His essays always make me think more deeply about my own faith.

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. This was my IRL book club pick last month and I loved it. It was my first McBride book but won’t be my last.

Heat Wave by Penelope Lively. This is a novel about a mother watching her mistakes play out in her daughter's life. It was perfectly constructed, entertaining, moving, and startling.

Spook Street by Mick Herron, the fourth in his Slough House series. This is the other series I dove into after finishing the Penny and Rankin books. I absolutely love it, even more now that we started watching the TV series. I'm trying to stay ahead of the TV show with the books.

How about you. Did you read anything outstanding last month?

Thursday, August 1, 2024

The Latecomer by Jean Hanff Korelitz -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

The Latecomer by Jean Hanff Korelitz

The Oppenheimer Triplets — who were thought of by not a single person who knew them as “the Oppenheimer triplets” — had been in full flight from one another as far back as their ancestral petri dish.

-- The Latecomer by Jean Hanff Korelitz.

This is my book club's latest pick. I am about two thirds of the way through it and love it. But I'm nervous that something might happen in the last third that turns me off the story. I read The Plot by the same author and loved the first half but thought the second half turned predictable and hated the ending.

The Latecomer is a clever family story about three IVF triplets who never got along and couldn't wait to leave for college and away from each other. Their parents are wrapped up in their own miseries. What I like is the direction each of the triplets seem to be heading because their paths are decidedly different --different from each other but also different from typical characters in contemporary fiction. I hope they all end up fulfilled by their life choices. But I fear something unexpected might pop up and ruin everything.

Have you read this one, The Plot, or any of Jean Hanff Korelitz's other books?

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

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THE FRIDAY 56

Still, our father had been looking at paintings — often quite difficult paintings — for years by then, and because of that he was able to read an essential truth about those three tiny people — that they had arrived as they already were and would ever be: Harrison wild for escape, Sally preemptively sullen, Lewyn full of woe as he reached out for the others.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

The Latecomer follows the story of the wealthy, New York City-based Oppenheimer family, from the first meeting of parents Salo and Johanna, under tragic circumstances, to their triplets born during the early days of IVF. As children, the three siblings – Harrison, Lewyn, and Sally – feel no strong familial bond and cannot wait to go their separate ways, even as their father becomes more distanced and their mother more desperate. When the triplets leave for college, Johanna, faced with being truly alone, makes the decision to have a fourth child. What role will the “latecomer” play in this fractured family?

Thursday, July 25, 2024

The Widow on Dwyer Court by Lisa Kusel -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

The Widow on Dwyer Court by Lisa Kusel

I am so amped up to start writing book two in my Strong Lust series that I jump out of bed before the alarm rings, brew a batch of coffee, then lock myself in my office.

-- from The Widow on Dwyer Court by Lisa Kusel, a new "sexy, phycological thriller."

I loved Lisa Kusel's heartfelt, charming, and funny memoir Rash about moving her family to Bali. So when I saw she has a new book out, I snapped it up. By the way, check out my interview with Lisa about Rash -- it will make you want to read that one too!

The premise of The Widow on Dwyer Court didn't appeal to me, I admit. The main character is a "soccer mom" in a sexless marriage who writes erotic romance novels. I was worried there was too little sex on the one hand and too much o the other. But I read the reviews on amazon and was convinced to give it a try. For one thing, the "erotic" bits are not over the top. Some books require a higher level of "suspension of disbelief," but in the hands of a good writer can pull you right into that world. Looks like this one will do just that.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

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THE FRIDAY 56

Just for the heck of it, I opened the website for the coroner's office and see that autopsy reports in Colorado are public records. I fill in the blanks and hit SEND.

Oooooo. I like this! I always enjoy a little interned sleuthing.

FROM THE PUCBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Thirty-six-year-old stay-at-home soccer mom Kate Burke is happily married to Matt Parsons, although their marriage looks very different behind closed doors. Kate is no longer interested in having sex with her husband, so, while they still love each other madly, they make an arrangement: Matt can have one-night stands with other women on work trips, but when he returns home, he has to tell Kate about them--every juicy detail.

Because Kate has a secret life writing erotic romance novels, and Matt's adulterous affairs are her bread and butter.

The family equilibrium is upset, however, when Annie Meyers, an eccentric young widow, moves to town with her daughter. At first, Kate is smitten with this wild, witty woman, who gives her a much-needed break from the other picture-perfect suburban moms, although she's not sure how much of her secret life she's willing to share with her new friend. But, it turns out Annie has secrets too--big ones that could destroy all their lives.

Thursday, July 18, 2024

Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier

It was a cold grey day in late November. The weather had changed overnight, when a backing wind brought a granite sky and a mizzling rain with it, and although it was now only a little after two o’clock in the afternoon the pallor of a winter evening seemed to have closed upon the hills, cloaking them in mist.

-- from Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier. I offer the opening two sentences because the first sentence, on its own, is pretty boring. But that second sentence really sets a scene!

Jamaica Inn is one of my favorite books and probably my favorite du Maurier books (although there are many runners-up). It's such a wild tale of smugglers and wreckers on the Cornish coast.

I'm not reading it right now, having read it last year with my Du Maurier Deep Dive group on Instagram. But I was organizing my bookshelves and this fabulous cover caught my eye.

Are you a fan of du Maurier? Do you have a favorite?

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

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THE FRIDAY 56

This was at any rate Mary's hope, and meanwhile she must make the best of the grim six months that lay ahead, and, if possible, she was determined to have the better of her uncle in the long run, and expose him and his confederates to the law. She would have shrugged her shoulders at smuggling alone, though the flagrant dishonesty of the trade disgusted her, but all she had seen so far went to prove that Joss Merlyn and his friends were not content with this only; they were desperate men, afraid of nothing and no one, and did not stop at murder.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

On a bitter November evening, young Mary Yellan journeys across the rainswept moors to Jamaica Inn in honor of her mother's dying request. When she arrives, the warning of the coachman begins to echo in her memory, for her aunt Patience cowers before hulking Uncle Joss Merlyn. Terrified of the inn's brooding power, Mary gradually finds herself ensnared in the dark schemes being enacted behind its crumbling walls -- and tempted to love a man she dares not trust.

Wednesday, July 17, 2024

Seven Deadly Sins -- BOOK THOUGHTS

BOOK THOUGHTS

Seven Deadly Sins

There is a "Seven Deadly Sins" challenge that periodically buzzes around Bookstagram. It caught my eye the other day and was just the inspiration I needed to try something creative.

What "sinful" books are hiding on your shelves? Here's my collection:

PRIDE: a big or challenging book

The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. It took me years to get through this poetical doorstop. I struggled with a lot of the poems, especially the earlier ones. But I am proud to have accomplished the task of finally finishing it.

GREED: a book you own in more than one edition

Officers and Gentlemen by Evelyn Waugh. I love Waugh, Graham Greene, and Kingsley Amis and have several duplicate editions of their books because I pick them up when I find an unusually nifty edition. Same goes for Agatha Christy, Charles Dickens, Alexandre Dumas, and a few other classic authors. And I confess to owning several copies of Wind in the Willows.

LUST: a book you bought for its cover

A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addict by John Baxter. I didn’t actually buy this myself, but my friend saw the lust in my eyes when I found it and she bought it for me as a surprise.

WRATH: a book you did not enjoy

The Magus by John Fowles. I have enormous tolerance for most books, but this one – NO! I always identify it as my least favorite book. Pompous nitwits running around a stupid island playing games with each other! And all the time spouting humanistic gobblygook about the death of God, or whatever they were prattling on about. I was shocked to find it hiding on my shelf because I thought I gave it away years ago.

GLUTTONY: a book you would reread

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. I’ve only recently started rereading and have so many I’d like to revisit. This one is near the top of my list and was first to hand. My book club read it about ten years ago, on my suggestion, and most people didn't like it. I did and it is a classic Golden Age mystery. I'd like to read it again.

ENVY: a book you’d want to live in

All in One Basket: Nest Eggs by Deborah Devonshire. Debo was the youngest of the Mitford Sisters and my favorite. Ever since I read her memoir, Wait for Me! I've wanted to be her. I have this one and a couple of other book by or about her to feed my fantasy.

SLOTH: a book that’s been on your TBR shelf forever

The Country Girls Trilogy by Edna O’Brien. There are over 2,000 books on my TBR shelves, so I didn’t even try to find the one that’s been there the longest. There are some that have been there since I was in college in the 1980s! This one calls the loudest to me.

NOTES

If you like the idea of this challenge, please play along, on your blog or social media. If you've already done it, please let me know. Either way, please leave a comment with a link to your post so I can find it.

Saturday, July 13, 2024

Pocketful of Poseys by Thomas Reed -- BOOK REVIEW

BOOK REVIEW

Pocketful of Poseys by Thomas Reed (Beaufort Books, 2023)

Pocketful of Poseys is a warmhearted family story about a brother and sister charged with scattering their mother Cinny's ashes. The catch is that Cinny wanted her ashes mixed with the ashes of her husband, their father, and scattered in five different places around the world. She also left the money to finance the trip.

Grace and Brian, 40-something twins, head off with spouses and children on a round-the-world adventure, only opening their mother's instruction letters as they go. Through the letters and the travel they inspire, brother and sister learn the secrets of their parents' marriage, explore their own pasts, and forge stronger bonds with their own families.

I found the story easy to engage with and I cared for the characters. I enjoy stories abut families learning to accept and forgive, especially when livened up with a little humor, like this one is.

I though the pacing was a little uneven. There ae two big digressions early on, one providing Cinny's backstory, the other Brian's. I found both distracting because they abruptly pulled me out of the narrative. Then I anticipated the same sort of digression for Grace and the other characters, and I got distracted waiting for those to pop up, which they never did. This lack of similar treatment for the other characters made the first backstory digressions stand out as clunky info-dumps. I particularly missed more information about their father. There are a couple of hints that his death might have been more sinister than a winter car crash, but we get no answers. Again, compared to the almost exhaustive detail we learn about Cinny's past, this disparate treatment stood out.

Still, I really liked the book. Thomas Reed's writing style is smooth and lively, a real pleasure to read. Highly recommended.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Grace Tingley and Brian Posey are forty-something twins whose lives have gone in very different directions. Grace, now a private school teacher in coastal Connecticut, was a PhD candidate at Yale when an unexpected pregnancy threw her plans into a tailspin. Brian, an adventure travel executive in Seattle, barely scraped through an obscure New England college and recently married Ella, after three years in an intimate relationship with a charismatic man from Jamaica.

When their widowed mother Cinny, a charter member of Woodstock Nation, is diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, Grace and Brian are there for her last days in hospice care. This is where Cinny reveals her staggering plan for the siblings: They’re to sprinkle her ashes, mixed with their father’s, at a series of exotic locations around the globe—some remote, some challengingly public, all known and loved by the Poseys.

NOTE

I got a review copy of Pocketful of Poseys through the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program. My copy was free, in exchange for my honest review.

Thursday, July 11, 2024

Men at Arms by Evelyn Waugh -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Men at Arms by Evelyn Waugh

When Guy Crouchback's grandparents, Gervase and Hermione, came to Italy on their honeymoon, French troops manned the defenses of Rome, the Sovereign Pontiff drove out in an open carriage and Cardinals took their exercise side-saddle on the Pincian Hill.

-- Men at Arms by Evelyn Waugh. I like long opening sentences like this, even when they set the mood, not the actual scene. This is a book about Guy's experience in the British Army during WWII, not the story of his grandparents. So we quickly move from a brief family history to Guy's story. Still, the first sentence pulled me into the story.

Men at Arms is the first book in Waugh's WWII "Sword of Honour" trilogy (Sword of Honor for those of us who use American spelling). It is followed by Officers and Gentlemen and The End of the Battle (Unconditional Surrender in it's canonical, UK title). I'm reading the trilogy with a group of Waugh fans on Instagram. We are working our way through all his books. The trilogy is also on my Classics Club II list.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

THE FRIDAY 56

The three probationary Halberdiers stood back for the ladies to pass and followed them through the garden-gate with adolescent misgivings and there before them unmistakably, separated from them only by the plate-glass of the drawing-room window, stood Lieutenant-Colonel, shortly to be gazetted Brigadier, Ritchie-Hook glaring out at them balefully with a single, terrible eye. It was black as the brows above it, this eye, black as the patch which hung on the other side of the lean skew nose.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

"An eminently readable comedy of modern war" (New York Times), Men at Arms is the first novel in Evelyn Waugh's brilliant Sword of Honor trilogy.

Guy Crouchback, determined to get into the war, takes a commission in the Royal Corps of Halberdiers. His spirits high, he sees all the trimmings but none of the action. And his first campaign, an abortive affair on the West African coastline, ends with an escapade that seriously blots his Halberdier copybook.

Thursday, June 27, 2024

Brighton Rock by Graham Greene -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Brighton Rock by Graham Greene

Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him.

-- Brighton Rock by Graham Greene. Wow, that's some opening sentence! It sure got my attention.

Graham Greene is one of my very favorite authors. He left a legacy of 26 novels (including two early ones that he “repudiated” and haven’t been in print since), several volumes of short stories, poetry, plays, screenplays, autobiographies, travel books, essays, criticism, two biographies, general nonfiction, and even children’s books.

I haven’t come close to reading, or even collecting, all of Greene’s books. I would like to read at least all his (existing) fiction. So far, I’ve read 11 of his novels and short story collections and one book of travel writing.

One of my favorite Greene quotes is:

One’s life is more formed, I sometimes think, by books than by human beings: it is out of books one learns about love and pain at second hand. Even if we have the happy chance to fall in love, it is because we have been conditioned by what we have read . . .

 ― from Travels with My Aunt

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

THE FRIDAY 56

She didn't even know the name of a drink. In Nelson Place from which she had emerged like a mole into the daylight of Snow's restaurant and the Palace Pier, she had never known a boy with enough money to offer her a drink.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Graham Greene's chilling exposé of violence and gang warfare in the pre-war underworld is a classic of its kind. Pinkie, a teenage gangster on the rise, is devoid of compassion or human feeling, despising weakness of both the spirit and the flesh. Responsible for the razor slashes that killed mob boss Kite and also for the death of Hale, a reporter who threatened the livelihood of the mob, Pinkie is the embodiment of calculated evil. As a Catholic, however, Pinkie is convinced that his retribution does not lie in human hands. He is therefore not prepared for Ida Arnold, Hale's avenging angel.

Thursday, June 20, 2024

The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope

MY BOOK BEGINNING

It was admitted by all her friends, and also by her enemies,—who were in truth the more numerous and active body of the two,—that Lizzie Greystock had done very well with herself.

-- from The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope. This is the third book in Trollope's "Palliser Novels" series. Unlike the others in the six-novel series, The Eustace Diamonds has little to do with Parliament or the characters in the other books. There is overlap, but this one stands on its own.

I'm reading this one, and the other Palliser books for a group read on Instagram. This is the only one of the six that I've read before. I greatly enjoyed it when I read it about 20 years ago and am loving the reread. This time, I'm reading it with my ears.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

THE FRIDAY 56

Mr. Camperdown's first attempt was made by a most courteous and even complimentary note, in which he suggested to Lady Eustace that it would be for the advantage of all parties that the family jewels should be kept together. Lizzie as she read this note smiled, and said to herself that she did not exactly see how her own interests would be best served by such an arrangement.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Following the death of her husband Sir Florian, beautiful Lizzie Eustace mysteriously comes into possession of a hugely expensive diamond necklace. She maintains it was a gift from her husband, but the Eustace lawyers insist she give it up, and while her cousin Frank takes her side, her new lover Lord Fawn states that he will only marry her if the necklace is surrendered. As gossip and scandal intensify, Lizzie's truthfulness is thrown into doubt, and, in her desire to keep the jewels, she is driven to increasingly desperate acts. The third in Trollope's Palliser series, The Eustace Diamonds bears all the hallmarks of his later works, blending dark cynicism with humour and a keen perception of human nature.

Thursday, June 13, 2024

Show Game by Steve Anderson -- Book Beginning

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Show Game by Steve Anderson

I have the bastard, finally, I got him. Target number one.

-- from Show Game by Steve Anderson.

I'm a big fan of Steve Anderson's "Kaspar Brothers" series of WWII/Cold War thrillers. His new novel, Show Game, is a departure from the series. It is a modern-day psychological thriller about a vigilante targeting wrongdoers, starting with a pedophile priest. It looks pretty dark, but good!

Of course, Show Game caught my attention right away because of the priest angle. I've spent the last 18 years doing nothing but going after pedophiles and the institutions that harbored them. I've used the courts, not kidnapping, but I admit I can understand the vigilante idea.

Show Game launches in July, but is available for pre-order now.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

THE FRIDAY 56

-- from Show Game:

There's no actual timer counting down but it's not a bad idea. Maybe in a future production.

This is going to be exciting!

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

The pandemic may be over, but the world is not safe for those who prey on the innocent. A vigilante known by the alias "Alex" knows what these transgressors have done. And taking them captive is only the first step toward vengeance. In order to be set free, they must first play the Show Game . . .

A predatory priest, a double-dealing politician, a fraudulent philanthropist--Alex has ways of making them confess, on camera, for all the world to witness. But the Show Game is building toward a darkly personal finale: exposing society's most notorious and evil abuser.

As Alex gets closer to the main event, investigative reporter Owen Tanaka is determined to unmask the vigilante's true identity and motive. But when a shocking revelation hits close to home, Owen must decide whether to stop a criminal mastermind's devious scheme . . . or let the Show Game play its final round.

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