Saturday, July 5, 2025

June 2025 Reading Wrap Up -- BOOK THOUGHTS


BOOK THOUGHTS

June 2025 Monthly Wrap Up

How about a big mug of coffee to go with a big stack of books!

I had a lull in my work schedule in June, giving me lots of time to read. I read 21 books last month, which is a personal record. Have you read any of these or do you plan to?

Here they are, in the order I read them. If they aren't in the picture, it's because I read them with my ears and don't have a physical copy. Oh, I also forgot to include a Ruth Rendell book in the picture, even though I read it with my eyes.

  • Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Gartner. I loved this one and reviewed it here. I didn't know anything about Gartner before I read this, other than that she is called the Barefoot Contessa. Her story is inspirational!
  • Maigret and the Spinster by Simenon. I have a lot of Simenon's mystery books on my shelves, but have been slow to read them. I found Maigret to be odd, but charming. I want to read more. This is my France book for the 2025 European Reading Challenge. I'm trying to read more books in translation for the challenge. 
  • A New Lease of Death by Ruth Rendell. Now that's I've wrapped up a few other mystery series, I plan to focus on Rendell's Inspector Wexford books. This is the second one. I thought it was terrific, but I haven't really gotten into the series yet. I have time -- there are 24 books in the series. 
  • The Punishment She Deserves by Elizabeth George. Her Inspector Lynley series is one I've doubled down on in the last few years. I enjoy the books immensely, this one in particular, but they are so very long! Fortunately, my library recently got many of the audiobooks and that has helped enormously. I can listen to a 24-hour-long audiobook faster than I can read a 900-page book, especially when I speed up the playback speed. 
  • Table for Two by Amor Towels. I loved Rules of Civility and this collection of short stories and a novella is in the same spirit. The novella is a sort-of sequel to Rules of Civility
  • A Coffin for Dimitrios by Eric Ambler is an early international thriller, published in 1930. The plot was a little messy, but it was a lot of fun.
  • A Burnt-Out Case by Graham Greene was excellent. It's the story of an architect who lost his passion for his work and his religious faith and goes to a leper colony in Africa to lose himself. 
  • The Pilgrims Redress by C.S. Lewis. I wanted to like this Christian classic, but I struggle with allegory.
  • Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter. This short collection of three southern gothic novellas knocked my socks off. Porter is in the same school as Flannery O'Connor, with maybe a tough of Eudora Welty. 
  • Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz, book five in his Hawthorne & Horowitz series. This is one of my very favorite series, but the fourth book, The Twist of the Knife, disappointed me. It was not as clever, more traditionally formulaic, than the first three. So I put off reading this fifth one when it first came out. I'm glad I finally read it because it is as snappy and fun as the first three.
  • Meditations by Marcus Aurelias. Let’s just say, I’m not a stoic. This was a slog. 
  • Transcription by Kate Atkinson. This story of WWII and Cold War espionage in London was a delight. I wish I read it earlier.
  • Three Summers by Margarita Liberaki. This coming of age story about three sisters in Greece was fabulous, a highlight of my reading month. Another book in translation, this was my Greece pick for the European Reading Challenge. 
  • Double Blind by Edward St. Aubyn. I greatly admire his Patrick Melrose books and Lost for Words is an all-time favorite, so I was excited to read this. It had way more brain science than I expected and not enough story about the human relationships, but it was good and I'm glad I read it.
  • The Daydreamer by Ian McEwan is his only kids book. It was a short, enjoyable read. 
  • The Ice Saints by Frank Tuohy, a forgotten classic that won the 1964 James Tait Black prize. It is the story of a woman from London in the late 1950s who goes to Poland to visit her sister who had married a Polish soldier after WWII. The story is sweet, a little funny, and sad, providing a clear-eyed look at life behind the Iron Curtain. This was my Poland pick for the ERC, even though it is not in translation. 

As work slows down, my reading speeds up! I used to read eight or nine books a month, around 100 a year. The last few years, as I've started to wind down my law practice and turn it over to my junior partner, I've been reading 15 or 16 books a month. June was the first month I really didn't have a lot of work to do and it shows in the number of books I read. I hope this trend continues because I might just have a chance to read all the books on my TBR shelves!



Thursday, July 3, 2025

Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 


BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville

Thank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays on this Fourth of July. If you are here in the US, I hope you have fun plans for the holiday. We're having neighbors over for a pot luck, which I am really looking forward to. 

As always on Book Beginnings, 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
Amongst the novel objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of conditions. I readily discovered the prodigious influence which this primary fact exercises on the whole course of society, by giving a certain direction to public opinion, and a certain tenor to the laws; by imparting new maxims to the governing powers, and peculiar habits to the governed.
-- from Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville. 

Democracy in America seems like a good pick for Independence Day. De Tocqueville was a French political scientist and diplomat who travelled extensively in the United States in 1831. He wrote Democracy in America to record his observations of the government, culture, literature, and attitudes of the new country. 

I think Democracy in America is one of those classics that is appreciated for its existence more than it is actually read. My copy, pictured above, belonged to my husband when he was in law school in the 1970s. I can see from his margin notes that he, like I did in law school 15 years later, read "in" the book but didn't read the whole book. Fair enough. It's dense. 

Have you read Democracy in America? Or read in it? I still plan to read the whole thing, which is why I hang onto my husband's vintage copy. Although now that I take a closer look at the cover, I see this edition is "specially edited and abridged for the modern reader." I'm such a completist, I think I will have to find an unabridged version if I ever get around to reading 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.

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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 Democracy in America:
When a nation modifies the elective qualification, it may easily be foreseen that sooner or later that qualification will be entirely abolished. There is no more invariable rule in the history of society: the further electoral rights are extended, the greater is the need of extending them; for after each concession the strength of the democracy increases, and its demands increase with its strength.
FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-59) came to America in 1831 to see what a great republic was like. What struck him most was the country's equality of conditions, its democracy. The book he wrote on his return to France, Democracy in America, is both the best ever written on democracy and the best ever written on America. It remains the most often quoted book about the United States, not only because it has something to interest and please everyone, but also because it has something to teach everyone.


Thursday, June 26, 2025

Transcription by Kate Atkinson -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Transcription by Kate Atkinson

Thank you for joining me this week for Book Beginnings on Fridays where participants share the opening sentence (or two) from the book they are reading. You can also share from a book you want to feature, even if you are not reading it at the moment. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

"Miss Armstrong! Miss Armstrong! Can you hear me?".

-- from Transcription by Kate Atkinson.

Transcription came out in 2019 and sat unread on my shelf until last week. I regret not reading it immediately because I loved it. 

It is the story of a young woman who gets recruited during WWII to work for MI5. After the war, she goes to work for the BBC, but her past intrudes on her new life. Atkinson tells the exciting, comlpicated story with her usual charm and subtle humor. 


YOUR BOOK BEGINNING

Please add the link to your book beginning post in the linky box below. If you participate or share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings so other people can find your post.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 asks participants to share a two-sentence teaser from their book of the week. If your book is an ebook or audiobook, pick a teaser from the 56% point. 

Anna at My Head is Full of Books hosts The Friday 56, a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please visit My Head is Full of Books to leave the link to your post. 

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Transcription:
Nor did they have any idea that Godfrey Toby worked for MI5 and was not the Gestapo agent to whom they thought they were bringing traitorous information. And they would have been very surprised to know that the following day a girl sat at a big Imperial typewriter in the flat next door and transcribed those traitorous conversations, one top copy and two carbons at a time.
FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION
In 1940, eighteen-year old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathizers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past forever.

Ten years later, now a radio producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, on a different battleground, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat. A bill of reckoning is due, and she finally begins to realize that there is no action without consequence.


Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Favorite Books -- BOOK THOUGHTS

 


BOOK THOUGHTS

Favorite Books

Here are two dozen of my favorite books. Think of this as a sort of Meet the Book Blogger post. I pulled these favorite fiction and favorite nonfiction books off my shelves to illustrate the types of books I like to read. They aren't my favorite books of all times, but they are favorites that I've kept around. All have survived several shelf purges, proving they really are favorite books. 

One thing you can tell from these favorites is I don't run out to read the latest book. My TBR shelves overflow with dated popular fiction, "modern" classics from the 20th Century, and books that were never popular but caught my eye. I read a lot of crime fiction and dabble with a few romance novels now and again, but there are several genres I rarely, if ever, read, like sci-fi, fantasy, erotica, and horror. 

As for nonfiction, I love food writing, travel writing of the expat memoir variety, biographies of Midcentury socialites (there's a sub-genre for you!), style guides (as in writing style, not clothes), coffee table books about home decorating, and books about books.   

Do we share any tastes in books? Here are some of my favorites.



 FAVORITE FICTION

📗 The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch

📗 Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

📗 The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark

📗 Independence Day by Richard Ford

📗 Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

📗 Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion

📗 Mating by Norman Rush

📗 Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey

📗 Transcription by Kate Atkinson

📗 Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

📗 Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding

📗 American Tabloid by James Ellroy



FAVORITE NONFICTION

📘 Merry Hall by Beverley Nichols

📘 The Library Book by Susan Orlean

📘 Wait for Me! By Deborah Mitford

📘 The King’s English: A Guide to Modern Usage by Kingsley Amis

📘 Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose by Flannery O’Connor

📘 Up in the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell

📘 My Life in France by Julia Child

📘 The Food of France by Waverley Root

📘 Eats Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss

📘 The Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman’s Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue by Sonia Purnell

📘 Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government by P.J. O’Rourke

Have you read any of these? Would you?




Thursday, June 19, 2025

BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

The internet is down (again) in my neighborhood. So please bear with me for this makeshift Book Beginnings on Friday. I had to do the post on my phone, which is crazy making. 

Which is why there is an old picture of my husband and cat instead of a book. 

Mr. Linky is not letting me log in on my phone  so please leave a link to your Book Beginnings posting a comment. ASAP I will get the linky box back and, if possible, add your links  

This happened a couple of weeks ago and we didn’t get internet back for almost two days. You don’t think about how much you use it until it’s gone! 

Please make do with me for now. And join me next week for, I hope, normal Book Beginnings on Friday. 




Saturday, June 14, 2025

My Reviews of Three Food Memoirs -- WEEKEND COOKING



WEEKEND COOKING
My Reviews of Three Food Memoirs

Food-centric memoirs are a favorite subgenre of mine. I recently read three of them back-to-back, which felt like gluttony even to me. That doesn’t mean I am not looking forward to the next one to pop up on my TBR shelf!


Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir by Ina Garten

My sister gave me Be Ready When the Luck Happens for Christmas, knowing I would enjoy it as much as she did. She was spot on. I loved everything about it. Well, I wish it had more recipes – there are only a handful – but that just gives me the excuse to try Ina Garten's cookbooks.

My reaction surprised me a bit. I really didn't know anything about Ina Garten before I read this new memoir. I knew she is famous, had a business called The Barefoot Contessa, and posted a pandemic video of a giant cosmo cocktail that went viral. But I never watched her on tv and don't have any of her cookbooks. I was curious, though and I love reading about food people, so I looked forward to reading it. It didn't disappoint. What an interesting life!

The book starts with Garten’s childhood, which was not all that nice. Her parents were not supportive. In fact, they were psychologically, and sometimes physically, abusive. Now, as a woman in her 70s who’s clearly had plenty of counseling, she has distance from this background and can reflect on the wisdom she gained from it. Most of the book is about her marriage to Jeffrey and her career. Theirs is a long and successful marriage, but it had rough patches early on, even a lengthy separation. The support Jeffrey gave her, and her difficult childhood, are touchstones for Garten and she returns to both throughout the book.

My favorite thing about the book was learning about her career. She was working for the White House Office of Management and Budget, writing nuclear policy, and bored out of her socks, when she up and decided to buy The Barefoot Contessa food shop in the Hamptons. After 18 years, she wanted to do something new, so turned her hand to writing cookbooks. That led to TV shows, magazine columns, and other ventures. As a woman who started and ran my own business for the last 12 years, Garten’s risk taking and entrepreneurial spirit appeal to me enormously. I loved hearing about her professional growth and need for new business challenges. She is inspiring.


A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg

Unfortunately, I did not care for the second food memoir I read nearly as much as I loved Ina Garten’s book. A Homemade Life has been sitting on my TBR shelf for a while now, so I included it in my stack of books for the TBR 25 in ’25 Challenge. I’m glad I read it, and even more glad to get it off my shelf. But it wasn’t for me. I might be too old for it.

Molly Wizenberg is a self-taught chef (like Garten) who started a food blog called Orangette back in 2004. The blog led to this book, a 2009 memoir (with recipes) of her life from childhood to her wedding in 2008. That description appealed to me and is what made me buy the book in the first place. But the execution didn’t live up to my expectations.

It's not that the book or the recipes are bad. Wizenberg writes well and generally knows how to tell a good story. It’s just that she didn’t strike me as someone who really likes food or knows much about cooking. For example, she described wanting to make (up) a cake with apricots and honey baked into the top. But she put the apricots filled with honey on top of the cake batter before it went into the oven and was surprised that the apricots sunk! Even my husband knows that if you want fruit on the top of the cake, you put it in the bottom of the pan. Flip over, fruit on top. It’s not a mystery.

As for not really liking food, I’m sure she does – she made it her life. But she had an odd relationship with food and no clear philosophy about food and cooking. Like, does she view cooking as a private pleasure for herself and family? Or does she prefer cooking as a form of hospitality and entertainment? Does she like basic recipes, traditional cooking, festive meals? She never frames her approach to food. The book has bits of all those things, in no particular order. For instance, it sounds like she was a vegetarian for a while, so many (too many in my opinion) of the recipes are for baked goods and salad. But then she’s roasting chickens and making meatballs, with no explanation for why she switched. Her boyfriend/husband was a vegetarian and the master of making dinner out of a few scraps of things. That might have been interesting to experience, but not so much to read about. For example, I really don’t believe that a “salad” made by piling arugula and fresh figs on a chopping board with a hunk of “hard cheese” and – yes – chocolate shavings would be good. And no, I don’t need to try it myself. I’ll pass, like I wish I had passed on the book.


Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table by Ruth Reichl

The third of my food memoirs was Tender at the Bone, Ruth Reichl’s first memoir. I’ve read all her other nonfiction and one of her novels, so I know about how Reichl went from writing restaurant reviews in Los Angeles to be the restaurant reviewer at the New York Times and then Editor of Gourmet magazine until it shut down in 2009. This book is about her life before she became a restaurant reviewer.

Like Garten, Reichl had a difficult childhood. Her parents were loving, but her mother was bipolar. Reichl describes what it was like growing up in the chaotic environment her mother’s illness created, how that experience shaped her, and how (also like Garten) it led in part to her early marriage.

Knowing from her other books how her career took off later, this one was interesting, but not riveting like it was to read about her later life. But Reichl’s origin story is still worth reading, if only for the anecdotes about living in a commune in Berkley and cooking at a cooperatively owned restaurant. I enjoyed it very much, the story and the recipes, but it didn't knock my socks off like her later books did. I am sure I would have reacted differently had I read it first.


NOTES

Weekend Cooking is a weekly blog event hosted by Marg at The Adventures of an Intrepid ReaderBeth Fish Reads started the event in 2009 and bloggers have been sharing book and food related posts ever since.

My sister gave me the book book of Be Ready When the Luck Happens and I love it because it has a ton of photographs. But I decided to read the text with my ears because Garten reads the audiobook herself. I really like it when authors narrate their own nonfiction books. You get a better sense of the tone the author wanted to convey. 







Thursday, June 12, 2025

Brilliant, Beautiful, Bipolar by Liz Casper -- BOOK BEGINNINGS


BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Brilliant, Beautiful, Bipolar: How Losing My Mind Saved My Soul by Liz Casper

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
The first thing you should know is that I avoided writing this book for several years until I could get some distance and perspective regarding all I have been through, as chronicled in this book. 
-- from the Prologue to Brilliant, Beautiful, Bipolar by Liz Casper.

Liz Casper was a successful doctor, entrepreneur, and mother who's life turned upside down when she developed bipolar disorder in her 50s. Her new memoir tells the story of her struggle to live with and heal from her devastating diagnosis. She tells her story with charm and self-deprecating, often sarcastic, humor. I raced through it, needing to know how her story ends. 

See the Publisher's Description below for more details. If you like a real-life thriller, this one is for you! 

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 Brilliant, Beautiful, Bipolar:
Steve Jobs was waiting for me [on my computer] and proceeded to show me my future: reality television show (starring Jerry and me, obviously), consumer products business, fashion brand, charitable foundation, and so forth. I was comforted knowing there was a master plan for me and didn't think to question the veracity of what I was seeing. 
FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION
Liz Casper is a former medical doctor, artis, and author from the Pacific Northwest. In her first book, BRILLIANT, BEAUTIFUL, BIPOLAR, Liz shares with us her personal journey before, during, and after her diagnosis of bipolar disorder. The book, set in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, chronicles Liz’s experience both living with and healing from this devasting diagnosis.

As a former 4th generation physician, Liz cared for innumerable patients in her career with mental health diagnoses, but it wasn’t until she was diagnosed herself that she truly understood what the mental health patient actually experiences, both in their own lives, and in society in general. Through her captivating storytelling, Liz allows us a rare glimpse into the fascinating world of bipolar disorder and the experiences one has when living through this kind of illness. Always entertaining, and highly educational,
BRILLIANT, BEAUTIFUL, BIPOLAR takes us on a rare voyage inside the mind of the manic, bipolar patient.


Thursday, June 5, 2025

Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir by Ina Garten -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 


BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir by Ina Garten

Thank you for joining me this week for Book Beginnings on Fridays where participants share the opening sentence (or two) from the book they are reading. You can also share from a book you want to feature, even if you are not reading it at the moment. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

"No, I'm not doing it, I'm not climbing that hill."

-- from Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir by Ina Garten. My sister gave me this book for Christmas and I just finished it. I loved it.

I really didn't know anything about Ina Garten before I read this book. I never watched her on tv and don't have any of her cookbooks. But I was curious and I love food-related memoirs, so I wanted to read it. It didn't disappoint. What an interesting life! 


YOUR BOOK BEGINNING

Please add the link to your book beginning post in the linky box below. If you participate or share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings so other people can find your post.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 asks participants to share a two-sentence teaser from their book of the week. If your book is an ebook or audiobook, pick a teaser from the 56% point. 

Anna at My Head is Full of Books hosts The Friday 56, a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please visit My Head is Full of Books to leave the link to your post. 

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Be Ready When the Luck Happens:
FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION
From a difficult childhood to meeting the love of her life, Jeffrey, and marrying him while still in college, from a boring bureaucratic job in Washington, D.C., to answering an ad for a specialty food store in the Hamptons, from the owner of one Barefoot Contessa shop to author of bestselling cookbooks and celebrated television host, Ina has blazed her own trail and, in the meantime, taught millions of people how to cook and entertain. Now, she invites them to come closer to experience her story in vivid detail and to share the important life lessons she learned along the way: do what you love because if you love it you’ll be really good at it, swing for the fences, and always Be Ready When the Luck Happens.


Thursday, May 29, 2025

Summer Lightning by P.G. Wodehouse -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 


BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Summer Lightning by P.G. Wodehouse

Thank you for joining me this week for Book Beginnings on Fridays where participants share the opening sentence (or two) from the book they are reading. You can also share from a book you want to feature, even if you are not reading it at the moment. That's what I did this week.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Blandings Castle slept in the sunshine. Dancing little ripples of heat-mist played across its smooth lawns and stone-flagged terraces.

-- from Summer Lightning by P.G. Wodehouse. A deceptively benign beginning for what will be a hilarious novel involving a tell-all memoir, a prize pig, a chorus girl, and general mayhem. You get a better idea of the humor in the book from the beginning of the Preface:

A certain critic — for such men, I regret to say, do exist — made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained “all the old Wodehouse characters under different names.” He has probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha, but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning.

P.G. Wodehouse is one of my favorite authors and I haphazardly collect his books in several editions. I'd love to have a complete set of one cool edition, but there are so many books and so many cool editions, that I don't think that will ever happen. He published close to 100 novels and books of short stories!

Perhaps my favorite Wodehouse editions are the Penguins from the 1970s and '80s with cover art by "Ionicus."  He drew the cover illustrations for 58 Wodehouse books. I have 17 of them, including Summer Lightning, and am on the lookout for others. 


YOUR BOOK BEGINNING

Please add the link to your book beginning post in the linky box below. If you participate or share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings so other people can find your post.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 asks participants to share a two-sentence teaser from their book of the week. If your book is an ebook or audiobook, pick a teaser from the 56% point. 

Anna at My Head is Full of Books hosts The Friday 56, a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please visit My Head is Full of Books to leave the link to your post. 

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Summer Lightning:
And so far, in his efforts to win the favour and esteem of his Uncle Clarence, he seemed to have made no progress whatsoever. On the occasions when he had found himself in Lord Emsworth’s society, the latter had looked at him sometimes as if he did not know he was there, more often as if he wished he wasn’t.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION
The Honourable Galahad Threepwood has decided to write his memoir―a tell-all that could destroy polite society. Everyone wants this manuscript gone, particularly Lord Emsworth’s neighbor Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, who would do anything to keep the story of the prawns buried in the past. But the memoir isn’t the only problem. A chorus girl disguised as an heiress, a double-dealing detective, a stolen prize-winning sow, and a crazy ex-secretary are only a few of the complications that must be dealt with before everyone can have their happy ending.


Thursday, May 22, 2025

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen -- BOOK BEGINNINGS



BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

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
About thirty years ago Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet’s lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income..
-- from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen.

Are you doing anything to commemorate the 250th birthday of Jane Austen this year? My plan is to reread Austen’s six main novels, one every other month. Sense and Sensibility was in January and a perfect way to kick things off. I read Pride and Prejudice in March and loved it just as much this fourth time. 

Mansfield Park was the third book in my project and I just finished it. It's not my favorite because I think Fanny Price is a drip. I like the story, but the heroine grated on my nerves. 

I’m particularly looking forward to Emma in July because it’s my favorite. Likewise, Clueless is my favorite adaptation so I plan to rewatch that after Emma

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 Mansfield Park:
Fanny’s thoughts were now all engrossed by the two who had left her so long ago, and getting quite impatient, she resolved to go in search of them. She followed their steps along the bottom walk, and had just turned up into another, when the voice and the laugh of Miss Crawford once more caught her ear; the sound approached, and a few more windings brought them before her.
FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION
Taken from the poverty of her parents' home in Portsmouth, Fanny Price is brought up with her rich cousins at Mansfield Park, acutely aware of her humble rank and with her cousin Edmund as her sole ally. During her uncle's absence in Antigua, the Crawford's arrive in the neighbourhood bringing with them the glamour of London life and a reckless taste for flirtation. Mansfield Park is considered Jane Austen's first mature work and, with its quiet heroine and subtle examination of social position and moral integrity, one of her most profound.


Sunday, May 18, 2025

"Green But Unseen" -- BOOK THOUGHTS


BOOK THOUGHTS

Green But Unseen

This blog is my first bookish love, but I do enjoy the spontaneity and general sense of fun found among bookstagrammers on Instagram. One of my favorite things is how bookstagrammers come up with clever ways to highlight the books in their collection. One of the best is posting about a set of books based only on the color of the covers or spines. A popular version of this is to gather "Red But Unread" books. My personal favorite (because I thought of it) is to feature "Orange You Going To Read That" books.

A new one making the rounds is Green But Unseen, showcasing books with green spines or covers. I picked a baker's dozen of 13 books with green spines. These books have nothing intentionally in common besides their green spines and that I have not yet read any of them. 

These are in alphabetical order, by author. Which would you pick first? 

Family & Friends by Anita Brookner. I have so many of her books on my TBR shelf and have only read Hotel du Lac, because it won the Booker Prize. I want to read more, although I've been reluctant to start because I've read that the rest of the books don't stand up to Hotel du Lac. The only way to find out is to try for myself.

The After Party by Anton DiSclafani, a novel about Houston socialites in the 1950s. It sounds fun to me, although it gets mixed reviews.

The Old Man and Me by Elaine Dundy. This one is not a sequel to The Dud Avocado, but is similar. Avocado is about a 21-year-old American woman who find adventure in Paris. Old Man is about a slightly older American woman who finds adventure in London. 

The Beet Queen by Louise Erdrich. This one has been on my shelf the longest. I always like her books so should get cracking on this one.

Crusoe’s Daughter by Jane Gardam. Her Old Filth trilogy is a recent favorite of mine. I want to read more by her and have gathered several, including this one.

The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley. I remember that my sister read this one in college and loved it. It's a modern classic I’ve been meaning to read for quite a while.

Kaleidoscope by J. Robert Janes. I love and collect paperback Soho Crime books with these color-block spines. Occasionally, I come across a hardback version, like this. I prefer the paperbacks because they all match, but will take the hardbacks if it is all I can find.

The Secrets of the Bastide Blanche by M.L. Longworth, book 7 in her Provençal Mysteries series, one of the many series languishing on my shelf. My plan is to start this series as soon as I finish Martin Walker's "Bruno, Chief of Police" series, also set in rural France. 

Midaq Alley, The Thief and the Dogs, and Miramar by Naguib Mahfouz in an omnibus edition. Until I took this picture, I had it in my head that these three novels were his famous "Cairo Trilogy," but they are not. Honestly, I don’t know if I’ll ever get to these books. Should I? He did win the Nobel Prize for Literature after all. 

Civil to Strangers by Barbara Pym is one of several of her books I have in Virago Modern Classic editions. She’s a favorite, and I feel a Pym jag coming on. Maybe I'll tackle her books next, as soon as I finish my Helen MacInnes deep dive. 

The Babes in the Wood by Ruth Rendell, book 19 of 24 from her Inspector Wexford series. I’ve only read the first one, so I have a way to go!

The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal, in a Modern Library edition. The Red and the Black almost killed me, so I've been putting this one off. But I hear it is more enjoyable than Red & Black, so I'll get to it one of these days.

August Folly by Angela Thirkell, which now I plan to read in August. I've only read one of her books, but I know she is having a resurgence in popularity. I want to read more. 

What unread green-spined books can you find on your shelves?

And if you are a fellow bookstagrammer, drop me a comment with your user name so we can find each other over there. 






Thursday, May 15, 2025

Snare of the Hunter by Helen MacInnes -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 


BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Snare of the Hunter by Helen MacInnes

Thank you for joining me this week for Book Beginnings on Fridays where participants share the opening sentence (or two) from the book they are reading. You can also share from a book you want to feature, even if you are not reading it at the moment. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

A feeling of laziness, of a gentle slipping into sleep, spread over the fields as the July sun arced slowly downward, deepening in colour, yet losing intensity.

-- from Snare of the Hunter by Helen MacInnes.

Snare of the Hunter was Helen MacInnes's 17th novel, first published in 1974. I'm hosting a Helen MacInnes group read on bookstagram and this one is our current pick. We started with The Venetian Affair, followed by The Salzburg Connection. This one is shorter and moves faster than those, but is still packed with Cold War intrigue, a confusingly large cast of characters, and a budding romance. All three feature an ordinary guy roped in to undertake a dangerous mission and an attractive young woman who has to keep up with him on the adventure while wearing a skirt and high heals. I love them! 


YOUR BOOK BEGINNING

Please add the link to your book beginning post in the linky box below. If you participate or share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings so other people can find your post.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 asks participants to share a two-sentence teaser from their book of the week. If your book is an ebook or audiobook, pick a teaser from the 56% point. 

Anna at My Head is Full of Books hosts The Friday 56, a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please visit My Head is Full of Books to leave the link to your post. 

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Snare of the Hunter:
McCulloch gave a casual but friendly nod as he took his place. Just one stranger briefly summing up another who would share close quarters with him on a long journey.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION
Irina Kusak’s recently divorced husband, Jiri Hrádek, is a high-ranking official in the Czechoslovakian secret police: cruel, ambitious, utterly ruthless. So when he turns a blind eye to her defection to the west, she is uneasy. Aided in her escape by a group of friends, including David Mennery, an American with whom she once had a passionate affair, Irina begins to feel herself truly free. But soon their journey becomes a nightmare. It becomes clear that Hrádek only allowed Irina to defect in order to bait a trap for her father, a world-famous author living in secrecy in the west, but when she refuses to lead Hrádek to his quarry, Irina herself becomes his prime target.


Monday, May 12, 2025

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

 


BOOK REVIEW

The Widow on Dwyer Court by Lisa Kusel

Domestic thrillers are so much fun! I love the suspense of watching a husband and wife circle around each other, hiding secrets, and working out their own agendas. Just like I am glad I don't actually have to solve murder mysteries, I am happy I don't have to live through the drama these couples inflict on themselves. But I do enjoy imagining their anxiety-producing adventures through a good story. 

The Widow on Dwyer Court by Lisa Kusel is a perfect example. It is the story of Kate and Matt, who are making their unconventional marriage work for them. Kate writes erotic fiction and Matt travels a lot for his work as a PR guru. The only thing is, Kate is no longer interested in sex. So they work out a deal that Matt can have one night stands when he goes for work  trips, as long as he tells Kate about his encounters so she can use them in her books. 

I admit, this premise didn't appeal to me. I don't read erotica, or even racy romance books. But Kusel is a masterful storyteller who pulled me into the tale, despite my reservations. And there was nothing too graphic in the sex bits, which were also blunted by being second hand accounts. There are no actual "sex scenes." Instead, there is only Matt telling Kate what happened and Kate considering what to include in her books.

Kate and Matt's marital workaround goes fine until a free-spirited widow moves into the neighborhood with her daughter, who soon becomes best friends with Kate and Matt's daughter. Annie seems like the breath of fresh air the neighborhood, and Kate, needed. But Annie is hiding a secret that could upset the equilibrium Kate and Matt have established between them. The suspense builds to an exciting and unexpected conclusion. 

All in all, The Widow on Dwyer Court is a clever thriller, packed with entertainment. 


FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

[A] sexy psychological thriller that will leave you breathless.

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, May 8, 2025

Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 


BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan

Thank you for joining me this week for Book Beginnings on Fridays where participants share the opening sentence (or two) from the book they are reading. You can also share from a book you want to feature, even if you are not reading it at the moment. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my garden forever.” Henry kept chanting the line out loud over the roar of the helicopter’s engine.

-- from Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan.

I loved the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy, so was excited when my book club picked this for our next discussion. I'm now well into it and have been enjoying it, but not nearly as much as the CRA trilogy. Maybe the shine has worn off Kwan's style, or maybe this one is just a little too much. It's still a ton of fun, and I am very happy to be reading it, but it doesn't feel fresh and exciting like his first books.


YOUR BOOK BEGINNING

Please add the link to your book beginning post in the linky box below. If you participate or share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings so other people can find your post.

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets -- Thumb-Linky widget will appear right here!
This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 asks participants to share a two-sentence teaser from their book of the week. If your book is an ebook or audiobook, pick a teaser from the 56% point. 

Anna at My Head is Full of Books hosts The Friday 56, a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please visit My Head is Full of Books to leave the link to your post. 

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Lies and Weddings:
Eden couldn’t fathom what the countess was referring to, but she knew the only appropriate response at this moment was to nod. She had been aware since a very young age that the countess didn’t consider the Tongs as equal to the Greshams —as the family doctor, Thomas Tong was barely a notch above the butler, and Eden merely a playmate for her children when it suited them.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION
Rufus Leung Gresham, future Earl of Greshambury and son of a former Hong Kong supermodel has a problem: the legendary Gresham Trust has been depleted by decades of profligate spending, and behind all the magazine covers and Instagram stories manors and yachts lies nothing more than a gargantuan mountain of debt. The only solution, put forth by Rufus’s scheming mother, is for Rufus to attend his sister’s wedding at a luxury eco-resort, a veritable who’s-who of sultans, barons, and oligarchs, and seduce a woman with money.
. . . .
Can the once-great dukedom rise from the ashes? Or will a secret tragedy, hidden for two decades, reveal a shocking twist?


Wednesday, May 7, 2025

Frances Parkinson Keyes -- FAVORITE AUTHOR, BOOK LIST


FAVORITE AUTHOR, BOOK LIST

Frances Parkinson Keyes

I have a stack of unread (by me) Frances Parkinson Keyes books, which reminded me of how much I used to enjoy her books. Now, looking at this stack makes me want to dive in and read more of them! (Ignore the Mildred Jordan book that snuck into this stack.)

Frances Parkinson Keyes was a prolific American author with an interesting life. She was married to a US Senator between World War I and II and wrote memoirs about her life as a Senator’s wife, as well as several other books. After he died in 1938, she wrote over 40 more books before her death in 1970. Although she grew up in New England, she spent the last 20 years of her life living in New Orleans and many of her novels are set in Louisiana and the Deep South. Several explore Creole history and culture.

Keyes (pronounced like “eyes” instead of “keys” although I’ve never heard anyone say it that way), wrote short stories, novels, memoirs, history books, travelogue, children’s books, inspirational fiction, poetry, and even a cookbook. Her novels are mostly family sagas, romance novels, historical fiction, and the like. Most, like Dinner at Antoine’s, are excellent entertainment. A few, like Blue Camelia about the history of rice farming in Louisiana, would bore your socks off. It was hitting the Blue Camelia wall that put a stop to my FPK jag a while back. But seeing this stack on my TBR shelf makes me want to take it up again.

She's fallen off the radar, although she was enormously poplar during her lifetime. Fans of mid-century female authors would love Keyes. I always think that, if Dean Street Press included American authors in its Furrowed Middlebrow series, Keyes would be a perfect fit.

Here is a list of FPK's novels. I will never find and read all of her many books, but I plan to at least try to read her novels. Some may be too hard to find, although I'm sure they will turn up at library sales if I keep looking. 

  • The Golden Slippers (aka Victorine) (1958) TBR SHELF
  • Shelter (1961)







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