September Wrap Up -- My September Books

SEPTEMBER WRAP UP

I finally launched my own Zazzle store. Crazy, right? It’s not like my law practice gives me a lot of down time! But I need a creative outlet. I have a couple of product lines so far, but my favorite is a collection of gifts and stationery with images of old books from my own library. The mug in the picture above is an example. If you want to see more, find me on the Zazzle website at RoseCityEphemera. I’m excited about it!

When I wasn't playing with Zazzle, I managed to read ten books last month. They are listed below in the order I read them, not in the order they are stacked up in the picture.

MY SEPTEMBER BOOKS

The Choir by Joanna Trollope, cozy and wonderful. 🌹🌹🌹🌹

Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody by Helen Pluckrose, which is not in the picture because I read the audiobook. This is an excellent book and a highlight of the month for me. Pluckrose is one of the three scholars, along with James A. Lindsay and Peter Boghossian, who submitted bogus "grievance studies" papers to peer reviewed journals and got many of them accepted and even published. It's worth looking up because the papers they got published are hilarious. 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

Uncommon Clay by Margaret Maron was a pretty decent mystery set in North Carolina. I read it with my ears so it isn't in the picture. 🌹🌹🌹🌹

An Alphabet for Gourmets by M. F. K. Fisher. This is a wonderful book of idiosyncratic food writing. It wandered off before I took the picture. 🌹🌹🌹🌹

Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross, another highlight of the month. This one was lurking on my TBR shelf for a long time and I'm glad I finally read it. It is historical fiction at its best. 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

Noah’s Compass by Anne Tyler. I'm an Anne Tyler completist, but I found this one disappointingly pointless. 🌹🌹🌹

Mystery and Manners by Flannery O’Connor, occasional nonfiction. This was admittedly a little repetitive, but still excellent. 🌹🌹🌹🌹

A Changed Man by Francine Prose, slightly subversive, a little edgy, and I loved it. It's the second of her books I've read and she's becoming a favorite. 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

Split Images by Elmore Leonard, which was typical Leonard but still good. 🌹🌹🌹1/2

Slightly Foxed, Vol. 70, the recent summer edition, which I count so I can keep track of which ones I read. 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

MY FAVORITE COVER OF THE MONTH

Between Two Kings: A Sequel to The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

My apologies for not getting this week's Book Beginnings post up last evening. My computer was in computer hospital. Ugh! Fortunately, it was an easy repair -- it just needed a (way) bigger hard drive. Let's just say my phone had twice as much brain power as my two-year old lap top. What was I thinking?

So I am here now and ready to share opening sentences (or so) of the books we are reading this week -- or just the books we feel like highlighting. What book captured your fancy this first week October?

MY BOOK BEGINNING

From Between Two Kings:

Toward the middle of May in the year 1660, at nine o’clock in the morning, when the already hot sun was drying the dew on the ramparts of the Château de Bois, a little cavalcade, composed of three men and two junior pages, was returning into the city across the Loire bridge.

Dumas published Twenty Years After, his sequel to The Three Musketeers, in 1845. Between Two Kings, shown here, is the first volume of Twenty Years After.

This is the latest edition of a new translation of the Musketeer Cycle by Lawrence Ellsworth, out now from Pegasus Books. Ellsworth’s is the first translation from the French to English in over 100 years. If you thought the Musketeers were fun before, wait until you see how they swashbuckle now! 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

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

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THE FRIDAY 56

Freda at Freda's Voice hosts another teaser event on Fridays. Participants share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of the book they are reading -- or from 56% of the way through the audiobook or ebook. Please visit Freda's Voice for details and to leave a link to your post.

MY FRIDAY 56

From Between Two Kings:

As he was passing out of the gate, leading his horse by the bridle, a soft voice called from the gloom of a shaded path, “Monsieur Raoul!”

The young man turned in surprise and saw a brown-haired young woman who was pressing a finger to her lips and holding out her other hand.

Darrow's Nightmare: The Forgotten Story of America's Most Famous Trial Lawyer (Los Angeles 1911-1913) by Nelson Johnson- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

It's time again to share the opening sentences (or so) of the books we are reading this week. What are you reading?

I have a lawyer book to share this week since I've had a very lawyerly week. I've been sitting through three days of (Zoom) court hearings in the Boy Scouts of America's bankruptcy case. I even got to argue one day! Although I've been suing the Boy Scouts for sex abuse since 2007, and even won a $20 million verdict against them, this bankruptcy case is the biggest legal battle I've ever been a part of. It's such a complicated mess!

MY BOOK BEGINNING

From Darrow's Nightmare:

Upon return to Chicago in January 1908, Clarence's priority was his law practice double dash namely, earning an income.

-- Darrow's Nightmare: The Forgotten Story of America's Most Famous Trial Lawyer (Los Angeles 1911-1913) by Nelson Johnson (Rosetta Books). This one came out a few months ago. Nelson Johnson wrote Boardwalk Empire that was adapted into such a terrific TV show.

Clarence Darrow was America's most famous criminal trial attorney in the first half of the Twentieth Century. Darrow's Nightmare is the nonfiction account of how Darrow was almost a convicted of crimes himself. Darrow went to Los Angeles in 1911 to defend two union agitators on trial for mass murder. While there, he the District Attorney indicted and tried Darrow for bribing a juror. A conviction would have ended his career as a lawyer almost before it got off the ground.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please leave a link to your Book Beginnings post in the linky box below. Please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag if you share on social media.

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THE FRIDAY 56

Freda at Freda's Voice hosts another teaser event on Fridays. Participants share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of the book they are reading -- or from 56% of the way through the audiobook or ebook. Please visit Freda's Voice for details and to leave a link to your post.

MY FRIDAY 56

From Darrow's Nightmare:

He viewed the courtroom as a battlefield; his profession was a means to pursue economic justice for the working class. Though Darrow was cynical about much of the law, he acted practically when it came to making a living.

I think most lawyers, at least litigators, view the courtroom as a battlefield. And lawyers with a plaintiffs' civil practice, like me, view the law as a means of pursuing economic justice for our clients. Civil lawsuits only offer economic justice. We can only sue for money to compensate for their injuries and their loss. The law isn't a time machine -- we can't get back our clients' former lives for them. The trick is to not grow cynical. 

I Have Not Loved You With My Whole Heart by Cris Harris - BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Do you read memoirs? 

I love a good memoir. I'm not all that keen on memoirs by famous people. I prefer memoirs by regular people with interesting stories to tell about their own experiences. How about you?

My book beginning this week is from a new memoir. What are you reading this week? Please share the opening sentence (or so) for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Add the link to your blog or social media post in the linky box below. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

"And now, boys," he says, "let's get the boat. Track it down and bring it home." He smiles, eyes watery and bright, feverish under the little velvet fez he has taken to wearing in this last year.

-- I Have Not Loved You With My Whole Heart by Cris Harris (OSU Press). I don't usually give more than the very first sentence, but when I saw that bit about the fez, I couldn't resist including it. 

Cris Harris grew up in a difficult household with an alcoholic father, learning to live with the uncertainty, chaos, and neglect of living with addiction. What he didn't expect was that his father, an Episcopalian priest, would come out as gay during the height of the AIDS crisis and die of HIV in 1995. This gripping memoir will hit home for anyone who has grappled with complicated relationships to faith, had family members come out late in life, or lost loved ones to AIDS.

 YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post below. If you share on SM, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag so we can find each other. 

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice is a natural tie in with this event and there is a lot of cross over, so many people combine the two. The idea is to post a teaser from page 56 of the book you are reading and share a link to your post. Find details and the Linky for your Friday 56 post on Freda’s Voice.

MY FRIDAY 56

From I Have Not Loved You With All My Heart:

Among the working-class, east-side parishioners, he was more at ease than back at Ascension Chapel. It was an Episcopal church, so there would still be mimosas on Easter morning after the vigil, but when they held a night of English and Irish song and dance, they also served Old English 800 in big bottles. 

Oh my. The evangelical churches I grew up in never served OE8 40s! 

Welcome to Kamini and Shoal Water -- Two New Books -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

The light is starting to change and the first hints of fall are in the air. I love this time of year, with that back-to-school feeling. 

What books captured your attention this week? Please share the first sentence (or so) here on Book Beginnings on Fridays. Leave the link to your blog or social media post in the Linky box below. 

To celebrate the impending change of seasons, I am highlighting two new novels, both coming out in October. Both are also set in northern parts of Canada, so they make a good pairing.

MY BOOK BEGINNINGS

From Welcome to Kamini: 

Two figures pushed off from the dock in a canoe after sunset.

-- Welcome to Kamini by Don Engebretson. I like that first sentence, how about you? It sets a scene and I immediately want to know more.

Engebretson is a seasoned magazine and short story writer. Welcome to Kamini is his debut novel. The protagonist heads to the Canadian woods of northern Ontario to get over his failed marriage and professional tailspin. There he meets three powerful women and an Ojibwe fishing guide and who change his plans, and his life.

This one comes out October 1 from Guernica Editions and is available for pre-order now.

From Shoal Water:

The dark forbidding clouds closed in, the wind, its high-pitched universe.

-- Shoal Water by Kip Robinson Greenthal. This beginning is more atmospheric, and I like it too!

This beautiful debut novel is the story of Kate and her husband who move from New York City to a fishing village in Nova Scotia and open a book store. While getting to know their new community, Kate must confront ghosts of the past -- metaphorical and literal. Perfect for October!

Greenthal won the 2020 Landmark Prize for fiction for Shoal Water. The prize is publication by Homebound Publications. Shoal Water comes out on October 12, and you can pre-order now.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add your link below. If you share on SM, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

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THE FRIDAY 56

Freda at Freda's Voice hosts another teaser event on Fridays. Participants share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of the book they are reading -- or from 56% of the way through the audiobook or ebook. Please visit Freda's Voice for details and to leave a link to your post.

MY FRIDAY 56

From Welcome to Kamini:

Closing her eyes, she twirled her finger twice in the air and placed it on the map. . . . Only when removing her finger did she find it had landed smack dab on a tiny dot labeled Kamini.

From Shoal Water:

Andy walked down the road toward the dory shop built alongside the Greenport wharf. Everywhere was fog and the smell of fish.

I can't wait for cool, rainy weather to get here when I plan to curl up with both of these books.