2017 Year in Review

In 2017 I read 67 books, or 24,127 pages . This is an increase over last year when I read 57 books, or 18,395 pages. I continue to listen to audio books as I train for half-marathons and I recently changed jobs requiring a longer commute, and therefore, more time with my audiobooks. Considering I spent almost 80 hours this fall listening to a podcast rather than books (seriously The Adventure Zone was sooooo good), this number could have been even higher. All the reviews this year on the blog were my own fresh from 2017. I had been hoping to feature guest blogs last year and that just did NOT come together, so maybe 2018 is my year. A lot of this year felt like keeping my head down in a book and trying to find some escape from the very volatile political climate in our country. 2017 was the year I quit Facebook! My average book rating this year was 3.7 meaning that the books I read were more good than bad.

Longest Book: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. At 771 pages this book clocked in as my heftiest book of the year. But I loved every freaking page of it. Donna Tartt's writing is so crisp, so fantastic that it's also my BEST book of the year. See below. 

Best Book: The Goldfinch by  Donna Tartt. Holy moly, I felt like I was reading this for a long time, but I just never got bored with it, even when in depth descriptions were made of a bird painting. Donna Tartt's writing is something I cannot get enough of. I read The Secret History later this year and loved it as well. Down to the disturbing details and the dense history of the characters she presents, the Goldfinch is a masterpiece through and through.

You can read the review here.

Shortest Book: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander (J.K. Rowling). I watched the movie on a plane this year, travelling from the west coast on an overnight flight during which I was too cold to sleep. Red-eyes are very very dumb y'all. So naturally I had to read the screenplay when it came out and then had to catch up on this little tome to add to my Beetle the Bards and the History of Quidditch (which my 5 year old has taken to walking around the house with despite his never reading it and knowing nothing about the Harry Potter books or movies). It was short, quick, cute, and a nice dip into the Harry Potter world.

I didn't even write a review for this but you can read the review  of the screenplay here.

Best Character: Kolya from City of Thieves. I really loved City of Thieves. It was such a great story of two young men during the siege of Leningrad. Zig zagging it's way from heartbreaking to hilarious, Kolya made the story for me and for the other main protagonist, Lev Beniov. Kolya reminded me of my best friend from high school, with just a little extra macabre charm.

You can read the review here.

Worst Book: Blood Work by Michael Connelly. This was hard to decide. Last year I read some really really bad books. And this year I had so few one or two star reviews - but a lot of threes. This was a straight two. Connelly really missed the mark here. The love story was very smarmy and unrealistic. Overly dramatic and equally unbelievable, the story is somehow made worse by the terrible movie made with Clint Eastwood. Please do yourself a favor and skip it.

You can read the review here.

Biggest Disappointment: The Book of Harlan by Bernice McFadden. I made a commitment to read a book by an African American author for Black History Month. Bernice McFadden has been so well lauded for her earlier work that I had high expectations for this book about her direct ancestor who was a jazz performer and had to spend time in a Nazi concentration camp. Somehow, unbelievably, the book focuses very little on this time and instead delves into the various ancestry of McFadden and the possible descendants of her familial line. I can see why the author was more interested in how her own history was created, but the story, the line of interest was definitely more with an accidental victim of the nazi violence than with the every day struggles of a single mom in New York who we never get to meet too clearly.

You can read the review here.






Worst Character: Claire Roth, The Art Forger. Oh god. Claire. She was so so dumb. And so easily manipulated. And so defined by her past relationships with more powerful or influential men. Ick. The book ultimately was interesting, but Claire was just so so terrible.

You can read the review here.

Honorable Mentions:  Cutting for Stone. I really really loved this book. I love stories of siblings and this one of identical twins, born of a secret love between a nun and an English doctor was so moving and touching and just well everything. I really can't say enough good things about this book.

You can read the review here.

Goals for 2018: I've set my goal of 60 books for this year. I know it is doable since I blew that away in 2017. I'll be training for another half marathon soon so I'll have the time to listen. 60 books is slightly more than a book a week and I know I'll get my Ploughshares love in four times this year.

Will George RR Martin get around to publishing Winds of Winter (signs are pointing to yes!- check out this update), I'm not counting on it (I was similarly disappointed last year and even wrote that EXACT SAME SENTENCE in last year's review - AND the year before that) or I would have set the goal at 52. But if it ruins my reading goal for the year, I'd be okay with that.

Ploughshares Solos Omnibus Volue 5

This will likely be the last book I finish for 2017 and it's a fitting end to this weird tumultuous year. Nine stories that take you so completely out of your element and make things seem upside down but normal at the same time. Solos Omnibus #5 was a really great way to experience multiple places and time in one short volume.

Face the Music by Michael Lowenthal - This excellent story of a jazz music student learning under the visiting professor tutelage of Sun Ra was sort of a musical coming of age story. Wherein the student realizes that all the notes he'll ever learn of jazz won't make a difference when it comes to actually playing jazz. Sun Ra forces the students to look at music, not academically, but intrinsically. In the end, the student recognizes his own limitations, and therefore, Sun Ra's genius. 

Koppargruva by Hugh Coyle - Before Nobel was the name of a prize given out in Sweden, it was the name of a man, an inventor, whose work in dynamite and nitroglycerin helped revolutionize the mining industry. This short selection of a book in progress (which I am looking forward to purchasing and devouring upon release), tells the story of Nobel's travels to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and his attempts to sell his products and his innocence in the death of his brother and several other miners in Sweden. 

Footing Slow: A Walk with Keats by Eli Payne Mandel - Keats was an English poet who was underappreciated while he lived, died young, and then became an integral part of the English literary fabric. In this story, Mandel attempts to recreate the walk across England and Scotland attempted by Keats towards the end of the 19th Century. Ultimately neither Mandel or Keats could complete their planned trips and while their experiences varied widely, the telling of the attempt was very satisfying.

A History of China by Carolyn Ferrell - A young woman tells the story of her German mother and GI father who tried, and failed to make their love work under the cruel light of a pre-civil rights movement America and the other inherent challenges that come when your vision of something does not match the reality and your shame in failing to make the vision happens manifests itself in many ways. For the young narrator, her large family and all of their complicated relationships with her father bleed out into her own actions. 

The Girl Who Lied by Uche Okonkwo - A tale of young girls at a private boarding school. The wealthy, interesting Kemi tries everything to get back home and to be shown love and concern by her absentee parents. Meanwhile the narrator feels shame at her own family's humble means. A real grass is greener scenario with a little bit of self awareness to make the tale satisfying. 

Bones by Lisa Horiuchi - A retired white collar worker decides his life needs more excitement and so he travels to Belize to try to find the bones of "the missing link" in evolution. He's stymied by a language barrier, government uprisings, and porous national borders. He's not even sure why he's interested in the bones in the first place except that he wants to see them. 

The Critic by Timothy Parrish - This story felt just a little bit too long for me, but was a very interesting tale of a critic obsessed with Bob Dylan who he refers to as "the Twerp." The critic and the musician circle around each other for years as the 60s come and go and the critic feels like the best good times have passed. He's probably right, the music of the 60s is iconic and informs most of what we hear today. But would we feel that way if a critic hadn't been there to point it out? 

Girl of Few Seasons by Rachel Kondo - This sad tale of a poor Maui family centers on a brother and sister, Ebo and Momo, who raise pigeons together until Momo is injured and has to be moved to Honolulu for care at a state run facility. Her brother, desperate to see her after nine years apart, enlists in the US Army in order to have one visit with her. It's a take on island life I've thought little about and made me realize I know embarrassingly little of the demographics on the Hawaiian islands. 

and Finally Kaat by Edward Hamlin - A Flemish woman and her American lover live in Paris. The women are forging ahead in their relationship until a motorcycle accident calls into question the commitment of the American. Nothing is certain and decisions are made on conjecture. It's a bit melancholy actually. 

The entire set of stories were well written and interesting. I liked being transported for a time out of our current news cycles and into these mini-worlds filled with people still going about their experiences with eyes wide open.

4/5 Stars. 

Orange is the New Black - Piper Kerman

This book was all around excellent. I had heard of the TV show (I have eyeballs and access to the internet, so...) and was vaguely aware that it was based on a book. I'm glad I chose this one. There wasn't quite enough detail on her trial for the law nerd in me, but that's not the point of Orange is the New Black.

This very well done memoir of Piper Kerman, who follows her girlfriend to Indonesia in a slightly naive pursuit of "adventure" and ends up ferrying money for illicit drugs through US airports. She gets out of the game and moves on with her life but the incredibly slow wheels of the US justice system eventually catch up to her and she is sentenced to 15 months in federal prison. Due to some delays, she doesn't actually start her sentence until 10 years after her crimes. 

Sentenced to Danbury (sorry this was audio, I don't know how to spell anything) minimum security, Piper puts up with the monotony and doldrums that make up prison life. The hardest thing to deal with would definitely be the day to day nonsensical BS that comes with a large federal program. Piper seems to make friends along the way and serves her time without going too crazy.

This memoir is extremely well written and avoided cliches and hyperbole. It's not hard to guess why it has been so well received. 

5/5 Stars. 

Thunderstruck - Erik Larson

First things first, Erik Larson knows how to research an issue. Sometimes you forget that these things in his books happened to real people. Like Deadwake (you can read that review here), Thunderstruck involves ships and transatlantic crossings. But the similarities really end there.

Thunderstruck follows the progress of two seemingly unconnected events. First, the development of wireless telegraphy by inventor Guglielmo Marconi and the turbulent marriage of Hawley Harvey Crippen and Cora Crippen. 

As Marconi races against critics and arrogant scientists to achieve wireless transmissions across the Atlantic, Crippen and Cora move from New York to London to pursue Crippen's career in homeopathy and mail order pharmaceuticals. Cora, unable to accept her lack of talent, spends copious amounts of her husband's money in pursuing Opera and then local cabaret gigs to little result. She is presented as domineering and belittling of her husband, engaged in extramarital flirtations and affairs. Crippen, small and meek finally takes up with his secretary. And, well, then Cora goes missing, Crippen gets on a Marconi equipped vessel, and the gory remains of a body are found in his basement. 

Crippen and his secretary are pursued through wireless technology over the Atlantic Ocean and arrive, unwittingly, to be delivered in to the hands of the authorities, while a rapt public follows their 11 day journey through news reports made possible by the Marconi technology, thus cementing the use of Marconi's system into the hearts and minds of the once skeptical public. 

Thoroughly researched and well written, Larson does not disappoint.

4/5 Stars. 

The Kind Worth Killing - Peter Swanson

I was so annoyed with the unlike-ability of the main characters through the first 1/4 of The Kind Worth Killing I was wondering why my good friend had recommended this book. But then something happened that I did not expect and well... I ended up being very entertained and surprised by this book. 

The book starts with Lilly and Ted meeting in an airport bar and having a conversation during which Ted admits that his wife is having an affair and he offhandedly remarks that he's thinking of killing her. Instead of laughing, Lilly basically says, "I'd like to help you with that." The two plot and scheme through the next few chapters as we get varying viewpoints of Ted and his growing obsession with Lilly and Lilly with her backstory of a lonely childhood with aloof and irresponsible parents. 

I really can't say more because it would be giving a lot away and honestly being surprised by this book was the best part. Sort of like a Gone Girl feeling. Not quite as well written as a Gillian Flynn book, but well done nonetheless.

4/5 Stars. 

The Heist - Daniel Silva

These Gabriel Allon books continue to deliver. The Heist was a bit slower than the last installment as I thought the two distinct story lines were a bit too far apart, but I really love Silva's ability to weave together history, art, and current events. 

The Heist begins with Gabriel in a church restoring an altarpiece. It's a wonderful shake back to those first Allon novels which found him doing the same thing. He's living in Venice, now with a pregnant Chiara and you can feel like, although he's back in this space, it's more of a last goodbye as he contemplates becoming Chief of The Office. 

But it seems his friends just can't stay out of trouble. His friend Julian Isherwood has stumbled on a dead body and of course Gabriel is asked by his friend in the Art Squad to take a look on behalf of the Italian Carabinieri. Gabriel discovers that the dead man was actually a stolen art dealer. Gabriel is asked to follow the trail of stolen art to find a missing Caravaggio, the Art Squad's number one target. 

What Gabriel discovers is that Bashar Al-Asad, the Syrian president, has been commissioning art thefts in order to create portable wealth should his regime topple. Not satisfied with a few recovered paintings, Gabriel uncovers a vast network of wealth tied to "Evil Incorporated." To infiltrate the network, Gabriel must call upon a female bank manager - a child of Syria and herself a victim of the regime. 

And of course he needs his team and some things don't go according to plan. The stakes don't seem too high for Gabriel in this one, we're not ever worried for his personal safety, but it is interesting seeing him undertake an operation with the understanding that the entire show will soon be his responsibility. He's going to be a father soon after all.

3.75/5 Stars. 

Best Kept Secret - Jeffrey Archer (Clifton Chronicles #3)

I initially purchased the first three Clifton Chronicles during a crazy Kindle deal. I think the idea was to give away the first three and then get people hooked enough they'd have to purchase the follow-ons. However, if I hadn't gotten the first three together, it's unlikely I would have read past the first uneven installment. (You can read my review of the first book here). 

Best Kept Secret was another disappointment. The story is at least better written than the first book, but the plot meanders and the point of view conveniently and sporadically bounces around to the point where I didn't really care about any of the characters anymore. Additionally, the author leaves each book with a major cliffhanger which is irritating and a blatant trick to get someone to read the next installment. 

At the beginning of this book, we are left with the solution to the last book's cliffhanger, namely, would Giles Barrington or Harry Clifton be named the rightful heir to the Barrington name, lands, and title. Turns out it's Giles who is granted all that stuff (which is the best way to preserve everyone's happiness in the book). And Harry and Emma, although not sure if they are actually half-siblings, get married anyway and decide not to have any more children. They set out to adopt Emma's other half-sister, the baby who showed up at the end of the second book to wreak havoc and an early demise to Emma and Giles' father. 

So Emma and Harry move on to get married and raise their slightly ill-behaved child, Sebastian. Eventually Sebastian becomes a teenager who gets in trouble at boarding school and tries to escape punishment by agreeing to travel to Argentina on an errand for his friend's father. 

In the midst of this, Giles marries a terrible woman then divorces her after his mother leaves them nothing in her will due to the wife's terribleness. There is a will contest and everyone is sad, but it's all glossed over so much there's no real tension there. A villainy villain named Major Alex Fisher is thrown in the mix to try to take down Barrington's shipping company from the inside. 

The Clifton Chronicle villains are all bad all the time with no redeeming qualities and the heroes always triumph. It may be entertaining, but it's not great reading.

2.5/5 Stars. 

Leadership and Self-Deception - The Arbinger Institute

This book is a must read. It's quick, but not painless. It's simple, but also difficult. Why? Because it forces the reader to ask some tough questions about their relationships and their behavior. While it may look like a business book (and it is), the lessons and implications inside pertain to much more than just work life. 

It's hard to just distill this down and feel like I'm doing the book justice, but essentially, we are either "in the box" or "out of the box" when it comes to dealing with others. When we are in the box we see others as objects and not as people. Once we are in the box, we harbor a lot of self-justifying beliefs in order to remain in the box, which in turn, invites others to be in the box toward us. This ends up creating a pretty bad environment all around. 

So how do we get out of the box? It's simple and it's not. Being out of the box is not a behavior but a state of mind. 

And see this all sounds confusing because you haven't read the book and you don't know what "the box" is. But read the book and you'll figure it out.

5/5 Stars

The English Girl - Daniel Silva

For me, reading a Gabriel Allon novel is like putting on a beloved winter coat. While it might not be the most stylish thing in the world, I feel warm and comfy and home. It's been a while since I read a Gabriel Allon thriller and I had almost forgotten how much I enjoy them. But I needed a new audio book from the library and The English Girl was available right away. 

In this story, Madeline Hart, a young English political party worker is on holiday on the island of Corsica when she is kidnapped. The British Prime Minister receives a vague ransom note and Gabriel is called in as a favor to Graham Seymour to find and rescue Madeline. 

Unfortunately, he's unable to find her in time and must then deliver $10M in ransom from the Prime Minister himself. In the meantime, Ari Shamron is demanding Gabriel finally take the job as the chief of the office, a position he has been circling around for some time. Going much further into the plot gives a little too much away. I was quite pleased with myself for figuring out some of the mystery early on. And the fact that no one in the story is quite what they seem should not be a surprise. 

So here I'm sitting at work, having finished up the book on the way into the office this morning and needing a book for the ride home. So I've decided to keep my ride with Gabriel going for just a little while longer before I switch out to something else. Because, well, I'm comfortable in this old coat of mine and it's not quite time to take it off.

3.5/4 Stars. 

Beneath a Scarlet Sky - Mark Sullivan

Let's be clear... the real man, Pino Lella gets all the STARS. All of them. He lived an amazing life. Did some amazing things. Struggled with PTSD (undiagnosed) and still managed to create loving children and live a life after WWII.

But the writing? Oh the writing of this book, the awkward dialogue, the hyperbolic metaphors, the repetitive clichés - that gets 2 Stars. The writing was really a mess. The book was about 100 pages too long. I feel like Pino deserved a better, cleaner narrative than the tangled mess that was finally published. The compelling nature of the story alone carries this novel to the end, were it not for Pino's incredible story, this would be a difficult one to finish.

So for the good stuff - Pino Lella was a young man living in Milan during WWII and the German invasion following Mussolini's ouster. Didn't know Mussolini was ousted? Me either. This book did provide a lot of unknown detail for me about the role Italy played in WWII and what happened to the Italians. Anyway, Pino is living in Milan when the city begins to be bombed by the Allies in 1943. Desperate to keep him safe, his mother and father send Pino to Casa Alpina, a mountain monastery/summer camp run by Father Re. Father Re immediately begins training Pino to make the mountain crossing into Switzerland, it turns out so that Pino can ferry Jewish refugees to safety. Over the course of approximately 10 months, Pino leads dozens of such refugees over the mountains through harrowing conditions of snow and avalanche.

Upon returning to Milan from Casa Alpina, a now 17 year old Pino is in danger of being drafted into the Italian army and sent to the front lines, where the German high-command is more than happy to place the Italian boys in the front row. Again in order to keep him safe, Pino's parents convince him to enlist in the Organization Todt, a non-German Nazi organization. After Pino is injured in the bombing of the Milan train station he meets General Leyers, the German in charge of the Nazi occupation of Italy. General Leyers is pretty evil, but also a little weird. Anyway, Pino becomes Leyers driver and in doing so acts as a spy for the Italian resistance. One day, as he is dropping off General Leyers at his girlfriend, Dolly's home, Pino runs into Dolly's maid, Anna, a woman he saw at the beginning of the bombardment and hasn't been able to stop thinking about (seriously she gets mentioned a bunch in the first couple hundred pages of the book and it's not clear why because it happens A LOT).

Anna and Pino fall in love with the backdrop of espionage and war and bombing and the Holocaust. Pino sees some pretty sick stuff - including the execution of his cousin, the enslavement of Jews, and the deportation of children. Finally the war ends and Pino is out partying when he discovers that Dolly and Anna have been arrested as collaborators. And.... well I'll leave the last few bits a surprise.

I was sincerely impressed with all that Pino did and lived, but again just disappointed in the quality of the writing. I'm sure this book has been a big success because of Pino, but it really is a shame that it wasn't given a better "script" as it were.


3/5 Stars.

A German Requiem - Philip Kerr

It's 1948. The War is over, and at first, we're not really sure what Bernie has been up to that whole time. We do know that he has a wife, but it doesn't seem to make him as happy as he thought he could be during the last book where he felt his own biological clock ticking.

What is clear, is that post-WWII Berlin of A German Requiem is not a good place to be even BEFORE the blockade. Bernie has to navigate the various occupied zones and life again as a private detective and he's not doing that great of a job at any of it. Meanwhile, his wife Kirsten is waiting tables at an American bar and coming home with unexplained gifts.

Bernie is approached by a Russian colonel with a proposition, go to Vienna and clear the name of his former police colleague Emile Becker who stands accused of murdering an American officer. The money and his home life lead Bernie to agree and so we get to see Bernie a little of his normal game, in a new city full of more uncertainty. And as the story progresses we learn that he was drafted from the police squad into an SS regiment, requested a transfer as the mass-murdering of civilians was not his style, and fought on the Russian front until captured and held in a Gulag. On the way to his execution by the Russian government, he escapes and makes his way back to Berlin.

But it seems the war, and the SS just can't leave Bernie be. He's entirely too moral and this makes him an unknown player in post-war espionage. The book is very well done and I always appreciate the final twists and turns that I don't really see coming. I also really liked the book's treatment of collective guilt and the shades of truth that exist in that examination. Women again don't fair very well in this story, even where they do try to have some agency of their own.

The audio version continues to amuse me as Christopher Lee narrates Bernie with such a cynical British accent, but the Russian and American characters got accents all their own. Poor British sounding German Bernie.


3.75/5 Stars.

The Nest - Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

The Plumb family has a problem and it's not the problem that initially appears in the pages. The four siblings, Leo, Beatrice, Jack and Melody are all middle-aged and impatiently awaiting the birthday of Melody, the youngest sibling, as that will usher in payments from a trust their father set up many years ago to provide them with a small estate gift. (The Nest - as they all annoyingly refer to it). However, oldest sibling Leo is a selfish a-hole who nearly kills a waitress in a car accident necessitating the almost liquidation of the nest in order to reach a settlement with the family.

Leo, a charismatic, early success has become a used up former addict with none of the shine left on his apple. So as the siblings squabble with him and amongst themselves for their lack of funds, we are also shown the startlingly flawed characters of the other siblings, who have made serious financial mistakes.

D'Aprix does a fantastic job weaving together the various plot points. While some of the dialogue seems a bit too contrived, overall the story and the characters work well together to produce a readable and entertaining story with just a little bit of heart. In the end, the siblings become actual humans instead of caricatures of themselves and grow more likeable as the story develops.

3.75/5 Stars.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaiman

I read and consumed American Gods (you can read that review here) and have watched and been consumed by the brilliant take on the book through the Starz drama starring the immensely talented Ricky Whittle. The Ocean at the End of the Lane has been on my t0-read list for quite some time and I was pleased to see it show up as available on my library queue.

For such a short story, TOEL packs a lot of narrative and drama into its pages. A man returning to his hometown for a funeral decides to pay a visit to his childhood home and is drawn to the farmhouse down the lane from where he grew up. A girl he once knew, Lettie Hempstock lived there and he feels compelled to revisit her home. Upon arriving, his childhood begins to come back to him, in particular a rather harrowing few days following his seventh birthday party.

A lonely and friendless child, the boy happens upon Lettie Hempstock while his father is being questioned by police after a dead body is found in the family car parked on the Hempstock property line. Lettie decides to take the boy with her on an errand. Things around Lettie aren't quite what they seem and while on their errand in Lettie's fields, the boy is bitten on the foot by something. Later that evening, the boy finds a worm in a hole in his foot and attempts to pull it out. The following day, a woman bearing a strange resemblance to the worm arrives at the home to occupy a spare room in the house and serve as the boy and his sister's nanny while their mother returns to work. The nanny, Ursula Monkton brings with her a variety of strange happenings.

There are many things that are really impossible to briefly explain over the rest of the book, but the boy fights against Ursula Monkton for his freedom and the freedom of his family.

The book is so wonderfully strange, but very rich in detail and imagination. In finishing it last night, I was thinking about my own childhood, and what kind of truths I may have learned that are now forgotten. What kinds of things do children understand that adults will never know? What fullness and richness of experience do children live in when everything is new and instructive. I like asking myself these questions and I live even better the books which cause me to ask them.


5/5 Stars.

The Pale Criminal - Phillip Kerr

I

know I haven't been doing as many reviews lately. My time with the audiobooks has been seriously curtailed this last month. Back in August a friend of mine told me she was coming to Nashville to watch some live tapings of her favorite podcasts and asked if I'd be interested in attending. I agreed and set off to download a couple episodes so I could become familiar enough not to embarrass myself at the tapings.

Well, turns out one podcast, The Adventure Zone, was a 69 episode narrative odyssey so my audiobooks took a backseat for all of September and most of October as I attempted to absorb 80 hours of audio in preparation for the show. Then, coming off the finale episode, I had one of those weeks where nothing else seemed appealing. Have you ever finished a book series like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings that left you so absorbed for so long that everything else seemed dull and pale in comparison? That is what The Adventure Zone did to me. That a graphic novel is coming out in July is delightful, but I'm really feeling sad that the journey is over. If you are into fantasy fiction at all, you should check it out. The podcast got better and better as it went along (check out this write-up in the Austin Chronicle).

But, alas, I now have a longer commute, and aside from re-listening to some of my favorite episodes (which I have done), there seemed nothing for it but to get back on the audio horse and start listening again. So I turned back to the Berlin Noir series and Bernie Gunther.

The Pale Criminal kicks off in 1938, a year or so after the last installment in the series. Bernie now has a partner, a character whose name I won't even try to spell, and at the beginning of the story, a new client. The client is a rich woman with a troubled son. The mother is being blackmailed for the return of lewd letters the son wrote to his therapist. Exposure of such a homosexual nature could result in a death sentence in Nazi Germany. Bernie agrees to find out who is doing the blackmailing and recover the rest of the letters.

In the meantime, it looks like the head of the criminal police force also needs Bernie's help in uncovering a serial murderer who is kidnapping, raping, and killing young German girls in Berlin. The investigation of which unravels quite a few insidious plots along the way.

I really appreciated the skill with which the two mysteries were wrapped together. There was so much richness added regarding the background of the times and the environment in which Bernie is trying to solve these crimes. Real characters like Karl Maria Wiligut, Otto Rahn, Himmler and Heydrich play large roles in the story. And because of the murky details surrounding Rahn's death, and Wiligut's "retirement" from the SS, Kerr has a lot of room to work in the details of those circumstances to his own fictional devices.

This continues to be an excellent series.


4/5 Stars.

The Aviator's Wife - Melanie Benjamin

Being an Air Force veteran, it's virtually impossible to be unfamiliar with Charles Lindbergh and his non-stop flight from New York to Paris in 1927. I was also aware that his child was kidnapped at some point thereafter. But the details of these things had become fuzzy if they had ever been present at all.

The Aviator's Wife tells the story of Anne Lindbergh, Charles wife and eventual widow. I was really impressed with Melanie Benjamin's detail and handling of Anne's life story. The novel did a good job of expressing Anne's desire for Charles and their complicated relationship. It also felt very honest about her grief at losing her oldest child to kidnap and murder, a horror I can't even imagine going through as a mother.

While at times I became exasperated at the repetitive nature of some of Anne's statements, it provides a a baseline for where Anne was at during her marriage to Charles. Equally satisfying was the fact that Charles motivations were murky and never really cleared up even to the end of the novel. I'm interested in reading more about this fascinating family. I wonder what Charles and Anne's children think of this book being out there in the world.




3.5/5 Stars

Dark Matter - Blake Crouch

With Dark Matter I did something I haven't done in a while with a book - finished it in four days.

An incredibly fast read, Dark Matter takes a familiar "It's a Wonderful Life" trope and jazzes it up for the modern age. 

Jason Dessen, a community college physics professor has always wondered how his life would turn out if he had walked away from his pregnant girlfriend in his 20s and pursued his planned scientific research. As he watches his college roommate receive a prestigious scientific award, his feelings of regret become acute. But Jason is happy with his wife and teenage son. 

On the way home from celebrating his friend's award, Jason is abducted and drugged. When he awakens, he finds himself in a world where he is a renowned scientist on the verge of a breakthrough. Missing for 14 months, this Jason Dessen is welcomed back as a triumphant hero. Turns out he's been working on this box that collapses time and space, allowing you to move through multiple realities in which reality forks off whenever a choice is made. Jason knows this is not his world, but since he's not the brilliant scientist who invented the box, he's not quite sure how it works, or how he is supposed to get home to his family. 

Jason doesn't spend long in his new world - it's instantly apparent he doesn't belong or want to be there. I don't want to give any more plot points away since mega spoilers folks, but you get the drill. He opens a lot of wrong doors to other worlds in his attempts to find the right ones. Sometimes the descriptions come off as a bit too manufactured, but since the book moves so lightening fast, so do the descriptions.

There's no time to rest in this book. The short declarative sentences keep you moving from one scene to the next. It kept my attention and kept me moving through the whole story. I was thoroughly entertained. It's gonna make a great movie.

4/5 Stars. 

God Emperor of Dune - Frank Herbert

Despite all my rage I am still just a worm in a cave....

Well, 3500 years after the end of Children of Dune (read that review here), God Emperor of Dune checks in on Leto Atreides II who we last saw donning a suit of sand trout and becoming one with Dune. Over the millennia, Leto has grown in size and become more worm like. His prescience stretches out into the future as he attempts to follow his "Golden Path". 

He's created three millennia of lasting peace (through brutal means when necessary) - an apparent irony which is lost, but also not lost on him. He's stamped out rebellion through his loyal legion, the Fish Speakers, militarized woman who use their feminine ways when they can, or the typical chop chop, shoot shoot method of militaries everywhere. 

Leto has also undertaken an ambitious breeding program, none with more attention that that paid to the offspring of his sister Ghani and all the Atreides through the ages. People have gotten faster and stronger. But through it all, he keeps resurrecting poor Duncan Idaho - a man condemned to live the later years of his life over and over. The trauma of being dropped into a time and space not his own causes Duncan to rebel against the God Emperor over and over again. So he is accordingly killed over and over again in showdowns with Leto.

It appears finally that Leto has achieved his aim in breeding an Atreides worthy of carrying on the Golden Path in Siona. Taken out into what little desert remains on Dune, Siona is given the spice essence and passes the test of not being filled with the personalities of all her ancestors. Once this breakthrough occurs, Leto knows his time is short. Despite repeatedly stating that his blindspot is his own demise, he sure seems to push the narrative forward to that end. And despite stating that the years following his death will be full of terror and bloodshed, this is somehow the best outcome possible for Dune, wherein Leto is supposed to ditch his outer sand trout skin and return to the dessert as the first worm of the empire. Well, things don't seem to exactly go his way as he spent three millennia casually ignoring all the possible work-arounds the citizens of his empire would concoct to overcome the dependence on spice that crippled the empire and focused too much power in the hands of one planet and person.

3/5 Stars

A Secret Kept - Tatiana De Rosnay

I read Tatiana de Rosnay's first book, Sarah's Key a couple of years ago (before I had a blog) and really liked it. This sophomore follow up didn't live up to the first books expectations. A Secret Kept starts with Antoine and Melanie Rey going for a long weekend to the seaside French town they vacationed to as children with their parents. Both are going through a mid-life crisis of sorts. 

Antoine is recently divorced from his wife Astrid and is struggling with part-time parenting of his three children - two of whom are full throttling through puberty. Melanie is coming off a long term relationship with a man who swore he would never get married just to up and impregnate and marry a woman 15 years his junior within weeks of the breakup. They both need some time and space away from Paris.

However, on the drive home Melanie wrecks the car and nearly dies after attempting to tell Antoine some long held family secret. The secret however, is hardly worth the build up and the letters from the past used to hint and then reveal the secret are easily the worst contrived writing in the book. I honestly thought the rest of the prose was well done but the letters were the hardest part to get through. 

So the great family mystery doesn't really seem much of a mystery and all the characters who have a stake in the mystery just up and die or are already dead so there's no real effect of learning the secret. So many people died in the second half of this book I thought maybe George RR Martin was ghostwriting. 

The book probably would have been better if it didn't try to pass itself off as a mystery and instead was a straightforward character examination of a man in a mid-life crisis. Antoine was the most well flushed out character and I actually enjoyed his journey. The characters also make some non-conventional choices which I enjoyed, even if it did leave the ending a bit unfulfilling.

3/5 Stars. 

Food: A Love Story - Jim Gaffigan

I'll just say if you like Jim Gaffigan, you'll like this book. A lot of these jokes come from his most recent tour and of course since the book is about Food, the Hot Pockets jokes are told again. But there's something familiar and comforting about his comedy - like a grilled cheese. He's funny but not edgy funny. No biting sarcasm or deeper humor than self-deprecating jokes about his desire and ability to eat basically everything.

After all, "a cucumber is just a pickle before it started drinking."

Some of the jokes are interesting considering his wife just went through a close call with a brain tumor and I wonder how his comedy will change over the next year. I'm sure some of it will make for good material. A comic's brain likely never stops working that way.

I listened to the audio version of this book so it really was like listening to Jim's standup routines.

A star rating won't make much of a difference on this one but I laughed out loud several times and enjoyed myself so 4/5 Stars? 3/5 Stars?

Ploughshares Summer 2017 Issue - Guest-Edited by Stewart O'Nan

This edition was kind of all over the place in the quality of short stories but the good ones were just SO good. Of course now that I look over the list of those I liked, I realize that really there were only two or three I wasn't thrilled about and so many that were very good. 

The first story, Fair Seed-Time, poor American Richard bikes his way from Calais all the way to Denmark drunk with young love to see Allabella, a beautiful Jewish orphan of France's WWI Resistance movement. Allabella has been put under the custody of Mr. Jens, who sent Allabella abroad to England for school, where she meets Richard at Oxford. After the school term is over, Richard makes this grand plan to take a ship across the channel to Calais and see Allabella. When he arrives, Allabella is in bed, having fallen and hit her head by the sea. It turns out Richard hardly knew her at all and is stuck with his ruined expectations. It's a singular moment that is really illustrative of the entire process of growing up.

Julia and Sunny is the story of a couple who are going through a divorce. Through the lens of their rather shallow friends, we see the beginning and the end of Julia and Sunny's marriage and the hurt feelings of the friends who, having started as Julia's friends, were hoping to get Sunny in the divorce. 

I'm still processing my thoughts on Tandem Ride, which features a young teen, Gneshel, placed with Rabbi Spitz's family by her poor parents. Gneshel has an opportunity to go to school for a reduced rate, where Spitz is the headmaster. However, Spitz has other designs for the "services" Gneshel can provide his family. In the story, we see a grown Gneshel struggle with feelings of guilt over eventually telling someone about her relationship with Rabbi Spitz, leading to his ouster and the destitution of his family, and her feelings of guilt over thinking she wanted to have a relationship with him and bore some of the blame for what happened. This kind of victim guilt is painful to read. 

I loved The Candidate, which tells of a sandwich store worker who makes a late night chicken salad sandwich for presidential candidate Bill Clinton. It clearly has echos to the most recent election and was a smart well put together narrative. 

Ten Thousand Knocks was a great story about an enforcer for a shady loan company. Kei's job is to make people pay up when they are behind on their rent. He questions his humanity and whether he can do the things he's being called on to do in the job, all while having a supremely clinical approach to the entire issue. 

Thin Scenery. Okay so this is by Stephen King, so you know this is good. My favorite Stephen King works are all his short fiction. The man is a genius. The Body, Apt Pupil, Rita Heyworth and the Shawshank Redemption - these are all short stories! This man is amazing. I think he likely just has short story material wandering around in his head at any given moment. Anyway, Thin Scenery is a play within a play where one of the characters knows it is a play and is tormented by the fakeness of his life and everything he sees. Some of the characters are also aware of the "4th Wall" while others aren't. The overall effect is extremely creepy and wonderful. All hail Stephen King. 

Jollof Rice and Revolutions was a great story about a group of girls at a boarding school in Nigeria. When they set out to oppose the principal for nefarious deeds, they stage a riot and the result is more devastating than they planned. The interaction between the girls, and the various ways their class and pedigree play into the reaction to the riot is well done. 

Other Mentions:

Also creepy was Spectral Evidence. A story of a medium who feels like a fraud, but is harboring a terrible truth. Midnight Drives is a sad little story about a teen coping with the loss of his brother and its effects on his friends and family shown through the deterioration of the brother's car.

4/5 Stars. 

The Last Days of Night - Graham Moore

I really loved this book! I'm recommending it to everyone because it's so well done. 

The Last Days of Night chronicles the "current war" of the 1880s between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse. No, A/C D/C is not just a band, they are the two types of current in which electricity flows. Thomas Edison was a proponent of direct current. George Westinghouse was accused of infringing on Edison's light bulb patent and so Edison sued him for $1B dollars. That's a lot of cheddar. 

In order to get around the bulb issue, Westinghouse adopted Nikola Tesla's alternating current (it didn't work for his lawsuit defense). The two men at times shamelessly worked against each other to promote their own system of electrifying the country, including a smear campaign aimed at alternating current which led to the invention of the electric chair. The first execution was terribly botched and actually proved alternating current was too safe to be used for murdering people. 

This book has it all, an upstart attorney, Paul Cravath (who would go on to develop the system of associate to partner track attorneys that now exists at law firms all over the world) a singing soprano with a past, a wiley inventor who answers to no one, and two industry barons trying to outdo each other. Yes Graham Moore took some liberties with the timeline and dialogue, but overall it's such great history that it's hard to believe it all isn't fiction.

Addition: And OMG this is going to be a movie with Benedict Cumberbatch. Click Here. 

4.5/5 Stars. 

The Art of Hearing Heartbeats - Jan Philipp-Sendker

I can't remember when I first learned of this book, but it's been on my to-read shelf for quite a while. All in all it was fine, but kind of a let down because it could have been much better, and I'm not sure if the disconnect is in the original language or the translation, but I'm willing to give the author the benefit of the doubt. In The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, Julia's father abandons his New York family - Julia, an overly one-dimensional mother, and an almost comically absent brother - to return to "Burma," the country of his birth. (Okay so I know the whole Burma/Myanmar naming thing has been an issue since it happened in 1989, with may adherents to the old name refusing to recognize the new one, but even a passing reference to this would have made the book more realistic, instead it reads more of a westernized fantasy about an exotic locale - one of my first issues with the book).

In order to figure out what has happened to her father, Julia travels to Burma (I'm just going to go with it). While there, she meets Uh Ba (apologies for not knowing how to spell any names, I listened to the audio version). Uh Ba proceeds to tell Julia an elaborate tale about the life of her father, Tin Win, his abandonment at a young age, his early affliction of blindness, his reliance on the kindness of a neighbor, and finally, his falling desperately in love with Mimi - a young crippled girl in the village. The dramatic language attributed to Uh Sa stretched the line of credulity for me. I would have preferred a more streamlined straight-forward rendering of the Tin Win/Mimi backstory. I didn't need the added element of it being told by a third party to Julia. 

I'll say this, the Tin Win/Mimi parts were spectacular. Their relationship, the honesty of their love was very well done. Their disabilities don't impact the love they have for one another, even if others consider it a burden. Julia learns some valuable lessons in the meantime and learns to see her father in a new light. 

One of the themes of the book is reliance on free will versus predictions of fate. Tin Win is abandoned by his mother based on the predictions of an astrologer. As a young adult, his life is shattered by a self-interested Uncle who acts according to the predictions of an astrologer. Only Suu Kyi, his adopted mother, Tin Win and Mimi (and Mimi's mother) live outside the bounds of astrology and in the realm of free will. And their lives are richer for it.

3/5 Stars.