You may know Georgette Heyer as the 20th century writer of charming Regency novels. However, she also is a writer of mysteries, with two series, each with four books, featuring her favorite detectives, Hemingway and Hannasyde. No Wind of Blame is the first of the series with Detective Hemingway, who prefers airtight alibis. I like him because of his dry humor, as well as his good brain.
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Reading Doris Kearns Goodwin (yes, the woman known for her historical and political writing) about baseball in the 1950s was a delight. She and her family were rabid Brooklyn Dodgers fans, in a New York neighborhood where baseball allegiances were serious business. I'm not into sports, but Goodwin is a great writer, braiding the stories of Dodgers with her own coming-of-age stories and analysis of life in the 50s. She includes some of the major events, such as the outbreaks of polio and the integration of Little Rock High School, but the account is mostly about her neighborhood and schools. The book is enhanced with (mostly black-and-white) photographs. Susan Cain followed her bestseller about introversion, Quiet, with this book on life's bittersweet moments. The work has three major sections, each divided into manageable chapters that ask questions. The first, Sorrow and Longing, deals with Cain's own bittersweet experience with her mother, in which an adolescent's pulling away and one foolish decision caused a rupture for decades. The middle section, Winners and Losers, looks at workplace situations, while Part III is concerned with Mortality, Impermanence, and Grief. Cain has done deep research; there are many pages of notes at the end of the book. While this is not a quick, cheerful read, it's valuable and worth the bit of effort required. We have all had moments of bittersweetness and may need a wise guide to help us process them. Cain is that guide. Canadian writer Helen Humphreys doesn't just love dogs; she loves a particular breed, rather rare, called a vizsla. They were originally bred in Hungary for hunting. In this autobiography, Humphreys gives the reader her life story, as well as stories about her dogs. Interspersed among her life stories are excerpts from her journal describing how training Fig is going. (Cue the puppy teeth!) As a bonus, Humphreys interweaves stories about other writers and their dogs: Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, E.B. White, James Thurber, and more. These are accompanied by black-and-white photos. The second bonus is her use of training a puppy (she got Fig after the death of another beloved vizsla) as a metaphor for writing. Chapter titles include Character, Structure, Setting, and Pacing. Regardless of readers' interest in dogs, there is something here for cat lovers as well! You are likely familiar with Tim Rice's lyric collaborations with musicians such as Andrew Lloyd Webber and Elton John. However, he also collaborated with his wife to produce Eva Rice, a writer of fiction. I found her novel The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets to be a delight. From its opening pages it is clearly written by someone in England. I wish I could describe the sense of those words; even without the British spellings, it's clearly not from any other nation. Set in 1955, when wartime rationing had not yet fully ended, it tells the story of an innocent eighteen-year-old, still trying to write papers on Shakespeare, who is swept up by a more well-to-do and eccentric family of a mother with two young adults. Her own family includes a mother who was widowed by World War II and never recovered from her loss, as well as a younger brother who plays guitar and wants to be the next Elvis Presley. The interactions of these characters form the plot. Veteran journalist Gay Talese, borrowing his title from the Herman Melville short story about a man who “would prefer not to,” tells three long-form true stories. Part I is “A Story of Wall Street,” which describes the people in his early newspaper life, while Part II deals with his frustrated efforts to interview Frank Sinatra and write a profile for Esquire. The third part, “Dr. Bartha’s Brownstone,” focuses on a building in New York City’s East 62nd Street. Readers learn of the unhappy Dr. Bartha and his decision to destroy his home rather than sell it to accommodate a divorce settlement. Talese is an effective writer and guide to the people around famous people and to the New York of long ago. This delightful collection of 31 essays (some previously published elsewhere) edited by Natalie Eve Garrett is grouped into four sections: Growing Pains, Loss, Healing, and Homecoming. Most of the writers were new to me; I don’t read a lot of contemporary material., but found these to be well worth reading. A bonus: every essay includes a recipe, which can range from basic to complicated. The book is attractive, with illustrations that are colorful and remind me of Matisse's cutouts. The subtitle of this book tells it all: "a searing memoir of the battle to integrate Little Rock's Central High."
This isn't my usual reading fare, but my book club assignment was to read a book set in the 1950s. Nothing much in fiction appealed, but a friendly librarian said she had a book in the YA (young adult) section, and went to get it for me. As I read, I was continually horrified by what awful people we can be, even as teenagers, taught to hate difference. But I was also deeply moved by Beals' courage and the faith her family demonstrated. The title of the book comes from something her grandmother told her. Eventually the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education ruling was obeyed. But today I read that hate crimes in schools have increased, and Blacks are the most frequent target. Kate Saunders has crafted a lovely amateur sleuth in Laetitia Dodd, a widow whose brother is a lawyer famous for not losing a case. He’s interested in facts; Mrs. Dodd is intuitive and relies on “feelings” she gets. Set in mid-nineteenth century London, the book is a retelling of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, a work Saunders much admires. (True confession: If I’ve read it, I’ve forgotten it.) Multiple murders, multiple infidelities, multiple names—tracking it all with Laetitia and her landlady is a delightful read. How could I resist a title like that? This volume by Michiko Aoyama and translated by Alison Watts, is set in Aoyama’s native Japan. It’s a series of five charming interlinked stories in which the characters find just what they didn’t know they needed with the help of an enigmatic reference librarian at a local community center. When not busy, she makes felted wool figurines that she gives to the patrons along with a book list to aid their quest. Each book list also includes one unexpected title that seems irrelevant. Having very little knowledge of Japanese literature, I’d wondered if the books were real. Yes--there’s a book list in the back of every title she and the other characters discuss. My only regret is that her other works are not available through local or Ohio libraries. Perhaps more will be translated soon! |
What I’m ReadingI began working in libraries as a seventh grader, courtesy of scoliosis. My orthopedic surgeon wrote me a pass to miss gym class, so I began working in the school library to feed my love of reading. Even after my surgery to correct the curvature, I kept getting out of gym to work in my high school library and then in my college library (for pay, at last!).
So began my eventual career as a college reference librarian—after a detour into teaching high school English. Later I worked for an educational publisher before going back to libraries.
I have a reading and writing life now. I devour both fiction and nonfiction, and will tell you about some of my favorite reads, both old friends and new discoveries.
Here's some library-themed music to get you in the mood.
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