Hi Folks -
I've decided to cut back on my reviewing in and just review one book a month, on the first Friday of the month. That way I can go more in depth in my thinking on a particular topic. The next book review will be for Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote and will be posted on January 7th of 2022. I hope you'll join me for a look at the story and maybe some side notes of interest.
Thanks!
Anxious People
by Fredrik Backman
Our thematic book club
chose a “Nordic” theme for December. To be honest, I had to look up what that
might encompass. Merriam-Webster defines Nordic as “1
: a native of northern Europe. 2 : a person of Nordic physical type. 3 : a
member of the peoples of Scandinavia.”
Aha. One of the best books I’ve read in the past
decade was A Man Called Ove by
Frederik Backman, who is Swedish. My husband and I both loved that story. I
knew he had written a number of other books that I hadn’t read yet so I checked
my digital catalogs to see what might be available. Anxious People looked popular and very interesting so I placed a
hold.
Apparently people were impatient and bought it instead
because it soon became available as both an ebook and a digital book.
From the very first, I was drawn into the story.
The story opens with a police interview between a
young officer and a slightly irritating real estate agent. (She really does
seem very silly.) We focus more on the officer, and the other officer who he is
working with, which turns out to be his father.
The real estate agent was part of a group of people held
hostage by a bank robber. Seems a straight forward statement.
“Shortly after that the police stormed the apartment,
only to discover that it was empty. The door to the balcony was locked, all the
windows were closed, and there were no other exits.”
Then you get to know all the other characters that
were there.
“…it’s always very easy to declare that other people
are idiots, but only if you forget how idiotically difficult being human is.
Especially if you have other people you’re trying to be a reasonably good human
being for.”
It’s about relationships, being human, being a parent,
having the weight of caring for your children and other people on your
shoulders,
It’s beautiful and funny and very relatable, and
utterly silly and absurd at times.
“We don’t have a plan, we just do our best to get
through the day, because there’ll be another one coming along tomorrow.”
I soon felt like I was driving along a mountain with a
crazy number of switchbacks. Just when you got up a head of steam, something
changed and your whole view of the story changed with it. I love that kind of
thing. There are layers upon layers revealed, depending upon perspective, and
some obfuscations. Backman comes at the story from different angles, picking up
the thread of one person’s involvement, then another, then ties them together
in ways you might not ever expect.
As soon as I finished reading this book, I wanted to
go back and read it again, to highlight all the wonderful turns of phrase and
ideas that tugged at me to share with you. But if I shared them all here, then
the review would be far too long and they would be totally out of context.
I highly, highly recommend this story. I don’t think
you’ll be disappointed.
The Lost
Apothecary Shop
by Sarah Penner
Okay, okay, this one was a pretty cover pick again. The title
was intriguing as well.
Told from the perspectives of three different people, the
story opens with Nella, an apothecary whose shop is dedicated to women, in 1791
London. But the shop doesn’t just dispense the usual remedies. Behind a hidden
wall lies a whole other dispensary, one of poisons. Nella uses these poisons to
get women justice, and vengeance. Women put their requests in notes, in a
barrel of barley, and Nella prepares the requested item for them.
Caroline is a modern woman with a problem of her own, a
husband who has cheated on her while he is supposedly working long hours at the
office. She arrives in London on her anniversary trip, without her husband,
though he follows soon after. Part of her goal is to sort out her anger and whether
it’s worth trying to make her marriage work. Complicating things is her concern
that she might, finally, be pregnant.
Drawn into a “mud larking” afternoon, Caroline discovers an
old apothecary bottle that leads her to research Nella and her shop, and its’
secrets.
Eliza is our third character, a young girl just coming of age,
who is sent to Nella’s shop by her mistress for a poison to stop the lecherous
advances of her master. She’s a very intelligent girl but somewhat imaginative
and superstitious. She is fascinated by Nella’s shop and returns there when she
has some troubles of her own.
The fates of the three women have some parallels but they are very
thoroughly unique characters. The setting is richly detailed with historical
details. The plot is intricate and the pace grows quicker as the story
progresses. This is one that kept me up late to finish it. I highly recommend.
Conversion
by Katherine Howe
Did you know that Danvers, Massachusetts is the village once
known as Salem Village? Salem Village,
the site of the Salem witch trials and executions, was renamed Danvers in 1757.
For all of the witchy history, there is very little that
seems supernatural in this story until very late in the book. Until then, it is
a young adult historical fiction told from the perspective of Colleen, a senior
student at the Catholic St. Joan’s school. Interspersed are chapters told from
the perspective of Ann Putnam, about ten years after the Salem witch trials, as
she confesses to a preacher her part in creating the hysteria by falsely
accusing women, caught up in the mania.
I found some parallels between the historical story line and
the modern story line, but not as many as I would have liked to see. I think it
would have been stronger if she tied the two together a bit more.
It’s an intriguing read. Some of the characterization was
good, but some of Colleen’s friends, and her classmates, were a bit one
dimensional. The history is the strong point, definitely. For all that happens
and how it draws you along, it’s a bit of a slow book. There were some scenes
that could have been eliminated to tighten up the pace.
Over all, I enjoyed this book, particularly the dramatized
audio reading, but I would say I have liked the other books by this author
more. If you’re going to start with something by this author, I would head
straight for The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane or the YA The Appearance of
Annie Van Sinderen.
Some Things
I Still Can’t Tell You: Poems
by Misha
Collins
There is
something very intimate about this collection of poems. The moments captured
and shared are sometimes very personal, important to the poet. Presumably, that
is what made them worth preserving. Others are more universal, and yet still
strangely intimate. The back of the book speaks of his trademark “piercing vulnerability.”
I think vulnerability is a very apt phrase for this collection.
There are
moments in our lives that are important only to us, we all have them.
Translating them into something worth pondering for others takes
interpretation. I found an exploration of the world and life as a theme that I
could very much relate to.
I tend
toward eschewing rules when it comes to poetry so I couldn’t tell you if
Collins breaks them. I’m unsure of many rules when it comes to poetry. (For
example, I’ve received a critique that I rhyme when I shouldn’t, though I don’t
set out to rhyme.) I understand meter but have much more trouble recognizing
stress and unstressed syllables. I prefer to punctuate and capitalize as if
writing a sentence, but Collins capitalizes each line. I found that mildly
annoying at first but, much like reading the lack of punctuation in Kent Haruf’s
writing, I soon adapted to it.
Collins
covers a lot of ground, grouped into poems on Love / Hope, joy, running &
other good things / Longing, sadness, running & foreboding / My people
(& other people) / The parents / The
kids. But the poems often feel incredibly disparate, snapshots, rather than a
running continuity as some collections do. They cover a wide span of years, with
a sort of timelessness that leaves the reader wondering when something occurred
in his life.
The cover is
a lovely eagle’s eye view of a city scape at night, the points of light between
the lighter and deeper blue of the sky, and the dark of the foreground below.
The words are given an ombré effect as they fade a little into
the city scape. A lovely cover.
I was
surprised that the author worked in the White House and at NPR headquarters
before beginning his acting career, which is where I knew him from best, for
his role as the Angel Castiel in Supernatural.
A very
enjoyable collection to ponder over a cup of coffee.
Princess Elizabeth’s Spy: A Maggie Hope Mystery
by Susan Elia MacNeal
I chose this book because our book club theme this month is
espionage, because I wanted something from our digital collection to read on my
ereader, and because the cover appealed to me. I know, I know, but an appealing
cover is a factor when I’m deciding, I admit it.
The main character is Maggie Hope, a plucky secretary to
Churchill who grew up in America and becomes a British spy. She is sent
undercover as a math tutor to Windsor Castle during World War II, when a plot
to kidnap or kill the princesses is suspected.
This was a pleasant mystery, as much as anything that
involves murder and World War II can be. The descriptions of unpleasant things
are kept rather matter of fact, giving it more of a cozy mystery feel than a gritty
realistic one.
I would consider this a formula mystery with some good
historical trappings. I enjoyed the characters, particularly the sweet characterizations
of the two young princesses, though everything was somewhat one dimensional. There
was a bit of a romance, but rather perfunctory of the No, no, we mustn’t variety.
It was a bit simplistic at times, some of the thoughts and
actions of the main character didn’t quite make sense, they seemed there to
serve the plot without being true to the character. Maggie leaps to conclusions
regarding her father that are clearly not warranted. Her father sends her a
book with a message and she’s not even curious about it, even though she recently
found a secret message in another book. Then, when she’s angry at him, sure she
knows he’s done something awful, she picks it up to read just to distract
herself. Most people wouldn’t touch it at that point.
The historical trappings are interesting, though the author
goes pretty far afield from what actually happened. They mentioned Operation
Edelweiss several times but never really went into what it was. At one point, I
thought it was a plan to kidnap Princess Elizabeth, but on looking it up, I
discovered it was much more complicated and had nothing to do with the book I
was reading. It was just a point of historical reference.
Would probably appeal to fans of Jacqueline Winspear. A relaxing
type of murder mystery with just enough intrigue to draw me on throughout the
book, but not enough to convince me that I want to read the rest of the series.
In conclusion, meh, it was okay. A good series to buy for
your grandmother to read, or if you are looking to just relax.
The Spy – A Novel of Mata Hari
by Paolo Coehlo
Our thematic book club chose the theme of “espionage” for
November and I went looking in our digital catalog for books about spies. This
led me to The Spy by Paolo Coehlo, translated from the Portugese. I’ve heard
many good things about his writing but never read one of his books before. I’m
on the bandwagon now and will be reading more by him.
It was a fascinating read, though I think it would
have been a trifle easier to follow if I’d gotten the ebook instead of the audiobook.
After getting a look at the ebook, it appears that there was some physical
formatting that didn’t translate well into the audio. Nevertheless, it was a
very interesting listen.
I can’t remember when I first heard of Mata Hari, but
I’d always thought of her a spy who was duly executed, but Coehlo paints a
rather different picture. He begins with her execution, but then he takes the
reader back in time, to when she was known simply as Margaretha Zelle, a Dutch
girl.
In her teen years, Margaretha was sexually abused by
the principal of her school but afraid to speak up for fear of being sent home.
Her parents died when she was just fifteen and she answered an advertisement
for a mail order bride, but the man she married turned out to be just as
abusive as her former principal. There was also the tragedy of her murdered
son.
Things changed when she saw another officer’s wife
choose to commit suicide rather than endure the broken marriage. She decided to
take her life into her own hands. She became Mata Hari.
Coehlo appears to have done a good bit of research for
the book. He presents Mata Hari as someone who traded gossip, not really state secrets.
It is offered that she went to the French authorities when the Germans
approached her but, in the end, she scape goated over a failed military
operation.
Though, of course, there will always be some question
of how events really occurred so long ago, I found the way the story was
presented singularly effective. I definitely want to read more by Coehlo now.
