Currently Reading

I don’t want this space to expire or be reclaimed so I’m intending to begin posting again, in conjunction with the books I post on Instagram.



House of Spies
For something so unprecedented, so fraught with institutional risk, it was handled with a minimum of fuss. And, quietly, too. That was the remarkable thing about it, the operational silence with which it was carried out. Yes, there had been the dramatic announcement broadcast live to the nation, and the splashy first Cabinet meeting, and the lavish party at Ari Shamron’s lakeside villa in Tiberias where all the friends and collaborators from his remarkable past—the spymasters, the politicians, the Vatican priests, the London art dealers, even an inveterate art thief from Paris—had come to wish him well. But otherwise it came to pass with scarcely a ripple. One day Uzi Navot was seated behind his large smoked-glass desk in the chief’s office, and the next, Gabriel was in his place.


House of Spies
By Daniel Silva

Delicious!

Two covers.

 

 

Delicious!

Ruth Reichl

 

I was so sad when I finished this book, because I delighted in every phase of the stories and greatly anticipated finding minutes and hours to read it.

A first novel for Ruth Reichl, though she has at least five successful memoirs and food-related books already to her credit. I really hope she writes another novel, soon!

Very likable and interesting characters, though a few times I had to stop and recalibrate my brain cells--reminding myself who was who and what part he/she plays in the story. Still, well-drawn characters and settings. This is a very sensual book; though, mostly not in a sexual context.

 

Reading Stats

But first, a word from our sponsor: Beauty.

 

 

 

Left Neglected

 

 

I think some small part of me knew I was living an unsustainable life. Every now and then, it would whisper, Sarah, please slow down. You don't need all this. You can't continue like this. But the rest of me, powerful, smart, and determined to achieve, achieve, achieve, wasn't hearing a word of it. If, once in a while these kinds of thoughts did manage to wiggle into my consciousness, I shushed them, scolded them, and sent them to their room. Quiet, little voice, can't you see I have a million things to do?

Left Neglected

Lisa Genova

 

This year I'm tracking my reading on my Instagram account (@Marielle1949); wondering if I'll continue to update this blog. I will.

There will sometimes be that special book; a book I want to shout about, recommend far and wide. This is definitely one such.

I love all the business and family references. The whole work balance dilemma. The driven, highly-intelligent Sarah Nickerson. Her loving, competitive, supportive marriage. This fascinating condition--Left Neglect. Sarah's highly complex relationship with her mother; her all encompassing devotion and love for Charlie, Lucy, and Linus.

I'm looking forward to reading Still Alice (2014 motvie version a Best Actress Oscar win for Julianne Moore) and the rest of Genova's backlist.

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The Forgotten Waltz

 

Seán.

He is, for a moment, completely himself. He is about to turn around, but he does not know this yet. He will look around and see me as I see him and, after this, nothing will happen for many years. There is no reason why it should.

It really feels like night-time. The light is wonderful and wrong--it's like I have to pull the whole planet around in my head to get to this garden, and this part of the afternoon and to this man, who is the stranger I sleep beside now.

The Forgotten Waltz

Anne Enright

Pg. 13

 

Beautifully written. The heart wants... No matter the devastation. Looking forward to reading The Gathering.

 

A Long Time Gone

 

We are all separate boats on this river of years, never expecting to see the boat before or behind us except when the current of time unexpectedly pushes us together, touching but never altering our course. We are born to fight the bends and curves of our own rivers, pushing back that which will not give, understanding where we are meant to be only when we let go and let the river take us back to the place where we began.

Pg. 417

A Long Time Gone

Karen White

 

This is actually the last paragraph in the book. Doesn't it just say it all? It just takes a lot of living before most of us can "let go."

 

I like this quote a bunch, too.

 

He gave me a lopsided grin as I turned and headed toward the stairs. "Good night, Booger," he called after me.

If I'd had something to fling in his direction, I would have. Instead I was left to contemplate the relationship between siblings, and how even though we would always get older, our relationship never really would.

Pg. 125

 

 

Whistling in the Dark

 

I never heard exactly who it was that found Sara Heinemann's dead body over at the lagoon. But it was Willie O'Hara who told us that she was lying neatly on the grass between those rotting red rowboats you could rent for a dollar if you wanted to do a little fishing. Sara's pink undies were wrapped around her neck like a bow and she was naked. And some of her blond hair had been cut off just like Junie Piaskowski's had the summer before.

Something like that wasn't supposed to happen on a Vliet Street. But like Daddy always said...things can happen when you least expect them. Things that can change your whole life. How right he was. Because after they found Sara's body, it seemed like our nightly games of red light, green light and the Fourth of July parade and even cooling off in the Honey Creek on days so hot they'd curl the hair on the back of your neck might become part of the good old days that Granny always talked about. Because one dead girl was one thing. But two dead girls...everybody started wondering who would be next. Except for me. I knew I was next.

Whistling in the Dark

Leslie Kagen

 

It seems Leslie Kagen always writes in the voice of a young girl. I love Sally O'Malley--her wild imagination and her wise-beyond-her-years insights. There's a lot going on in the O'Malley Girls world this summer. Dramatic and scary things. But, Sally and Troo squeeze the best out of their world; charming the neighbors and finding adventure, intrigue, and empathy in every nook and cranny of Vliet Street and the neighborhood.

 

Sea Change

 

St. Simons Island, Georgia

September 1804

Storms bring the detritus of other people's lives into our own, a reminder that we are not alone, and of how truly insignificant we are. The indiscriminating waves had brutalized the shore, tossing pieces of splintered timber, an intact China teacup, and a gentleman's watch--still with its cover and chain--onto my beloved beach, each coming to rest as if placed gently in the sand as a shopkeeper would display his wares. As I rubbed my thumb over the smooth lip of the China cup, I thought of how someone's loss had become my gain, of how the tide would roll in and out again as if nothing had changed, and how sometimes the separation between endings and beginning is so small that they seem to run together like the ocean's waves.

Sea Change

Karen White

 

Great storytelling; loved the alternating stories--early 1800s and 2011. Interesting characters; well drawn. Makes me excited that we're going to be on St. Simon's Island for a few days in September. We'll be celebrating your SIL's 65th birthday, and I've already ordered a copy of this book for her.

 

Island of Lost Girls

Rhonda Farr had two Peters in her life: the Peter she lived but could not have, and now the white rabbit, which she, not unlike Alice in Wondetland,sneezed destined to chase down the joke. But Alice's rabbit was nit named Peter. The only Peter a Rabbit Rhonda had known was the one in the storybook by Beatrix Potter, a common brown rabbit with a white fluffy tail, who just couldn't stay out of poor Mr. McGregor's garden.

On the other hand, Rhonda's Peter Rabbit was Ernestine Florucci's rabbit: all white and, as she would tell the police, about six feet fall.

"A rabbit?" the state troopers would ask, hands poised to scribble notes in black pads. "Six feet tall? Are you sure?"

Though the police were skeptical, Ernestine's mother, Trudy, believed Rhonda's story; she believed her but refused to forgive her.

The lives of Ernestine, Trudy, Rhonda--maybe the lives of everyone in Pike's Crossing--had changed forever in about three minutes. The time it takes to soft-boil an egg.

Island of Lost Girls

Jennifer McMahon

 

The Bright Side of Disaster

 

 

The end began with a plane crash. Just before midnight on a Tuesday in February. A girl I'd never met or even heard of died, along with her miniature dachshund (under the seat) and a plane load of passengers in the kind of commuter plane I'll never fly in again. I've pictured it a hundred times now: the quiet hum of the motor, the sleeping passengers, the sudden jolt, the cabin steward thrown sideways before he could finish his instructions. In my mind, it always looks like a movie, because I have nothing else to go on.

The Bright Side of Disaster

Katherine Center

 

Another in my list of summer reads. Light, told with humor and uncommon perspective. I'm looking forward to reading more from this author, too.

 

 

 

 

The Sound of Glass

 

 

Another really good summer read by Karen White. And, it's the second to last paragraph that caught my attention, rather than the first.

It is in darkness that we find light. I itched to write the words in my journal, to fill the pages with everything I'd learned, how we are all tumbled about by the waves of life, earning scars that show where we've been. And we learn. With each scar we learn. With etched faces we turn toward the light, unbending and unbearable, strong at the broken places.

The Sound of Glass

Karen White

 

I read this in my Amazon Cloud app. Just because I was impatient and ready to read NOW. I do still love holding a book, though.

 

The One I Left Behind

 

 

The first thing she does when she wakes up is check her hands. She doesn't know how long she's been out. Hours? Days? She's on her back, blindfolded, arms up above her head like a diver, bound to metal pipe. Her hands are duct taped together at the wrist--but they're both still there.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Jesus, sweet, sweet Mother Mary, both her hands are there. She wiggles her fingers and remembers a song her mother used to sing:

Where is Thumpkin? Where is Thumbkin?

Here I am, Here I am,

How are you today, sir?

Very well, I thank you,

Run away, Run away.

The One I Left Behind

Jennifer McMahon

 

Another quick read; well-written. Jennifer McMahon has an extensive backlist--some I've already read and more to anticipate.

 

A serial killer. Suspense. A bit of a psychological thriller.

 

 

Tomorrow River

 

I'm sure you've heard it said that a person can't begin to understand another's troubles until they take a stroll in their shoes. Also maybe you'd . . . would you do me the favor of slipping on my little gal sneakers and taking forty giant steps backwards in time? Go stumbling around the summer of '69 the same way I did? Once you see what I was up against, I'm hoping you'll come to believe that my heart was tender and my intentions pure, and that's got to count for something.

Tomorrow River

Leslie Kagen

 

 

That's Shenandoah Wilson Carmody speaking, twin sister of Jane Woodrow Carmody, daughter of Evelyn, who's been missing for just about a year, and His Honor Judge Walter T. Carmody.

You gotta love Shenandoah. She's a whiz with words, passionate about all that she loves and experiences, protector of Woody, and determined to find out what happened to her mother just one year ago, come the Founders' Festival.

A quick and very satisfying read. Looking forward to more great storytelling and beautiful stories by Leslie Kagen.

 

The Aviator's Wife

 

 

Historical fiction. Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Her story, through her eyes.

 

 

I love Gift from the Sea; it's quiet tone and deep insights. Of course, anyone born in the 20th Century recognizes the name of Charles Lindbergh, and many his wife, Anne. Forever in his shadow, yet so much more than just the aviator's wife.

 

Melanie Benjamin (Hauser) writes a thought-provoking and sensitive novel about a real woman, an artist, a daughter, sibling, wife, aviatrix, mother... But, most importantly she crafts the story of a real woman. A woman earnestly seeking to be complete. To be enough, in her own eyes.

 

Revolution

 

 

An amazing book.

 

The French Revolution. Modern-day Brooklyn. Time Travel. Loss. Grief. Angst. Music history. Resolution. Redemption.

 

Jennifer Donnelly is a superb writer and researcher. She takes writing, as an art form, to its highest level. Her characters are complex and compelling; she brings stark and vivid reality to dusty, ambiguous history.

 

If only the French Revolution and any war before or after could have really changed the world. This Revolution insists we can only change ourselves.

 

 

 

The Pink Suit

For those of us who fell under her spell.

Introduction

"What a strange power there is in clothing." Isaac Bashevis Singer

November 1963

There was that odd thing where he seemed to tilt to one side as if to whisper something to her, as lovers often do. Her head turned, the perfect hat still in place, and she, out of instinct, leaned in as if for a kiss.

His face softened.

It took a moment for her to understand.

It was then that something--gray, dark--tumbled down the back of the limo. She pushed him away and followed after it. Held it in her hands as if it were a broken wing.

The film shows this: the agent jumped onto the 1961 Lincoln and pulled her back into the seat. Unseen are the thirty-six long-stem red roses tumbling to the floor and the agent pushing her on top of her husband and then covering them both with his own body.

Heartbeat upon heartbeat. Then silence.

"Oh, no," she whispered.

It was not a wing at all.

In the chaos of the moment, the agent focused on the suit. He knew she was crushed beneath his weight. He couldn't help that. He knew her face was pressed into her husband's. He couldn't think about that. But he could focus on the pink beneath his body.

She was so quiet. He expected her to scream, but she didn't.

Beautiful suit, he would later write in his memoirs.

Most who can recall that day in Dallas think of the film's grainy black-and-white footage. Those who were there remember the suit.

The Pink Suit

Nicole Kelby

My Amazon Wish List

It was time to sort through my Amazon Wish List. I researched each book title, eliminated a bunch, and ended up with 27 books that I still want to read.

The few weeks after New Year's compel a lot of us to clean and sort, and eliminate. That's good. That's great. Now when I go to the library or online to buy a book, I have a go-to list that is real and possible.

All the Light We Cannot See

 

 

All the Light We Cannot See

Anthony Doerr

 

"A novel to live in, learn from, and feel bereft over when the last page is turned." – Booklist

"This jewel of a story is put together like a vintage timepiece, its many threads coming together so perfectly. Doerr’s writing and imagery are stunning. It’s been a while since a novel had me under its spell in this fashion. The story still lives on in my head." –Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone.

"All the Light We Cannot See is a dazzling, epic work of fiction. Anthony Doerr writes beautifully about the mythic and the intimate, about snails on beaches and armies on the move, about fate and love and history and those breathless, unbearable moments when they all come crashing together." –Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins.

 

Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six, she goes blind, and her father builds her a model of their neighborhood, every house, every manhole, so she can memorize it with her fingers and navigate the real streets with her feet and cane. When the Germans occupy Paris, father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast, where Marie-Laure’s agoraphobic great uncle lives in a tall, narrow house by the sea wall.

In another world in Germany, an orphan boy, Werner, grows up with his younger sister, Jutta, both enchanted by a crude radio Werner finds. He becomes a master at building and fixing radios, a talent that wins him a place at an elite and brutal military academy and, ultimately, makes him a highly specialized tracker of the Resistance. Werner travels through the heart of Hitler Youth to the far-flung outskirts of Russia, and finally into Saint-Malo, where his path converges with Marie-Laure.

Doerr’s gorgeous combination of soaring imagination with observation is electric. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, a finalist for the 2104 National Book Award, an international bestseller, the 2014 Book of the Year at Hudson Booksellers, the #2 book of 2014 at Amazon.com, a LibraryReads Favorite of Favorites, a best book of 2014 at the Washington Post, and a #1 Indie Next pick, All the Light We Cannot See is his most ambitious and dazzling work.

Anthony Doerr sees the world as a scientist, but feels it as a poet. He knows about everything—radios, diamonds, mollusks, birds, flowers, locks, guns—but he also writes a line so beautiful, creates an image or scene so haunting, it makes you think forever differently about the big things—love, fear, cruelty, kindness, the countless facets of the human heart. Wildly suspenseful, structurally daring, rich in detail and soul, Doerr’s new novel is that novel, the one you savor, and ponder, and happily lose sleep over, then go around urging all your friends to read—now. –JR Moehringer, author of The Tender Bar

11/22/63

 

849 pages. Almost as long as Pillars of the Earth.

 

No first paragraph. The subject, and this particular author writing about the JFK assassination and the era was enough to capture my attention and keep me interested through this "weighty" book. A very good read.

I'm not a huge Stephen King fan, though I've read several of his books including On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000).

I'm not going to highlight any particular sections. I'm just going to state unequivocally that this man can write.

983 pages.

 

Astray

 

 

Jane Johnson grips the rail of the Riversale, watching the estuary water heave and sink below her. She reckons the dates: nearly five weeks since she boarded at Belfast, and the city of Québec is only one more day west. The provisions might almost have lasted, if it hadn't been for the heat and the maggots in the ham. The same journey took Henry eight weeks last year, when the seas were high. Tomorrow she will be beside him.

Today she is bedside herself. On this voyage Jane has discovered herself to be a most imperfect creature...

"Counting the Days"

Astray

Emma Donoghue

pg. 77

Beautifully written; historical fiction. Short stories. I love her approach. Selecting news from small historical events: social history she calls it. Donoghue weaves facts into stories of interesting characters and stirring emotions, and captivates.

From a NPR interview...

I just keep an eye out for these things. I read social history. I, you know, in art galleries, I read the little captions underneath the paintings. I listen to the radio and just keep my ears open. I think the only difference between me and other people is that when I hear of an interesting historical incident, I immediately write it down and Google it. I'm just a very persistent researcher and I find things all the time. I would say the 14 stories in Astray come from about more like 40 different incidents that I came across.