Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner

Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024--San Antonio

Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner is one of the most in-demand books this year (I waited for about 9 weeks on hold to get it on my Kindle from my library) and has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize and longlisted for the National Book Award.  It is also the most complex story I have read recently.  The central character is a former U.S. government operative who is now doing private contract undercover work around the world.  During the time covered by the book, she is in France.  She is infiltrating a cult-like commune by becoming the lover of the childhood best friend of the leader of the group. While her lover, a film producer, is in southern France on his latest project, she volunteers to go to his family's unoccupied estate near the commune and, while there, to assist the best friend and other members of the commune in translating their writings about how life should be organized and lived.  (She is fluent in several languages.)  But it is all a plan by her employers for her to determine whether this is a group intending to lead insurrection against the government.  And eventually, with the approval of a great increase in pay, the plan involves her being expected to arrange an attempt to assassinate a government official whose planned projects for the area are of concern to local citizens because they will promote huge agricultural farming (putting the local small farmers out of business) and have the potential for creating a water crisis.  Tied in with all of this is the background story of a writer/insurrectionist whose writings and counselings have led to the establishment of this particular commune she is infiltrating.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

The Pairing by Casey McQuiston

Saturday, Sept. 29, 2024--San Antonio

The Pairing by Casey McQuiston was recommended in a TIME feature recently explaining the new popularity of romance novels and the improved quality of such stories.  I previously read the author's Red, White, and Royal Blue after noting the popularity of the TV series made from it (on a streaming service to which I do not subscribe).  This latest book by her was a bit confusing to me at first.  It's a history of the relationship between Theo and Kit who became childhood friends in elementary school, eventually became lovers, and, at the time the book starts, have been apart a few years due to a breakup.  The first half of the book is told by Theo.  The second half is told by Kit.  The reader slowly learns their entire story.  It's told in a way that there are strange nuggets dropped that could be easily passed over, but that, if noticed, somewhat boggle the reader's mind--raising questions such as: Does that really make sense?  Why that?  Is ___ going to happen?   Later, something is told in the story that answers those questions and makes sense out of the things that seemed strange.  Because of the interests of the two main characters, there are lots of details related to art history, food, and wine.  As I understand is common and expected in most romance novels, there are also a LOT of detailed sex scenes; as far as I was concerned, there were too many that lasted for too long.  But the general story is a good one.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2024--San Antonio

Bel Cando by Ann Patchett was named by TIME as one of the Top 100 books of the 2000s.  It was a book I never wanted to put down.  The story of a situation in an unnamed South American country involving a group of guerrilla fighters and a group of hostages, it follows the months after a failed attempt to capture the president of the country at a birthday party arranged for a Japanese industrialist who is a fan of the top female opera performer in the world.  In a desperate attempt to get a new factory, the country, which has been unsuccessful in getting the industrialist to come there previously, throws the birthday party with the opera singer as the entertainment and an enticement.  The result is a comedy of errors.  The industrialist comes only because of the opera singer and still has no interest at all in building a factory there.  The opera singer comes only because she has an upcoming concert in Buenos Aries and is curious about this Japanese industrialist who is aware of her and has traveled around the world to hear her perform several times.  The birth date of the industrialist is on a Tuesday, but the President is a fan of a very popular soap opera that is on TV on Tuesday nights and never allows anything on his calendar to conflict with staying home and watching the show.  The president agrees to the party because of the need for the hoped-for factory, but secretly plans to back out of attending at the last minute.  The party is to be held at the home of the vice-president, and the guerrillas have an elaborate plan of entering the home in advance through the vents for the air conditioning system and coming out as a surprise at the end of the opera singer's performance to capture the president and whisk him away quickly during all the confusion.  Trying to find the absent president among the crowd eats up so much time that word of what is happening gets out via phone calls, and the military and police arrive to surround the house.  The stand-off begins and lasts for months with the guerrillas trying to make unreasonable and often changing demands and the government never making offers of anything but surrender by the guerrillas and release of the captives.  The real story is what happens during the first weeks and eventually months of captivity within the compound.  Relationships begin to develop.  Guerrillas begin to care for their captives and vice versa.  Strict enforcement of rules by the guerrillas slowly falls to the wayside.  Daily life under the circumstances is better for the guerrillas than it has ever been for them in the jungles.  And the captives also come to realize that life without the responsibilities of their professional lives has its advantages for them.  The reader will learn to care for many among both the guerrillas and the captives and to wish that everything could be resolved with everyone going free.  Is there any chance for that?  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald

 Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024--San Antonio

Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald is considered to be a great novel, and it was listed by TIME as one of the top 100 books of the 2000s.  It is well written and includes lots of interesting observations about life, about architecture, about history, etc.  But it is a SLOW read with page-after-page consisting of one paragraph.  I found myself leaving the book after reading fewer than 20 pages at a time.  After 5-6 days of reading, I was only 40% of the way through the book and having to push myself to go back to it.  Finally, at 42% of the way through it, I decided to quit it.  At times the story had turned interesting, but that would last a while and then go back to observations.  Maybe I should have kept reading, but I wanted something more consistently interesting to read.  I haven't rated the book.  And I may go back to it at some point in time.  But I have probably left it behind permanently since I read mostly for pleasure.

Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune

Sunday, Sept. 15, 2025--San Antonio 

Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune is the second and final book in a science fiction series.  I read the first in the series, The House in the Cerulean Sea, in March of this year.  This is the continuation of the story of the discrimination against magical people and the efforts of a magical man who is a phoenix to work to create a chosen family of magical children who have especially strong powers and as a result have been abused in foster homes and orphanages and are feared by the government for their power.  However, in this book, one of the children, Lucifer, the son of the Devil, is not only feared by the government but is the target of a plan to capture him and force him to evil deeds at their command to make it the most powerful country in the world.  Why would he do this?  Because he and the other children living together have come to think of themselves as brothers and sisters--as a part of a family--and that Lucifer's concern for his family members would be the motivation to obey the evil demands the government makes of him.  It's an interesting story, but the two books together are more pages to read that I would have preferred.  I never got past the first book in the Harry Potter series as my interested dropped.  Science fiction isn't my favorite category of literature.  So I found myself wanting to get through this second book in the series to go on to others on my list to read.  I gave it 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024--San Antonio

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz won the Pulitzer Prize and The National Book Critics Circle Award and was named the #1 Fiction Book of the Year by TIME in 2007.  In general, I have never been greatly impressed by the Pulitzer winners, but this is the best of the lot I have read.  It has fascinating characters, hilarious moments, and so many references to popular culture that it boggles the mind to think that the author knows and retains all of this information in his mind.  The title character is an overweight, sad sack nerd supreme!  He looks like a nerd, talks like a nerd, acts like a nerd, and enters adulthood still a nerd and also a virgin who hasn't even been kissed.  And the result provides all of the many laughable moments in the book.  But the book is really about the history of the Dominican Republic in modern times as seen through the history of Oscar's family for multiple generations--before the 31-year dictatorship of Trujillo, during that dictatorship, and afterwards.  It's about the hard life that many of the people there have faced, the power and corruption of the government no matter who the ruler, and the reasons why many have left the island for a better life in the U.S., Cuba, Mexico, Spain, and elsewhere.  This novel provides far more details about the history of the DR than, in the words of the narrator, "the 2 minutes worth" that we learned in schools in the U.S.  The central family, back 3 and 4 generations ago, was among the elites of society.  One of the sons 3 generations back manages to become a doctor and to own a number of businesses although he didn't get the high society marriage he had hoped to have and eventually married his mulatto nurse. Their children, turned out to be intelligent and beautiful.  But there were beginnings of a slow downfall even though the doctor tried to avoid problems by supporting Trujillo and ignoring his strong-armed tactics.  Trujillo must have been among the worst dictators in the history of the world.  No woman was safe from being raped by him, even the wives of his government officials, and he took special pleasure in raping new brides the night of their wedding (before being bedded by the new husband).  It's fear of Trujillo's interest in one of the daughters that precipitates the greatest economic downfall of the family.  But other events lead to a belief that there is a sort of curse against the family which leads to more and more tragic events.  The book introduces Oscar and his sister Lola who are members of the latest generation living in Patterson, NJ, with a mother working two jobs to support them, then it gives the back stories for all the other characters before returning to current times.  Beyond the history lesson, however, it is the wonderfully bewildering Oscar you will love.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Wild Houses by Colin Barrett

Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024--San Antonio

Wild Houses by Colin Barrett is a character study set in Ireland that has been longlisted for the Booker Prize this year.  By "character study" I mean that we are given background information about the main characters in the story followed by the story of the events during several days involving all of these characters.  There is no real plot.  For a reader who is absorbing all of the information, it is a fascinating story that raises concerns and questions.  Is this 17-year-old teenager who has been successfully managing her own life since her parents died--doing well in school with a chance at going to university, working part-time in a bar, dating a nice boy whose brother is a worthless soul and criminal--going to continue making a success of her life or are circumstances going to hold her back?  Is the very large guy--a bullied loner in school who has been treated for mental problems with symptoms similar to panic attacks and whose estranged father is famous in town for having kidnapped a woman and ending up living in a sanatorium with similar mental symptoms--going to survive on his own after his mother's death occurs and two criminals start bullying their way into his life for the advantages they need for their crime sprees?  Is the school charmer--who bullied for fun and committed petty crimes in school without facing consequences and who is, a few years after school, still a petty criminal taking advantage of others without being able to use his charm to get away with things anymore--going to grow up or waste his whole life?  Is the quiet and sensitive brother of the school charmer/bully--who has a chance to go to university and lead a different life from his brother--going to escape the pull of events that could lead him other directions?  Are the worst of the criminals going to ever be caught and punished?  The book provides all the information needed to set these questions in motion and then leaves it to the reader to think about them and decide for himself what is going to happen to each.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam

 Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024--San Antonio

I quit reading Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam at 25% of the way through it.  It was just too tense for me.  It wasn't a pleasure to keep reading even though it was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2020.  Time is just too short for me to read something I am not enjoying.  But I also found the writing to be too simple.  I gave the book 3 stars out of 5

The Postcard by Anne Berest

 Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024--San Antonio

The Postcard by Anne Berest is an autobiographical novel that was named a best book of the year by TIME, NPR, The New Yorker, and other book review publications.  It consists of multiple stories of generations of her family that come to light during the search by her and her mother to discover who was the anonymous writer of a postcard sent to them in the early 2000s--a postcard that had only the written names on it of the 4 core family members of theirs who died in the Holocaust.  But the search reveals so much more.  The two women are descendants of the only surviving member of that original family, a woman who never talked about her life before the war or what happened during the war.  What they learned during their search is the history of the family before the war--living in Russia, Romania, Poland and Palestine--always building a life and then moving as discrimination against Jews started to rise.  Because Palestine didn't provide the opportunity for a financially successful life that the other places did, the family finally moved to France and had been there long enough to feel that they were French citizens first and Jews second (because they had never been religiously active Jews).  They, therefore, thought that the threats from the rise of Hitler would not affect them.  They passed on opportunities to escape elsewhere until it was too late.  The story of the family up to its move to France is the first half of the book.  The second half is the story of their success in France, the coming of the Nazis, what happened to each of the family members during the war (especially the life of the daughter who survived without being captured and deported), and the life of that survivor after the war--all tied together by the story of the search for the anonymous writer of the postcard that caused them to start searching in the first place.  What I found fascinating was that the story covers so much more than most stories about the Holocaust do.  It includes the the things we know about Jewish repression over the centuries including Jews repeatedly being used as scapegoats when governments have economic problems;  actions taken toward the Jewish people by governments and non-Jewish citizens and neighbors; the various ways that the Germans affected the lives of Jewish people during the war; the various ways that resistance arose and was carried out against the Germans; etc.  It is somewhat a total package of the repression of Jewish people and the effects it has had on their lives over the centuries built around 4 generations of one family.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K. Reilly

Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024--San Antonio

Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K. Reilly is set in New Zealand but has been recommended by various U.S. national publications.  Its two main characters are young adults (older brother and younger sister) whose extended families are a multicultural mix of immigrants from various former U.S.S.R. member republics and Spain plus the native Maori community.  All the main characters have somewhat quirky senses of humor providing unique and humorous reactions the experiences they are having in life.  It took me a while to realize all of this was the case.  Because of that and the large number of characters I considered whether to continue reading the book.  By the time I was 50% of the way through, I had started seeing the patterns of humor and laughing aloud at times (but still had trouble remembering who was who at times).  Anyway, I started reading though the rest of the book at a faster pace wanting to see what was going to occur.  Many of the characters are also sexually fluid or gay, so it is common for one character to have been with the opposite sex and now be with the same sex in relationships or to have had affairs with a character sexually different from the one who is their partner.  There are also relationships involving age differences.  In other words, it is a novel about characters who represent society as it really exists--characters that are difficult for many people to accept because of historical definitions of what makes a family and what a family should be.  This is not a book for a cisgender person who believes that sex should be between a "man" and a "woman" unless that person is open to considering that they have been too rigid in their understandings and beliefs and are ready to accept that others are leading happy lives (and have a right to do so) in ways that they have not felt were appropriate.  I eventually found the characters to be delightful and the story to be fascinating.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

The Ministry of Time by Keliane Bradley

Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024--San Antonio

The Ministry of Time by Keliane Bradley is one of the most entertaining stories I have read in some time.  I found myself not just laughing, but guffawing over and over as I was reading and then again while thinking about what I had just read.  It's a story of several time travelers brought to the present from the various times in the past.  It was the central traveler Graham from the mid-1800s who had a "unique" way of expressing himself which made the story so funny.  A special ministry has been established in London to deal with time travel and those who have been brought to the present from the past.  There is a research project to see what effects the travel has on the people--psychologically and physically.  Each of the travelers has been assigned a handler to help them adapt to their new situation and to observe and report on all aspects of their lives during the first year that they are here.  All the characters and their reactions are interesting.  But problems develop.  I was deeply involved in the story until the very end when the explanations for what was happening were so complex I found myself re-reading sections to try to understand them.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

The History of Sound by David Shattuck

Saturday, Aug. 17, 2024--San Antonio

The History of Sound by David Shattuck is a collection of short stories set in New England.  Reading them gave me my most pleasurable reading experience of this year.  I found myself "inside the stories"--experiencing them vicariously because they were so well written and so interesting.  The title story is a very beautiful one which is presently being made into a film starring Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor.  And there are connections between various stories--little nuggets of information that can tie a stand-alone story to a previous one even though there may be years or centuries between them.  The stories range time settings from the late 1600s to the present and there are a variety of subjects--researching and recording folk music in the back wooded areas of Maine, living on Nantucket island when it was isolated with few people and horrible winters, belonging to a religious cult led to believe that that the righteous would climb a beam of light to heaven at the change of the century from the 1600s to 1700, etc.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5 and the title story 5 stars out of 5.

Sandwich by Catherine Newman

Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024--San Antonio

Sandwich by Catherine Newman was on a list of the top books of 2024 (so far) by the New York Times and was recommended elsewhere as a good summer read.  It is a short, humorous novel with a 54-year-old woman being the central character telling the story.  She is with 3 generations of her family (with her "sandwiched" in the middle) on their traditional summer vacation on Cape Cod in the same vacation cottage they have rented for 20 or so years.  There is her husband, their adult son and his girlfriend of several years, their gay daughter who is a university student, her elderly parents (who, as they have traditionally done, only come for 2 nights), and the elderly family cat.  The woman has been going through menopause which not only is affecting her physically but is also causing her to recall other frustrations from different periods of her life.  She misses her children being at home and tries to make up for it with this week of their presence.  She and her husband have a comfortable and happy marriage, but there are things about the other that irritate each.  There are things that have never been said.  There are worries about the passing of time--the cat and the elderly parents probably near the end of their lives, the children becoming more and more distant as they become independent adults leading their own lives, etc.  And there is an effort to try to do everything that is traditional from past vacations while they are here because the changes that may be coming in their lives might mean that this could be the last chance.  I liked the fact that everything seemed so realistic--the worries, the experiences, the interactions, etc.  And the humor was refreshing and continuous throughout the book.  I gave it 4 stars out of 5.

Daddy by Emma Cline

Sunday, Aug. 11, 2024--San Antonio

Daddy by Emma Cline is a book of short stories.  Each is about a troubling situation in life for one or more of the characters who arefacing a situation that is not what they wished.  In a way, it made me realize how lucky I am.  But at the same time, the situations seem so realistic that it concerned me that so many people face hopeless situations because of bad decisions they have made.  Since they are short stories, I didn't have to wallow in the misery of any one situation; that was a relief.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5 because the stories are well written and it is left to the reader to realize/recognize what is going wrong.

Family Meal by Bryan Washington

Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024--San Antonio

Family Meal by Bryan Washington is the third book I have read by this author.  All of his stories are interesting.  And because they are set in Houston, I often know the neighborhoods being mentioned.  This story is centered around the continuing lives of two young men who were best friends when boys.  When the parents of one died, the family of the other took in the orphaned friend and raised him within their family until he left for university.  It turns out that both boys are gay.  But after high school, they go their separate ways while still feeling tied to each other as "family."  There is an added factor of two of the main characters in the book (one in the family that took in the orphaned friend and one who becomes the partner of the the orphaned friend) are of mixed African American/Asian American race which means that unexpected reactions and problems are encountered beyond the problems that normally relate to being just Black boys in America.  Mental health, forgiveness, acceptance of others, making life decisions, etc., are also a part of the story.  I enjoyed the book.  I gave it 4 stars out of 5.

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

Friday, Aug. 2, 2024--San Antonio

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore is a mystery novel set at a compound in the Adirondack Mountains. Owned by a very wealthy banking family with a home that was taken apart piece by piece in Switzerland and moved to the compound.  But the compound also has a summer camp that serves mostly the children of other wealthy New York friends of the family.  There are two disappearances about 14 years apart of children from the third generation of the banking family with both disappearances taking place on weekends when the family hosts an annual long weekend of guests--business friends and celebrities (to add some spice to the gathering).  Could these two disappearances be tied to each other?  Could a known child molester from the area who recently escaped from prison and might be returning home be a factor?  Why was a body never found during the first disappearance and why weren't people more concerned?  What affairs are taking place among various family members and friends?  How much of their lives are built around protecting their wealth and reputation interests?  Was the man accused of having been responsible for the first disappearance guilty, or was he used as a scapegoat for some strange reason?  Are local people being used and accused of crimes to cover-up for things done by those with money?  It's a good page-turner and very entertaining.  I gave it 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

God's Children Are Little Broken Things by Arinze Ifeakandu

Saturday, July 28, 2024--San Antonio

God's Children Are Little Broken Things by Arinze Ifeakandu, a collection of short stories set in Nigeria and a winner and/or finalist for several prizes, is a rather daring book considering each story is about queer love.  Nigeria is a very anti-queer country with frequent stories of government raids and mass arrests.  And these stories reflect those attitudes of the people and the government.  Characters love in secret and range from the poor living in villages to successful professionals in large cities.    When parents learn they have a son who is gay, they and their priest try to beat the gay out of him with palm fronds leaving lifelong scars on his back.  Parents in several stories can only think of themselves--being shamed and embarrassed, being upset that they will never have grandchildren, and disowning their child.  When a singer has a hit record, his manager sabotages the singer's gay relationship.  The book is a downer because of this lack of acceptance of queer life in Nigeria, but the stories are so well written that an empathetic reader will be pulled into them. The author is living in the US where he teaches at a university.  I doubt the book would have ever been published if he were living in Nigeria, and it is likely that he would be arrested if it had been.  Every one of the 9 short stories is a little masterpiece.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

Monday, July 22, 2024--San Antonio

Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner is a novel about 3 generations of a Jewish family.  The story begins in the 1940s when Zelig escapes from the Nazis and comes to America with a formula for making molded styrofoam forms to protect products that are being shipped. It is the story of his widow, his children, grandchildren, and extended family members.   Zelig became wealthy, and his progeny have lived easy lives of luxury.  The one blip that has occurred prior the present was that his son, who took over the factory, was kidnapped when only two of the three eventual grandchildren had been born and were both young.  The kidnapping affected the lives of everyone.  Although the son came back safely after a ransom was paid, he had spent a week while kidnapped that resulted in life-long suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.  No one was, therefore, ever allowed to talk about the kidnapping--when it happened, what it involved, how it affected them, etc.  But most of the book takes place in modern times and is the story of the end of the family business and the end of the regular quarterly payments of hundreds of thousands of dollars that everyone in the family has come to expect.  Much of the first 2/3 of the book concentrates on the spoiled 3 children who were never learned to take any responsibility seriously, have wasted money along the way, and find unexpectedly that their quarterly payments have ended.  Other reviewers have talked about how funny the novel is.  I only chuckled a few times throughout the whole book.  As I read about each of these 3 adult children, all I wanted to do was to yell at them for the stupid decisions they were making in life.  The story does get better toward the end as everything comes to a head with unknown truths coming out and the family having to face a reckoning (of a sort).  I gave the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

Paper Towns by John Green

Thursday, July 11, 2024--San Antonio

Paper Towns by John Green is a young adult novel.  It's an interesting story that seems to be well written.  It takes place during the last few weeks of the school year for members of the graduating senior class.  A female classmate was best friends with a neighbor boy living across across the street when they were in elementary school, but in high school, he runs with the nerds and she is with the popular crowd.  The boy has always continued to love her although from a distance.  After a night when she involves the boy in a wild plan for revenge against her boyfriend and other close friends, she disappears.  She has disappeared before and left clues, so the story revolves around the boy and his nerd friends trying to find the clues and solve the mystery of where she has gone.  Although it seems realistic, I do find the way that late adolescents think and reason to be frustrating.  At times I wanted to yell at the characters.  But at other times I laughed aloud.  It was an entertaining novel overall.  I gave it 4 stars out of 5.   

The Bell in the Fog by AC Rosen

Thursday, July 4, 2024--San Antonio

The Bell in the Fog is the second book in a detective series by AC Rosen.  I read the first book a few weeks ago.  My most recent books have been less than I hoped in terms of entertainment, so I checked this one out and read it in one day.  It takes place in San Francisco during the early 1950s.  Andy is a former cop who is working as a private eye.  He is hired to find some sexually candid photos and their negatives that are being used to blackmail a former colleague and lover in the Navy during WWII.  What he finds is photos of more than this one person.  Then, after returning the photos to everyone, he is confronted by someone else whose photos he doesn't have who threatens his life if his photos are not returned just like those of the others.  It's a period of corrupt cops, bar owners paying the cops for protection, everyone trying to keep secrets, etc.  And Andy is there to solve all the questions and to fall in love again.  I give the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

The House on Via Gemito by Dominico Starnone

Wednesday, July 3, 2024--San Antonio

I quit reading The House on Via Gemito by Dominico Starnone at 12% of the way through the book.  The book was long-listed for the International Booker Prize and seems to be well-written.  But reading it was just too tedious for me.  There were very long paragraphs and chapters, and the author just dwelled on and on about a young man's memories of his father who was despicable--a fabulist, a liar, an abuser, etc.  Why would I want to continue a 480 page novel that has made so little progress beyond describing the father for 59 pages?  There are more entertaining books available.  No rating.

The Foghorn Echoes by Dan Ramadan

 Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023--San Antonio

The Foghorn Echoes by Dan Ramadan is a novel that won the Lammy award for best gay fiction in 2023.  It is a story about the lives to two young Syrian men growing up in a country where life became difficult for them due to family expectations, governmental laws, religious teachings, political turmoil, and a tragic event. It begins in Damascus at the time when Americans were invading neighboring Iraq and continues through the protests and civil war inside Syria.  The boys have barely discovered that there is more than friendship between them when their lives are overturned and eventually separated.  One leaves the country as a refugee while the other is forced into a marriage that was arranged when he was a young boy and his father's best friend and his wife were expecting a daughter to be born.  The refugee suffers from PTSD and loses control of his life as he seeks relief through frequent anonymous sex and drug usage.  The other runs away from home sleeping on the streets and eventually in an abandoned home.  Will their lives continue in misery forever?  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Good Material by Dolly Alderton

Sunday, June 30, 2024--San Antonio

Good Material by Dolly Alderton has been recommended as very funny.  It was funny at times, but not nearly to the extent of some other books I've read recently.  It is the story of a comedian who does a stand-up act in clubs, professional dinner gigs, and even sometimes works at conference exhibit halls giving samples or promoting products.  A few years ago, he was a host for a short-lived TV game show. He has never been very successful, but he makes enough money to have lived away from his family but only in an apartment with roommates.  For the past 4 1/2 years he has been in a relationship without being married.  Both he (Andy) and his girlfriend (Jen) are 35.  She is a very successful insurance company executive partner.  Their friends are all married and having children, but Andy has performing old material for some time now with with less success with present audiences, so he has been downgraded on the pay scale for booked jobs through his agent.  Jen does not really want to have children like her friends and is questioning whether she wants to continue to be in the relationship with Andy; she wonders if she was always meant to be single.  The book covers their breakup and the difficulty of adjusting and moving forward as both Andy and Jen worry about it in different ways while both try to keep secret tabs on how the other is handling it all.  Was the breakup a mistake?  Was the relationship good enough that they should go back to it?  What is is wrong in their lives other than the breakup?  Is there a path forward for both of them if they don't get back together?  Can Andy revive his career?  What does Jen really want in life since she also is not satisfied with demands of her work? Because of the final 15% of the book seemed to come alive more, I upgraded my rating to 4 stars out of 5.

Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck

Tuesday, June 25, 2024--San Antonio 

Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck won the International Booker Prize this year.  Written in German, it was translated into English by Michael Hoffman.  There have been great reviews both for the book and the English translation of it.  The story takes place over a period of years from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s.  This is the period in which communism began to crumble in the east and eventually the wall in Berlin was opened to the west and East Germany was annexed with the West.  The story is built around a relationship that develops between a young student who has just graduated at the age of 19 and a married man more than 30 years older than she.  Both are leading more privileged lives than those of most citizens of East Germany.  The young woman has relatives in Cologne who send western currency to be spent in the "hard currency" shop in Berlin, and she is even approved for an exit visa (rare for the government to give to anyone) to go to Cologne and visit her grandmother for a week.  The man, a writer and a host of a classical music radio show, has a visa that allows him to leave for the west regularly for presentations, conferences, etc., and is paid enough for him to entertain frequently in the best restaurants and bars of East Berlin.  They begin an affair.  But there are early signs of an imbalance in the relationship beyond age.  He is married and has no plans to leave his wife.  They appear to fall head-over-heals in love with each other, but he is demanding and expects her not to question his marriage or demands.  Their story seems to be a personal one paralleling what is happening in the government of their country.  The author parallels the two stories (of the couple's relationship and the happenings within the government) over time.  The young lady continues to love him as things deteriorate.  He becomes overly critical and demanding when he finds out she has had a one-night affair while away on a 1-year internship at a theater where she is learning set design.  They break up and get back together.  He sends audio tapes that are severely critical of her and expects her to respond in writing to what he has written.  She isn't mature enough to recognize that he is being manipulative and self-centered.  It is horrible to read what he has said on these tapes.  But the relationship continues off and on with the man never being sorry for how he is or admitting any wrong while always blaming her for having ruined it all between them.  The period between the fall of the wall and the combining of the two former countries is fascinating to read.  Because the two main characters are East Germans, it is told from the perspective of East Germans and what they faced during this period--a currency exchange (1 West German Mark for every 2 East German Marks saved by the citizens there), jobs being lost, buildings being taken over by West German agencies, rents being raised 3-fold for apartments (while the renters were also waiting to see if they would even be allowed to keep their apartments), etc.  By the time the book ends most of the privileged class of East Germans citizens has fallen, and it is common for East Germans to question what cost they have paid for "freedom" (which starts to seem to be only the right to buy whatever they want when they want it [if they have the money] vs. not having quality goods or everything they might have wanted on the shelves in the past).  The book is a bit complicated to read, but it was worth the effort for me.  I gave it 4 stars out of 5.

Martyr by Kaveh Akbar

Tuesday, June 18, 2024--San Antonio

Martyr by Daveh Akbar is an interesting book.  The central character is a young man whose mother died in an Iranian plane shot down by the USA when he was an infant.  His father, who had a good science-related job in Iran but was concerned about how things were developing there and was depressed and frustrated with the loss of his wife, moved with the son to the US where he took a job at a poultry farm in Ft. Wayne working 6 days a week.  Cyrus, the son, is also depressed, but he is intelligent and manages to attend a nearby university majoring in literature and writing.  His father dies during his when Cyrus has completed only two years of college.  Cyrus sees it as a final liberation from his past and eventually finishes his degree.  He has been depressed most of his life.  This has led him to become dependent on alcohol and eventually alcohol combined with drugs.  He writes lots of poetry, but has to live on limited income from menial jobs.  He dreams of  becoming a successful writer with a novel about martyrs (which he was taught that his mother was in Iran and which he believes that many people are due to various circumstances in their lives), but even though he eventually enters recovery and maintains sobriety, he never really figures out how to make progress on the novel nor to grow professionally.  He has a hard-nosed sobriety sponsor who helps keep him on the straight and narrow.  And he has a best friend/roommate Zee who he more or less uses for his own advantage.  Cyrus is bisexual, so he has intimacy with Zee, but without commitment.  Another friend shows him an article about a female artist, also of Iranian descent, who is dying because of breast cancer that has spread to the rest of her body and become incurable.  The artist is living the last days of her life as a form of performance art within the Brooklyn Museum meeting with museum-goers who wish to line up and talk to her and ask her questions about death/dying.  Cyrus decides that meeting this artist might be what he needs to needs as a way to provide insight, direction, and incentive to finally make progress on his proposed novel.  He and Zee head to Brooklyn for 4 days.  While there, both their lives change in unexpected and dramatic ways.  Much of the book seemed underwhelming to me as a reader--just slogging along and making me wonder why it has gotten such good reviews (listed as a best book of the first part of this year by the New York Times and highly reviewed on NPR).  But the story really comes alive in the final third of the book.  My rating is 4 stars out of 5--a bit lower than that of most other readers.

Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid

 Tuesday, June 11, 2024--San Antonio

Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid was mentioned in a story on NPR about the trend of "hockey romance novels" that is occurring.  When identifying a couple of the best, this title was mentioned because of it being unique in that the romance is between two professional hockey players rather than about a woman who is involved romantically with a hockey player.  I decided to give it a try since it was available from Libby.  It has many admirable attributes--well written, interesting story, interesting characters, realistic depictions of all aspects of the story.  It compares well with the best of other non-hockey gay novels while emphasizing descriptions of the sexual interactions more frequently and in more detail. But I generally prefer literature with less coverage of the specifics of the sexual act and especially not as frequently as it was covered in this novel.  The story seemed authentic in terms of the experiences that gay men have and the frustrations they face in life in determining whether they can "afford" to come out versus keeping their relationship a hidden secret.  The fact that the relationship is between two of the top new rookies, one Canadian and the other Russian, who are promoted as bitter enemies and rivals makes it a more interesting story.  Ilya, the Russian, is bisexual but finds that his relationship with Shane, who is gay, has a greater affect on him than any of his relationships with women.  Ilya also is learning English and, therefore, has limited vocabulary and has to think a bit more to construct what he wants to say when speaking in English; the result is very charming for the way he does say things.  He doesn't have enough of an English vocabulary to be more subtle about what comes out of his mouth, and it is often hilarious!  Shane is sweet and caring.  They spend 6 years meeting in secret when they are both in the same cities--when their teams are competing against each other, when there are all-star games or championship playoffs, etc.  The relationship gradually grows from one that they both need because it fulfills a desire that they cannot openly declare without possibly ruining their careers, to one that they cannot live without and must find a way to be together more than they have been.  As a romance novel, it probably deserves a higher rating, but because I felt it overemphasized the sexual act in too much detail too often, I give the book 4 stars out of 5.

A Shining by Jon Fosse

Saturday, June 8, 2024--San Antonio

A Shining by Jon Fosse is a novella--a VERY short novel.  It is quite different, too.  It is one long paragraph.  All the words are thoughts within the mind of a man--quick thoughts circling around in his head with some repetition and slow forward progress.  The man seems to be depressed and to have lived alone for some time.  He has driven into the country taking planned turns to purposely get lost--right at the first intersection, left at the second intersection, and so on until he has come to a dead end on a grass-track road going up in altitude with no more intersections.  Ahead is a forest of pine trees with a walking trail into the woods.  The car is stuck--the ruts lower than the grass mound between them which has stopped the car's movement rather than him putting on the brakes.   All of this seems to be steps in a depressed man's attempt to let his life come to an end.  It is snowing and cold.  He can't go further in the car, so he walks into the woods following the trail.  He has only his regular clothes and shoes, so it is very cold.  Soon it is getting dark so that he is unsure if he is still on the trail.  He is changing directions as he did when driving.  Therefore, he comes to the realization that he is lost in the dark woods and cannot get back to his car.  There is a round smooth stone that looks like a good place to sit down since limbs above it have collected the falling snow and left the stone uncovered and since he is tired and just wants to rest.  All of this may be symbolic for something happening totally elsewhere but manifesting it in his mind this way, but it soon becomes evident that the man is going through a process of dying.  There is a shining light.  His parents appear.  A man in a black suit and tie appear.  Then the light, his parents, and the shining light are all there together.  No one is wearing shoes, not even him, yet he remembers he had them on when he left the car and cannot remember ever taking them off.  So much has not been making sense to him.  Eventually, he joins hands with all the others, and more things occur that don't make sense.  Even breathing changes to not really involving breathing air.  And then the thoughts stop, too, and the reader is at the end of the one paragraph novel!  It's different.  It's thought-provoking.  Even though it is short, I wanted to stop reading out of lack of interest toward the beginning.  But I persisted and started reading faster and faster since I realized it was just thoughts spinning in the man's head.  And before I knew it my reading was progressing rapidly toward the end of the book.  I gave it 4 stars out of 5.

I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle

Friday, June 7, 2024--San Antonio

I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle is a fantasy novel which I read because of a review on NPR.  I don't normally read such novels, but it was an enjoyable story.  I found both the beginning and the ending of the novel to feel a bit rushed and disjointed from the rest.  And there were times when I was confused about who was speaking where there were quotation marks; this caused me to have to go back a bit and then sometimes forward a bit to know for sure.  It's also a fairy tale due to the development of a romantic relationship that would not normally have happened in such a time and place.  I gave the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5. 

Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman

Tuesday, June 4, 2024--San Antonio

Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman is not an attention grabber in terms of entertainment.  Instead, it is story taking a rather deep dive into the following: 1) The changes in the operations of general retail stores in the US (looking specifically at a Target-like chain) as Amazon has disrupted the situation in the past few decades.  2)  Pointing out the loss of well paying manufacturing jobs in the US as manufacturers moved production to countries with lower wages.  3) Noting the way both of these changed the types of jobs left for lesser educated Americans and the benefits and hours of such workers (paying particular attention to those at this one chain store in this one town that has suffered the loss of manufacturing jobs).  4) Describing the effects of these changes on the lives, ambitions, and living standards of the employees of these stores.  5) Providing a window for Americans over 40 years of age to see how young people today cannot dream of or build lives that they did because of how the economy has changed since the late 1900s related to the types of jobs available, pay rates, prices, benefits, etc.--creating challenges in life that are not easy to overcome even for those with a good education.  It was listed as a top book of 2024 by a number of sources apparently because it provides a clear view to older Americans of why younger people are flailing (and failing) in their efforts to get started on the ladder toward success in our country these days.  It does this well, but it isn't a novel that kept me glad I was reading it.  I gave it 3 stars out of 5.

The Fraud by Zadie Smith

Saturday, May 25, 2024--San Antonio

The Fraud by Zadie Smith was not an easy read for me.  Parts of the book were very interesting, but I ran into comprehension problems due to two factors: 1)  Chapters are designated by dates and they jump forwards and backwards over and over again.  I couldn't keep the dates in mind as to what was happening when, so with each jump I had to try to figure out from text what story I was returning to.  2)  So many names (characters) to remember made it difficult to keep track of who was who.  This was further complicated by similar names such as Emily and Eliza within the same family/home.  Written around the life of a real-life novelist from the 1800s who is unknown today and was mostly a disappointment to himself then (although he thought more highly of himself than most others did), the book is really mostly about his female cousin by marriage who came to live with him when her husband (the author's brother) died at a young age.  Among other things, she was a feminist and enjoyed "scandalous" sexual activities which included S&M and more.  She sat in the parlor with her cousin/author and his follow authors and friends (including Charles Dickens) and participated in their intellectual discussions at a time when most women were expected to be in another room with only woman and to leave the men to be only with men.  She had affairs with both her cousin by marriage and with his wife with neither of them realizing it.  She was apparently bisexual, but she wondered at times if maybe she was a lesbian (which she referenced as being a "Lady of Llangollen" because of a town in Wales where lesbians apparently were known to live).  There is so much more to this book, however--the story of a trial of a man who was thought to have drowned when his ship sank but has returned from Australia claiming to be the heir of an estate (or was he a butcher from a lower class area of London?).  The story of a former slave from Jamaica and his son.  The stories of the jealousies between authors of the time.  Etc.  I gave the book 3 stars out of 5.

Lost on Me by Veronica Raimo

 Thursday, May 30, 2024--San Antonio

Lost on Me by Veronica Raimo reads like a memoir, but is referenced as "auto-fiction" because the protagonist of the story has grown up her whole life making up stories about her life to the point that she has trouble distinguishing between what stories are true and which are false.  It was long-listed for the International Booker Prize (for books written in other languages and translated into English) and won several Italian (the original language) prizes.  It is easy to read.  It is often funny.  Unfortunately, there were aspects (which are likely true parts of her life story) that I couldn't enjoy: 1)  She is not a logical thinker and repeatedly makes bad decisions in her life while casually acting as if they were unimportant.  2)  She's got a nagging mother no one would ever want to be around, much less keep hearing from--a woman with no boundaries who just keeps going on and on like the Energizer bunny (except in a grating way without being funny at all).  It's a short book, but it took me about 5 days to read because I had to take the silliness (stupidity?) of the protagonist and the constant harassment by the mother in small doses.  The author is intelligent even though she constantly makes bad decisions in life; somehow she has blundered her way into making it as a prize-nominated and winning author.  I gave the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

The Silver Bone by Andre Kurkov

Sunday, May 5, 2024--San Antonio

The Silver Bone by Andre Kurkov was longlisted for the Booker International Prize.  It is a crime story that takes place in Kiev during the the political turmoil of 1917-1918.  Samson is a young man whose mother and sister have already died and he and his father are attacked on the street by Cossacks.  The father dies having his head split in two by a sword while also saving his son by pushing him as a sword goes toward his head.  Samson loses only an ear and faces life alone.  He needs to find a job.  This is a period of high crime due to the turmoil, and he writes a report of another crime and takes it to the police which are very shorthanded.  Because Samson's report is well written with good details, he is hired on the spot to join the police force if he is interested and is immediately assigned to follow the case he has reported which involves two soldiers who have apparently stolen items, pushed themselves into Samson's apartment claiming the right to live there, and are planning to desert the Red Army to go home for planting season.  It is a rather simple detective story--the first of a series that is planned.  It seems to have been shortlisted for the prize because it includes an aspect of magical realism; Samson can hear things happening wherever the severed part of his ear is placed.  As a detective story, it is lacking, I believe.  For instance, with crimes happening daily, Samson is allowed to pursue just two crimes over a period of what seems to be several weeks.  I gave the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

The Male Gazed by Manuel Betancourt

Thursday, May 16, 2024--San Antonio

The Male Gazed by Manuel Betancourt is a memoir in essays.  I checked it out because it was on a number of lists of top books in 2023.  I don't see how it got there.  It is very boring for anyone who isn't familiar with Colombian soap operas, the "Colombian Liberace," specific TV series in the US, the details of Madonna's Vogue album, the excitement discovered by gay men from the lower east side going to Harlem to experience voguing, minute details of every season of Ru Paul's Drag Race, etc.  The author, only about 39 years old, has written it as if what has happened in his life and how he has lived his life is of great importance, so important that he had to write page-after-page of details as if everyone has had the same experiences in life as he has--not as a story, but as essays that describe exactly what happened in detail, his thrill of discovery from those experiences, etc.  Reading on a Kindle, I often thumbed through multiple pages at a time rather than waste time on details that were meaningless to me.  It's obvious that the author thinks he is very enlightened and is living a fabulous life of discovery and understanding.  I'm just glad I got this through the library and didn't waste any money on it.  I gave it 2 1/2 stars out of 5.

And There He Kept Her + Where the Dead Sleep by Joshua Moehling

Saturday, May 11, 2024--San Antonio

And There He Kept Her and Where the Dead Sleep are both by Joshua Moehling are the first two books in a series of crime stories with a third book currently being written.  The former was a finalist for the Lambda Mystery Award earlier this year, and the latter was just recently published. Both take place in a summer lake vacation resort near the Canadian border in Minnesota.  Both also revolve around members of the Gherling family--the wealthiest local family.  Ben Packard, a deputy detective, has recently been named acting sheriff by the man who hired him and is on leave to be treated for cancer.  When Ben was young, he and his family spent summers with his grandparents who had a cabin on the local lake.  One of Ben's brothers disappeared one winter during the Christmas holidays.  No body was ever found; just his snowski and a single glove he was wearing were found in the edge of the lake.  Ben had never returned until recentl--to take the job as a detective after growing up in the Twin Cities and serving as a policeman there.  When Ben's romantic partner,who was also a policeman dies, he wants to leave the big city to get away from the memories there and just happens to find the job available in the lake resort he remembers from his childhood.  In the first book, two young teenagers have disappeared and Ben is the lead detective in trying to find them.  Solving the mystery involves learning about a local drug ring run by one of the young grandchildren of one branch of the Gherling family and solving several cold cases related to missing persons.  The small-time drug ring dealer and his addict sister are spoiled teenagers and major disappointments within the family. In the second book, there is a robbery and murder that involves the adult children of the other branch of the Gherling family.  There is a mother and 3 female children who are what might be called hellcats who are resentful and have been fighting among themselves throughout the lives of the 3 daughters.  Ben Packard is again the lead detective in solving the crime in this book.  He is also running for election to serve as permanent sheriff in the second book.  Both books are well written.  The stories are complex, but not unnecessarily so.  There are critical details that are only revealed toward the end of each book.  Although Ben is gay, they are not gay stories; that just happens to be a part of the life of the man who is the central investigator in these two mystery stories.  I gave both books 4 stars out of 5.

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

Wednesday, May 1, 2024--San Antonio

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and named a Top Ten book of the year by the New York Times and the Washington Post.  It is a long (650+ pages) and complicated novel filled with secrets, lies, high expectations on others, abuse, business failures, crimes, failed relationships, etc.  Readers who do not enjoy a story that spirals downwards from the beginning to the end, should probably skip this one.  It is filled with moments that will create tension for the reader more and more as time passes.  It takes place in Ireland and spans approximately 20 years with occasional moments of memories from earlier than that.  All the characters have their flaws (although often hidden) and as the reader you will likely want to yell at them when they are making poor decisions in life.  It is built around the lives of a wealthy family who owns the Volkswagon dealership in the town.  The owner is at retirement age.  He has two young sons--the younger one who is the star football player and a promising salesman because of his personality and the older one who leads a quieter and more studious life with plans to go to Trinity College in Dublin.  The younger son actually takes care of his older brother in school when he is teased or bullied.  The father has chosen the older one to eventually take over the business.  But there is another family, a very poor one, in town with a daughter who is the most beautiful of the secondary school female students and is scheming to live a more glamorous life.  Unfortunately, life in her home with an alcoholic father and 3 older brothers is not easy, so she lives with an aunt.  The book follows the lives of the members of two families.  It tells the same stories from different perspectives so that what you have learned happened at one point in the book is altered later with input with someone else.  It is a fascinating and interesting story, but I did not find it to be an enjoyable read.  The downward spiral of the lives of the characters through poor decisions just created too many tense moments for me as the reader.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

The Sympathizer by by Viet Thanh Nguyen

 Sunday, Apr. 21, 2024--San Antonio

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen won the Pulitzer Prize among other prizes and forms of recognition.  I read about the new HBO series based on the novel and decided to read the book rather than watch the series.  It's fictional, yet each aspect of it matches descriptions of real events.  The book takes place toward the end of the Vietnam War and afterward.  The main character is a young man who is the son of a Vietnamese woman and a Frenchman who is a priest.  In the book he is a young adult who has gotten a college education in the USA and during the Vietnam war is working within the military intelligence operation as the assistant to a General while being sympathetic to the communist cause; therefore he is operating as an embedded spy.  The book is many stories tied together, though.  It's a story of discrimination since the young man is never completely accepted--is always an outlier--not considered to be a true Vietnamese nor a true westerner.  It's also the story of the war, the story of the end of the war and the harried escape, the story of being an immigrant in America, the story of what happened in Vietnam after the war, the story of the American Vietnamese immigrants wanting to retake their country, the story of the reeducation camps in Vietnam (like those that exist in all other communist countries) to break the resistance of former enemies and to keep the citizens in line--even those who fought for communism.  It is also the story of formed family since events throughout the book are built around the shared stories of 3 friends who became "blood brothers" when young and have tried to support and protect each other all their lives.  And as serious as all this sounds, there are points in this novel that are among the funniest I have ever read.  (I'll never forget what the 13-year old discovered as he stuck his fingers into a raw squid and what he eventually did!)  It's a good book which I read with up-and-down interest because it is essentially so many stories tied together as one.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjai-Brenyah

 Sunday, Apr. 14, 2024--San Antonio

Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjai-Brenyah, a finalist for the National Book Award, takes place in the near future of the United States.  The title is the name of the hottest new reality show which has taken the interest of the nation by storm.  It features prisoners voluntarily sign up for the show which requires them to fight each other to the death for a chance of prison release if they can keep winning for three years.  Different prisons around the name have their own representatives forming a "chain" in competition with the other chains.  The big stadium battles are always between members of different chains, but to keep the public's interest and introduce surprises, chains are followed regularly.  (Think Big Brother-type shows.) Technology has advanced so that there are no hidden cameras; instead, there are spinning orbs used zoom in, out and around to broadcast what is happening at any moment both during battles and outside of battles.  To add surprise actions, there are activities such as hiking/camping trips by individual chains through wilderness areas giving members a chance to turn on and kill other members of their on chain.  Most prisoners who participate die within a matter of 2-3 weeks.  There is a hierarchy of titles and privileges plus stardom to be gained the longer a prisoner stays alive.  Unlike the Hunger Games which occurred after changes in the type of national government and living conditions within the country, Chain Gang All Stars seems closer to possibly coming true since it is not so much of a stretch from what we already see in today's reality shows.  And there is the added question of why those watching as people kill each other are exhilarated.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5. 

Possession by A. S. Byatt

Saturday, Apr. 6, 2024--San Antonio

I quit reading Possession by A. S. Byatt at the 33% point even though it was a winner of the Booker Prize.  I feel it won that award because of the complexity of the story rather than for being a good story to read.  I actually quit reading at the 4% point and moved on to another book which I finished in less than 3 days.  So far, after going back to this book to see if I could stay with it, I have wasted a total of about 10 days to get only 1/3 of the way through it, and I have no interest in continuing.  The basic story of the researchers who have discovered missing letters between two authors from decades ago is interesting, especially since the two authors they have spent so many years researching have been considered to be minor poets with unique, but not very interesting contributions to literature.  (In this respect, I think the author may have been trying to criticize the narrow niches that university scholars claim as their topics of specialization.) But the author has inserted so much of these "not very interesting" poems the authors created which contributes to the book boring.  Plus the letters the poets have written to each other are mostly boring to read due to so many references to each other's writings as well as the writings of historically significant authors/philosophers in history.  Only a person who wants to go through 500+ pages that resemble a puzzle to be solved and either know the classics of literature well or want to wade through them to understand references made to them would enjoy this novel.  Anyone else completing it could have only kept pushing through to be able to say they read it.  I gave it 2 stars out of 5 and am glad to leave it behind me.

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

 Sunday, Mar. 31, 2024--San Antonio

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune is the first in a set of two books dealing with a group home for magical children.  (I think the author must have loved Harry Potter!)  In society, there are normal people, and there are those born with magical powers.  For the "good" of the majority, the government has set up special homes for those who are magical--to keep them separate from everyone else.  They also have implemented a "See something, say something" campaign to make sure that no magical person escapes the system.  Linus Baker is a case worker for the government who is sent to investigate the "orphanages" (although the children are not necessarily orphans; some have just been removed from their parents) where magical children are housed.  He has done this for 20+ years, living a rather bland life, following the rules of his job with fever, and feeling good about himself for always putting what is best for the children first in his field inspection reports.  He is "married" to the rules and regulations after all these years.  In the book, though, he is spent on a special mission to a unique home--one he didn't even know existed.  It is on an island just of the coast and having only a few children.  One of them is very unique, and the governing board is worried that the child could be a danger to others.  He is the Antichrist--the very young son of the devil.  Linus tries to do his inspection by-the-book as an objective evaluator.  But that is hard.  The children are fascinating.  They want to hold his hand.  They want him to go on their weekend exploration adventure.  And the two adults on the island with the children are just as casual and want him to use their first names.  With a month on the island to gather information and do his report, it becomes harder and harder for him to resist the pulls on him--the joy of being at the sunny seaside instead of the rainy city, the joy and humor of the irresistible children, the skills he observes the two adults using in teaching and guiding the children, and even the attractiveness of Aurthur, the man in charge of the home.  At the same time, the nearby coastal community, even though the residents are paid to ignore the home and its occupants, there are grumblings and the residents are more and more fearful as they hear rumors.  Soon Linus begins to wonder if the administrators who assigned him this job have an ulterior motive for having done so.  It's an interesting book written for both children and adults.  And it has some ties to political happenings in today's world.  I wouldn't call it great literature, but it is a good read.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Tuesday, March 26, 2024--San Antonio

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson is an unusual novel that was named one of the top 10 fiction novels of the past decade by TIME.  What makes it different is that it involves multiple versions of the protagonist's (Ursula's) life story and the way that minor changes may affect the future--sometimes significantly, but sometimes not so.  Ursula is born into an upper-middle class family in England in 1910.  The story restarts over and over with a concentration on the ability of Ursula to recall incidents from the future in the previous versions of the story (sort of a reverse deja vu situation) allowing her to make alternative decisions in the retelling.  The early part of the book covers her birth, the shooting in Sarajevo, and WWI setting the stage for understanding the retelling-aspect of the alternative life choices Ursula makes in the repeated versions.  The majority of the book then involves revised versions of stories regarding her life during WWII.  It's a complicated book--not only because of keeping track of the revisions but also due to the vocabulary I didn't know and the frequent quotations/statements in various languages beyond English (Latin, Italian, German, etc.).  Fortunately, I read the book on a Kindle, and the touch of an unknown word would often give a pop-up definition and it wasn't necessary to be able to translate the foreign language usage.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Lavender House by Lev AC Rosen

Sunday, Mar. 17, 2024--San Antonio

Lavender House by Lev AC Rosen was a finalist for the Lambda Award in the category of murder mysteries and was named a best book by Amazon, Buzzfeed, etc.  It takes place in San Francisco in the 1950s.  The protagonist is a cop who is gay and, therefore, leads a mostly closeted life.  He asks a friend in vice what bars they are raiding each evening that he wants to go out and makes sure he goes elsewhere.  But one night his friend is off duty and they raid where the protagonist is.  He is caught in a restroom stall with another man and with both having their pants down.  He is forced out of the police department and is considering suicide when a mysterious woman contacts him to work for her as a private investigator to solve a murder.  She doesn't want to go to the police or just any private investigator, because she lives a "hidden" life in a compound with other queer characters, and the woman who was murdered is her "wife."  The book emphasizes how dangerous it was to be gay at that time, how most gays lived a "hidden" life, how difficult it was to be out to anyone, etc.  The investigation takes the former cop to the compound where privately, everyone is a part of a chosen family while maintaining a public profile of being a regular family--mother, son, son's wife, son's private secretary, etc.  The book was very easy to read in two days.  The writing was simple, but the mystery was complex.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5. 

The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng

Saturday, Mar. 16, 2024--San Antonio

The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng is historical fiction set in Penang, Malaysia in the early 1900s--just before and just after WWI.  Penang was a major crossroads city in Asia at the time and Malaysia was a British colony. The story brings together a number of interesting events that were happening in Penang at the time--a mystery murder by a prominent British female, a visit by the noted author Somerset Maugham visiting within the English community while looking for tales that he could turn into new stories for publication, and a visit by the Chinese revolutionist Sun Yat-Sen who is trying to raise money within the Chinese community for his next attempt to overthrow the Chinese government and establish a democracy there.  Woven into all of this are other aspects of life--stories of elaborate parties, stories of greed resulting in both success and failure, stories of hidden intrigue and history, and stories of affairs between persons from different cultures, affairs between people from the same cultures, and homosexual affairs by men who have married to try to cover their sexual orientation at a time just after the trial and imprisonment of Oscar Wilde.  Knowing Penang from having visited there twice, I was fascinated by the book which was long-listed for the Booker Prize last year and I didn't want the story to come to an end.  I gave it 5 stars out of 5. 

Lessons by Ian McEwan

Sunday, Mar. 10, 2024--San Antonio

Lessons is one of several books I have read by Ian McEwan.  It was named a best book of the year by The New Yorker and Vogue.  I agree that it is a good book, but it is not, as far as I am concerned, the best book by the author.  I consider his novel Atonement to be one of the best I have ever read, and I have read a few more of his books that are better.  Lessons, however did grab my attention and keep it most of the time.  It's the story of one man who has lived approximately throughout the time of my own life--from the mid-1940s to today.  Set mostly in England, he is aware, like me, of his good fortune in life related to timing--avoiding having to fight in wars, seeing changes that he considers to be improvements in life for society in general (such as the fall of the Berlin wall and the related movement toward democracy in former communist countries), the improvements in quality of life in general, etc.  However, as a child he is molested by his piano teacher and he cannot get it off his mind.  Although he manages to stay away from her for 3 years, he cannot get over the physical sensations of her touch, and, at age 14, he shows up at her home and they become lovers.  This relationship changes the trajectory of his life.  The teacher is assertive in trying to maintain the relationship and to control him.  He loves the pleasure of sex which they have every day and often more than once a day.  Eventually, however, her control threatens his chance for high education and he becomes aware that it is not good for him.   But it is too late to hope for a higher education; he must run away from both her and education completely to escape her grip on him.  That experience affects him in terms of sexual relationships and financial standing for much of the rest of his life.  After a number of failed relationship that end because the women get tired of him expecting daily sex, he and a woman fall in love and get married.  She, however, eventually runs away leaving him with their 1-year-old child.  She cuts all contact and blames him for smothering her life by expecting daily sex and not having a good job which meant that she had to work to make money for them when what she really wanted to do was to be a writer.  And she eventually does become a very famous author.  He is a good man who has given up his chance of being a professional pianist to get away from his first lover and now sacrifices his hope to be a poet to raise his son.  But every person has their own version of what has happened--him, the piano teacher, the wife who became a famous artist, his parents about their lives, the writer's parents about their lives, etc., and each believes their own "truth" and hides secrets.  Over time in one's life, one eventually is presented with alternative perspectives on what was happening at any given time.  And not all things keep getting better in life over time--in one's personal life or life in general. It's a complex book, and at times there were details presented in too much detail--more than was required.  But McEwan is a very good writer in terms of getting the reader emotionally involved in the stories he tells.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

The Garnett Girls by Georgina Moore

 Saturday, Mar. 2, 2024--San Antonio

The Garnett Girls by Georgina Moore was a BBC Top Book of the Year in 2023.  It is the story of a family living on the Isle of Wight in southern England.  The mother Margo is a "force of nature" type of person.  She ran away from home at age 16 with Richard, a poet in his 20s.  Life was exciting, but the pressures of keeping up with it led to Richard's alcoholism becoming unmanageable.  So after 10 years of marriage, he left when their 3rd daughter was only about 4 years of age.  His leaving sent Margo into months of depression during which she drank and stayed in her room.  The oldest daughter, only 8 or 9 years old, had to learn to cook and to accept the responsibility for taking care of her two sisters (with some help from Margo's sister living nearby and a housekeeper).  Most of the book takes place much later in time when the two oldest girls are in their 30s and the youngest is in her late 20s.  It's a time when Margo still tries to arrange and control their lives and the girls are rebelling in different ways and for different reasons.  Margo has never allowed any discussion of Richard since he left the family and the youngest, who cannot remember any of the time he was with them, is increasingly interested in knowing her dad and understanding what happened.  It's an interesting story.  I gave it 4 stars out of 5.

Roman Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri

Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024--San Antonio

Roman Stories is the latest collection of short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri, a writer whose works I have always enjoyed.  I've read almost everything she has written.  Unlike other of her publications which are usually originally written in English, these stories were originally written in Italian and were translated into English (some by her, but most by an American translator).  The stories are intimate and interesting.  It is easy to picture the settings and to imagine oneself in place of the characters.  Although I didn't want to quit a story once I started it, I did, however, find myself delaying at times before starting a new one.  They just didn't "grab" me the way the ones in her previous short story collections have.  But it is a good collection and I would recommend it to readers.  I have the publication 4 stars out of 5.

The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen and A Nobleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel by KJ Charles

Friday, Nov. 16, 2024--San Antonio

The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen and A Nobleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel are the titles of a two-book series of novels by KJ Charles.  Let in the early 1800s in the marshlands of Kent in England, they are gothic gay romance stories between the Doomsday smuggling clan and two local nobles--a baronet and an earl. Reading them was a nice escape from the previous novels I recently read where I found the protagonists to be despicable characters.  They are not great fiction, but they are good stories.  Each took only 2 days to read.   I gave each of the books a rating of 4 stars out of 5 (with an emphasis on the pleasure from reading them rather than the quality of the literature).  

The Slowworm's Song by Andrew Miller

Sunday, Feb. 11, 2024--San Antonio

The Slowworm's Song by Andrew Miller was better than I expected. The author is Irish, and the story is about a Quaker of Northern Irish descent living in England.  He has never been a devout Quaker, and his life when he was young was in a bit of a shambles due to not having a good job and also having a bit of a drinking problem, so he joined the army which sent him to Belfast during the time of the Troubles.  He never married, but he met a woman and fell in love and got her pregnant before going into the army.  They never lived together, and the daughter has mostly been estranged from him, although they have made contact in recent years.  She calls him Stephen rather than Dad.  He is now about 70.  His whole life has continued to be troubled by an event that took place in Belfast, and he is writing his life story in a missive to his daughter.  The book is what he is writing to her, so it slowly reveals his life and gives a plausible explanation of why it has been a very poor one at times.  In my mind, his life has been much like that of many of the Americans who came back from Vietnam--troubled by what they experienced and by the fact that no one at home wanted to even know what they had experienced.  He's obviously a good person from what he writes to the daughter.  And the way he expresses things is sometimes humorous.  Example said about a funeral director in the town:  "I don't know if funeral directors receive any training in first aid.  It wouldn't seem like a priority for them."  The book was listed as a top book of the year in 2022 by The Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker.  I gave it 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Day by Michael Cunningham

 Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024--San Antonio

Day by Michael Cunningham was named a best book of 2023 by NPR.  It centers around an extended family in Brooklyn.  Dan and Isabel are the parents of Nathan (10) and Violet (5).  They own an apartment that has an upstairs loft apartment which they rent to Isabel's brother Robbie.  Nearby lives Garth (Dan's brother), Chess (a lesbian) and their co-parented infant son Odin.  The adults are all in their 30s and are not satisfied with their lives.  Isabel has a very good job, but it is with a magazine which means there is a real possibility of the job disappearing; budget cuts and layoffs are already occurring.  Dan wanted to be a musician, but didn't make a success of it and finally offered to be a stay-at-home dad taking care of the children, doing the housework, and cooking the meals.  Robbie was accepted to three medical schools, but passed on those to remain in NYC as an elementary school history teacher; he is beginning to burn out in his job, plus, as a gay man, he has been unsuccessful at establishing a long-term relationship.  Garth is an unsuccessful artist and an undependable co-parent which Chess resents.  In addition, he wants them to be like a family while Chess would prefer that he not be in their life at all; all along, she just wanted him as a sperm donor.  The book covers 3 days (all Apr. 5) in 3 successive years--2019, 2020, and 2021--just before the pandemic hit, at the height of the fear and the restrictions of the pandemic, and as life started to return to more normal.  There's no real plot.  We get slices of life among these people that allow us to learn who they are, what they are like, what problems they have, etc.  Robbie is the most likable.  His family group has greatly depended on him being the glue that keeps things okay among them, but he has been asked to move out because the daughter and son need to have separate rooms due to their ages now.  His relationship with them seems to be the key to keeping the "family" stable and is about all he has that is important in his life. Everything seems to be threatened by his impending move.  There are complications, tragedies, stresses, etc., as the story progresses from year-to-year.  By the end, I felt that I knew these people well, and I "suffered" as I became aware of what had happened/was happening.  There were times when the dialogue didn't seem to fit for the vocabulary and maturity of a 5-8 year-old girl which bothered me.  Mostly for that reason, I gave the book only 4 stars out of 5 instead of more.

The Lookback Window by Kyle Dillon Hertz

Saturday, Feb. 4, 2024--San Antonio

I did not enjoy reading The Lookback Window by Kyle Dillon Hertz.  I doubt that anyone could say they did.  The protagonist's story is a dreary subject--an adult dealing with emotional problems caused by having having been trafficked as a young teenager to men who had abusive sex with him.  Much of the book is related to him taking increasingly dangerous drugs and having meaningless sex as a result.  Even at the end of the book when he seems to have finally settled down in life after reporting his abuse during a "lookback window" extending the time for filing court cases for child trafficking and abuse, he continues to use drugs as if it is normal part of adult life.  I guess the book is rather well written, but I never developed any empathy for the protagonist.  Maybe the point was that he had been damaged so much that he could not mature further.  It just made it a book that I couldn't appreciate reading.  I gave it 2 stars out of 5.

Yes, Daddy by Jonathan Parks-Ramage

Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024--San Antonio

I am only 10% into Yes, Daddy by Jonathan Parks-Ramage, and I don't understand how this book can be compelling enough for it to have a 4/5 rating on Amazon.  The main character is completely unlikable--self-centered with undisciplined spending he cannot afford but considers important for impressing others which is causing a strain that is breaking his relationship with his mother because of borrowing money from her (with no intent of ever paying it back).  He wants to live the life he thinks he deserves.   He is searching for an easy way to the good life he wants by purposely planning to enter into a relationship with a wealthy man thinking it is his right and not even thinking it might not last or what will be expected of him in return.  He confuses abusive sex as a sign of love.  Etc.  It's obvious at this 10% point in the book that this young man is likely to face a long life of immature disappointment and frustration with only short-lived moments of excitement followed by lots of misery and depression.  Before reading further, I detoured to read reviews.  I was amazed at how many reviews seemed to think that the beginning of the novel (where I am now) is the best part.  If that is the case, how could anyone enjoy continuing to read?  There are criticisms of the book seeming disjointed, changing directions, etc., with many of them saying it should have never been published without better editing.  Well, I am not interested in going further into the book, especially since I really dislike this character and the reviewers seem to agree that none of the rest of the characters in the book are any more likable.  I rated the book 1 star out of 5!