The Disappearers by Marlon James

Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026--San Antonio

The Disappearers by Marlon James is a finalist for the Booker Prize.  At 640 pages long, it begins without about 3 pages of character listings.  It is set mostly in Jamaica, but also takes place in New York and Miami.  It is built around a situation in 1988 when a group of men who did not know each other gathered in an abandoned warehouse for try outs and were all accepted for the production of a Jamaican adaptation of the play Fortune and Men's Eyes.  The reader is quickly made aware of the fact that it is dangerous to be a gay man in Jamaica.  Parents disown and kick out their sons, and mobs of men (some of whom are closet gays) regularly attack men they believe are gay.  Police who are called, before taking the gay men into the station, themselves are likely to add a bit more to the beatings.  Weeks after rehearsals have begun, someone has noticed a group of men heading into the warehouse regularly and jumped to the conclusion that they are in there having a gay orgy.  The book is about those men as they got to know each other, what happened the night a mob of 12 men showed up, how it affected their lives, and what secrets they had all be hiding from each other.  It's a story about AIDS, about guilt, about renvenge, about searching for answers, and about moving on.  It is masterly constructed so that the reader gets significant bits of information revealed little by little including even within the last 3-4 pages.  It is complex enough that it almost demands a second reading to "catch" everything.  It  could easily become a part of the higher education curriculum in literature studies.  I was on a reading "high" throughout most of the book, but there were some brief moments that dropped lower than that, so I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Black Bag by Luke Kennard

Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026--San Antonio

Black Bag by Luke Kennard has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize.  It's a unique novel--quirky, and often funny.  It's the story of a mid-30s want-to-be-actor who has been confined only to small parts.  In his need to make money to pay his bills, he often goes to a website for unusual opportunities (such as being in a music video, making an appearance at a conference, etc.).  One day, he interviews with a professor who needs an actor of short stature to attend his two class sessions and a seminar session each week for the semester.  He will be classified as a research assistant, and his task will be to wear a black leather bag with two short leg sections and will zip up so that he is completely enclosed from the calves to the top of his head.  Two holes are punched to provide him a way of seeing where he is going.  His job is to show up, be completely still and quiet, will avoid any interaction with any of the students, and will avoid reacting in any way (sounds, movements, etc.) to whatever is happening.  He can show up on campus and wander around so that students in the class can see him (always in the black bag) and realize he isn't just in their classroom.  The premise of the experiment is not revealed to him or the reader until the end of the book.  But the story goes far beyond the classroom and what is happening there.  It incorporates many of the strange aspects of today's society--a friend who is an "influencer" who develops a way to monetize the situation (including the development of merchandise and a digital coin, a female professor who find the anominity, not having ever seen him outside the bag, and the leather aspect arousing and sexually interacts with him, a cult group developing around the black bag concept as a way of working to change society, etc.  And it involves "BIack Bag" as he is known and calls himself to, over time, begin to like and find comfort in his roll.  I wish the book were a bit more hilarious and the intriguing aspects a bit more developed.  I gave the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

Henry Henry by Allen Bratton

Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026--San Antonio

Henry Henry by Allen Bratton was highly recommended by NPR and the New York Times.  It is set in Britain and built around the history of a family that has been a part of the aristocracy for 400 years or more--a family that is also very Catholic (and ridden with Catholic guilt) that refused to convert during the Reformation.  The story is set mostly in the 2010s with flashbacks into the late 1900s.  The protagonist is Hal (short for Harry), the eldest son and the heir to Henry who is the Duke of Lancaster.  Hal is what the people of his social class would probably call a rascal because of his heavy drinking and use of drugs leading to outrageous and scandalous public behavior.  More ordinary people there would call him an arsehole.  But as the information about his and the family's life builds, there is a shocking revalation for why he might be this way.  The title of the book references two Henrys--it's Hal's father and his grandfather.  And quickly you learn that Hal's father wasn't first in line for succession.  His uncle Richard was, and the title only transferred to his father Henry when Richard, a gay man, died of AIDS.  Early in the book it is revealed that homosexual attraction has been a part of the family for decades.  Richard was the first to live his life as one.  Hal is the second.  It is never defined to what extent the men may have been bisexual, but it is obvious that the others have not been content with being completely straight after marrying women to have children and maintain the family line.  The book carries us through the battles between Hal and his father, the secrets within the family, their unhappiness, and the realization that the family pretige and wealth are declining.  Behind all this is a real shocker revealed by Hal that has been a major reason for him acting the way he does.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Rosarita by Anita Desai

Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026--San Antonio

Rosarita by Anita Desai is a beautiful, short novel.   A young Indian woman has learned very little about her family.  She was raised by her grandparents for a number of years before going to live with her parents and younger sister.  She knows little about her mother who has died.  She recalls, however, that she led a quiet life, slept on the floor in a small annex to the parents' bedroom rather than in the bed with her father, and that her father tended to berate and abuse her mother (although she is just now beginning to recall this which she had apparently repressed in hopes it wasn't true).  She decides that she needs to do something special with her life and gets her grandfather to agree to let her go to San Miguel de Allende for Spanish language classes.  Soon after arriving, however, she is sitting on the central plaza and is recognized by an older lady. The Trickster(?), as obviously the daughter of an Indian friend who came there to study painting years ago.  The young woman insists that this cannot be true.  To try to convince her, the elderly woman says that her friend's name was Rosarita, but Bonita (the young Indian woman with a Spanish name) says her mother's name was Sarita, wasn't an artist, and had never been to Mexico.  Then she rushes away.  But as days pass, she realizes the coincidences--her name, her mother's name, the close resemblence between her and her mother that made the woman recognize her, the fact that there had been an unexplained painting on her bedroom wall of a woman with a young child, etc.  So he story becomes her interest in trying to learn what she can about this woman who might have been her mother.  To tell more would be to spoil the book.  Just know that it was such a delightful read that I gave it 5 stars out of 5.

Taipei Story by R. F. Kuang

Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026--San Antonio

Taipei Story by R. F. Kuang is about the experience of an American student of Chinese descent at Yale who is in Taiwan for an intensive summer program to try to become fluent in Mandarin--a larguage she did not learn as a child but has studied at Yale.  It covers the frustrations of the difficulty of the program, of a relationship with a handsome boy (who has also come from Yale) that goes bad with his telling a lie about what happened to all the other students in the summer program, a relationship with a friend from Yale who is sharing a local apartment that has also gone bad because the friend has a crush on the handsome boy and wanted to date him herself, the difficulty and frustrations of learning she is facing compared to how easily she has been able previously to go through educational classes making the highest grades, the slow progress of improving in speaking the language during the course, how the sudden death of her grandfather means she will not be able to use her new language skills to try to learn about their family history which her mother has always been reluctant to discuss, and her realization as she returns home that she will never be able to use the language skills she has developed in a professional way and that she is at the peak of those skills which will slowly degrade as time passes and she continues to live in an English-speaking USA.  There are lots of discussions of foods being eaten, tourist sites being visited, cultural events being experienced, what is being discussed in classes, etc.  It's all interesting, but there was nothing that made me excited about reading the story.  I gave the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

The Tuxedo Society by Paul Rudnick

Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026--San Antonio

The Tuxedo Society by Paul Rudnick was not as good a book as I expected based on reviews.  The problem for me was at the beginning and at the end.  The beginning was filled too much with the main character showing off how he could relate almost everything in life to a movie or a Broadway show character or its performer in a witty way.  It fairly quickly became exhuasting and boring.  The end had another stretch of this.  In the middle was an interesting heist story.  An unsuccessful actor working in a candle shop, he was recruited to be a part of a group of secret agents solving crimes led by a former Navy Seal who had been kicked out of the Navy for being gay and later, after don't ask/don't tell occurred was asked to return.  Instead, the Seal requested that he be allowed or organize his own elite group for special assignments.  In the book, the Seal has recruited the main character because of his acting background to help with a special heist job.  The group is tasked with helping the First Lady, educated and trained as a top archaeologist, investigate whether the rumor about the historic diadem is true  The 3 stones and the crown itself which supposedly had secret powers each bestowed to the person(s) in possession of them, had long ago been dismantled and hidden to keep anyone else from attaining the powers that could come from the parts or the whole.  The rumor, if true, is that the 3 stones are on the market and bad men are trying to buy the to gain the powers they can bestow.  It becomes an extended adventure for this elite group--The Tuxedo Society.  They are trying intercept the stones first to protect society from three men with bad intentions (each wanting one of the stones for its specific powers).  Then it finally becomes a hunt for a worse person wanting all 3 stones and the crown to restore the whole diadem so that they could have all of the powers bestowed by it.  It's an interesting adventure story involving the President and First Lady, the Pope, and multiple wealthy individuals including a dastardly protestant minister running for President.  It's just too bad it is bookended by the rather tiring beginning and ending.  I gave the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

Switzy by Emma Cline

Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026--San Antonio

Switzy by Emma Cline is longlisted for the Booker Prize.  I have now read 60% of the books on that list, and it is likely that this will also continue onto the shortlist for the prize and will likely be among the top shortlist contenders for winning the prize.  Even if you start the novel without knowing what it is about, you will realize it quickly.  A man and his young assistant are on a plane from the US to Europe.  The hints begin immediately.  A stop to see his daughter in London--a daughter/father relationship that has been distant since he divorced his wife when she was a young girl.  A final stop in Switzerland with a side trip to see his estranged boarding school friend.  The private plane for the trip has been loaned to him by his former boss and close friend.  He was previously demoted from his position as CFO at work in spite of this friendship because he had lost his formerly exceptional ability to maintain the financial records properly.  He has a leather notebook where he writes things to help him remember them.  So what reason does he have to go to Switzerland while seeing those particular two people?  It is a book that is beautifully written and an extraordinary achievement in providing a picture of the workings of the mind of a man who can't remember the specific word but realizes he has a physical problem related to "Amy Lloyd."  The first half of the book slowly (it sometimes feels a bit too slow) builds the background history for the trip.  The last half, when everyone reading will knows for sure the answer to the question about why the trip is being made, carries the reader through the visits with the daughter and the estranged friend before finally taking us on the ride to the industrial park for the end of the novel.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5 and found myself crying at the end.

The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley

Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026--San Antonio

The Palm House by Gwendoline is a short novel that is constructed much like the old Seinfeld TV Show.  There's not a lot of story here.  It concentrates on two long-time friends, the people they know in common, and the conversations among them.  It has been longlisted for the Booker Prize.  The people are interesting, and at times I found myself laughing.  Set in London, Edmund is a single man who has worked for 25 years for a prestigious magazine.  There are hints that he may be gay, but he never seems to date anyone.  When a new publisher is named who wants to change the magazine in ways he feels will lower its quality, he becomes depressed and, thanks to a recent inheritance, resigns.  But he doesn't know what to do with himself.  Laura is struggling with life herself.  She has a difficult mother, and is tired of the lack of success in her life.  She has never had her own place; instead she has lived in shared, rather dilapidated apartments with roommates.  She can't quit work, but toward the end of the story she is able to buy a studio apartment which will be all her own after a small inheritance after her father's death.  The book consists of interactions between Edmund and Laura when they are together, and interactions of them with larger groups--the former co-employees of Edmund's at the magazine or parties or casual gatherings with friends they have in common.  I liked the fact that the author trusted me as a reader to make connections at times to information I already had on previous pages rather than dwelling on repeating information.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Transcription by Ben Lerner

Friday, Sept. 11, 2026--San Antonio

Transcription by Ben Lerner is a short novel built around 3 main characters--Thomas, a sophisticated artist (writer, filmmaker, professor), his son Max, and Max's best friend (unnamed) who was Thomas's student was mentored by Thomas.  There have been difficulties throughout their lives.  Part of it is due to no matter what the conversation, Thomas tends to take it in different directions with his knowledge of philosphy, history, etc., which endears him to students and acquaintances but frustrates Max and his friend.  But he is also rather crotchety.  He wants Max to follow in his footsteps, but Max has never felt close to his father.  His mother died early, and Max has been put in boarding schools all his life because it was convenient for his father.  He rebels against his father's desires, becmes a lawyer, and lives across the continent from Thomas.  The protege is fascinated by Thomas and seems more like a son to him.  The book takes place in the mostly in the present when the protege goes to Thomas's home to get a final interview since Thomas is aging and has barely survived COVID when he was 90; he will publish the interview and will attend a conference in Europe of researchers of the works of Thomas where he will report on it.  Another big part of the novel is a conversation (communication?) between the Max and the protege after Thomas's death.  But the real gist of the nvel seems to be how Thomas confuses in his mind his memories of the two 45-year-old friends.  He seems to have a closer relationship today with the protege and to think that memories he has of him and Max are actually memories of him and the protege.  So the novel ends up questioning with how real memories are and how realistic a transscription can be of an interview in relation to what was true in real life.  There's much more in this little novel, but that is what I got from it.  I gave the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams

Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026--San Antonio

I really don't quite know how to describe The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams, a novel that has been longlisted for this year's Booker Prize.  It seems to be filled with metaphors and is set in a declining university city located in a lush climate with buildings decaying and the plants rapidly taking over the city and suffering from population loss.  It is contrasted with a modern dynamic city built in a dessert and filled with shiny skyscrapers where some of the characters are from and where many locals would rather live.  Agathe, the main character is a university drop-out who was likely the most intelligent student at the university.  Her family has been decaying much as the city where she lives.  Her mother attempted suicide when she was a child; her father, a former member of the faculty, is disgusted with her and has built his academic success on writing lots of novels in which he, she, and her mother are the central characters; and she has lived most of her life with her uncle remaining estranged from her father and her mother.  She works for a professor in which she has secretly taken over most of the professor's university duties--planning the syllabi and the lessons, marking and grading the papers the students submit, etc., and is happy living a quiet, isolated life where she is paid well for her work without needing any recognition for it.  An event has taken place at the university where a graduate student named Adam has come in conflict during a lecture period with a professor from a minority background named Jacob--each having offended the other with name-calling at the end of the conflict, so the university community is in an uproar regarding who was in the wrong and what to do about it.  The professor who employs Agathe is on the side of Adam since they both are outsiders from the modern city in the desert (and also because she seems to have a crush on him).  Most of the university administration seem to be on the side of Jacob.  The professor asks Agathe to establish a relationship with Adam to try to learn more about the event, how he feels about the situation, and what is currently happening.  In the meantime, the decaying of the city is increasing rapidly, especially since the gardeners have gone on strike for not being appreciated or paid enough.  They march in protest in rows and columns much like a military brigade.  So what is the book really about since almost everything seems to be a metaphor for something else?  I can't tell you for sure.  What I can say, is that it is set in modern times (maybe even slightly in the future).  There has always been a power conflict between the city and the university.  Climate change is definitely happending.  The university seems to have adopted a progressive posture--admitting more minorities and international students and trying to uphold standards designed to protect feelings--but it has also failed to maintain the qualities that have made it one of the top universities in the world, since there seems to be grade inflation, faculty being lax in maintaining teaching standards, students hiring others to do their required assignments for themselves, etc.  So the city is falling apart, the university is falling apart, and society is falling apart.  Is it a prediction for the near future?  I gave the book 3 stars out of 5.

The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout

Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026--San Antonio

The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout is a great novel which is longlisted for the Booker Prize.  (It's the fifth book I have read by her and all of them have been well worth reading.)  It's my opinion that in a way, the book is about changes occurring that seem to represent the beginning of the end of civilization as we have known it.  But it is told by showcasing a central character, who is a simple but great man--a man who is respected and liked, who is a kind and good person, and who is a high school history teacher--Mr. Dam (called affectionately Damn-Dam by his students).  Events taking place mostly in the fall of 2024 (in his personal life, in his classroom, within his family, and within the country) illustrate the changes taking place. Open confrontation, cursing, and name-calling are replacing civil discourse and niceties within society.  Dam recognizes this and is puzzled by it.  He keeps questioning:  Do we really have free will?  It's a question that goes two directions:  If we do, why do we choose to make negative changes in life?  If we don't, could that be why things are changing?  But he is also learning that life is hard, that people have secrets, that having certain knowledges can be depressing.  And he is learning that everyone he knows is different in ways from what he thinks they are like because of their secrets in their lives.  Even Damn-Dam has a few critical secrets in himself.  It's a short book that can be read quickly, but one worth reading.  I gave the book 5 stars out of 5.

So Old, So Young by Grant Ginder

Sunday, Aug. 30, 2026--San Antonio

So Old, So Young by Grant Ginder was a chore for me to get through.  Its characters are rather obnoxious most of the time.  Supposedly, they are friends for life after graduating from ("Not State" which their college shirts say to emphasize they are all so intelligent that they got into the University of Pennsylvania--an Ivy League school).  They all move to the "IT city" (New York) after graduation.  They pursue the "correct" career paths, try to impress each other with who have have met or seen in the city and by getting invited to the best parties, and by spending more money than they are making on the most trendy items at each moment in time.  The book covers them over the years as jobs change, as couples come together/break up, as marriages occur and children become centerpieces in their lives, as they observe or learn of cheating by their partners, as some leave the city to live elsewhere, and as each time they come together there are arguments and fall-outs among them.  By the end of the book, most of them have not been speaking to each other for some time.  Does any of that sound like a novel anyone would love to read?  Of course as the reader, I could see the mistakes happening as they occurred and could figure out the regrets that would develop over time.  And at the end, there are indications that some mistakes might be overcome, but the book stops there.  So the big question becomes, will they continue living their miserable lives as they have so far (failing at truly being friends or being happy) or will a few of them be able to make corrections in life and find happiness they might already have had for 25 years if they truly had been intelligent in the beginning.  I gave the book 3 stars out of 5.

The Midnight Train by Matt Haig

Tuesday, Aug. 25. 2026--San Antonio

I recently read the preceding novel to this second of two books.  I did not like that first novel much.  The Midnight Train by the same author, Matt Haig, is a much better book.  There is a common theme in both books; one based on wanting to live a better life.  In this one the story is about a man who has great regrets.  He has died and is being taken on a ride to review his whole life with the promise of entering eternity at the end of the ride.  During the ride, he sees flashes of events passing and watches a photograph on the wall of the train car of himself aging in relation to the time of the events.  He is being guided by a woman he knew as a child and has been dead herself for many years. She has volunteered from within her eternity to guide him to his own.  Occasionally, the train stops at the more important events in his life so he can observe and, therefore, relive them.  Unfortunately, the most important events in anyone's life include both the best ones and the worst ones.  So the train ride is both positive and punishing.  During each stop, he is actually observing rather than reliving each event, so he gets to notice things that he hadn't in real life--aspects of events he hadn't noticed and actions byboth him and others and their reactions to them.  He knows from the beginning that he has made mistakes in life and regrets them and their consequences, but observing these events allows him to start to notice when wrong turns were taking place--when he made poor decisions and when those he loved reacted negatively to them.  He wishes he had lived his life differently and begins questionning whether it is too late to do anything about it.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Kin by Tayari Jones

Friday, Aug. 21, 2026--San Antonio

Kin by Tayari Jones is a novel set in the South during the 1960s--beginning in a small Louisiana town where the two main characters are Black females who have been best friends all their lives.  One was raised by her aunt after her father killed his wife and himself just a month after the baby was born.  The other was raised by her grandmother after her unmarried mother left just after giving birth.  Most of the book takes place during the 3 years following their graduation from high school when their lives go separate directions.  Niecie leaves home to attend Spelman College in Atlanta, and Annie leaves home to go to Memphis to try to find her mother (after having been given an address where she might be living).  The young women stay in touch through letters as events in their new lives unfold.  The car that Annie and 3 friends are driving to Memphis breaks down, and they find themselves living and working by barter on a former sharecropper farm which is now a whorehouse with the women each having one of the former sharecropper shacks for hosting their johns.  Niecie finds her plans for trying to easily fit in at Spelman derailed when she accidentally takes a seat in the last row of the white section of the bus (thinking it to be the first row of the Colored section) to take her to Atlanta and the driver kicks her off the bus.  He leaves with her luggage holding the wardrobe she had prepared for college still on the bus to be lost forever.  Life can be difficult for everyone after leaving their hometown, and both young women are learning this quickly.  This was the period of uproar involving protests, forced desegregation, and upset people on both sides of the color divide in the South.  The fact that the Supreme Court had made their ruling did not change things overnight.  There are ups and downs in the lives of both girls during the next 3+ years--more ups in Niecie's life and more downs in Annie's, but their friendship holds throughout it.  As the reader, you get to live through it all with the both of them.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Villa Coco by Sean Greer

Monday, Aug. 17, 2026--San Antonio

Villa Coco by Sean Greer was a fun novel to read.  A young American college graduate with a degree in archiving and no idea of how he is going to earn a living from it, is informed by his professor that a baronessa in Tuscany is looking for someone to archive every item in her home by December and will pay for his travel there and for him to do the job.  He arrives to find that things are not exactly what he expected.  The baronessa is a bit querky and expects him to do other things, too, including to help bring in the olive harvest during the week prior to their scheduled time for bringing it to the olive presser.  Plus, she has friends who keep coming for visits that delay his work--an Italian princessa, and old friend who was a "business" partner in her early adult life and is her best friend.  A woman who is half Algerian lives down the road and is her closest friend; we learn late in the novel the unique reason they know each other.  We also learn that the baronessa may have other secrets in her past life and definitely has a secret about what is going to happen in December.  A nephew of the baronessa who came to live with her for a year as a teenager is also part of the story.  He is now married, but when he shows up at the villa, he and the young student (close in age) find themselves attracted to each other.  So a secondary story runs along with that of the baronessa regarding the expectations of each of the men about what would be a good life if they want to have a long-term relationship.  But the biggest surprise of all is kept until the very end of the novel.  What has the baronessa been planning?  Will this conservative young student who has done her archiving return to his life in America?  What has been behing everything that has been happening?  And what will the future hold for all of the characters in the story?  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

The Open Era by Edward Schmit

Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026--San Antonio

 The Open Era by Edward Schmit is a romance novel building on the success of Heated Rivalry which I read when it was first published and before it became the popular TV series that it is now.  Instead of the story of two hockey players, this book is built around two tennis players.  One has entered the pre-playoffs at the US Open Championship.  If he wins the pre-playoffs, he will automatically become an official candidate in the championship playoffs which will access to the big money of the highest levels of professional tennis.  Lots of attention is on him because of being the first openly gay player in professional tennis.  The other player is the #2 ranked tennis player in the world.  In Heated Rivalry, the two hockey players started a secret relationship while being drafted within the highest professional hockey league and planned their careers around being able to maintain that relationship while pretending to be straight in public.  In this book, everyone knows that Austin Hardy is gay.  But Austin and everyone else wonders why Diego Cruz is obviously being very friendly with him.  Another difference between the characters of the two books is that the players in the hockey story have been actively gay, but closeted, for years before they ever meet.  In this book, Austin has only had one brief relationship as a teenager and has not been sexually active since then even thought he is publicly out as a gay man.  Diego supposedly has never been active in a gay sense.  So do not expect as much sex as there was in the hockey book.  Instead, this is more of a will they/won't they romance story with lots of "hickups" stalling the possibilities in a repeating start/stop narrative.  It's a decent book worth reading to make your own decision of whether they should end up together or just enjoy what they can while it lasts.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Last First Kiss by Julian Winters

Sunday, August 9, 2026--San Antonio

I actually read Last First Kiss by Julian Winters two novels ago (between reading Buckeye and Helen of Nowhere), but I just noticed I never wrote about it here.  It is a gay novel set in present-day Atlanta.  The protagonist is a man whose family operates a prestigious event planning agency.  He has just become a planner within the company and has been assigned to plan a rushed wedding event--rushed because the husband-to-be is the son of a famous Hollywood director and is to work with him on a new film starting production in only 3 months.  In meeting with the couple, the wife-to-be's best friend shows up.  He happens to be Jamie--someone that Jordan, the planner, has known since they were adolescents.  But there is a troubled history there.  Jordan is now in his late 20s, and Jamie is the only person he has ever kissed--an event that happened years ago when they were experimenting as children.  All his life, Jordan has never felt right in relationships, and he has never forgotten the feeling he got from that kiss with Jamie.  In fact, a year or so earlier than the time of the story, he had approached Jamie (who has been Jordon's cousins best friend all along and who is openly gay), to see if their friendship could be renewed and if maybe an even closer relationship could be established.  But he did something that caused Jamie to cut off their friendship, and this is the first time they have interacted since.  It's a romance novel, so the reader knows something is going to happen.  They story is really about all the fits and false starts that are part of the relationship before they finally accept that they have been destined to be together from the time of that first kiss.  It was a fun, fast read--a good summer novel.  I have it 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

Land by Maggie O"Farrell

Sunday, Aug. 9, 2026--San Antonio

Land by Maggie O'Farrell has been praised by many others.  It is a novel set in Ireland from before and great potato famine to the rumblings of the war beginning against British rule.  It begins with two young characters who have been sent to the workhouse for children because everyone else in their families have died due to the famine.  It follows their travails in the work house and on through their lives and those of their children.  There is one adventure and misadventure after another over the decades.  The story involves so much of what was happening during those times:  The leavings by those who can to the Americas (and by those who are sold off to go there as indentured servants with no choice).  The great opportunities that some "unfortunates" accidentally get because it is discovered that they have unexpected skills (such as being able to read, write, or do mathematics).  The hardships that most families face because the feudal system of land still belonging to the aristocrats who lease parcels to farmers who can barely make the rent payments and often cannot and face expulsion.  The children of the artistocrats feeling entitled and that they can take advantage those poorer than them.  The priests who hold so much power over the people that their actions cannot be questioned even though they may not be aligned with the teachings of their religion and can create havoc for the people).  Superstitions related to the history of the druids is still a big part of people's daily lives.  The story follows those two original characters as they establish a family on a narrow peninsula of western Ireland, and it continues to cover the lives of the family members as the years pass.  It is a sweeping novel that will hold the reader's attention throughout.  My only concern is that the story of the last years covered seemed to be rushed in comparison to the rest of the novel.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Helen of Nowhere by Makenna Goodman

Thursday, July 30, 2026

Helen of Nowhere by Makenna Goodman is a short novel which is longlisted for the Booker Prize this year.  Personally, I thought of it as a philosphy book presented in the form of a story with lots of metaphors.  It's the kind of book that makes you think and reason more than it entertains you.  It's good it was short, because if it had been 300 pages instead of half that, I would have quit it along the way.  But the chapters were short and each was a different look at the same situation from the perspective of different characters.  I gave the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5.  

Buckeye by Patrick Ryan

Sunday, July 26, 2026--San Antonio

Buckeye by Patrick Ryan started somewhat slowly for me.  I considered quiting it.  But about 30% of the way through, it took off and I didn't want to put it down.  It is a sweeping novel about America while concentrating on two families and the town in Ohio were they live.  It covers time from the late 1930s to the approximately 1980.  It dwells on love and forgivness from the beginning to the end as it brings up so many situations that commonly happen over time--being abandoned as a child, keeping secrets from others within the family, going to war, falling in love, losing a loved one, cheating on a loved one, trying to save a marriage, having a spouse who doesn't understand or even believe something about you that is important to you, gay men marrying women in hopes they can be what society expects of them and the consequences for both the man and the wife (and the children) in such a marriage, changes taking place in society over time, wars that keep happening with severe consequences for those involved (not necessarily voluntarily) and too often going wrong over time, etc.  The characters are interesting.  The story is great.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.