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I've just finished a French detective story playing in Brittany. Wonderful descriptive writing about the landscape, the people and their behaviors, their thinking of being superior to all city people from Paris and oh, the food they are eating.
I believe it was only translated into German but if you ever trip over a book by Jean-Luc Bannalec you might want to try it.
Now it's from France to Great Britain: Charlotte Link's Ohne Schuld (couldn't find an English translation even though it's from 2020). I really like her crime stories.
Book authored in 1867, and on some subjects is primary source. Early was in official attendance at Virginia's secession convention.. and gives a good (but brief) accounting of how Virginia was working to remain in the Union..and it was Lincoln's non-responsiveness, followed by Lincoln's proposed conscription of Virginians, that helped determine Virginia's ultimate secession.
Early also gives a brief history of American slavery, and the initial secession of the deep South. I'm about 2/3rd thru, interesting history, but writing is kinda dry (in Early's defense, he was primarily a military man not an author).
I just started and just finished Foster by Claire Keegan. The reason that I say I just started and just finished it is because it is just a wisp of a book (80 or so pages). Its a tad more than a short story and a tad less than a novella. If it wasn't that I really loved the crisp writing, emotion and the talent of telling such a weighty story with so few words, I could be a little salty about the fact that I actually paid for a very skinny little book that was priced as if it was going to last me much longer!
Another redeeming feature is that the cover is just as lovely as the writing.
I'll be searching out more of Claire Keegan's works.
Just finished Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr. The story carries a common thread from the 15th century siege of Constantinople to present-day Idaho. Loved the characters.
Thanks for the recommendation. I, too, loved the characters and just absolutely adored the book. I, initially, had no idea this was a fantasy book. So well written. This was a 4.5 star read for me.
"...always farther north, the brutes drove me, until the land turned white. The houses were built from the bones of wild griffins, and it was so cold that when the hairy wildmen who lived there spoke, their words froze and their companions would have to wait for spring to hear what had been said."
"Every day Patti Goss-Simpson brings four fish sticks to school in her Titan Deep Freeze lunch box and every day at 11:52 a.m., because the cafeteria is being remodeled, Patti puts her terrible fish sticks in the terrible microwave at the back of Mr. Bate's room and pressed the terrible beepy buttons and the smell that pours out feel to Seymour like he's being pressed face-first into a swamp."
"A sticker on Marian's door reads, The Library: Where the shhh happens.
"The doctor suggests jigsaw puzzles to maintain Mrs. Boydstun's fine-motor skills, so he orders a new one every week from Lakeport Drug, and becomes accustomed to finding the little pieces all over the house: in the basins of sinks, stuck to the bottom of his shoe, in the dustpan when he sweeps the kitchen. A splotch of cloud, a segment of the Titanic's smokestack, a section of a cowboy's bandanna. Inside a terror creeps: that things will be like this forever, that this will be all there ever is. Breakfast, work, supper, dishes, a half-completed jigsaw of the Hollywood sign on the dining table, forty of its pieces on the floor. The the cold dark."
I just finished up Prince William by Penny Junor. This book will open up your eyes to this "Train Wreck" called Princess Di. I don't know how Prince Charles put with her wild, unpredictable mood swings for 15 years, he was the one to be sanctified, not her. Good mother?????? If any of boys became too close to their Nanny's, she'd fire them, as she was riddled with insecurities.
So glad Charles finally married his one true love, Camilla. Prince William and Catherine, IMO, will make a great team in Buckingham Palace one day.
Just finished “Desert Star” by Michael Connelly—the most recent Bosch/Ballard novel
Had it for several months and saved it—was well-done, better than the one before it, and I admit that the red herring Connelly planted was fair and reasonable—which made it a strong plot effort
I think Connelly had set the hook for Harry’s demise—in an earlier book—and has left many tremors this may be Bosch’s last case—
I don’t know that Ballard will in any way replace him—although she has been paired with him for a few
Her books have been ok—not great—and she is not the wounded bear Harry was
I would have been happy if Connelly had gone back in time and given us novels about Harry’s move up the ranks in the LAPD and his earlier detective years—
But maybe Connelly, too, is tired…
He certainly has enough money and recognition
Seize the Day (Paperback) by Saul Bellow is a diversion from my usual reading of historical non-fiction. After two "Holocaust" books in a row (both excellent) I figured I could "lighten it up" a little with the change. Previously I read another Bellow novel, Herzog, and one of this few non-fiction works, To Jerusalem and Back. Curiously, I like his writing, even though it is very much from the period of the prime of his life, the 1950's and 1960's. If I hoped for a lighter, more relaxing read I didn't find it. The book was depressing at the beginning, and grew more so until it ended with his sobbing violently at a stranger's funeral.
Nevertheless, reading this book reminded me of the value of reading non-fiction for its deep dives into people's lives. The genre does liberate the author from having to be faithful to any set of facts. You can be sure I'll be back for more. I may re-read Herzog, which I read for high-school English in the spring on 1975 and only vaguely remember.
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Seize the Day (Paperback) by Saul Bellow
