Nothing like a couple of flights to get some great books read. Here's what I've been reading.
I loved everything about Pigs in Heaven--Taylor's ferocious spirit and ethical core shines through and makes the book sing. I also really enjoyed spending more time with Taylor's mother, Alice, who figures much more prominently in this story.
The gist of the story is that the Cherokee Nation discovers the anomalies in Turtle's adoption; when Taylor finds out that the adoption is being investigated, she literally freaks out and hits the road with Turtle. There is a lot of story and great characters along the way--from a real, live Barbie doll who does not share Taylor's ethical core, to the community of Heaven, Oklahoma that is practically one extended family, to Taylor's boyfriend, Jax, and Alice's cousin Sugar.
I love small-town stories and this eventually becomes one.
Fun Fact: the title comes from a Cherokee story about the Pigs in Heaven, aka the Pleiades, a constellation that consists of six wayward Cherokee boys and their mother.
Morrie lives in a boarding house with a widowed landlady and a couple of ex-miners. He finds work first as an official mourner at wakes and then as a jack-of-all trades at the local library, which is run by a bigwig cattleman and ardent bibliophile. He gets involved in the local miners union, and true to form, comes up with wild and crazy solutions to the problems he and the union face--namely, how to create a stirring work song that will rally the miners and help them stand up to the copper company.
As with The Whistling Season, Work Song, is exuberant, energetic, and a whole lot of fun. While the issues, political and social, are real and sobering--WWI just ended and the Spanish Flu ravaged populations worldwide, unions were fighting for safer conditions and better, more equitable pay--the story itself is wonderful as Morrie deals with the union-busting goons who discover his Chicago past, which he is still trying to outrun. Rabrab (aka Barbara) from Whistling Season is now a 5th grade teacher in Butte and brings her children into his orbit with delightful results, especially Famine, fastest boy in the west.
Next in the trilogy about Morrie is Sweet Thunder. Can't wait to read it.
Kate works in a bookstore in Seattle, and Frida is living in Paris "enroute" to a life as a war correspondent. The novel is set in the 1990s, which was sort of nostalgic in that there are lots of references to 1990s TV, movies, celebrities, politics, etc., but life is not all that different now than then. Of course, now the letters would be emails and not delivered by snails. In the afterword, Fay says that many of the characters and situations were based on real people and events in her life, so I guess she needed to set the novel when she did.
In the course of the three years that the letters span, both Kate and Frida evolve from wanna-be writers to young women with a sense of who they are, what they want, and how they want to live. Not really a coming-of-age story--more of a coming-to-maturity story. My favorite bits, apart from the food descriptions, were when Frida was helping a group of refugee women from war-torn Sarajevo deal with the trauma they faced and the friends/family left behind during the Bosnian War.
Killers of a Certain Age, by Deanna Raybourn - I discovered this book on Lark Writes. The premise is that four sixty-something female assassins (targeting only the worst of the worst) come out of retirement when they are targeted for assassination. Most of the time reading this, I was reminded of The Golden Girls, with Billie and Mary Alice doubling as Dorothy, Helen was clearly naive Rose, and sexy Natalie was definitely Blanche. No real Sophia, but you can only stretch a parallel so far!
This was great fun to read, but I doubt I will read the second book in the series as I had a bit of a hard time with the whole assassination/killing aspect. I don't believe in vigilante justice, and the story points out that those with the power to name targets can be corrupted. I'd rather see us Gray Panthers sleuthing rather than killing. It is refreshing to see lots of books and TV/films featuring aging boomers who are still active and alert.
Garden Notes
Following age-old guidance, I planted a lot during the past few days of the Flower Moon (what the May full moon is called). The tomatoes and peppers were hardened off and now are in the ground, along with marigolds to keep the bugs at bay. A naturalist friend reminds me that a plant that is not being eaten is not part of the ecosystem, but I planted a whole native flower garden for them to feast upon so that leaving my tomato plants alone is not to much to ask.
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| Front planter box with coleus and impatiens. |
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| Dining table on deck becomes garden bench! |
The petunias are stretching out in their hanging baskets, gearing up for a season of blooms. I've been making pots of coleus and impatiens, which I think look stunning together. And my son and I planted carrots, beets, zucchini, and beans today. This weekend I'll be planting sunflowers as well as a bed of corn/beans/pumpkin (the Three Sisters).
TV Notes
We finally watched the final episode of Northern Exposure earlier this week. I cried. Here's a link to the gorgeous song that ended the series. This isn't footage from the show, but it is the same version of the song, Our Town, by Iris DeMent:
I just started watching Miss Austen--first episode was quite good, with Cassandra's flashbacks to when she and Jane where young. I didn't know that Mary Lloyd, James Austen's second wife, was also related to Cassandra's fiancé, who died before they could marry. Every story needs a villain, and Mary is shaping up to be the villain of this one.
