Lawyering Up, Garden Notes, Team Norway

July is for reading, walking first thing in the morning, watering in the evening, making salad and sandwiches for dinner, complaining about the heat...and watching the World Cup.

We are now solidly Team Norway and have been practicing rowing with the team after every win! We loved the Tartan Army, and I have indulged in watching reels of international football (aka soccer) fans experiencing American food staples. I personally have never been to a Waffle House, but it seems to be a real winner with our visitors!

When not watching soccer or baseball (the Yankees are slumping but the Rockies are better than last year...not the worst team in both leagues), I've been reading:

Open and Shut (Andy Carpenter #1), by David Rosenfelt - My JASNA friend, Pam, recommended David Rosenfelt's Andy Carpenter lawyer series since she knows how much I enjoy the Lincoln Lawyer books by Michael Connelly. So, I read the first in the series, Open and Shut, and enjoyed it a lot. Andy is a flippant, self-effacing, sarcastic defense attorney who, like Mickey Haller, takes his job seriously even though that means taking a lot of flak from law enforcement, prosecutors, family, etc. Andy's best friend and confidant is his golden retriever, Tara. Everyone needs a best friend like Tara.

In this first book, Andy's father, a renowned judge, just before he died asked Andy to take on the appeal of a death row inmate that he had passed sentence on years ago. Andy knows that the appeal and resulting new trial will not exonerate the inmate of the murder he was convicted for--it is an open and shut case...or is it? Of course, it turns out not to be and therein lies the basic story, with lots of other juicy tangents such as why did Andy's father accepted a huge check 20+ years ago and that he never used. Why does everyone in a photo from 20 years ago that Andy finds in his father's things deny they were in the photo? Why does Andy's estranged wife Nicole show up out of the blue and insist they try to reconcile?

The book was light on tension, laugh out loud funny at times, with interesting courtroom stuff, and no truly scary (i.e., protagonist is about to die) scenes. I will definitely be reading more in this series.

The Night Fire, by Michael Connelly - This was a perfect Michael Connelly mystery as it was a Venn diagram of his best characters. Renee Ballard is the LAPD detective working the night shift. She loops in Harry Bosch, retired from LAPD but still itching to work, and he loops in Mickey Haller, his half-brother and defense lawyer. I just love this universe and how the various characters interact, with each contributing key elements to the overall story. 

As with Open and Shut, the main story thread of The Night Fire involves a 20-year-old murder, this one unsolved. I love how Renee and Harry focus on the cold cases--which seems to be a story theme these days. That's where the Thursday Murder Club finds their cases to work on as well. We have lots of interesting angles with loads of LA details--someone needs to make a list of all the places Renee, Harry, and Mickey have lunch and/or dinner. Reading these books always makes me hungry for diner food!

Garden Notes

I picked my first tomato and first zucchini, and the onions are doing great. It's been so hot, I'm not sure if we will have many peas but still hopeful. The native garden is being overrun with non-native aggressive weeds, so I've had to do some clearing out so the native flowers have room to thrive.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. 

Mama Finch built another nest in the wreath on the front porch, laid three more eggs, and is convinced her family will be safe this time. We moved the chairs so that the predator that got them last time has to come up with a different plan of attack.

TV Notes

Our daughter is visiting from CA this week (in order to go to Twelfth Night with us tonight at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival) and insisted we watch The Sheep Detectives last night with her on Prime.

What a fun movie. Hugh Jackman as Gary the shepherd was wonderful, as was Emma Thompson as the lawyer. The actors who voiced the sheep were marvelous, with my favorite being Brett Goldstein (of Ted Lasso and Shrinking) who was both Ronnie and Reggie, the head-butting rams ("Are we lambs or rams?"). 

A thoroughly enjoyable movie, especially for those of us who love mysteries as the movie really plays into the all the mystery novel tropes.

Hope you are all enjoying July and finding wonderful books that take you on fantastic journeys.

Spring Roundup

Spring has come early to Colorado--the daffodils are just about done, as are the apple trees (both ornamental and fruiting), and the lilacs are threatening. We actually had a bit of rain yesterday, and I planted red and white onions last Sunday, but the lawn remains absolutely parched.

I am cleaning the flower beds and thinking about when to plant the lettuce, spinach, and peas.

I haven't booked our trip to Scotland in September yet. It may have to wait until next year as flights have gotten prohibitively expensive, and I don't want to fly in steerage anymore. Nor do I want to just let every company pass along the increased costs to the consumer. This consumer is starting to say no thank you. If I sound like a curmudgeon. So be it. I am embracing my Hagitude! See below :)

Just Read (past tense)

The Proving Ground, by Michael Connelly - a solid 5 stars for this newest Lincoln Lawyer novel. I loved the subject matter--how high tech is operating without "guard rails" when it comes to AI, especially those that target children with AI-companions. There is so much that I hate about AI, and I loved Mickey Haller going after it. I think this book should be recommended reading for all middle school and high school students and their parents!

I worked in high-tech for 42 years--my entire career--and industry never has and never will self-regulate. As always, Connelly's story-telling skills are first rate, and his characterization is spot on. Mickey and his staff definitely have their flaws, but they are realistically likeable characters. 

Hagitude: Reimaging the Second Half of Life, by Sharon Blackie - recommended by my 30-something daughter, who is very far off from Hagitude herself, I found so much to love about this book. From the retelling of folk tales that feature both positive and negative images of older women to the Jungian discussions to the personal stories about how the author dealt with aging, this book is chock full of interesting ideas about what it means to become one of the wise women, an elder of the community. 

A Room With a View, by E.M. Forster - a reread of a favorite novel, I really enjoyed getting to know Lucy Honeychurch all over again. Like Lucy, I feel in a muddle half the time myself, and I can truly relate to both her wanting to please everyone and to live her own life honestly and enthusiastically. 

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Volume 1, by Beth Brower - recommended by JoAnn of Gulfside Musing, this short first-in-a-series novel was delightful. Light, bright, sparkling--I'm eager to read Volume 2. As the title promises, this is the journal of a young Victorian lady who is fighting to regain possession of her inherited home when she comes of age. For some reason, it reminded me of A Series of Unfortunate Events--maybe due to the general quirkiness. Definitely a book to lift one's spirits when the doom-scrolling threatens to overwhelm.

Blue Lightning, by Ann Cleeves - book four in the author's Shetland series. I was eager to read this for my Reading Scotland project, and I was confident that I would find it wonderful as Cleeves has been growing steadily as a favorite mystery writer.

Alas, this is currently in the Did Not Finish category in GoodReads because...

***********SPOILERS**************

...she kills off Fran, Jimmy Perez's finance near the end. ARRGGHHH! I seriously hate it when great characters are gratuitously axed because the writer doesn't feel like having the main character's arc go in that direction. At least that's what it felt like to me. There was absolutely no reason that Fran had to die for the mystery to be resolved. I simply couldn't bear to read about her murder and Jimmy's grief and guilt over it

I think I will probably steel myself and go ahead and read the final chapters and then mark it read. But, I am not sure about reading any more in this series. And I am definitely not watching the TV show after this!

Speaking of TV Shows

Just watched Apple Cider Vinegar on Netflix about Belle Gibson, the Australian social media starlet who convinced her followers that she had cured herself of brain cancer through healthy eating. I was absolutely mesmerized and appalled by the narcissism, self-delusion, and con-artistry of this woman.

As with so many scams, I found myself agonizing over the utter waste of time, energy, and talent. Belle was clearly not an unintelligent person. She was a hard worker. She was media-saavy with brilliant instincts about what works when it comes to building a brand and advertising. If only she had believed in herself enough to go for it without the crutch of making herself into a victim.

In addition to Belle's story, the TV series also told the stories of two other women, both of whom did have cancer, and how they and their families and loved ones helped them deal with their diagnosis, fought with them over treatment options, and loved them throughout their journey. 

I was particularly impressed with how well produced this series was--it really physically demonstrated how addictive external validation via the internet can be. Like The Proving Ground, this show focused on the very real dangers that internet technology pose.

I also started rewatching Monarch of the Glen--the marvelous British show from the early 2000s. Set in the Scottish highlands, it is enormous fun, with fantastic scenery. In a nutshell, Archie MacDonald returns home from London to find he is the new laird of Glenbogle, his family's estate that is under water financially. 

I only watched the first five seasons the first time around and will probably do the same this time. The last two seasons deal with a usurper and, again, I just didn't like the story line that developed.

I don't know if this show is available streaming. I am getting it through a wonderful, old-fashioned process called inter-library loan.

Is anyone else watching orange-loving Jamie Ding on Jeopardy? He's won over $500k and the stuff he knows is just astounding. That said, he has missed a couple of final Jeopardy questions that I was surprised he didn't know. But still--he is pretty darn impressive!

Beating the January Blahs

Getting through January always requires a stack of good books. Here are some winners that have been doing the trick for me.

The Wedding People

The Wedding People, by Alison Espach, was as good as all the hype around it. I saw it on so many blogs last year and was super excited when my turn in the library queue finally came. I went into the book not even knowing the premise, and I was a bit shocked when I found out what Phoebe's intentions were. For those of you living under a rock (as I was!), here's the GoodReads blurb:

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.

 In very short order, I found myself rooting for Phoebe as she found herself first clinging to life and then embracing it. I loved how we learned about all the various wedding people through their conversations with Phoebe. In a way, she reminded me of Austen's Anne Eliot in Persuasion--the person everyonr feels comfortable in confiding in. And, I ended up liking all of the wedding people--including the poor Bridezilla and the horrible ex-husband--just proving my maxim that everybody has a story worth hearing. That said, I loved where Phoebe ended up and I hope that Espach follows up the success of this novel with a sequel. 

The Bookseller of Inverness

As part of my Reading Scotland project in anticipation of a planned trip there in September, I devoured The Bookseller of Inverness, by S.G. Maclean. I gave it a solid 5 stars on GoodReads for being a whopping good historical novel, thoroughly researched and chockful of interesting, believable characters, hair-raising adventures, and detailed descriptions of many places I plan to visit this fall. Again, here is the GoodReads blurb:

After Culloden, Iain MacGillivray was left for dead on Drumossie Moor [1745]. Wounded, his face brutally slashed, he survived only by pretending to be dead as the Redcoats patrolled the corpses of his Jacobite comrades.

Six years later, with the clan chiefs routed and the Highlands subsumed into the British state, Iain lives a quiet life, working as a bookseller in Inverness. One day, after helping several of his regular customers, he notices a stranger lurking in the upper gallery of his shop, poring over his collection. But the man refuses to say what he's searching for and only leaves when Iain closes for the night. The next morning Iain opens up shop and finds the stranger dead, his throat cut, and the murder weapon laid out in front of him - a sword with a white cockade on its hilt, the emblem of the Jacobites.

With no sign of the killer, Iain wonders whether the stranger discovered what he was looking for - and whether he paid for it with his life. He soon finds himself embroiled in a web of deceit and a series of old scores to be settled in the ashes of war.

 The notes at the end by the author provided me with a list of excellent books on the Jacobites. I know I don't have time to read them all, but such wonderful choices to have.

The author has dozens of books listed on GR, some appeal more than others, but the Alexander Seaton series, set in Scotland in the 1620s, looks promising. Has anyone read anything by this author that they can recommend?

Nightshade 

Nightshade (Catalina#1), by Michael Connelly, is the first in a new series, this time featuring a sheriff stationed on the island of Santa Catalina, off the coast of California and opposite LA. This is vintage Connelly--good characters, good mystery, good love-to-hate villains, good action, good side threads...but this time, fantastic setting. I spent half my time reading this book looking for places to stay on Catalina. I would seriously love to go there for a vacation. I think Connelly must have a connection to the island because I remember Mickey Haller (the Lincoln Lawyer) going there with one of his girlfriends after he and his wife divorced. 

Oh...you probably want to know what this one is about. Here's the GR blurb:

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Detective Stilwell has been “exiled” to a low-key post policing rustic Catalina Island, after department politics drove him off a homicide desk on the mainland. But while following up the usual drunk-and-disorderlies and petty thefts that come with his new territory, Detective Stilwell gets a report of a body found weighed down at the bottom of the harbor—a Jane Doe identifiable at first only by a streak of purple dye in her hair. At the same time, a report of poaching on a protected reserve turns into a case fraught with violence and danger as Stilwell digs into the shady past of an island bigwig.

Crossing all lines of protocol and jurisdiction, Stilwell doggedly works both cases. Though hampered by an old beef with an ex-colleague determined to thwart him at every turn, he is convinced he is the only one who can bring justice to the woman known as “Nightshade.” Soon, his investigation uncovers closely guarded secrets and a dark heart to the serene island that was meant to be his escape from the evils of the big city.

Surviving the Winter

This winter has been mostly mild and dry and windy in Colorado, with just a bit of snow and a few frigid days. We need more or we'll be facing drought conditions this coming summer. 

Go Broncos! I just started watching football two seasons ago, but cheering on the Denver Broncos in the face of all the nay-sayers has been fun. I even bought myself a game-day tee-shirt! Those of you who have visited the Denver airport might recognize, Blucifer, the giant, blue, demon horse that most of us love and that epitomizes the Broncos for me!

Finally watching season five of Only Murders in the Building--we pulled our Hulu subscription after the Jimmy Kimmel kerfuffle but decided Disney had suffered enough and reinstated Hulu to watch Mabel, Charles, and Oliver solve the latest murder in the building. I am absolutely loving Selena Gomez's wardrobe this season. 

Listening to Austen's Mansfield Park in preparation for our region's February discussion of the novel. BTW, I found a free audio version on Audiobooks, courtesy of LibriVox. The reader, Karen Savage, is doing a fine job, although I don't care for her Mary Crawford voice. I plan to scan an annotated version before the meeting in order to find some interesting tidbits to share.

Went to the Denver Art Museum Pissarro exhibit and decided I want to live in most of the places he painted. Here are a couple of favorites:

Best wishes for a successful survival of January. Tell me how you beat the mid-winter blahs.

Dog Days and Summer Reads

At the Edge of the Orchard, by Tracy Chevalier - I like everything Chevalier writes, and this was no exception, except it takes a lot of faith to make it through the first part, which has some of the most disagreeable characters you can imagine. Actually, I started this book five or so years ago and stopped reading after about 30 pages because I couldn't stand the company. But, my husband read it and said that the awful people are really only in the first part and the overall story is good. Then, the GoodReads True Book Talk group voted to read it in July, so I plunged back in. 

The story starts with a homesteading family in the Black Swamp in Ohio in the 1830s and their struggle to survive and grow apples, courtesy of John Chapman, aka Johnny Appleseed. The father loves grafting trees to produce his favorite variety to eat, and the mother loves hard cider...to a fault. 

Robert is the eldest son, and the novel really gets good when he heads west to make his fortune and after trying his hand at cowboying and gold mining, he ends up working for a botanist from England who makes his living by providing English gardens and landowners with seeds and seedlings from redwoods and sequoias. Who knew this was a thing back in the 1850s? Loved reading about California in the early days.

How to Read a Book, by Monica Wood - this was a recommendation from JoAnn at Gulfside Musing, and it was a thoroughly enjoyable novel. Shades of Orange is the New Black as a women's correctional facility figures prominently--Violet is incarcerated for manslaughter, Harriet is a retired teacher who leads a weekly bookclub at the prison, and Frank is the husband of the woman Violet accidently killed. It is truly a lovely story about second chances and the power of forgiveness as a life-giving force.

Fun Fact: did you know that African Grey Parrots are super smart and can differentiate colors and objects and show feelings and affection? I didn't, but I learned a lot about them while reading this book!

Jane Austen: Writing, Society, Politics, by Tom Keymer - this was the JASNA Denver/Boulder bookclub's selection for our July read. Chosen because the author is delivering a keynote at the JASNA AGM in October in Cleveland (no, I am not going this year), it turned out to be quite interesting. 

A sampling of the tidbits I learned:

• Blaise Castle, where John Thorpe takes Catherine Morland at breakneck speed in Northanger Abbey, was actually a tourist trap and folly and not a real gothic castle.
• Virginia Woolf wrote something called "Jane Austen at 60," which I think I would like to read sometime.
• Vladimir Nabakov lectured on Austen and did a drawing of Sotherton Court from Mansfield Park.

It was a fun, interesting book, and I'm sure his keynote will be excellent.

Once Persuaded, Twice Shy, by Melodie Edwards - for our September book, JASNA Denver/Boulder decided to read some fun modern riffs on Persuasion. I am traveling in September, so I got a jumpstart and read this one, which takes place in Canada (Niagra-on-the-Lake). It was enormous fun--well-written with mostly believable characters, sufficient angst, and a lovely resolution. Perfect summer escapism, but everyone agreed...the title is atrocious.

The author has also written a modern Jane Eyre story, Jane & Edward, that I might read. Has anyone read it? Worth reading?

The Scarecrow, by Michael Connelly - I've been listening to Connelly's Harry Bosch, Mickey Haller (Lincoln Lawyer), and Renee Ballard LA crime novels, but I didn't know that he had a 3-part series that featured a newspaper reporter until I was looking for something to listen to and stumbled across the middle book in the series. I generally don't read series out of order, but rules are made to be broken. 

Jack McEvoy is a LA Times crime reporter who has just been given his pink slip. He sees an opportunity to write a final, Pulitzer-Prize winning story with a tip that comes during his last week, and we're off to the races. This was classic Connelly in that I felt like I really had an insider's view of a newsroom and the relationships between law enforcement, lawyers, and the media. The set up was high-tech featuring data centers and hacking, the bad guys were smart and horrible, and the characters were terrific. I'm just sorry that McEvoy only has three books.

The Plot, by Jean Hanff Korelitz - I was super excited to read this one, but only ended up giving it three stars because I really hated the ending, which felt so contrived and non-satisfying. I also had a hard time buying into the premise, which is that a struggling novelist uses a surefire plot that one of his students told him before that student passed away. Apparently, using this plot was somehow considered heinous, which really didn't resonate with me, and the revenge angle also stretched my ability to suspend disbelief. 

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I think that's a wrap on the reading front.

In other news, it is finally raining in Colorado, helping to dampen down the wildfires and smoky haze, which means I need to get outside a do some weeding while we have a break from the heat.

I am loving the Olympics. Women's rugby!!! Who knew it was so much fun to watch? And track and field, and swimming, and diviing, and volleyball, and tennis, and something called Cross Canoe Slalom. Wow!

I am also loving Bridgerton. I finally bit the bullet and started watching. Finished season 2 last night, now on to season 3. I used to think Downton Abbey had the best costumes, but Bridgerton is just eye-candy galore. 

The tomatoes are starting to ripen so I'll be making tomato sauce to freeze for the winter. The chili peppers are fantastic, so I've been roasting and peeling and dicing and freezing for green chili. I actually grew bell peppers this year, and they are growing and just starting to ripen. The onions are awesome.

Life is good. Hope you are well and enjoying the dog days.

First Roundup of 2024

A beautiful visitor to our neighborhood on a December afternoon.

Happy New Year! I did a fair amount of reading in November and December, so here's a roundup of how I closed out my reading year. One notable exception is Demon Copperfield, which I finished on December 31. Demon deserves his own post, so I didn't include him here.

Nature's Best Hope, by Douglas W. Tallamy - another life-changing book. The basic idea is that everyone, from apartment dwellers in big cities to suburban neighborhood  types, can take positive, small steps that can have a big impact in terms of recreating the local ecosystems that have been paved over, plowed under, or simply overrun by non-native plants that do not provide the right food for the insects and microorganisms at the bottom of the food chain, which affects everything else (including us) in the food chain. While many of Tallamy's followers insist on everyone ripping out their lawn and rewilding their yards, Tallamy would be happy if you just learned about a couple of keystone plants (i.e., those that feed/house a wide variety of insects and birds) like goldenrod and planted them. Baby steps lead to life changes!

If you are interested in learning what plants are native to your area, you can enter your zip code here: Native Plants | Audubon

The Thursday Murder Club, by Richard Osman - really enjoyed this, especially the setting (a retirement village in England) and the 70-something characters who keep sharp by solving cold (and not so cold) cases. This is a series, so I am looking forward to getting to know all of the characters better, especially Elizabeth, who seems to have had a very Cold War career if I am reading rightly between the lines.

Murder at an Irish Christmas, by Carlene O'Connor - I wanted to do some holiday reading this year, and this popped up. It was a decent 3-star read--it is part of a series, which could be fun. Loved the Irish setting and a good set of characters, although I confess there were a lot of them and most with unpronounceable names, which sadly made it hard for me to remember who was who.

The Shortest Day, by Colm Tóibín - a super short story that takes place in New Grange outside of Dublin. New Grange is a prehistoric site, and the story links the ghosts of the past with an archeology professor. It was okay--Tóibín's work never seems to live up to the hype surrounding him as an author. I didn't come away with a deeper insight in the connections between past and present. I think I would have liked it better without the ghosts actually.  The part about the professor and how he relates to the site was more interesting than the dynamics of the ghost society. I just am not into fantasy, I guess.  

A Christmas Secret, by Anne Perry - another 3-star holiday read, this time set in a Victorian (or maybe Edwardian) English village. Fun to read but fairly light in terms of mystery and characterization. It also felt very contrived as opposed to an organic story, if that makes sense. I believe that the Vicar and his wife who are the main characters were minor characters in other Perry mysteries.

The Road to Dalton, by Shannon Bowring - set in the 1990's Maine small town where the inhabitants struggle with poverty, boredom, prying eyes, and judging hearts but manage to find sparks of hope and moments of joy and love and purpose that keep them moving forward. This is Bowring's debut novel, and I am looking forward to seeing what she does next, especially if she continues to set her stories in Maine.

The Late Show, by Michael Connelly - the first in the Renee Ballard series. Very promising beginning to the series, with a good main character with lots of quirks that make for interesting reading--I like the fact that she is from Hawaii, paddleboards for exercise, works the night shift, and has a dog and a grandmother. I swear, I am learning my way around LA just from reading Connelly's mysteries! 

Here is an interesting LA Times article about the woman that Connelly based Renee on: There’s a real-life Michael Connelly character in the LAPD, and she’s gunning for Harry Bosch’s job - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)

May Day Reading Roundup

While the rest of the world is celebrating May Day, International Workers Day, and Beltane, I thought I would use this opportunity to do another catchup roundup of what I've been reading lately.

The Gulfside Musing Book Club Selections

When I read a review of a book that sounds great, I add it to my GoodReads TBR list. Then, when I want to fill up my hold list at my library, I scan the list and see what I can get. As it turns out, JoAnn at Gulfside Musing reads a lot of books that appeal to me. It just so happens that I got a rash of library books that originated with a JoAnn review, so with no further ado, here are my recent reads recommended by JoAnn.

Dinosaurs, by Lydia Millet - the premise is pretty low-key, but the writing was excellent as was the character development/arc. Essentially a wealthy New Yorker (Gil) is dumped by his atrocious girlfriend and so he relocates to Arizona and makes friends with the family who lives next door. 

There are a couple of quirks that make this a bit more than run of the mill. Gil doesn't just relocate to AZ, he walks there! Yes, all 2500 miles or so. I like to walk and have walked the width of England, but walking from NY to AZ is beyond my ability to comprehend. And the family next door? They live in a glass house.

The quirks are interesting but they are not what make this a good book--they're probably just there to get the attention of someone looking for a fresh angle. Anyway I came to love and respect Gil just as the family next door does. He is a good guy with a good heart and a hardluck story despite his wealth. He strives to do the right thing and learns how to rebuild a life from the ground up, finding connections with the people in his orbit and doing the work to make those connections solid.

I cannot quote the ending because the book has been returned to the library, but it was a lovely, lyrical ending that wrapped the story very nicely.

Oh, and dinosaurs are really just extinct birds. Anyway, the bird theme runs through the novel in a gentle, not overbearing, not in a hit-em-over-the-head-with-a-metaphor way. I love birds and so I enjoyed how the themes of connectedness and metamorphisis made the novel work. 

Signal Fires, by Dani Shapiro - I read this immediately after Dinosaurs, and I confess that the storylines kind of merged in my mind. Another family/neighborhood-based novel about living with the consequences of our actions, finding the connections between each other, and trying to do the right thing, even when it is harder than you think possible to do. Essentially, this is the story of two families and how their lives intersect in ways that are not always obvious. I particularly loved the little boy genius whose Dad simply doesn't know how to deal with him and the good doctor across the street who will gaze up at the stars with him and find solace in knowing exactly where they are in the universe.

Now is Not the Time to Panic, by Kevin Wilson - the other two were solid 4-star books, but for me, this was a 5-star winner. I absolutely loved this coming of age story--such a fresh, interesting approach. And actually, I labeled it a coming-of-age story, but I think it's way more than that. It's about the courage it takes to be an artist, to create something and share it with the world and then watch the world take it and exploit it and turn it into something else that you didn't intend. While I was reading it, I was thinking about literary criticism, fan fiction, TV and movie adaptations, derivative art, and a host of other things all while being immensely caught up in the story of Frankie and Zeke and the poster they created and how that poster took on a life of its own. Loved this book.

Other Stuff

The Black Echo, by Michael Connelly - this is the first in the Harry Bosch universe, LA cop series. I liked this author's later Mickey Haller books so much that I decided to travel back in time to the 1990s and learn more about Mickey's half brother Harry. Definitely a great mystery with Vietnam vets, a bank heist or two, and plenty of action.

White Nights, by Ann Cleeves - I am working my way through both her Vera Stanhope and Shetland series, and this is the second in the Shetland series, featuring island boy Jimmy Perez. It was a good solid mystery in a fantastic setting (up near the Artic circle the nights never actually get dark in the summer) with a great cast of quirky characters and deceptive red herrings.

Less, by Andrew Sean Greer - I just finished this yesterday. It was okay--somewhere between 3 and 4 stars, so I rounded up. I read it mostly for the travel bits, which were great as the protagonist, Arthur Less, travels around the world all to escape going to the wedding of his former boyfriend. Arthur's whining about turning 50 got on my nerves a bit, and I can't say I found his story arc particularly compelling, but I do like travel novels.

Off to Europe

I am headed to Europe on Saturday for a 2-week vacation with my daughter, who just graduated from college. We are starting in Paris, and moving on to Munich, with a short trip to Berchtesgarden, then ending up in Berlin. We are both interested in WWII, and so most of our sightseeing will be visiting museums and sites that figured in the war, although Paris is all about relaxing and getting over jet lag before Germany.

I just got a new keyboard for my laptop, so I may find the time to do some travelogues while on the road. If not, I will share pictures when we get back.

Happy May Day! Hope you have a wonderful reading month ahead of you.

Catching Up

Sorry for being AWOL, but I have been reading and listening and need to get back on track. The past couple of months have been characterized by WWII, opera, and LA lawyering. 

Let's start with the LA lawyer--I've been listening to Michael Connelly's Lincoln Lawyer series with my husband on our car trips. Listening to the first book in the series, The Lincoln Lawyer in Maine in September, then the second book, The Brass Verdict in Victoria, BC in October, and most recently, The Reversal on a trip across the mountains and back last week. I really love this series--Mickey Haller is a great character and I am fascinated by the details of the courtroom and defense and prosecution approaches. I know nothing about lawyering beyond The Good Wife, so this is really fun and interesting.

Now for opera. Opera? you ask. Yes, I grew up with opera and it never really left me. Colorado Opera in Denver started pinging me on social media with ads for their fall production of Verdi's Rigoletto. I decided to treat myself for my birthday--my husband had knee replacement surgery in October (so begged off with an ironclad excuse)--and decided I needed a refresher course. So, I ordered the libretto (Italian/English side by side), watched a YouTube video of Pavarotti's movie version, and listened to a 24-hour long, 32-lecture Great Course on the life and operas of Guiseppe Verdi, delivered by Professor Robert Greenberg of San Francisco. All of it was fantastic. The Pavarotti music with libretto in hand, the live production in Denver, and the detailed analysis of the opera with biographical context (there were 4 lectures on Rigoletto alone!). I finished the course yesterday, which culminated with 6 lectures on Verdi's last opera, Falstaff, based on Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor. Greenberg has another Great Course on how to listen to opera, which I will probably do in 2023. 

On to WWII. Another Great Course, World War II: A Political and Social History, delivered by Professor Thomas Childers, followed by The Knight, Death, and the Devil, a fictionalized biography of Hermann Goring by Ella Leffland--this was a reread, but since I read it over 30 years ago, it was like reading for the first time. I also listened to two other related Great Courses: The Berlin Wall: A World Divided and Europe and Western Civilization in the Modern Age.

Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season. Thanksgiving was fun and relaxing (we dined out!), and I started transforming the house to its Christmas wardrobe today. Next weekend, the tree.

Looking forward to visiting all my favorite blogs and catching up with what you all have been up to.