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301. Today Will Be Different

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Beth Roach

Author:   Maria Semple

Genre:  Fiction, Humor

259 pages, published October 4, 2016

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Today Will Be Different is a day in the life of Eleanor Flood, an accomplished graphic novelist, mother of preschooler Timby (who has faked an illness to spend the day with his mother), wife of acclaimed hand surgeon Joe (who may be leading a double life), and sister to Ivy who has married into a Southern Gothic family .  As Eleanor navigates her topsy-turvy life, she learns about what is important in life.

Quotes 

“Today will be different. Today I will be present. Today, anyone I speak to, I will look them in the eye and listen deeply. Today I’ll play a board game with Timby. I’ll initiate sex with Joe. Today I will take pride in my appearance. I’ll shower, get dressed in proper clothes, and change into yoga clothes only for yoga, which today I will actually attend. Today I won’t swear. I won’t talk about money. Today there will be an ease about me. My face will be relaxed, its resting place a smile. Today I will radiate calm. Kindness and self-control will abound. Today I will buy local. Today I will be my best self, the person I’m capable of being. Today will be different.”

 

“I don’t mean to ruin the ending for you, sweet child, but life is one long headwind. To make any kind of impact requires self-will bordering on madness. The world will be hostile, it will be suspicious of your intent, it will misinterpret you, it will inject you with doubt, it will flatter you into self-sabotage. My God, I’m making it sound so glamorous and personal! What the world is, more than anything? It’s indifferent.”  “Say amen to that,” Spencer said.

“But you have a vision. You put a frame around it. You sign your name anyway. That’s the risk. That’s the leap. That’s the madness: thinking anyone’s going to care.”

 

“That was happiness. Not the framed greatest hits, but the moments in between. At the time, I hadn’t pegged them as being particularly happy. But now, looking back at those phantom snapshots, I’m struck by my calm, my ease, the evident comfort with my life. I’m happy in retrospect.”

 

“There’s a phenomenon I call the Helpless Traveler. If you’re traveling with someone who’s confident, organized, and decisive you become the Helpless Traveler: “Are we there yet?” “My bags are too heavy.” “My feet are getting blisters.” “This isn’t what I ordered.” We’ve all been that person. But if the person you’re traveling with is helpless, then you become the one able to decipher train schedules, spend five hours walking on marble museum floors without complaint, order fearlessly from foreign menus, and haggle with crooked cabdrivers. Every person has it in him to be either the Competent Traveler or the Helpless Traveler. Because Joe is so clearheaded and sharp, I’ve been able to go through life as the Helpless Traveler. Which, now that I think about it, might not be such a good thing.”

 

“You try your best, or you don’t try your best. The mountains don’t care.”

 

“You know how your brain turns to mush? How it starts when you’re pregnant? You laugh, full of wonder and conspiracy, and you chide yourself, Me and my pregnancy brain! Then you give birth and your brain doesn’t return? But you’re breast-feeding, so you laugh, as if you’re a member of an exclusive club? Me and my nursing brain! But then you stop nursing and the terrible truth descends: Your good brain is never coming back. You’ve traded vocabulary, lucidity, and memory for motherhood. You know how you’re in the middle of a sentence and you realize at the end you’re going to need to call up a certain word and you’re worried you won’t be able to, but you’re already committed so you hurtle along and then pause because you’ve arrived at the end but the word hasn’t? And it’s not even a ten-dollar word you’re after, like polemic or shibboleth, but a two-dollar word, like distinctive, so you just end up saying amazing?  Which is how you join the gang of nitwits who describe everything as amazing.”

 

“There was no relief deeper than being loved by the person who’d known you the longest.”

 

“In the middle of one of her self-help phases, Ivy had once proclaimed that underneath all anger was fear. I’d long since wondered what, if anything, was underneath all fear.

I knew then: If underneath anger was fear, then underneath fear was love. Everything came down to the terror of losing what you love.”

 

“How’s your day so far?”

“Oh, can’t complain,” he said. “You?”

“Can complain, but won’t.”

 

“A live concert needs to be listened to live. Otherwise, it’s like eating day-old salad.”

 

“Because the other way wasn’t working. The waking up just to get the day over with until it was time for bed. The grinding it out was a disgrace, an affront to the honor and long shot of being alive at all.”

 

“One thing that happens when you have an alcoholic for a parent is you grow up the child of an alcoholic. … For a quick trip around the bases, it means you blame yourself for everything, you avoid reality, you can’t trust people, you’re hungry to please. Which isn’t all bad: perfectionism makes the straight-A student; lack of trust begets self-sufficiency; low self-esteem can be a terrific motivator; if everyone were so gung-ho on reality, there’d be no art.”

 

“Pain I’m good with. It’s discomfort I can’t handle.”

 

“Smell the soup, cool the soup,” Timby said. “Huh?” “It’s what they teach us in school when we’re upset. Smell the soup.” He took a deep breath in. “Cool the soup.” He blew out.”

My Take

Having enjoyed Semple’s previous book Where’d You Go, Bernadette, I had high hopes for Today Will Be Different.  I was not disappointed.  The plot isn’t important.  Which is a good thing because there isn’t much of one.  Instead, the reason to read this book is the richly drawn characters and the very clever and enlightening insights about life that Semple regularly delivers.

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300. Don’t Worry, Life Is Easy

Rating:  ☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Agnès Martin-Lugand

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, Romance

246 pages, published May 2, 2017

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Following the loss of her husband and young daughter, Diane is stuck in a depressive rut.  After returning from Ireland (where she had an ill-fated relationship with the brooding photographer Edward), she is singularly focused on getting her literary café back on track.  Things change when she meets and falls in love with Olivier.  However, when Edward appears in Paris, Diane is thrown for a loop and must decide between the two men.

Quotes 

“Life was taking over, and I did not want to fight it anymore.”

 

“All those vacationers crammed against each other on a tiny beach, or fighting in the evening in front of the buffet, horrified at the idea that the snoring neighbor is stealing the last sausage, those people who are happy to have been locked up for ten hours in a cabin with brailing kids around them, all that made me want to throw up. “ 

My Take

Not a fan of this book.  Clichéd and syrupy romance.  There are better books out there.

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299. Carnegie’s Maid

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Marie Benedict

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, Romance

283 pages, published August 12, 2014

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Fresh off the boat from Ireland in the 1860s, through a case of mistaken identity, fresh faced and intelligent Clara Kelly finds herself serving as a ladies’ maid to the mother of prominent businessman Andrew Carnegie.  By the end of the book, Clara and Andrew find themselves in love, but at a crossroads.  Throughout the book, we witness Andrew Carnegie’s transformation from hardnosed industrialist into one of America’s greatest philanthropist.

Quotes 

“As Mrs. Barrett Browning says, ‘The world of books is still the world.”

“You know what they say. Any fool can earn money, but it takes a wise man to keep it.”

“Whatever I engage in I must push inordinately; therefore should I be careful to choose that life which will be the most elevating in its character.”

 

“Andrew Carnegie, who is the man who built this free library and thousands more libraries with his own money. A man who gave the gift of books and education to every person, regardless of how much money they had.” 

My Take

Other than his namesakes Carnegie Hall, Carnegie Mellon University and his donations to many, many libraries throughout the U.S., I didn’t know much about Andrew Carnegie prior to reading Carnegie’s Maid.  Through the viewpoint of a maid in his house, the book paints a detailed and sympathetic portrait of the man and the times that he lived in.  Not the greatest book, but it is worthwhile for its illumination of this famous man and period of American history.

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298. An Event in Autumn

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Henning Mankell

Genre:  Fiction, Crime, Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Foreign

176 pages, published August 12, 2014

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

An Event in Autumn is a short novel featuring the famous Swedish detective Kurt Wallander (who has spawned two television series).  Soon after Inspector Wallander looks at a home to potentially buy, he makes a horrifying discovery of a skeletal hand poking through the earth in the garden.  He unearths two corpses and turns the investigation over to the local police.  However, Wallander is soon drawn into the search to discover who died, why and by whose hand.

Quotes 

“A question that wasn’t asked was a question that didn’t need an answer.”

 

“Many years ago Wallander had learned that one of the manifold virtues a police officer must possess is the ability to be patient with himself.”

 

“There was a sort of beauty that only comes with age. A whole life engraved into facial wrinkles.”

 

“It struck Wallander that nothing could make him as depressed as the sight of old spectacles that nobody wanted anymore.”

 

“The great Danish-Norwegian author Aksel Sandemose once said, liberally translated, “the only things worth writing about are love and murder.”

 

“No doubt you thought I was dead. I sometimes think I am myself.”        

 

“It’s about contradictions between us and inside us, between individuals and society, between dream and reality. Sometimes these contradictions express themselves in violence, such as racial conflict. And this mirror of crime can take us back to the Greek authors.” 

My Take

An Event in Autumn is the first Kurt Wallander book that I have read and it was very enjoyable.  Mankell is a gifted writer and his books are much more than your standard whodunit’s.  He delves into characters and place in an original, nuanced and insightful manner that adds depth to the mystery, which is also an entertaining page turner.

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292. The Door

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Meris Delli-Bovi

Author:   Magda Szabó

Genre:  Fiction

272 pages, published 1987

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

The Door is a semi-autographical novel by Hungarian writer Magda Szabó who won many national literary awards but was also labeled an “enemy of the people” by the Communist government, was fired from the Ministry of Education, and had her books banned from publication from 1949 to 1956.  The book, which is set in Hungary, focuses on a 20 year relationship between a writer named Magda who hires an housekeeper named Emerence.  Emerence is a singular person, relentlessly efficient, incredibly headstrong and obstinate, extremely private and tied to the old ways.  And yet Emerence is respected by the neighborhood as much as she is feared.   Magda and Emerence develop a deep and connected relationship which is ultimately threatened by Magda’s attempt at kindness which Emerence views as a betrayal.

Quotes 

“Creativity requires a state of grace. So many things are required for it to succeed—stimulus and composure, inner peace and a kind of bitter-sweet excitement.”

 

“God usually ignored us when asked for something, but he invariably granted what we feared.”

 

“I know now, what I didn’t then, that affection can’t always be expressed in calm, orderly, articulate ways; and that one cannot prescribe the form it should take for anyone else.”

 

“She was lonely. Who isn’t lonely, I’d like to know? And that includes people who do have someone but just haven’t noticed.”

 

“If there’s no-one to show pleasure when you come home, then it’s better not to live.”

 

“In my student days, I detested Schopenhauer. Only later did I come to acknowledge the force of his idea that every relationship involving personal feeling laid one open to attack, and the more people I allowed to become close to me, the greater the number of ways in which I was vulnerable.”

 

“Everything has to be done properly, even death.” 

My Take

The Door is a unique book that I enjoyed for the most part.  Set on a single street in mid 20th Century Budapest, the relationship between the two main characters is symbolic of humanity’s struggle to love fully and unconditionally.  Magda and Emerence don’t quite achieve this lofty goal, but the glimpses of its possibility make the struggle worthwhile.

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291. Transcription

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Clare Telleen

Author:   Kate Atkinson

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, World War II

352 pages, published September 25, 2018

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

At the beginning of World War II, 18 year old Juliet Armstrong obtains employment with an obscure department of MI5.  Her job is to transcribe the conversations between an undercover MI5 agent and British Fascist sympathizers that he has recruited.  The work is both tedious and terrifying.  After the war has ended, she assumes the events of those years are done and buried.  However, ten years later, now a radio producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. Juliet finds herself thrust into the Cold War and begins to understand that her previous actions have consequences.

Quotes 

“Do not equate nationalism with patriotism… Nationalism is the first step on the road to Fascism.”

 

“The world is a comedy to those that think; a tragedy to those that feel,”

 

“[…] but her mother’s death had revealed that there was no metaphor too ostentatious for grief. It was a terrible thing and demanded embellishment.”

 

“The blame generally has to fall somewhere, Miss Armstrong. Women and the Jews tend to be first in line, unfortunately.”

 

“Human nature favors the tribal. Tribalism engenders violence. It was ever thus and so it will ever be.”

 

“Being flippant was harder work than being earnest”

 

“…it had probably been a long enough life. Yet suddenly it all seemed like an illusion, a dream that had happened to someone else. What an odd thing existence was.”

 

“People always said they wanted the truth, but really they were perfectly content with a facsimile.”

 

“But wasn’t artistic endeavor the final refuge of the uncommitted?”

 

“Juliet could still remember when Hitler had seemed like a harmless clown. No one was amused now. (“The clowns are the dangerous ones,” Perry said.)”

 

“She didn’t feel she had the fortitude for all those Tudors, they were so relentlessly busy – all that bedding and beheading.” 

My Take

Transcription is the third book by Kate Atkinson that I have read.  The first two, Life After Life and A God in Ruins, were loosely linked by several shared characters and were engaging reads with compelling characters.  While I enjoyed Transcription, it does not live up to those other books.  There were several times when I was a little bored reading this book and asked myself, “where is this going?”   The failure of the book to provide an interesting answer to that question is the reason I didn’t rate it higher.

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288. SS-GB: Nazi-occupied Britain, 1941

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Len Deighton

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, World War II

344 pages, published February 12, 1979

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

SS-GB:  Nazi-occupied Britain, 1941 is a detective story set within an alternative history scenario in which the United Kingdom has surrendered and is occupied by Nazi Germany.  The King is a hostage in the Tower of London, the Queen and Princesses have fled to Australia, Winston Churchill has been executed by a firing squad, Englishmen are being deported to work in German factories, the SS is in charge of Scotland Yard and a secret Resistance force is sabotaging the Germans.  The protagonist of the story, Detective Superintendent Douglas Archer (nicknamed “Archer of the Yard”) is asked to assist SS Standartenführer from Himmler’s personal staff in what seems, at first, to be a routine murder case.  However, things are not as they first appear and Archer finds himself navigating a labyrinth full of intrigue and the highest of stakes.

Quotes 

“You spend too much time listening to what people say.”

 

“A man can get used to yellow fever, thought Douglas, but many of them die in the attempt.”

 

“Thomas Aquinas argued that suicide is a sin because it is an offence against society. By taking one’s own life a man deprives society of something that rightfully belongs to it.”

 

“Pity.  Best pastime a police officer can have, in my opinion. Fishing teaches a man patience; and teaches him a lot about men.”

 

“Perhaps hell is like that; a discordant confusion of anxious souls.”

 

“And yet, after all the reasoning was done, he’d fallen in love with her. There was no denying it; he wanted her in every way. But as a policeman, he distrusted love; too often had he seen the other side of it, the violence, the suffering and despair it could bring.” 

My Take

I liked, but did not love, SS-GB.  Deighton is a decent writer and creates an interesting scenario with his alternative history detective story. However, I found the characters a bit flat and the plot too opaque.

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287. The Crystal Cave

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Scot Reader

Author:   Mary Stewart

Genre:  Fiction, Fantasy, Mythology

494 pages, published 1970

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

The Crystal Cave takes place in fifth century Britain, a country torn by chaos and division after the Roman withdrawal.  The book tells the story of a young Merlin, the illegitimate child of a South Wales princess who will not reveal to the identity of Merlin’s father, and how he discovers that he possesses incredible psychic gifts which he will use to play a dramatic role in the coming of King Arthur.

Quotes 

“The gods only go with you if you put yourself in their path. And that takes courage.”

 

“Thinking and planning is one side of life; doing is another.  A man cannot be doing all the time.”

 

“I think there is only one. Oh, there are gods everywhere, in the hollow hills, in the wind and the sea, in the very grass we walk on and the air we breathe, and in the bloodstained shadows where men like Belasius wait for them. But I believe there must be one who is God Himself, like the great sea, and all the rest of us, small gods and men and all, like rivers, we all come to Him in the end.”

 

“the god does not speak to those who have no time to listen.” 

My Take

While I have an interest in the Arthurian legend, The Crystal Cave was too long and too focused on Merlin for me to give it a recommendation.  My husband Scot read it as a teenager and in his opinion it is the weakest of Mary Stuart’s trilogy on King Arthur.  There were some interesting parts, but I have to say I much preferred The Mists of Avalon and its take on Arthur.

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282. Something in the Water

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Jackie Funk

Author:   Catherine Steadman

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Crime

342 pages, published June 5, 2018

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

When documentary filmmaker and Londoner Erin meets and then marries the handsome and successful investment banker Mark, she believes she has achieved the perfect life.   However, when Mark loses his job, the soon to be newlyweds start to worry about money.  While a surprising turn of events during their South Pacific honeymoon has the potential to allay their financial worries, it also stirs up all sorts of trouble leaving Erin wondering how well she really knows her husband.

Quotes 

“… She told me not to let it make me angry, not to let it break my heart, but to remember that we all lose the things we love the most and how we have to remember that we were lucky to have them at all in the first place.”

 

“always read outside your comfort zone. That’s where stories come from. That’s where ideas come from.”

 

“Sometimes you’re the lamp post, and sometimes you’re the dog.”

 

“It’s impossible to know if we were a good thing that broke somehow or a bad thing that eventually became exposed. But either way, if I could just go back now to the way we were, I would. I would, without a moment’s hesitation. If I could just lie in his arms one last time, I could live with an illusion the rest of my life. If I could, I would.”

 

“But you don’t sign up for certain things without knowing the rules, Erin. And if you’ve signed up for the game, then you can’t complain when you lose. You got to lose with dignity is all; a good sportsman always lets people lose with dignity.”

 

“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” 

My Take

Something in the Water is a taut, page turning thriller in the same vein as The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl.  Steadman knows how to bait the hook and reel in her reader.  Even though I had an inkling of the big plot twist, this book was still compelling reading until the end.  A great fun read!

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281. Circling the Sun

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Boulder Librarian

Author:   Paula McLain

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, Foreign

366 pages, published July 28, 2015

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Circling the Sun tells the compelling story of Beryl Markham, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.  While this feat is remarkable in itself, there is a lot more to Beryl’s life.  Raised in Kenya, she was abandoned by her mother at a young age.  Her father raised her to be an expert horsewoman and she made a living training champion thoroughbreds.  She also had an ill-fated affair with Denys Finch Hatton (who introduced her to flying) and was friends with Karen Blixen (who was seriously involved with Denys), author of Out of Africa.

Quotes 

“We’re all of us afraid of many things, but if you make yourself smaller or let your fear confine you, then you really aren’t your own person at all—are you? The real question is whether or not you will risk what it takes to be happy.”

 

“Denys understood how nothing ever holds still for us, or should. The trick is learning to take things as they come and fully, too, with no resistance or fear, not trying to grip them too tightly or make them bend.”

 

“Sometimes when you’re hurting, it helps to throw yourself at something that will take your weight.”

 

“I’ve sometimes thought that being loved a little less than others can actually make a person, rather than ruin them.”

 

“I’ve never travelled,” I told her. “Oh, you absolutely should,” she insisted, “if only so that you can come home and really see it for what it is. That’s my favourite part.”

 

“Things come that we never would have predicted for ourselves or even guessed at. And yet they change us forever.”

 

“Proper learning isn’t just useful in society, Beryl. It can be wonderfully yours, a thing to have and keep just for you.”

 

“People interest me so much. They’re such wonderful puzzles. Think of it. Half the time we’ve no idea what we’re doing, but we live anyway.”

 

“We can only go to the limits of ourselves. Anything more and we give too much away. Then we’re not good for anyone.”

 

“For most of a day we walked through alkali flats, the white crust like a frosted layer of salt that rose in a powder when your boots punched through. We wore the chalk on us everywhere—up to our knees, in the creases of our fingers clenching the rifle strap, down in the cavity between my breasts, and in my mouth, too. I couldn’t keep it out and stopped trying. I couldn’t keep anything out, I realized, and that was something I loved about Africa. The way it got at you from the outside in and never let up, and never let you go.”

 

“what I’d really like to know is how it feels to be on my own. Not someone’s daughter or wife, I mean…but my own person.” “Oh.” It seemed I’d surprised him. “There isn’t a lot of that kind of thinking around here.” “Of course there is,” I told him, trying to draw a smile. “It’s just usually a man who’s doing it.” —”

 

“Searching out something important and going astray look exactly the same for a while, in fact.”

 

“Miwanzo is the word in Swahili for “beginnings.” But sometimes everything has to end first and the bottom drop out and every light fizzle and die before a proper beginning can come along.”

 

“Have you ever seen stars like this? You can’t have. They don’t make them like this anywhere in the world.” Above our heads, the sky was a brimming treasure box. Some of the stars seemed to want to pull free and leap down onto my shoulders—and though these were the only ones I had ever known, I believed Denys when he said they were the finest. I thought I might believe anything he said, in fact, even though we had just met. He had that in him.” 

My Take

Paula McLain, the talented author of Circling the Sun also wrote The Paris Wife, a book about Ernest Hemingway’s first wife that I read a few years ago.  Both books are historical fiction biographies based on strong women protagonists.  I preferred Circling the Sun because of the unique character of Beryl Markham, a woman before her time and an aviation pioneer.  Although she was a bit prone to self absorption and often made foolish, impulsive decisions, she was an amazing woman.

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