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258. Go Set a Watchman

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Harper Lee

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction

278 pages, published July 14, 2014

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Go Set a Watchman is the sequel to the American classic To Kill a Mockingbird and the only other book written by Harper Lee who died within two years of its publication.   The title comes from Isaiah 21:6: “For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth” and alludes to Jean Louise Finch’s (aka Scout) view of her father, Atticus Finch, as the moral compass or watchman of Maycomb.  In Go Set a Watchman, Jean Louise  is now 26 years old and has returned home to Alabama from New York City to visit her aging father, Atticus.  Set during the Civil Rights struggles, Jean Louise’s world view comes crashing down when she discovers some disturbing truths about her family and longtime beau and must decide what values will define her.

 

Quotes 

“Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends.”

 

“Every man’s island, Jean Louise, every man’s watchman, is his conscience. There is no such thing as a collective conscious.”

 

“[T]he time your friends need you is when they’re wrong, Jean Louise. They don’t need you when they’re right”

 

“A man can condemn his enemies, but it’s wiser to know them.”

 

“She was almost in love with him. No, that’s impossible, she thought: either you are or you aren’t. Love’s the only thing in this world that is unequivocal. There are different kinds of love, certainly, but it’s a you-do or you-don’t proposition with them all.”

 

“If you did not want much, there was plenty.”

 

“The only thing I’m afraid of about this country is that its government will someday become so monstrous that the smallest person in it will be trampled underfoot, and then it wouldn’t be worth living in. The only thing in America that is still unique in this tired world is that a man can go as far as his brains will take him or he can go to hell if he wants to, but it won’t be that way much longer.”

 

“But a man who has lived by truth—and you have believed in what he has lived—he does not leave you merely wary when he fails you, he leaves you with nothing. I think that is why I’m nearly out of my mind.”

 

“She was a person who, when confronted with an easy way out, always took the hard way. The easy way out of this would be to marry Hank and let him labor for her. After a few years, when the children were waist-high, the man would come along whom she should have married in the first place. There would be searchings of hearts, fevers and frets, long looks at each other on the post office steps, and misery for everybody. The hollering and the high-mindedness over, all that would be left would be another shabby little affair à la the Birmingham country club set, and a self-constructed private Gehenna with the latest Westinghouse appliances. Hank didn’t deserve that.”

 

“[S]ome men who cheat their wives out of grocery money wouldn’t think of cheating the grocer. Men tend to carry their honesty in pigeonholes, Jean Louise. They can be perfectly honest in some ways and fool themselves in other ways.”

 

“I’m only trying to make you see beyond men’s acts to their motives. A man can appear to be a part of something not-so-good on its face, but don’t take it upon yourself to judge him unless you know his motives as well. A man can be boiling inside, but he knows a mild answer works better than showing his rage. A man can condemn his enemies, but it’s wiser to know them. … Have you ever considered that men, especially men, must conform to the demands of the community they live in simply so they can be of service to it?”

 

My Take

Having read, and loved, To Kill a Mockingbird, I was very interested to check out Go Set a Watchman, Harper’s Lee update to her classic American novel.  I was also intrigued that these were the only two books ever written by Lee.  While Mockingbird is by far the superior novel, there is much of interest in Watchman.  The de-pedalsting (not really a word) of the moral giant Atticus Finch took me by surprise, but added a fascinating conflict for Jean Louise (aka Scout) to grapple with.  I was also intrigued by the characters’ differing views on the Civil Rights movement and what that meant to Southern states and towns of the time.  If you, like me, are a fan of To Kill a Mockingbird, then a I recommend giving Go Set a Watchman a read.  Also worth noting is the very good voice work by Reese Witherspoon.

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254. The Word is Murder

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Michael Koss

Author:   Anthony Horowitz

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Crime, Thriller, Suspense

400 pages, published June 5, 2018

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

The Word is Murder opens with Diana Cowper, a wealthy woman who is the mother of a famous British actor, planning her own funeral.  Six hours later she is strangled.  Daniel Hawthorne, a bigoted, gruff, yet brilliant investigator teams up with author Anthony Horowitz (who inserts himself into the story under the guise of documenting Hawthorne’s exploits) to solve the crime.

 

Quotes 

“Again, I found myself wondering what it must be like to work there, sitting in a room with those miniature urns, a constant reminder that everything you were and everything you’d achieved would one day fit inside.”

 

“When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.”

 

“But the thing is, you see -and to be honest, I don’t like to mention this- I’m a bit short. There just aren’t enough people getting murdered.”

 

“I’ve often wondered how I would have managed if I’d been born with a stammer or chronic shyness. The modern writer has to be able to perform, often to a huge audience. It’s almost like being a stand-up comedian except that the questions never change and you always end up telling the same jokes.”

 

“When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.”

 

My Take

Having recently read several of Anthony Horowitz’s books (especially the terrific Magpie Murders), I really looked forward to diving into The Word is Murder.  While not as good as Magpie, it was still a thoroughly entertaining mystery with enough twists and turns to keep you guessing. I especially enjoyed how Horowitz uses himself as a foil to the grumpy, eccentric Investigator Daniel Hawthorne.

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253. The Orphan Master’s Son

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  Aileen Schwab

Author:   Adam Johnson

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction

443 pages, published January 10, 2012

Reading Format:  e-Book

 

Summary

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, The Orphan Master’s Son is an epic novel set in North Korea.  The book follows the life of Pak Jun Do, whose mother, a beautiful singer, was “stolen” to Pyongyang to entertain the corrupt elites.  Pak is left to languish in Long Tomorrows, a work camp for orphans that is run by his influential father who does not acknowledge him.  Considering himself “a humble citizen of the greatest nation in the world,” Pak becomes a professional kidnapper who must navigate the shifting rules, arbitrary violence, and baffling demands of his Korean overlords in order to stay alive.  His service to North Korea takes him to the United States where his contact with a woman in the CIA changes the course of his life.  Surviving horrific torture by the pitiless state machine, Pak pretends to be a rival to Kim Jong Il in an attempt to save the woman he loves, Sun Moon, a legendary actress “so pure, she didn’t know what starving people looked like.”

 

Quotes 

“Where we are from… [s]tories are factual. If a farmer is declared a music virtuoso by the state, everyone had better start calling him maestro. And secretly, he’d be wise to start practicing the piano. For us, the story is more important than the person. If a man and his story are in conflict, it is the man who must change. …But in America, people’s stories change all the time. In America, it is the man who matters.”

 

“But people do things to survive, and then after they survive, they can’t live with what they’ve done.”

 

“Today, tomorrow,” she said. “A day is nothing. A day is just a match you strike after the ten thousand matches before it have gone out.”

 

“A name isn’t a person,’ Ga said. ‘Don’t ever remember someone by their name. To keep someone alive, you put them inside you, you put their face on your heart. Then, no matter where you are, they’re always with you because they’re a part of you.”

 

“They’re about a woman whose beauty is like a rare flower. There is a man who has a great love for her, a love he’s been saving up for his entire life, and it doesn’t matter that he must make a great journey to her, and it doesn’t matter if their time together is brief, that afterward he might lose her, for she is the flower of his heart and nothing will keep him from her.”

 

“In my experience, ghosts are made up only of the living, people you know are out there but are forever out of range”

 

“When the dogs returned, the Senator gave them treats from his pocket, and Jun Do understood that in communism, you’d threaten a dog into compliance, while in capitalism, obedience is obtained through bribes.”

 

“I wonder of what you must daily endure in America, having no government to protect you, no one to tell you what to do. Is it true you’re given no ration card, that you must find food for yourself? Is it true that you labor for no higher purpose than paper money? What is California, this place you come from? I have never seen a picture. What plays over the American loudspeakers, when is your curfew, what is taught at your child-rearing collectives? Where does a woman go with her children on Sunday afternoons, and if a woman loses her husband, how does she know the government will assign her a good replacement? With whom would she curry favor to ensure her children got the best Youth Troop leader?”

 

“It’s called a gui-tar. It’s used to perform American rural music. It’s said to be especially popular in Texas,” he told her. “It’s also the instrument of choice for playing ‘the blues,’ which is a form of American music that chronicles the pain caused by poor decision making.”

 

“Real stories like this, human ones, could get you sent to prison, and it didn’t matter what they were about. It didn’t matter if the story was about an old woman or a squid attack—if it diverted emotion from the Dear Leader, it was dangerous.”

 

“It’s called a gui-tar. It’s used to perform American rural music. It’s said to be especially popular in Texas,” he told her. “It’s also the instrument of choice for playing ‘the blues,’ which is a form of American music that chronicles the pain caused by poor decision making.”

 

“Real stories like this, human ones, could get you sent to prison, and it didn’t matter what they were about. It didn’t matter if the story was about an old woman or a squid attack—if it diverted emotion from the Dear Leader, it was dangerous.”

 

My Take

The Orphan Master’s Son is a depressing, yet intriguing, book.  Depressing because author Adam Johnson takes you deep inside the violent, arbitrary and dehumanizing world of North Korea where even young children are fodder for the ruthless, totalitarian machine of the government.  In 2018, it is remarkable that a place like North Korea exists.  While the all encompassing suffering imposed on the people of North Korea is hard to read about, Johnson interlaces it with a captivating story of one man’s response to crushing dehumanization.  He even manages to interject a little romance into his grim tale.  Not hard to see why this book earned a Pulitizer Prize.

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252. Young Jane Young

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Gabrielle Zevin

Genre:  Fiction

294 pages, published August 22, 2017

Reading Format:  e-Book

Summary

Young Jane Young is the fictional story of Aviva Grossman, a young Congressional intern in Florida whose life is ruined after she has an affair with her married boss, a beloved Congressman and blogs about it. When the affair becomes front page news, Aviva is the recipient of public scorn and ridicule.  After a period of depression, she leaves Florida and reinvents herself in Maine as a wedding planner and raises a daughter on her own.  When she decides to run for public office herself, her long past mistake comes back to haunt her again.

 

Quotes 

“Maybe you survive cancer, maybe you survive the Holocaust, but life’ll get you every time.”

 

“It’s the special privilege of youth to make mistakes.”

 

“When someone tells you, ‘it’s not what it looks like,’ it’s almost always exactly what it looks like.”

 

“The key to happiness in life is knowing when to keep your mouth shut.”

 

“Anticipating the worst doesn’t provide insurance from the worst happening.”

 

“The only past you have a right to know about is your own.”

 

“Later, you yell at your mother, but you know it isn’t her fault. You yell at her because she’s there and because she’s your mother and she’ll take it.”

 

“When you have much, you must accept that you could someday have little.”

 

“Because the things we don’t have are sadder than the things we have. Because the things we don’t have exist in our imaginations, where they are perfect.”

 

“I am ‘neurotic.’ ‘Neurotic’ means ‘I think about things until I am sick.’“

 

My Take

Young Jane Young was a quick and fun read.  I was drawn in by Zevin’s wry and humorous writing style as well as her keen insights on the human condition.  I would definitely be interested in other books by this writer. If you are looking for a good beach or vacation read, this is it.

 

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248. Gwendy’s Button Box

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:  Stephen King and Richard T. Chizmar

Genre:  Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, Novella

171 pages, published May 16, 2017

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Gwendy Peterson is your typical thirteen year old girl from the small town of Castle Rock, Maine.  It is 1974 and Gwendy is not happy with the few extra pounds she carries and has the usual young teen issues.  When the mysterious Mr. Fariss approaches her and offers her an curious button box, Gwendy reluctantly agrees to take it.  Gwendy soon discovers that the mysterious button box has powers she can only begin to imagine.

 

Quotes 

“Secrets are a problem, maybe the biggest problem of all. They weigh on the mind and take up space in the world.”

 

“I am what you might call a rambling man, and America is my beat.”

 

“Wanting to know things and do things is what the human race is all about. Exploration, Gwendy! Both the disease and the cure!”

 

“Nailed it. So okay. The media says, ‘Girls, women, you can be anything you want to be in this brave new world of equality, as long as you can still see your toes when you stand up straight.’” He has been watching me, Gwendy thinks, because I do that every day when I get to the top. She blushes. She can’t help it, but the blush is a surface thing. Below it is a kind of so-what defiance. It’s what got her going on the stairs in the first place. That and Frankie Stone.”

 

My Take

I always enjoy Stephen King books and his brief novella Gwendy’s Button Box was no exception.  Even though it is short, the engaging characters, engrossing plot and the sense of dread that hangs over the whole story hooked me in.  Recommended if you are looking for a quick, fun read.

 

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242. Fahrenheight 451

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  Marianne Boeke

Author:  Ray Bradbury

Genre:  Fiction, Science Fiction, Dystopia

175 pages, published October 1953

Reading Format:  Audio Book on Hoopla

 

Summary

Ray Bradbury’s science fiction classic Fahrenheight 451 is set in a dystopian future where books are verboten because the powers that be deem them to make people unhappy.  The main character is Guy Montag, a fireman whose job is to burn books.  After a few interactions with a teenage neighbor named Clarice, Guy comes to realize that something is missing in his life.  As begins to defy society’s rules by keeping books, he becomes a hunted man.

 

Quotes 

“Stuff your eyes with wonder, he said, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.”

 

“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there.

 

It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”

 

“We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over.”

 

“There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.”

 

“If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you’ll never learn.”

 

“The books are to remind us what asses and fool we are. They’re Caeser’s praetorian guard, whispering as the parade roars down the avenue, “Remember, Caeser, thou art mortal.” Most of us can’t rush around, talking to everyone, know all the cities of the world, we haven’t time, money or that many friends. The things you’re looking for, Montag, are in the world, but the only way the average chap will ever see ninety-nine per cent of them is in a book. Don’t ask for guarantees. And don’t look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore.”

 

“It doesn’t matter what you do…so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away.”

 

“And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn’t crying for him at all, but for the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or help us raise doves and pigeons in the backyard or play the violin the way he did, or tell us jokes the way he did. He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was no one to do them the way he did. He was individual. He was an important man. I’ve never gotten over his death. Often I think what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he died. How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by his hands? He shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on.”

 

My Take

I first read Fahrenheight 451 in high school.  I enjoyed it then, but think I liked it even better on the second reading more than 35 years later.  As an avid reader, it is hard for me to imagine a world without books.  They enrich my life deeply and make me think about ideas in whole new ways.  That is the point Bradbury is trying to make.  Without exposure to ideas both old and new (with books as the premier transmission form), we are destined for a life of mediocrity and banality.

 

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234. Travelers’ Tales Thailand: True Stories

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:  James O’Reilley (Editor)

Genre:  Non Fiction, Travel, Humor, Anthology, Short Stories

488 pages, published January 30, 2002

Reading Format:  e-Book on Hoopla

 

Summary

 

 

Quotes 

 

My Take

I read Travelers’ Tales Thailand while visiting Bangkok and Phuket and the book really enhanced my experience.  The stories are generally short and, for the most part, are very well written.  I absolutely recommend this book if you are contemplating a trip to the Land of Smiles.

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230. Before We Were Yours

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  Kay Lynn Hartmann

Author:  Lisa Wingate

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction

342 pages, published June 6, 2017

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

Before We Were Yours follows the stories of two families, separated by several generations that intertwine as a result of the actions of a nefarious children’s adoption home.  The first story starts in 1939 in Memphis, Tennessee and focuses on twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings who live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat.  When their father and mother leave them alone on a stormy night to go to the hospital for the mother’s problematic birth of twins, Rill and her siblings are stolen and placed in the Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage. Fast forward to modern day South Carolina and we meet the wealthy and privileged Avery Stafford, a successful federal prosecutor with a handsome fiancé.  Avery, who is being groomed to replace her cancer stricken Senator father, discovers some incongruent facts about her Grandmother Judy and starts down a path that will reveal some long-hidden family secrets that connect them to the Foss family.

 

Quotes 

“In my multifold years of life, I have learned that most people get along as best they can. They don’t intend to hurt anyone. It is merely a terrible by-product of surviving.”

 

“One of the best things a father can do for his daughter is let her know that she has met his expectations. My father did that for me, and no amount of effort on my part can fully repay the debt.”

 

“But the love of sisters needs no words. It does not depend on memories, or mementos, or proof. It runs as deep as a heartbeat. It is as ever present as a pulse.”

 

“We plan our days, but we don’t control them.”

 

“And if you haven’t got a single book, the idea of putting your hand on one is like Christmas and a birthday rolled up together.”

 

“Life is not unlike cinema. Each scene has its own music, and the music is created for the scene, woven to it in ways we do not understand. No matter how much we may love the melody of a bygone day or imagine the song of a future one, we must dance within the music of today, or we will always be out of step, stumbling around in something that doesn’t suit the moment.”

 

“A woman’s past need not predict her future. She can dance to new music if she chooses. Her own music. To hear the tune, she must only stop talking. To herself, I mean. We’re always trying to persuade ourselves of things.”

 

“I want a pain that has a beginning and an end, not one that goes on forever and cuts all the way to the bone.”

 

“The good life demands a lot of maintenance”

 

“one of the paradoxes of life. You can’t have it all. You can have some of this and some of that or all of this and none of that. We make the trade-offs we think are best at the time.”

 

My Take

Before We Were Yours was an absorbing read that I whipped through in a few days.  I found the characters to be very relatable and the both plot lines held my interest (although I preferred the older one that focused on the injustice to the Foss children).  I was also interested to discover that the central story of the corrupt and reprehensible Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage is based on a true story.  It is hard to believe that child stealing, neglect and even murder occurred in our recent past.

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221. Orphan Train

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:  Christina Baker Kline

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction

278 pages, published April 2, 2013

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Orphan Train tells the story of two orphans, nonagenarian Vivian Daly and the teenaged Molly Ayer whose community service sentence requires her to help Vivian clean out her attic.  As she helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, Molly discovers that she and Vivian aren’t as different as they seem to be.  We flash back to the 1930’s when Vivian (formerly Nieve and then Dorothy), a recent immigrant from Ireland, is sent on an orphan train from New York City to Minnesota.  Nieve is placed with several horrible families until she is rescued by her teacher and permanently settles with a couple who lost their daughter.

 

Quotes 

“I’ve come to think that’s what heaven is- a place in the memory of others where our best selves live on.”

 

“You got to learn to take what people are willing to give.”

 

“Time constricts and flattens, you know. It’s not evenly weighted. Certain moments linger in the mind and others disappear.”

 

“I am not glad she is dead, but I am not sorry she is gone.”

 

“I like the assumption that everyone is trying his best, and we should all just be kind to each other.”

 

“Upright and do right make all right.”

 

“And so it is that you learn how to pass, if you’re lucky, to look like everyone else, even though you’re broken inside.”

 

“I love you,” he writes again and again. “I can’t bear to live without you. I’m counting the minutes until I see you.” The words he uses are the idioms of popular songs and poems in the newspaper. And mine to him are no less cliched. I puzzle over the onionskin, trying to spill my heart onto the page. But I can only come up with the same words, in the same order, and hope the depth of feeling beneath them gives them weight and substance. I love you. I miss you. Be careful. Be safe.”

 

“Turtles carry their homes on their backs.” Running her finger over the tattoo, she tells him what her dad told her: “They’re exposed and hidden at the same time. They’re a symbol of strength and perseverance.”

 

“So is it just human nature to believe that things happen for a reason – to find some shred of meaning even in the worst experiences?”

 

“It is good to test your limits now and then, learn what the body is capable of, what you can endure.”

 

My Take

As a big fan of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House books, I enjoyed the parts of Orphan Train that focused on the scrappy orphan and Irish immigrant Nieve and her fight for survival during the Depression.  She is a very can-do child who does her best to deal with everything that life throws her (which is a lot).  I enjoyed how Orphan Train convincingly transplanted me to another time and place.  A good read and recommended.

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220. Sightseeing

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:  Rattawut Lapcharoensap

Genre:  Fiction, Short Stories, Foreign, Travel

250 pages, published December 12, 2005

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

Sightseeing is a collection of short stories by Thai-American writer Rattawut Lapcharoensap.  Lapcharoensap explores themes such as coming of age, family ties, young  romance, generational conflicts, standing up to bullies, and cultural changes in contemporary Thailand.

 

Quotes 

 

 

My Take

At the end of March, 2018, I am taking my 16 year old daughter to Bangkok and Phuket, Thailand for a two week trip.  In advance of our journey, I wanted to read some books that would reveal some of Thailand to me.  Sightseeing fills that bill with interesting stories about Thai natives and the kinds of lives they lead.  I was also pleasantly surprised at how good the stories were on their own merits.  Lapcharoensap knows how to hook a reader in, especially towards the end of the book.  If you are going to Thailand, or even if you aren’t, I can recommend the short stories in Sightseeing.

 

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