Review: Reader, I Married Him edited by Tracy Chevalier

"Reader, I married him" is probably one of the most famous lines in all of English language literature. I know that my 10 year old heart thrilled to it when I first read it. And each time I read Jane Eyre after that childhood reading, I thrilled to it again. I know I'm not alone in this either. In fact, Tracy Chevalier has edited a collection of short stories written by some of the most well known women writers today all taking their inspiration from Bronte's famous masterpiece in the aptly titled collection, Reader, I Married Him.

The stories collected here range from those which are directly related to the original, Grace Poole's take on Jane in Helen Dunmore's story or Francine Prose's former governess in couples counseling who starts to wonder at so the medical professionals' interest in her own "delusions," to those which are updated and set in modern times but still clearly inspired versions, the neighbors in Lionel Shriver's tale of an invasive tree or Audrey Niggenegger's orphans. There are some stories where the connection to the original Bronte is difficult to tease out, perhaps finding inspiration in the less well known scenes of the novel. The main characters of the modern stories are very different and more diverse than in the original. The relationships depicted run the gamut from conventionally traditional to antagonistic, contentious, or resigned. They include same sex couples, heroines making choices quite opposite of Jane's, and those who invert the power structure of the original work. If the stories didn't always hew closely to Jane Eyre's story line, they each certainly tackled the larger themes at play in the original: love, dependence and independence, loneliness, marriage, the power of choice, and relationships.

Some of the stories resonated more with me than others but that is to be expected in a large collection that offers so many different takes, so many different styles, and so many different authors. The tone of the stories varies wildly with some being more Gothic and threatening than others . A few do suggest happy endings but quite a few others promise a trapped, almost claustrophobic feeling in the end, something that my ten year old self never noticed and which my older self tries to pretend isn't there (it is) in the superficially happily ever after ending of the original. This collection has an intriguing and inventive multitude of ways of looking at Jane Eyre which most Bronte fans will enjoy as long as they aren't only looking for retellings that stick faithfully to the original but want tales that allow for creative exploration and unusual takes on their much beloved novel.

For more information about the book and the authors included in it, check out the book's Good Reads page, follow the rest of the blog tour and TLC page which contains links to all the authors' information, or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to the publisher and Trish from TLC Book Tours.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

Only in Naples by Katherine Wilson. The book is being released by Random House on April 19, 2016.

Amazon says this about the book: Full of lighthearted humor, sumptuous food, the wisdom of an Italian mother-in-law, and all the atmosphere of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels, this warm and witty memoir follows American-born Katherine Wilson on her adventures abroad. Thanks to a surprising romance—and a spirited woman who teaches her to laugh, to seize joy, and to love—a three-month rite of passage in Naples turns into a permanent embrace of this boisterous city on the Mediterranean.

When I saw the sea at Gaeta, I knew that Naples was near and I was coming home.

“There is a chaotic, vibrant energy about Naples that forces you to let go and give in,” writes Katherine, who arrives in the city to intern at the United States Consulate. One evening, she meets handsome, studious Salvatore and finds herself immediately enveloped by his elegant mother, Raffaella, and the rest of the Avallone family. From that moment, Katherine’s education begins: Never eat the crust of a pizza first, always stand up and fight for yourself and your loved ones, and consider mealtimes sacred—food must be prepared fresh and consumed in compagnia.

Immersed in Neapolitan culture, traditions, and cuisine, slowly and unexpectedly falling for Salvatore, and longing for Raffaella’s company and guidance, Katherine discovers how to prepare meals that sing, from hearty, thick ragù to comforting rigatoni alla Genovese to pasta al forno, a casserole chock-full of bacon, béchamel, and no fewer than four kinds of cheeses. The secret to succulent, tender octopus? Beat it with a hammer. While Katherine is used to large American kitchens with islands and barstools, she understands the beauty of small, tight Italian ones, where it’s easy to offer a taste from a wooden spoon.

Through courtship, culture clashes, Sunday services, marriage, and motherhood (in Naples, a pregnancy craving must always be satisfied!), Katherine comes to appreciate carnale, the quintessentially Neapolitan sense of comfort and confidence in one’s own skin. Raffaella and her famiglia are also experts at sdrammatizzare, knowing how to suck the tragedy from something and spit it out with a great big smile. Part travel tale, part love letter, Only in Naples is a sumptuous story that is a feast for the senses. Goethe said, “See Naples and die.” But Katherine Wilson saw Naples and started to live.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is hosted by Kathryn at Reading Date.

Books I completed this past week are:

The Cosmopolitans by Sarah Schulman
The Spice Box Letters by Eve Makis
Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman
A Very Special Year by Thomas Montasser
Specimen by Irina Kovalyova

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
The Telling by Zoe Zolbrod
When I'm Gone by Emily Bleeker

Reviews posted this week:

Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

My Fat Dad by Dawn Lerman
The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street by Susan Jane Gilman
My Confection by Lisa Kotin
Put a Ring on It by Beth Kendrick
One Perfect Summer by Paige Toon
The Things We Keep by Sally Hepworth
The Sisters of Versailles by Sally Christie The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel by Maureen Lindley
Be Frank With Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson
American Housewife by Helen Ellis
The Two-Family House by Lynda Cohen Loigman
The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty
Margaret the First by Danielle Dutton
Closer All the Time by Jim Nichols
Reader, I Married Him edited by Tracy Chevalier
The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett
Over the Plain Houses by Julia Franks
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
Forsaken by Ross Howell Jr.
The Cosmopolitans by Sarah Schulman
The Spice Box Letters by Eve Makis
Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman
A Very Special Year by Thomas Montasser
Specimen by Irina Kovalyova

Monday Mailbox

This past week's mailbox arrivals:

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel came from me to me.

I have heard universally great things about this one but I continued to avoid it. Then my book club chose it as next month's read and I figure it's the universe's way of telling me I need to get over my reluctance.

Lady Bridget's Diary by Maya Rodale came from me to me.

I am a sucker for historical romance and this new series with an American heiress, an English rake, and London society is right in my romance wheelhouse.

The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George came from me to me.

One of my book clubs is reading this one in a couple of months but I was already intrigued by this tale of a bookseller (in a floating bookshop!) who chooses books to help heal his customers' hearts and souls but who has his own long standing heartbreak. How can this not appeal?!

A House For Happy Mothers by Amulya Malladi came from Lake Union and TLC Book Tours for a blog tour.

About an American woman unable to have children and the Indian woman who serves as her surrogate in order to make enough money to educate her gifted son, this sounds intense and amazing and difficult, all three. Plus I've read and really enjoyed Malladi's work before.

If you want to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Review: Summer at the Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan

When you enjoy a book, sometimes you are leery of reading the sequel, worried that it will take characters you've come to care for in directions you don't want. This is especially true if the first book leaves them in a good and happy place. So I worried about Jenny Colgan's Summer at Little Beach Streetn Bakery, satisfied with where she left Polly, Huckle, and Neil the domesticated puffin after the first book. But they and the small fishing village of Mount Polbearne were such rays of sunshine that I couldn't resist delving back into the happenings there. This second book takes them to sad and hard places, just like real life, but they remain characters you will care about, root for, and ultimately rejoice with when they face the newest challenges life has sent them.

The novel opens with a catch-up by the author for those readers who don't remember or haven't read the first book, placing Polly's arrival in Cornwall, starting the bakery, acquiring Neil, ending up in a relationship with Huckle, and moving into a lighthouse in context. But happily ever afters are marred in real life and Colgan doesn't let her characters just fade away into a romantic fairy tale. New people come to the small, remote village, setting in motion change and conflict. Polly's crotchety landlord dies and so Polly's days of running the bakery her way come to a crashing halt when Mrs. Manse's boorish, nasty nephew takes over, insisting on cutting costs, lowering quality, and eventually firing Polly. Just as Polly is grappling with the loss of her beloved bakery, Huckle must go home to Georgia for an extended period of time that starts to look like it might last forever, Selina, Tarnie's fragile widow moves into town, reminding Polly of her own ill-fated relationship with Tarnie, and Polly must face the idea that her chubby, lovable puffin Neil really does belong with his own kind. Trouble certainly does come in threes for poor Polly and she struggles to find the drive and spirit to face all the changes and road blocks that this perfect storm has thrown her and to start over again.

As in the previous book, Colgan captures the connection and caring between people in the small town of Mount Polbearne. Her characters are well drawn and realistic. Malcolm is unlikable but also pitiable on occasion. Polly isn't quite as vivacious as in the first book but she perseveres and adapts even when she'd clearly prefer to climb the many flights of stairs to her bed and just hunker down until blue skies come again. Her relationship with Huckle is challenged by misunderstanding and the weight of responsibilities (for both of them) but it is ultimately a comfortable and easy relationship that proves it can weather any storm. Polly isn't quite as vivacious as she is in the first book and suffers from doubts and depression when she is walloped by so much going wrong at once or feeling so uncertain on top of it all but eventually her courage and ability to adapt in the face of so much turmoil shows her to be the same survivor readers loved the first time around. The setting is appealing and makes the reader want to visit Mount Polbearne and sample some of Polly's delectable sounding bread.  All is not light and fluffy here though.  There is a darkness that swoops in like a summer storm, ferocious and violent, but it eventually cedes to the clean, clear blue skies that follow such an event. There are no big surprises hidden in the story and it is, in the end, an easy, feel-good, escapist read perfect for the sunshine and warmth of summer. Light fiction fans will rejoice at this, Colgan's latest, delectable and delightful as it is.

For more information about Jenny Colgan, take a look at her website, her Facebook author page or follow her on Twitter. Check out the book's Good Reads page, follow the rest of the blog tour, or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to the publisher and Trish from TLC Book Tours.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

Life Without a Recipe by Diana Abu-Jaber. The book is being released by W.W. Norton and Co. on April 18, 2016.

Amazon says this about the book: On one side, there is Grace: prize-winning author Diana Abu-Jaber’s tough, independent sugar-fiend of a German grandmother, wielding a suitcase full of holiday cookies. On the other, Bud: a flamboyant, spice-obsessed Arab father, full of passionate argument. The two could not agree on anything: not about food, work, or especially about what Diana should do with her life. Grace warned her away from children. Bud wanted her married above all―even if he had to provide the ring. Caught between cultures and lavished with contradictory “advice” from both sides of her family, Diana spent years learning how to ignore others’ well-intentioned prescriptions.

Hilarious, gorgeously written, poignant, and wise, Life Without a Recipe is Diana’s celebration of journeying without a map, of learning to ignore the script and improvise, of escaping family and making family on one’s own terms. As Diana discovers, however, building confidence in one’s own path sometimes takes a mistaken marriage or two―or in her case, three: to a longhaired boy-poet, to a dashing deconstructionist literary scholar, and finally to her steadfast, outdoors-loving Scott. It also takes a good deal of angst (was it possible to have a serious writing career and be a mother?) and, even when she knew what she wanted (the craziest thing, in one’s late forties: a baby!), the nerve to pursue it.

Finally, fearlessly independent like the Grace she’s named after, Diana and Scott’s daughter Gracie will heal all the old battles with Bud and, like her writer-mom, learn to cook up a life without a recipe.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is hosted by Kathryn at Reading Date.

Books I completed this past week are:

Over the Plain Houses by Julia Franks
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
Forsaken by Ross Howell Jr.

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
The Cosmopolitans by Sarah Schulman
The Spice Box Letters by Eve Makis

Reviews posted this week:

Don't Let My Baby Do Rodeo by Boris Fishman

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

My Fat Dad by Dawn Lerman
The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street by Susan Jane Gilman
My Confection by Lisa Kotin
Put a Ring on It by Beth Kendrick
One Perfect Summer by Paige Toon
The Things We Keep by Sally Hepworth
The Sisters of Versailles by Sally Christie The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel by Maureen Lindley
Be Frank With Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson
American Housewife by Helen Ellis
The Two-Family House by Lynda Cohen Loigman
The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty
Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan
Margaret the First by Danielle Dutton
Closer All the Time by Jim Nichols
Reader, I Married Him edited by Tracy Chevalier
The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett
Over the Plain Houses by Julia Franks
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
Forsaken by Ross Howell Jr.

Monday Mailbox

This past week's mailbox arrivals:

Father's Day by Simon Van Booy came from Harper and TLC Book Tours for a blog tour.

Van Booy's last novel was sparing and beautiful so I am quite looking forward to reading this one about a little girl whose only remaining relative is a disabled felon and the life they must build together.

Blue Stars by Emily Gray Tedrowe came from St. Martin's Griffin.

About two women who meet caring for their injured soldiers at Walter Reed Medical, this story of women's strength and friendship looks powerful and tough.

The Bridge Ladies by Betsy Lerner came from Harper Wave and TLC Book Tours for a blog tour.

A memoir about a mother, a daughter, and a fifty year long bridge group, this book about relationship and caring sounds amazing.

If you want to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Sunday Salon: My piles runneth over (and other good things)

Don't you just love the promise of an unread book? It is this hopeful reverence in which I hold the masses of the unread that plays into my compulsive collecting of books. Make no mistake: when I add a book to my collection, I have every intention in the world of reading it someday. (And if you peruse my collection, you'll see just what an optimistic person I can be.) I'd say I generally add to my collection steadily, like whenever I go past a bookstore or daily when the mail person delivers me a review book or two, but lately I have been adding to my collection at a staggering rate. You see, I have been a reader on the National Reading Group Month Great Group Reads committee since 2009. I absolutely love doing it and over the years it has exposed me to wonderful books I probably wouldn't have picked up on my own. This year though, I am more than just a reader, I am the new Co-Manager, which means I see everything from the ground up. I knew there was administrative stuff behind the scenes but the amount of it is pretty impressive (and cuts into my reading time, I might add). Also impressive is the almost overwhelming amount of wonderful submissions for consideration from across the publishing world. Books I've never heard of, books I already own, books that promise to stretch me as a reader, books that hit the bullseye of my interests, physical books, e-books, fiction, non-fiction. And all of them worth eyeball time from me. I am in hog heaven and I want more time in the day to sit and savor these lovelies. My piles certainly runneth over. And that's without admitting I went to the bookstore yesterday and got myself six other beauties (but since I chatted with the owner about participating in National Reading Group Month in October, I consider the visit an extension of this new position--publicity and all, right?!).

The sheer promise of the unread stories just waiting for me, especially now, is probably threatening to collapse my house. In fact, one of the built-in bookshelves is cracking under the weight of my books but I am confident it can't split completely as the shelves below it are chock full too and won't let it cave completely. Or maybe it's the weight of the fake plant that's stressed it past its breaking point and not the gajillion pounds of books on it. The Great Group Reads submitted books aren't even on this shelf. They are threatening to overwhelm my computer at the kitchen table. But even if I am overbooked in the extreme, I look at all those potentially wonderful, unexpected, and unique stories crowding around me and smile. There's nothing else for it and no other way I'd rather have it.

In other great news this week here at the K. house, R., who is still undecided about where she's going to go to college next year, had a dance competition this weekend and her large group tap won all sorts of awards, including an Outstanding Performance Award. This means that they will be in the running to go to Hollywood and dance Pots and Pans Rhythm Band at the Dance Industry Awards. I'll post a link to vote whenever it all goes live. As if that wasn't enough excitement for one day, T. performed in a play for his middle school at the NCTC (North Carolina Theater Conference) Middle School Festival. The play received a Superior rating, won an award for its set, and T. was one of just five boys awarded an Excellence in Acting Award. This was a statewide competition and there were tons of plays so this is quite an honor. I love to see my kids recognized for the things they are passionate about. As for W., the oldest child, I don't know if he had an exceptional day or not although I'm guessing no since several of his brackets are busted. ;-) (Yes, this is the extent of the intimate knowledge you have of kids once they fly the nest for college.) And finally, for the last bit of positivity today, while I was at the dance competition, reading in the dark, my lovely husband took my ancient Nook to the bookstore and got it fixed so that I can actually synch it to my computer again, enabling me to read the e-copies that have been submitted for the Great Group Reads list without being chained to my computer. I appreciate this more than I can possibly express, especially as I head back to the dance competition for another 8 hours in a darkened auditorium.

This past week I have been dipping in and out of many diverse reads, only one of which I can disclose. One of my bookclubs took me to a small town in France during World War II alongside a woman who joined the Resistance early on and her sister who came to her own form of disobedience towards Hitler's regime later. Where have your bookish travels taken you this past week?

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

Modern Girls by Jennifer Brown. The book is being released by NAL on April 5, 2016.

Amazon says this about the book: How was it that out of all the girls in the office, I was the one to find myself in this situation? This didn’t happen to nice Jewish girls.

In 1935, Dottie Krasinsky is the epitome of the modern girl. A bookkeeper in Midtown Manhattan, Dottie steals kisses from her steady beau, meets her girlfriends for drinks, and eyes the latest fashions. Yet at heart, she is a dutiful daughter, living with her Yiddish-speaking parents on the Lower East Side. So when, after a single careless night, she finds herself in a family way by a charismatic but unsuitable man, she is desperate: unwed, unsure, and running out of options.

After the birth of five children—and twenty years as a housewife—Dottie’s immigrant mother, Rose, is itching to return to the social activism she embraced as a young woman. With strikes and breadlines at home and National Socialism rising in Europe, there is much more important work to do than cooking and cleaning. So when she realizes that she, too, is pregnant, she struggles to reconcile her longings with her faith.

As mother and daughter wrestle with unthinkable choices, they are forced to confront their beliefs, the changing world, and the fact that their lives will never again be the same…

Review: Don't Let My Baby Do Rodeo by Boris Fishman

What does it mean to belong? To a family? To a country? Does belonging impact your sense of who you are, your very identity? Is this something bred deep in the bone or is it dependent on your environment? These are just some of the thoughtful, philosophical questions asked in Boris Fishman's new novel, Don't Let My Baby Do Rodeo.

Maya Shulman came to the US as a Ukrainian exchange student. Her dream to open a cafe and be a chef had to take a back seat to her medical studies. When her student visa was about to run out, she met and married Alex Rubin, a fellow Russian who himself came to this country with his parents when he was just a tiny boy. Alex had his own dreams that he suppressed to go into the family import business. When Alex and Maya discover they can't have children, they adopt a baby. But Max's advent in their family brings up many questions. Alex's parents, and Alex himself, are against adopting, arguing that you don't know what you're getting with someone else's child. Maya wonders if she's an imposter, not really a mother, not having carried and given birth to Max. And when Max at age eight starts to exhibit some strange behaviours, the Rubins decide that they need to go to Montana to track down Max's birth parents, a teenaged couple they met once before, to see if there are any genetic explanations for Max's predilections.

The farther they get from New Jersey, the more Maya is gripped with a desire to break free of the stultifying and constrained life she's been living. The open space and the wildness speak to something in her, much as she imagines it must call to Max, being the land of his birth. The road trip to Montana is bizarre and fanciful and sometimes surreal, as is the narrative as a whole. Fishman addresses issues of identity and immigrant life, the feeling of not being Russian anymore but not really being American yet either. Maya, in looking for answers about her strange and quirky son, is really on a voyage of self-discovery, one that will surprise her and her solid, often unimaginative husband both. The dynamics between the elder Rubins and their comparison to everything back home and the younger Rubins, settling for a passionless existence in almost every area of their lives, is well done and realistic. They are separated by not only a generation but also their cultural identification, Russian versus American. Max, as an adopted child, is the literal personification of this, a Rubin by law but not by blood so that he is forever a mystery to them. Fishman has certainly captured a sense of dislocation with its question of belonging and what that means here, both literally and figuratively. Each of the characters is fully formed even if they aren't always terribly sympathetic. The narrative meanders from the present to Alex and Maya's past and has dreamlike sequences along the way that interrupt the otherwise smooth flow. And the road map of where the Rubin family will go in the end feels more hopeful than the tone of the rest of the novel would have suggested. This is, without a doubt, a complex and complicated story with many levels to it, many questions, and a realistic lack of answers.

For more information about Boris Fishman, take a look at his website, his Facebook author page or follow him on Twitter. Check out the book's Good Reads page, follow the rest of the blog tour, or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to the publisher and Trish from TLC Book Tours.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

I have been crazier than usual with my college boy home for spring break (I returned him to school yesterday), my daughter's first dance competition, and the beginning of the chaos that is going to be a hallmark of a new position I took recently. As a result, I have been doing a lot of reading but not had a lot of reviewing time (not that I've been keeping up with reviews lately even before this!). This meme is hosted by Kathryn at Reading Date.

Books I completed this past week are:

Closer All the Time by Jim Nichols
Reader, I Married Him edited by Tracy Chevalier
The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Over the Plain Houses by Julia Franks

Reviews posted this week:

The Crooked Heart of Mercy by Billie Livingston

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

My Fat Dad by Dawn Lerman
The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street by Susan Jane Gilman
My Confection by Lisa Kotin
Put a Ring on It by Beth Kendrick
One Perfect Summer by Paige Toon
The Things We Keep by Sally Hepworth
The Sisters of Versailles by Sally Christie The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel by Maureen Lindley
Be Frank With Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson
American Housewife by Helen Ellis
The Two-Family House by Lynda Cohen Loigman
Don't Let My Baby Do Rodeo by Boris Fishman
The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty
Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan
Margaret the First by Danielle Dutton
Closer All the Time by Jim Nichols
Reader, I Married Him edited by Tracy Chevalier
The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett

Monday Mailbox

My mailbox has been overflowing but as much of what has arrived is under consideration for something special, I am going to have to be coy and not disclose them. However, I am still receiving books that are not a part of this which I can share. And this week there was a delightful looking trio of them. This past week's mailbox arrivals:

Paris Is Always a Good Idea by Nicolas Barreau came from St. Martin's Griffin.

With a small post card shop, wishes written on these cards and fluttering from the Eiffel Tower, the artist and a children's author collaborating, and an American professor accusing the shop owner of plagiarism, this sounds completely charming and wonderful.

Rare Objects by Kathleen Tessaro came from Harper and TLC Book Tours for a blog tour.

I quite liked Tessaro's last novel so I am looking forward to this one about two young women in Boston who met in a psychiatric hospital, landing there for their unladylike desires, and the continuation of their friendship, which crosses class boundaries, after they leave the hospital.

The Tsarina's Legacy by Jennifer Laam came from St. Martin's Griffin.

A double stranded narrative tying Catherine the Great and her lover Grisha Potemkin with their descendants and addressing fascinating political situations, both past and present, this looks fascinating.

If you want to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

The Crooked Heart of Mercy by Billie Livingston

None of us is perfect. We all carry burdens. But Herodotus said "But this I know: if all mankind were to take their troubles to market with the idea of exchanging them, anyone seeing what his neighbor's troubles were like would be glad to go home with his own." For most of us, that is probably true but not for all, I suspect. And I'd guess that the main characters in Billie Livingston's compelling new novel, The Crooked Heart of Mercy, would definitely choose different troubles, ones that didn't weigh on their hearts forever and so heavily.

Ben is in a psych ward. He has a head wound that he has no memory of receiving and he's deep in a dissociative state. He's psychologically numb and wants to stay that way. Maggie is trying to come back to life, at least enough to get a job and pay her rent. She's a house cleaner and takes care of senior citizens but in her first interview in a long time, she breaks down and flees the kindly and strange children's author who wants to hire her. Ben and Maggie are married but separated and it is clear that both of them are deeply broken. Narrating the story in alternating chapters, each of them tells of their unhappy and difficult pasts, the wrong choices they made to cope, and the devastating tragedy that has all but annihilated them individually and together. Just as Maggie seems to be starting to find a way to survive her grief, accepting a job with the elderly Lucy, her brother Francis, a priest, is embroiled in a scandal. Francis is gay and alcoholic and he fights against his desire for sex and liquor every day, losing more days than not. But he continues searching for God's grace despite his inability to honor his religious vows. Taken in by Maggie, he thinks he might find atonement in saving his sister and brother-in-law and their marriage.

This is a tough read; let me be up front about that. Before he landed in the psych ward, Ben drove a limo full of drunk and high people around every night. Maggie accepted prescription drugs as gifts or payment from her elderly clients. And the two of them used these drugs to escape from those things in life that were hard for them. Maggie lost her parents when she was young, living with her older brother Francis who, while he loved his sister, was too young and immature to be a parent to her. Ben's mother walked out on his father and her children and his father was an abusive addict, leaving Ben to care for his younger brother Cola, something he still tries to do even it does nothing but frustrate and annoy him. Clearly these are two people who have struggled for a long time but they found a measure of happiness and hope with each other for a brief period before terrible catastrophe shattered them. As characters they are imperfect, as are we all. They prove that grieving isn't pretty; it is desperate and painful. The first person narration allows the reader to see just how empty and despairing that Ben is and how devastated and crippled Maggie is and it offers an uncomfortable chance to climb into their skins, make the same terrible decisions they do, feel the stress and frustration their families cause them, and to experience the paralyzing guilt and heavy responsibility that their actions caused. The book is both powerful and draining as it looks at these issues and those of faith, family, the magnitude of loss, and what hope means. There is no easy redemption here, no promise of happiness, but there is putting one foot in front of the other and the acknowledgment that holding a hand as you move forward into the unknown gives you something to trust and rely on even if it can't ever remove the past.

For more information about Billie Livingston, take a look at her website or follow her on Twitter. Check out the book's Good Reads page, follow the rest of the blog tour, or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book.

Thanks to the publisher and Trish from TLC Book Tours for sending me a copy of the book to review.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson. The book is being released by Random House on March 22, 2016.

Amazon says this about the book: East Sussex, 1914. It is the end of England’s brief Edwardian summer, and everyone agrees that the weather has never been so beautiful. Hugh Grange, down from his medical studies, is visiting his Aunt Agatha, who lives with her husband in the small, idyllic coastal town of Rye. Agatha’s husband works in the Foreign Office, and she is certain he will ensure that the recent saber rattling over the Balkans won’t come to anything. And Agatha has more immediate concerns; she has just risked her carefully built reputation by pushing for the appointment of a woman to replace the Latin master.

When Beatrice Nash arrives with one trunk and several large crates of books, it is clear she is significantly more freethinking—and attractive—than anyone believes a Latin teacher should be. For her part, mourning the death of her beloved father, who has left her penniless, Beatrice simply wants to be left alone to pursue her teaching and writing.

But just as Beatrice comes alive to the beauty of the Sussex landscape and the colorful characters who populate Rye, the perfect summer is about to end. For despite Agatha’s reassurances, the unimaginable is coming. Soon the limits of progress, and the old ways, will be tested as this small Sussex town and its inhabitants go to war.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

A college visit with my daughter, followed with being sick and a lot of sleep does not add up to a good reading and reviewing kind of week for me. This meme is hosted by Kathryn at Reading Date.

Books I completed this past week are:

The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty
Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan
Margaret the First by Danielle Dutton

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Reader, I Married Him edited by Tracy Chevalier

Reviews posted this week:

The Sisters of Versailles by Sally Christie
Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear
The Beginner's Goodbye by Anne Tyler

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

My Fat Dad by Dawn Lerman
The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street by Susan Jane Gilman
My Confection by Lisa Kotin
Put a Ring on It by Beth Kendrick
One Perfect Summer by Paige Toon
The Things We Keep by Sally Hepworth
The Sisters of Versailles by Sally Christie The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel by Maureen Lindley
Be Frank With Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson
American Housewife by Helen Ellis
The Crooked Heart of Mercy by Billie Livingston
The Two-Family House by Lynda Cohen Loigman
Don't Let My Baby Do Rodeo by Boris Fishman
The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty
Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan
Margaret the First by Danielle Dutton

Monday Mailbox

My mailbox got to take a bit of a break this week. Just one book. This past week's mailbox arrival:

The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams came from my postal book club.

About a young girl growing up in a polygamous cult who loves books and wants to choose her own husband, this sounds like it could be a tough read for sure.

If you want to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Review: The Beginner's Goodbye by Anne Tyler

I remember the first time I saw a "Dummies" book. The concept seemed genius. Take an area of learning that was likely to be difficult or completely foreign for the average Joe and make it accessible and basic enough to be graspable; make it easy to learn. If I recall correctly, the books started out as a way into the new and exciting word of computer related things but because of their popularity, the success of their concept, and their immediate brand recognition, they quickly became ubiquitous as the entry level way into a whole variety of specialized areas, both technical and non-technical. And while they may seem less necessary now in a world of You Tube videos and other online tutorials, they served a real and previously untapped purpose when they came out. With them, you could learn to program a computer or build a container garden. You could learn everything you ever wanted to know about NASCAR or about anger management. They run the gamut from A to Z. Their scope was, and is, both practical and personal. But above and beyond whatever they purported to teach, there was a wealth of story in their existence. Why would someone need to consult them? What result will they lead the reader to in their pages? How will this new skill change the reader's life? In Anne Tyler's elegant novel The Beginner's Goodbye, she uses not Dummies Guides but their fictional counterpart, Beginner's Guides, to illuminate a life, a marriage, and grief.

Aaron Woolcott is a new widower. He uses his grief to hold himself aloof from others around him, including his sister Nandina. When he was a child, he suffered an illness that left him mildly disabled and he has long used his disability and frustration with what he sees as people's solicitude towards him to justify his unpleasant, often anti-social behaviour. When the novel opens, Aaron is devastated by his wife's untimely and unexpected death but it changes his curmudgeonly and prickly personality not at all. He is as unable or unwilling to accept kindness or help after Dorothy's death as he was before it. He intentionally keeps everyone at arm's length, believing that only the deceased Dorothy, practical, unfussy, and frumpy understood him. When he starts seeing her ghost, he is unsurprised by her reappearance but it prompts him to reexamine the life they lived. And it turns out that what he remembers may not be the way she saw it.

As Aaron comes to terms with his crippling loss, his sister and his co-workers at the family owned vanity press where he works at (they publish the Beginner's Guides to all sorts of things) try to offer him kindness and caring when all he wants is the space to be surly and bitter. Early on in the novel, his character comes across as distant and determined to be a martyr but he has to learn that while the grief is real and forever, the living must indeed go on living. There is no guide to get him through this terrible time in his life and Aaron chooses to stay at an emotional remove from everyone thinking that no one else can understand or appreciate the magnitude of his wrenching loss. This sort of clinical distance does keep the reader from finding Aaron an altogether appealing character, especially as his actions prove him to be rather a jerk and he starts to remember and reveal more about his marriage and his and Dorothy's roles in it. But because this is Anne Tyler, and because she's a gorgeous writer, you can't help but keep reading, wanting to know how Aaron will, in the end, learn to say goodbye to someone he might never have seen clearly in the first place, how he will go on with his life, and how he will change. The writing is spare and slow but the slow pacing serves the plot well and given the book's short length, the reader appreciates the chance to savor her time in the story. Tyler beautifully captures the loneliness and paralyzing inactivity, that fog that envelops a person after such a big loss. That she does it so well with Aaron, wounded in so many ways and not always sympathetic, is a testament to her skill here. This is an examination of life and death, perspective and change. It is quirky and wonderful.

Review: Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear

War leaves no one untouched. There are the dead and their grieving families. There are the wounded, physically or emotionally, whose lives and the lives of those who love them, will never be the same again. Casualties of war are not limited to those who fought though; so many people are touched by the horrors of war. And sometimes the questions left behind are as terrible and crippling as any bullet or bomb. But some of those questions will never be answered, either because the answers just can't be known or because there's a reason why they should be kept secret forever. In Jacqueline Winspear's novel, Pardonable Lies, the third in her Maisie Dobbs series, Maisie will come head on against the grief and secrets that tear at those left behind.

In the years after World War I, when Maisie Dobbs was a field nurse, she has turned to investigations and psychology. She is a thoughtful, intuitively astute, and persistent investigator possessed of a keen intellect and despite the fact that many of the cases she takes on make her face her own painful war torn past, she is very good at what she does. In this third installment in the series, Maisie agrees to take on a case that requires her to confirm the wartime death of celebrated barrister Sir Cecil Lawton's only son Ralph. She has many misgivings about the case, especially as Sir Cecil is only pursuing this to fulfill his promise to his now deceased wife and not out of his own feelings for his son. But if Maisie takes on this case, she has the leverage to ask Sir Cecil to defend a 13 year old girl who stands accused of murdering her pimp. For young Avril's sake, she takes Lawton's case. She also agrees to look into the scant information available about her friend Priscilla's brother Peter's death to help Priscilla find some closure regarding his loss. Uncovering the truth of the loss of both young airmen will not only take Maisie back to France for the first time since the war, forcing her to face her own demons, but will put her life in danger from an enemy, and place her at cross purposes with someone she trusts and values deeply. These cases force Maisie to acknowledge her own traumas and the survivor's guilt she feels as she tentatively goes on with her life. And at least one of the cases threatens to expose people's work during the war, something that could prove dangerous as hints of another coming conflict start revealing themselves.

As in the previous two books in the series, Winspear has done a wonderful job evoking the time period and she is a master at delving into the psychological underpinnings of each character, including Maisie herself. The novel is a delicate untangling of secrets still hidden, an examination of loss and family, a look at respect and what inspires or earns it, and a sensitive portrayal of homosexuality. Each of the characters in this novel has suffered losses and it is up to Maisie to help them come through those losses wiser and more accepting, if no less sad. There is a pervading sense of sadness, an elegiac feel almost, and the aura of continued damage wrought by the war that marked an entire generation is at play throughout the course of the novel. But there's also an honorable feel to it, that decisions, even if they remained secret, made during and immediately following the war were made thoughtfully and were well considered for their inevitable effect on those left behind. This is not a traditional mystery in the sense of a body, a crime, and the need to find the murderer; instead, it is a mystery that requires diligence and deep psychological dives and I found it all the more satisfying for that. I may not generally read mysteries, but Maisie Dobbs continues to have a fan in me.

For more information about Jacqueline Winspear, take a look at her website or her Facebook author page. Check out the book's Good Reads page, follow the rest of the blog tour, or look at the amazon reviews for others' thoughts and opinions on the book. Also be certain to check out the latest book in the Maisie Dobbs series Journey to Munich.

Thanks to Trish from TLC Book Tours.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme is hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on.

The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu by Joshua Hammer. The book is being released by Ecco on April 19, 2016.

Amazon says this about the book: To save precious centuries-old Arabic texts from Al Qaeda, a band of librarians in Timbuktu pulls off a brazen heist worthy of Ocean’s Eleven.

In the 1980s, a young adventurer and collector for a government library, Abdel Kader Haidara, journeyed across the Sahara Desert and along the Niger River, tracking down and salvaging tens of thousands of ancient Islamic and secular manuscripts that had fallen into obscurity. The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu tells the incredible story of how Haidara, a mild-mannered archivist and historian from the legendary city of Timbuktu, later became one of the world’s greatest and most brazen smugglers.

In 2012, thousands of Al Qaeda militants from northwest Africa seized control of most of Mali, including Timbuktu. They imposed Sharia law, chopped off the hands of accused thieves, stoned to death unmarried couples, and threatened to destroy the great manuscripts. As the militants tightened their control over Timbuktu, Haidara organized a dangerous operation to sneak all 350,000 volumes out of the city to the safety of southern Mali.

Over the past twenty years, journalist Joshua Hammer visited Timbuktu numerous times and is uniquely qualified to tell the story of Haidara’s heroic and ultimately successful effort to outwit Al Qaeda and preserve Mali’s—and the world’s—literary patrimony. Hammer explores the city’s manuscript heritage and offers never-before-reported details about the militants’ march into northwest Africa. But above all, The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu is an inspiring account of the victory of art and literature over extremism.