Don’t Sing at the Table: Life Lessons from My Grandmothers by Adriana Trigiani

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

Local favorite author Adriana Trigiani takes readers on a very personal tour of her Italian heritage as embodied by her grandmothers.  Although in some ways their lives and outlooks were different, these two strong Italian women helped mold their children and grandchildren in very specific ways.  Lucia Spada Bonicelli and Yolanda Perin Trigiana both immigrated to the United States from Italy, both married and raised children, and both were fiercely independent women. 

Yolanda, better known as Viola, was born in the United States, a first generation Italian- American. Her mother died young, and Viola took over running the household and caring for her four younger siblings. She started her working life as a machine operator in a clothing factory, became a forewoman at age sixteen, and after her marriage, became co-owner of a blouse factory.  She continued to work, even filling in at sewing when an extra pair of hands were needed. She was also a homemaker who loved packing lunches filled with delicious delicacies for her husband.

Lucia was born in Italy, but came to the United States with her father, Marco, when she was in her twenties.  The family was in desperate straits, and the plan was for the two of them to earn enough money for the family to buy a house.  They settled in New Jersey, but Marco soon left in favor of a better paying job while Lucia (now known as Lucy) worked as a sewing machine operator making children’s clothes for the sum of $2 per week. Plans to return to Italy were put on hold when she fell in love with her future husband, Carlos, who was a shoemaker. They moved to a small town in Minnesota where Carlos opened a shop. His sudden death at age 39 left Lucy to raise three children by selling shoes and by sewing.

These two remarkable women exerted strong influences not only on their children but on their grandchildren as well.  In this book, Trigiani sets out to explain how her grandmothers influenced her life and work. The examples they set as wives, mothers, and women have served her well, even if sometimes she doubted their wisdom.

Long time readers of Trigiani will also realize that some aspects of these two women have inspired some of her fictional characters.  It’s a nice “peek behind the scenes” look at two Italian families and how their heritage became a part of the American Dream.

Bait and Witch by Angela Sanders

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

Librarian Josie Way is living the dream working in the Library of Congress until she overhears a conversation implicating a Congressman in graft.  Whistleblowing being a dangerous business, she decides to flee D.C. and accepts a job in a rather remote town in Oregon, hoping to lie low for a while.  Unfortunately, it seems that her new library haven is about to be torn down to make way for a resort. Part of the argument is that the library attracts undesirables. . . like the dead woman found nearby.

I had to suspend a lot of disbelief in this first in the Josie Way series, but that turned out to be okay, especially after Josie begins to manifest some supernatural powers when it comes to Readers Advisory.  (Library lingo for recommending a book.) From then on, I bought into the premise with ease, mainly because I found the whole thing to be a lot of fun.   I adored the idea of the books sending messages to her, grumbling or laughing amongst themselves, and the library as a whole welcoming her.  So what if I had trouble with someone who was supposedly in hiding taking a job under her own name and social security number?  I got talking books and a cat named Rodney.  I was happy.

This book was a delight, and the ending had me looking forward to the next title.  It wasn’t a cliff-hanger (for which I am grateful!) but it definitely teased interesting things to come.   I am certainly going to read the next in the series (out now) and will look forward to the third title.

The books are:

Bait and Witch

Seven Year Witch

Witch and Famous  (2022; now listed as Witch Way Librarian Mystery)

Nevermore: Bonk, The Pyramid, Astonishing Color of After, Disappearance of a Scribe

 

Reported by Garry

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach is the hilarious and imminently readable book that focuses on sex. In her trademark witty and extremely well-researched way, Roach looks at the evolution of the science of sexuality. Our reader commented that there were many times while reading the book that she thought “Well, I was not wondering about that, but now that I’ve read a bit about it, I AM wondering.” The consensus amongst our readers is that any book by Mary Roach is entertaining, educational, very well-written and definitely about a subject that you wouldn’t normally think about reading, and this book is no different.  MC

 

The Pyramid is a prequel to the popular Wallander series of murder mystery books by Henning Mankell. This set of five short stories, stretching over nearly four decades, shows the evolution of the beloved Swedish police inspector. The first story is set when Wallander is a twenty-one year old rookie patrolman, with the last placed just prior to the first published Wallander novel “Faceless Killers”. This collection of short stories delves into the backstory of Wallander and those in his life, giving the reader further insight into the brusque but greatly insightful Swedish investigator. While this book was written well after the Wallander series was underway, our reader said that it really helped her understand the character better and cast a slightly new light on some of his quirks that show up in the novels.  DC

 

The Astonishing Color of After is a debut novel by Emily X. R. Pan strongly flavored with magical realism. Mourning, magic, art, and love all come together in this young adult story about Leigh Chen Sanders, a half-Asian half-Caucasian girl in the United States whose Taiwanese mother has killed herself and taken the hidden history of her family to the grave with her. Leigh is convinced that her mother has become a bird, and travels to Taiwan not only to track down the bird she believes is her mother, but to meet and get to know her family for the first time. Our reader is an artist, and was particularly taken with the way Leigh and her friend Axel described emotions as colors (Leigh is a synesthete whose senses tend to overlap; Leigh sees colors when she hears sounds.) Our reader liked this book and commented on how the author paints a realistic portrayal of depression and mental illness but also maintains a sense of wonder and joy.  MH

 

Disappearance of a Scribe is the latest mystery by best-selling author Dana Stabenow. Set in Ptolemaic Egypt during the reign of Cleopatra, this book is the second in her “Eye of Isis” trilogy. There is a possible serial killer on the loose – two bodies have been found on the bottom of the Alexandria harbor, two years apart. Both of them were fitted with cement sandals to hold them down, and their unsolved deaths threaten to derail Cleopatra’s plans to rebuild after the Alexandrian War. She asks Tetisheri, her new Eye of Isis, to find out who the deceased are and why they were murdered. Our reader enjoyed this historical fantasy novel with its well-crafted mystery and attention to historical details, and recommends it for an easy, fun mystery read.  MC

Also mentioned:

The Mitford Vanishing by Jessica Fellowes

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show by Jonathan Karl

Crossed Lines by Jennifer Delamere

House by Tracy Kidder

Slavery Remembered: A Record of Twentieth-Century Slave Narratives by Paul D. Escott

Haiti After the Earthquake by Paul Farmer

Get Well Soon:  History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them by Jennifer Wright

Dopesick:  Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy

My Own Country:  A Doctor’s Story by Abraham Verghese

Voyage of the Basilisk by Marie Brennan

In the Labyrinth of Drakes by Marie Brennan

Free Speech Handbook: A Practical Framework for Understanding Our Free Speech Protections by Ian Rosenberg

You Don’t Know Us Negroes and Other Essays by Zora Neale Hurston

Greek Myths:  A New Retelling by Charlotte Higgins

Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch

Reviewed by Kristin

Peter Grant has seen some weird stuff in his time with the police. When Peter first started as a probationary constable, he worried that he would be stuck in some dead-end job processing reports where the most danger facing him would be from paper cuts. But when Peter interviews an eyewitness one night who turns out to be a ghost, he comes to the attention of Inspector Thomas Nightingale, who has a vested interest in all things supernatural. After all, in addition to his decades with the London Metropolitan Police, Nightingale is the last wizard in England. Someone has to deal with the weird stuff.*

The series begins with Rivers of London. Peter is partnered with Lesley May, also a probationary constable, and the two have some truly strange adventures as they await their permanent assignments. When Peter is assigned to work with Inspector Nightingale, he discovers much about the otherworldly aspects of London. The rivers have personalities, or possibly something…more. Evil hides behind innocuous faces, ready to spring forth and consume the innocent.

Peter’s family background has prepared him for the unusual, with a black mother from Sierra Leone and a British white jazz musician father. The family ties are tight, but Peter does his best to go about his business while constantly running into aunties or cousins. The crowd of family acquaintances is immense, which Peter accepts stoically. Sometimes those connections come in handy, after all.

Ben Aaronovitch has an interesting writing background; he wrote for Doctor Who and several publications with varying degrees of quality. After a spell, he ended up working as a bookseller, where he was inspired to create his own original characters, and thus Peter Grant was born. Over the course of the series, Aaronovitch has developed a wide cast of characters and even the smaller personas often pop back up in subsequent books. The characters came to life even more vividly for me as I have listened to some of these titles as audiobooks narrated by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith.

I anxiously await Amongst Our Weapons coming out this April, as Peter has some rather interesting events happening in his personal life, and I expect the magical challenges of his job will continue as well. The weird stuff too.

The series includes:

1. Rivers of London aka Midnight Riot (2011)

2. Moon Over Soho (2011)

3. Whispers Under Ground (2012)

4. Broken Homes (2013)

5. Foxglove Summer (2014)

5.5. The Furthest Station (novella) (2017)

6. The Hanging Tree (2016)

7. Lies Sleeping (2018)

7.5. The October Man (novella) (2019)

8. False Value (2020)

9. Amongst Our Weapons (April 2022)

   Tales from the Folly (short stories) (2020)

   What Abigail Did That Summer (short stories) (2021)

 

* Yes, I keep mentioning the “weird stuff,” but Peter does keep commenting on the unusual amount of “weird ____” that happens, making my phrase more fitting for a PG-rated bookblog.