Nevermore: Do No Harm, Cashelmara, Wrexford & Sloan

 

Reported by Garry

 

Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery by is a memoir by Henry Marsh, based on his 30+ years as a leading neurosurgeon. Candid, darkly hilarious, and deeply insightful, Do No Harm lent our reader a much deeper understanding of not only the National Health Service (the UK’s centralized health care system), but of the brain and its incredible intricacies than she previously had. Far from ego-driven and self-congratulatory, Marsh explores not only the successes that he has had, but failures and mistakes made along the way. “Very truthful and very human” is how our reader described this book.  CD 

Cashelmara by Susan Howatch is a historical drama that starts in the late 19^th century and spans three generations of the de Salis family, aristocrats whose fortunes rise and fall with the politics of the time. Our reader says that the writer did a beautiful job of capturing the personalities of the various characters, including the historical slang and personal idiosyncrasies that set them apart from one another, and in particular noted that each character has a distinct “voice” that comes through from the page.  DC

The Wrexford & Sloan Mystery series by Andrea Penrose is a seven book series of regency-era books that are “brain candy” to our reader, but “GREAT brain candy”! Our reader particularly liked the great characters that Penrose has created in these books, and in particular noted that the characters are actually likeable people. The series focuses on Charlotte Sloan and the Earl of Wrexford, who carry on a “will they, won’t they” relationship while together solving murder mysteries that our reader describes as fun and wholly believable.  SC

 

Also mentioned:

Weird Virginia: Your Guide to Virginia's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets by Jeff Bahr, Troy Taylor and Loren Coleman

The River Hills & Beyond: Poems by Lou V. Crabtree

Sweet Hollow: Stories by Lou V. Crabtree

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

The Paris Orphan by Natasha Lester

Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo

The Maid by Nita Prose

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

Sweet Land of Liberty: A History of America in 11 Pies by Rossi Anastopoulo

Raising Them Right: The Untold Story of America's Ultraconservative Youth Movement and Its Plot for Power by Kyle Spencer

Falling is Not an Option: A Way to Lifelong Balance by George Locker

She and Her Cat: Stories by Makoto Shinkai and Naruki Nagakawa

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

Lessons from the Edge:  A Memoir by Marie Yovanovitch

The Genius of Dogs: How Dogs Are Smarter Than You Think by Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods

Whale Day and Other Poems by Billy Collins

Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld

Contemporary Romantic Comedies

Selected by Ambrea 

 

Cindy loves fashion.  She’s even earned her degree in design, because, one day, she hopes to be the name others are wearing.  To jumpstart her career, Cindy decides to volunteer for the reality show Before Midnight and quickly becomes a body positivity icon.  As the only plus-size woman on the dating competition, she’s definitely made a splash.  Cindy, however, doesn’t expect to find love in the most unexpected places—on television.  Will Cindy be able to find her happily-ever-after, or will she have to choose between her fashion aspirations and Prince Charming?  Find out in If the Shoe Fits by Julie Murphy.

In By the Book by Jasmine Guillory, Isabelle—Izzy to her friends—is an overworked and underpaid editorial assistant.  She has spent years working for the same publishing house and meeting the same dead ends.  When she’s given the opportunity to work with grumpy Beau Towers to produce his tell-all memoir, she jumps at the chance.  But helping Beau write his book is much more difficult than she expected, especially when she’s inspired to write her own book—and, more surprisingly, finds herself falling for the prickly celebrity.

 

After the death of her treasure-hunting—and notoriously absent—father, Lily is left with nothing but a skill for solving puzzles and a bunch of hand-drawn maps.  To keep her head above water, she starts offering fake treasure-hunting tours, letting tourists and thrill-seekers walk in the steps of Duke Wilder.  It’s during one of these tours she stumbles across Leo Grady, her first and greatest love.  But Lily has no money, no patience, and no love lost for all the men who have left her behind.  Can Lily and Leo learn to put their shared past behind them, or will the Canyonlands tear them apart for good?  Check out Something Wilder by Christina Lauren.

 

Ari Abrams loves weather.  As a TV meteorologist, she’s living the dream—except her boss, legendary weatherwoman Torrance Hale, and the station director, Torrance’s ex-husband, are always at each other’s throats.  Ari is at her wits’ end, until she hatches a plan with sports reporter Russell Barringer.  Through hijinks and well-meaning meddling, Ari and Russell work to bring the couple back together.  When they find themselves unexpectedly growing closer, Ari can’t help but wonder if blue skies might be on the way in Weather Girl by Rachel Lynn Solomon.

Pucky, Prince of Bacon by Georgia Dunn

Reviewed by Jeanne

I’ve loved both comic books and strips from even before I started reading.  I can remember my grandmother reading the strips to me from the newspaper, including her favorite strip which was, appropriately, called Grandma. Now I like to start my day with a cup of coffee while reading a selection of my favorite daily comic strips.  Recently, I have picked up two collections in a row, starting with Tom Gauld’s Revenge of the Librarians. The next thing I knew, I was reading the new Georgia Dunn collection, Pucky, Prince of Bacon. While these two are very different, I thoroughly enjoyed both. 

Dunn’s daily strip Breaking Cat News runs in some newspapers (not the Bristol Herald Courier, alas) and features the adventures of an assortment of felines and their friends who act as reporters for “news that’s important to cats.” The three main reporters are Elvis, a needy and neurotic Siamese; Puck, a three legged black cat who is very zen except when it comes to bacon or ham; and rambunctious Lupin, a deaf white cat who rushes in where angels fear to tread. They live in the Big Pink House with The Man, The Woman, and The Toddler.  Pucky, Prince of Bacon collects several months of these strips, including the Sunday ones.  This time around, our intrepid reporters take on the terror of pets everywhere, the vacuum cleaner, investigate Fourth of July cuisine to answer the question, “Can cats even eat potato salad?” and wonder why The Woman is getting very round. 

Sweet, funny, and gentle, these books are marketed to middle school students but I know many adults who are also addicted. I think of them as being like Mutts or Peanuts: kid friendly but not juvenile.  I love Dunn’s attention to detail in the panels, from decorations on the walls, and the lovely color palette.

This is the sixth book in the series and while it can stand on its own, for full enjoyment I’d recommend starting with some of the earlier titles where you can read the backstories of some of the other characters.  I’m particularly fond of Tommy, who lives at another house with Sophie, an artistic feline soul who does not care for Tommy’s adoration.  The story arc where Elvis is lost and meets Tommy always brings tears to my eyes.  Yeah, I’m a softy.

Breaking Cat News

Lupin Leaps In

Take It Away, Tommy

Elvis Puffs Out

Behind the Scenes with Burt

Pucky, Prince of Bacon

Nevermore: Our Missing Hearts, Paris Orphan, Magnolia Palace, Immune

Reported by Garry

 

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng. In this near future dystopian novel, 20-year-old Bird Gardner has not seen his mother, an acclaimed Chinese American poet and activist, since she vanished eleven years previously. Bird and his father live a quiet existence in a small room just off Harvard Square. One day, Bird receives a letter containing only a cryptic drawing, and he realizes the drawing contains clues as to the whereabouts of his mother. This novel was named a Best Book of 2022 by multiple news organizations and comes highly recommended by our reader.  AH 

The Paris Orphan by Natasha Lester. Jessica May is an American photojournalist who comes to Paris during World War II, and faces an uphill battle as a woman on the front lines. Friendships with other war correspondents and military men help, but the love of an orphaned girl thrust into the arms of the soldiers is what keeps Jessica going. Skip to 2005 and D’Arcy Hallworth has come to a chateau outside of Paris to curate a collection of World War II photographs – an assignment that will upend everything she thinks she knows about her family. This historical fiction is loosely based on true events, was heavily researched and is an absolute page-turner. Our reader said that she couldn’t put it down.  WJ

 

The Magnolia Palace by Fiona Davis. Romance, murder, high art and a true-life famous family all come together in this historical novel. In 1920, Lillian Carter, down-on-her-luck former model, starts working with the Frick family heiress and slowly but surely becomes entangled in the messy life of the family – affairs, stolen jewels, and high drama, culminating in a possible murder. Fifty years later, English model Veronica Weber chances upon a series of hidden messages in the Frick mansion (now a museum), a discovery that sets off a whirlwind adventure that could finally unlock the truth behind what really happened in the gilded halls of the opulent manor. Our reader was thrilled with this combination of romance, history, and art.  MH 

Immune: A Journey into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive by Philipp Dettmer is an incredibly engaging, accessible deep dive into the human immune system. Each chapter delves into a different facet of the immune system that is engaged in a never-ending war against bacteria, viruses, fungi, and cancers. Our reader particularly loved the informative, colorful diagrams throughout the book, finding that they really helped clarify and emphasize the descriptions in the text, and found the book to be completely fascinating.  KM

 

Also mentioned:

Hard Times Cotton Mill Girls: Personal Histories of Womanhood and Poverty in the South by Victoria Byerly

Pioneer Girl by Bich Minh Nguyen

The 12-Hour Art Expert: Everything You Need to Know About Art in a Dozen Masterpieces by Noah Charney

The Accidental Veterinarian: Tales from a Pet Practice by Philipp Schott

The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family by Kerri K. Greenidge

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

Walking to Wijiji by Bunny Medeiros

The Forever Witness: How DNA and Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder by Edward Humes

All The Broken Places by John Boyne

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie by Rachel Linden

Tutankhamun's Trumpet: Ancient Egypt in 100 Objects from the Boy-King's Tomb by Toby Wilkinson

She and Her Cat: Stories by Makoto Shinkai

Raising Them Right: The Untold Story of America's Ultraconservative Youth Movement and Its Plot for Power by Kyle Spencer

The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World by Malcolm Gaskill

Weird Virginia: Your Guide to Virginia's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets by Jeff Bahr, Troy Taylor, and Loren Coleman

Mrs. Malory and a Death in the Family by Hazel Holt

Reviewed by Jeanne

Comfortable widow Sheila Malory receives a warning that her cousin Bernard may be coming to call in search of genealogical information. The warning is due to Bernard being a crashing bore, impervious to hints, and has more than his share of entitlement.  His wife is nice enough, or could be if she weren’t so firmly under Bernard’s thumb, but in this case the better part of valor is to plan to stay away from home as much as possible and not answer the phone.

Alas, another helpful cousin has told Bernard that Mrs. Malory holds an important family Bible so he is determined to pay a call—or several. It’s quite exhausting.  Still, when Bernard turns up dead, Mrs. Malory tries to be sorry, but she can’t help wondering if all the digging into the past has led to his demise.

This was my first Mrs. Malory book, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. It’s firmly in the line of British village mysteries where innumerable pots of tea are consumed, and the detective uses information gleaned from friends and relatives to find the answers. The setting feels familiar because of that tradition, and because the author obviously felt comfortable in that setting. I found this book an especial treat because it is actually written by a British author:  recently I have read any number of “British mysteries” written by Americans.  Usually, several times in these books I will pause and wonder about some detail, an expression or such which seems more American than British, or else the author will take time to explain some quaint British custom that no British author would bother to do.  (In one book the American author felt obligated to explain “tea” repeatedly so her fellow Americans wouldn’t think that they were just drinking tea. The first time was okay; it was the next three times that annoyed me.)

Anyway, there was no such problem in this book, which was a nifty little mystery. There are any number of suspects because Bernard enjoyed bullying others as much as he bullied his wife, and he also liked to indulge in some blackmail to get his way. This particular story also has a bit of twist which readers discover early on but which I won’t divulge here to deprive anyone else of the pleasure.

I am definitely going to read more in this series.  Alas, Hazel Holt passed away in 2015 and there don’t appear to be any more books in the pipeline so I will have to make do with the nineteen or so already written.

Now Is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson

 

Reviewed by Kristin

In the summer of 1996, two teenagers in Coalfield, Tennessee created something that turned their small town upside down, and made waves of paranoia ripple throughout the nation. It all started with an unknown but vaguely familiar phrase:

The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us.

Frankie is filling her summer trying to write a novel featuring a villainous teen girl who is much cleverer than her police chief father or her girl detective sister. Take that, Nancy Drew. Frankie meets Zeke at the public pool and finds herself strangely drawn to this boy from Memphis visiting his grandmother for the summer. Zeke is an artist, a fellow creative type alongside Frankie.

Zeke challenges Frankie to write something—anything—and he will create illustrations. Frankie takes a deep breath, and writes, “The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us.” The phrase comes from somewhere deep inside, and Frankie instantly believes it is the best thing she has ever written.

Thanks to Frankie’s older triplet brothers stealing a Xerox machine last year (and promptly jamming it making photocopies of their butts, then abandoning it in the garage), she and Zeke make 120 copies of the poster and hang them all over the town. It’s just a lark, and they hope to create a little buzz and make people talk about it. Nothing ever happens in Coalfield.

People do talk about the poster and quickly become obsessed by it. Some are certain it is the work of Satan worshippers, or kidnappers, or homicidal maniacs. People are sure that it must a lyric from an obscure band, or something that they just can’t put their finger on. Copycats abound, and people do many foolish things in the name of being fugitives.

That one little phrase, that one little poster, changed the lives of many.

Kevin Wilson has a talent for writing real page-turners. I could not stop reading, and I did not want to stop, (except for the dread of running out of pages). Wilson can build characters quickly and keep readers engaged in his plots. I also read Nothing to See Here, (reviewed by Jeanne) and absolutely loved it. Wilson’s characters are quirky, but somehow totally believable even when they do strange things, like burst into flames. So yes, his writing is a little fantastical at time, but oh so enjoyable.

Nevermore: Ex Hex, The Sentence, Sherlock Holmes: The Missing Years, Number One Is Walking

 Reported by Garry

 

The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling is a fun, supernatural rom-com, though our reader notes it does have an “R” rating. Vivienne Jones is a young witch whose heart was broken by the dashing Rhys Penhallow. Doing what any crossed witch would do, Vivienne cast a curse on Rhys, but assumed that it would simply be an annoyance more than anything else. When Rhys comes back to town for Graves Glen’s annual fall festival, Vivienne discovers how very wrong she was, and how out of control her hex has become. The two exes must work together to break the break-up curse before it destroys their hometown.  PP 

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich is another supernatural story with an especially interesting twist – the author is a character in her own book, and the story takes place in the bookstore owned by the author. Tookie is a young Ojibwe woman, newly out of prison. She starts working at Birchbark Books in Minneapolis (the real-life bookstore owned by Erdrich), and shortly thereafter the store becomes haunted by the ghost of the store’s best, but most difficult, client. The ghost story takes a sudden turn when George Floyd is murdered by a Minneapolis police officer, and COVID-19 shuts the country down. These two storylines intertwine in an unexpected and gripping novel by one of America’s premier writers.  MH

Sherlock Holmes: The Missing Years; The Adventures of the Great Detective in India and Tibet by Jamyang Norbu. Sir Conan Doyle never explained the two years that Sherlock Holmes spent after that fateful plunge off the Reichenbach Falls, so Tibetan author Jamyang Norbu has. In Norbu’s vision, Holmes makes his way to Tibet with the help of Huree Chunder Mookherjee (a character from Rudyard Kipling’s Kim), Holmes makes his way to Lhasa and helps the newly anointed 13^th Dalai Lama secure his place against the Imperial Chinese forces. According to our reader, this is a great mystery that will keep readers enthralled for hours, and will especially delight those who appreciate writers like Conan Doyle and Jules Verne.  AH 

Number One Is Walking: My Life in the Movies and Other Diversions by Steve Martin is the self-effacing new memoir by one of America’s leading funny men. Steve Martin has been acting on TV and in the movies since the late 1960s. Sharing anecdotes from his time on such movies as Roxanne, The Jerk, Father of the Bride and many more, Martin shares insights into his time in front of and behind the camera over the past forty years. This book is illustrated by New York Times cartoonist Harry Bliss, and our reader especially loved what the cartoons added to the stories of Martin’s years in the entertainment business.  CD.

 

Also mentioned:

Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut

That Night by Alice McDermott

A Dangerous Business by Jane Smiley

They Knew: How a Culture of Conspiracy Keeps America Complacent by Sara Kendzior

Left of Eden by Dennis Broe

Polar Exposure: An All-Women’s Expedition to the North Pole by Felicity Aston

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

All the Broken Places by John Boyne

Sweet Land of Liberty: A History of America in 11 Pies by Rossi Anastopoulo

Now Is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson

Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley

Trouble on Tybee by Tammy Marshall

City Under One Roof by Iris Yamashita

Hidden in Snow by Vivica Sten

Bridge to the Sun: The Secret Role of the Japanese Americans Who Fought in the Pacific in World War II by Bruce Henderson

Great Short Books: A Year of Reading -- Briefly by Kenneth C. Davis

Maus Now: Selected Writing edited by Hillary Chute