Cave of Bones: A Leaphorn, Chee, and Manuelito Novel by Anne Hillerman

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

Officer Bernadette Manuelito does not like public speaking.  She’d much prefer working a case, but this time she’s roped into giving a talk to a group of “at risk” girls who are camping as part of a character-building program.  Once she arrives, though, Bernie finds that one of the girls has gone missing.  Bernie joins in the search after calling in reinforcements, and to everyone’s relief, the girl turns up.  Not so one of the camp counselors: the experienced outdoorsman seems to have vanished. Moreover, Bernie is sure there’s something the girl isn’t telling.

Meanwhile, Bernie’s husband, Jim Chee, is away attending a training session which, as it turns out, is close to the small college Bernie’s troubled sister, Darlene, is attending.  Jim contacts Darlene, but is left uneasy by some of the company she’s keeping.

Before it’s all over, Joe Leaphorn will become involved in trying to unravel more than one mystery on the Navajo reservation.

Anne Hillerman is the daughter of famed author Tony Hillerman, who created the Leaphorn and Chee mysteries set among the Navajo.  His books were something of a revelation at the time, vividly evoking the setting and the people.  After his death, Anne took over the series and has written nine books with a tenth due out next year. 

I was an avid reader of Tony Hillerman’s work, so I approached Anne’s books with a bit of trepidation.  While staying close to her father’s characters, Anne has introduced more socially oriented themes about life on the reservations: poverty, diabetes, lack of jobs, etc.  This isn’t to say that her father didn’t address some of the problems, but rather that in Anne’s books they are more likely to take center stage.  Bernie has a good deal of family drama with her sister and her mother, and is also struggling with her own health issues. 

For me, Anne’s books aren’t quite as satisfying as her father’s but I’m equally sure that for some people she provides more context for her characters, giving them fuller backstories.  I also had the feeling in this one that some plot threads were left dangling.

That said, I think both Hillermans are adept at depicting life among the modern Navajo and evoking the beauty of a place and its people.  Good mysteries, too.

Nevermore: Same Sun Here, Ghost Cat, Outside

 

Nevermore 10-15-24 Reported by Rita

Same Sun Here by Silas House

Bonding over commonalities in spite of disparate backgrounds, Meena, an Indian immigrant living in New York City's Chinatown, and River, the son of a Kentucky coal miner, become pen pals and overcome cultural misconceptions while sharing respective hardships.

This book is so good. Very enlightening.   – DC     5 stars

 

The Ghost Cat by Alex Howard

Follows a cat through his nine lives in Edinburgh, moving through the ever-changing city and its inhabitants over centuries.

Not a real literary feat, but fun and cute.    – VC     2 stars

 

Outside by Ragnar Jonasson

Stranded by a snowstorm in the Icelandic highlands, four friends seek shelter in an abandoned hunting lodge where they discover they are not alone, and must come to terms with their past to survive to see their future.

Very similar to Agatha Christie. Really good with a surprise ending.     – NH    5 stars

 

Other Books Mentioned

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Southernmost: a Novel by Silas  House

 Restless Spirits by Linda Dunning

Spirit Tailings by Ellen Baumler

The Lightness of Water & Other Stories by Rhonda Browning White

A Field Guide to the Apocalypse: a Mostly Serious Guide to Surviving Our Wild Times by Athena Aktipis

Roctogenarians by Mo Rocca

Blue-Eyed Butterfly by Sharon  Suskin

Crooked Hallelujah by Kelli Jo Ford

The Women by Kristin Hannah

The Story Collector by Evie Woods

We'll Prescribe You a Cat by Ishida Syou

The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa

The Secret, Book & Scone Society by Ellery Adams

 

New Books

The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood

The Connellys of County Down by Tracey Lange

Entitlement by Rumaan Alam

Guilty Creatures by Mikita Brottman

Shock and Paw by Cate Conte

 

Shock and Paw by Cate Conte

Reviewed by Jeanne

It’s Christmas time on Daybreak Island, Massachusetts,  and things are getting festive.  This year Maddie James is determined to stay out of all the holiday planning for the community events and just concentrate on her cat café, JJ’s House of Purrs, named for her ginger rescue cat.  (Who, by the way, is adorable.) Things are being done a bit differently this year, with a cash prize for the best decorated house, a handyman/ electrician on call to help residents do their best, and someone else in charge.

Of course, this is all too good to be true, so when the substandard handyman’s work causes Maddie’s grandfather to fall and hurt his ankle, the decorating is going to fall on Maddie. Then of course, other things start going wrong and Maddie’s mother calls her in desperation.  Maddie is not going to get involved—

But who are we kidding?  Maddie lives for this sort of thing!

It’s just that there’s a lot going on in general. Oh, the café is doing great and the rescued cats are getting adopted, Maddie’s romance is on solid ground, but someone is posting advertisements for pricy designer cats.  There’s even a poster outside of Maddie’s cat café. The Christmas decorating contest has a cash prize this year, and tempers are flaring.  Then a prominent citizen is found dead under unusual circumstances and one of Maddie’s best friends is the prime suspect.  Can Maddie tie up all these loose ends into one big Christmas bow?

This is the eighth in the Cat Café Mystery series, but they don’t need to be read in order.  The series has had its ups and downs, but for the most part I find it entertaining.  I’d saved this one for December because of the holiday setting, and it certainly has helped set the mood.  The plot is competent with a few twists thrown in for good measure.  There’s not a lot of character development and there were a few times when I wanted to give Maddie a good shake, but I give the author credit for introducing an important theme: designer pets created by unscrupulous breeders. (I also liked that for the most part  she avoided listing specific exotic breeds just in case readers decided that it might be nifty to own one.)

If you’re in the market for a light cozy read in between holiday activities, this might be the book for you.

The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa

Reviewed by Jeanne

Rintaro Natsuki is a shy, introverted high school student who lives with his grandfather. Now, however, his grandfather has died, leaving Rintaro his shop, Natsuki Books. As Rintaro notes, it isn’t much of an inheritance: the shop doesn’t make much money.  It seems the only thing to do is to sell the shop and move in with his aunt.

Rintaro’s plans are sidetracked by the appearance of a talking cat.  More specifically, an orange cat who says his name is Tiger the Tabby and who also informs Rintaro that he needs the boy to rescue books.  This all seems too odd for Rintaro—or “Mr. Proprietor” as the cat insists on calling him, as if he is going to take over the bookshop. He asks the cat if he can refuse to help and the cat says that he can, but the cat will be bitterly disappointed.

So Rintaro agrees to follow the cat. Rintaro embarks on a series of quests that will help define what it really means to love books and to be a reader.  He encounters a series of folk who claim to love books and present arguments for what they do, and it’s up to Rintaro to see if there is a flaw in their logic.

This may not sound very exciting but as a reader, I loved it.  It made me stop and think about why I read and how I read.  The arguments all sound quite good—for example, one man wants to encourage people to read classic literature so he is trying to make books more accessible and easier to read.  Sounds good, right?  What’s wrong with that?  It’s up to Rintaro to see if there’s a problem.

Rintaro is a sweet protagonist, if a bit defeatist at the start.  He doesn’t really feel connected to anyone but his grandfather.  In finding who he is as a reader, he’ll also find that he has people he cares about and who care about him. I found the book to be inventive and playful, with well-described fantasy scenes and a sense of playfulness along with the serious topics under discussion.

Of course, I loved all the literature references, most of which were to Western books like The Three Musketeers and Chronicles of Narnia.  I found the book to be most inspiring; sometimes I do get in a reading rut and this was the perfect tonic. Now I really want to pick up one of those classics I’ve put off reading and give it my full attention. Mansfield Park, you may be next!

Note:  I recommend reading the translator’s message at the end of the book before reading the book.  I found it most helpful.  For example, Rintaro is described several times as a hikikomori, a term I didn’t know. Translator Louise Heal Kawai explains that it is a Japanese term that means people who “have consciously decided to shut themselves away from society” and who rarely go out.  She goes on to say the term appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary in 2010 so she thought it was in wide enough usage in English that it didn’t need translation.  Gee, I must have missed that update!  Still, I was able to gather some of the meaning.  I mention it here because I think it would have helped as I read if I had known more about the term.  You’re welcome. 

Actually, I found all of the translator’s notes very interesting. I felt it explained the sometimes stilted feel to some of the other translated books I’ve read.  

Nevermore: William Trevor, Bram Stoker, Alexandra David-Neel

 

Nevermore 10-15-24 Reported by Rita

Selected Stories by William Trevor

Collects forty-eight short stories by the author that span more than half a century, illuminating the human condition.

 I couldn’t put it down. Absolutely beautiful.   – MD      5 stars

 

Dracula by Bram Stoker

When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula with the purchase of a London house, he makes a series of terrifying discoveries about his client.

I was surprised by the writing style. I found it very prudish and not extremely scary, but I loved it and highly recommend it.    – VC       5 stars

 

My Journey to  Lhasa by Alexandra David-Neel

First published in 1927, a memoir by the first Western woman to reach the Tibetan city of Lhasa describes her journey to the remote and forbidden region, her travels throughout the continent of Asia, her meeting with the Dalai Lama, and her remarkable encounters with and understanding of Asian culture.

A beautiful exhibition of strength and resilience.    – CD      5 stars

 

Other Books Mentioned

Suffrage Song: the Haunted History of Gender, Race and Voting Rights in the United States of America by Caitlin Cass

Excuse Me While I Disappear by Laurie Notaro

Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald

River, Cross My Heart by Breena Clarke

Cave of Bones by Anne Hillerman

Holy City by Henry Wise

Dumpty by John Lithgow

Let's Read Our Feet by Jane Sheehan

Serena : a novel by Ron Rash

Telltale Hearts: A Public Health Doctor, His Patients, and the Power of Story by Dean-david Schillinger

Long Haul by Figliuzzi,  Frank

Olive Kitteridge by Strout, Elizabeth

New Books

On Freedom by Timothy Snyder

Keeping the Faith by Brenda Wineapple

Death at the Sanatorium by Ragnar Jonasson

Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller

 

           

Reviewed by Christy

Lula Dean is out to cleanse her small Georgia town of “filth” and protect young, impressionable minds while doing so. She has ignited a campaign against questionable material in the school and public libraries, and if she gets a little much deserved attention while doing so - well, what’s wrong with that? Lula sets up her own little free library in her front yard, filled only with wholesome, Lula-approved books. But a prankster has switched out the book jackets. Instead of the Nancy Drew series or The Art of Crochet, readers are really getting Gender Queer or Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. Chaos ensues.

            I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book before that was simultaneously fun and enraging. There are some seriously heavy topics discussed in this book as well as general small-town wackiness. Kirsten Miller balances them well. It’s also a book with an “ensemble cast”, so to speak. You get to know a little bit about all the townspeople, and I love books like that. A woman finds out her husband is cheating so she leaves him and becomes a witch? Love it. Discovering Lula’s desperate need for attention and acclaim ramped up after she failed to make the high school cheerleading team? Love it. The local florist blackmailing the bank manager into giving her a loan simply by sending his mistress a bouquet of flowers? Love it. Ok, I’m realizing maybe I just love small-town gossip. But it’s so fun!

While I really enjoyed this book, it does have an After School Special quality to it. The Good Guys have long, righteous rants that are scathing but still eloquent. The Bad Guys get their comeuppance (or even more surprising - see the error of their ways). It’s all tied up very neatly with a bow at the end. And you know what? I love that, too. I get the sense that Miller was not trying to write a totally realistic depiction of these matters. Instead, she was more interested in the idealistic version – a version of life where (most) people react with love and understanding instead of hatred and fear. Sometimes that's just the kind of story you want to read.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

With the release of the new movie, I decided it was time to re-read this children’s classic tale of “the worst kids in the world”—aka the Herdmans. 

Although it’s only 80 pages, Robinson packs a lot into those pages.  Told from the wide-eyed perspective of schoolgirl Beth, we are introduced to the six Herdman children who Beth says are the worst kids in the world.  She then proceeds to list some of things the Herdmans do:  they cuss teachers, steal other kids’ lunches, set fires, and smoke cigars, even the girls.

Yep, those Herdmans are a handful. The one place they haven’t been trouble is in Sunday School, but that’s just because they don’t attend.  In fact, Beth’s brother Charlie lists “No Herdmans” as his favorite thing about Sunday School, which was not really the answer the teacher was looking for, even though it is true.

That’s about to change, and ironically it’s Charlie who causes it by bragging that he doesn’t need his dessert because he gets all the dessert he wants at church: pie, cake, cookies….

The Herdmans are intrigued.  So much so that they turn up for Sunday School just as Beth’s mother is trying to put together the annual Christmas pageant—and the Herdmans take all the roles, even though they have never heard the story of the Nativity.

Will the Wise Men and Joseph get in a fight? Will Mary hit someone with Baby Jesus?  Will the Angel of the Lord whack the Shepherds with her halo?  It seems as if everyone in town can hardly wait to find out.

I had fond memories of this book and I’m happy to say that I found this book just as charming the second time around.  Even better, I discovered there are two sequels:  The Best Halloween Ever (only the Herdmans could get Halloween cancelled) and The Best School Year Ever.

Note:  This is actually the second time this book has been filmed.  It was also done as a TV movie with Loretta Swit and the library does own a DVD of that version.  Both films are very good, but there's nothing like a book.