The Vanishing Type by Ellery Adams

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

When the weather turns cold, my thoughts turn to cozy books.  While Ellery Adams’ Secret, Book, and Scone Society novels are murder mysteries, they’re also about as warm and cozy as they come.  Set in Miracle Springs, North Carolina, the stories revolve around four friends:  Nora, who owns a bookshop; Hester, who is a baker; Estella, the hairdresser; and June, who is a manager at the Miracle Springs Spa.  All these women have suffered tragedy and trials, but they band together to uplift one another and form a chosen family.

In The Vanishing Type, Nora is shocked to find that someone has taken a knife to all the copies of A Scarlet Letter. While it could be a high school student unhappy with having to read Hawthorne, somehow this seems a little more personal—especially since the vandalism targets the name Hester.  Nora keeps this to herself as Hester’s personal life is on the upswing: her longtime beau is ready to pop the question, and Nora and the other Society members are helping him to make the moment perfect.

Then a body turns up, and it appears that a secret from Hester’s past may be about to catch up with her.

The coziness of Adams’ series comes not from the delicious-sounding baked goods, delicious coffees and teas, the love of books—authors and titles are name-dropped regularly—but also from the warmth of the women’s friendship.  I like that all the women have overcome hardships in their lives, so that they face difficult times and situations with courage.  It also makes them empathetic toward others.  Adams does a wonderful job with descriptions.  The food sounds wonderful, but in this book I was enchanted by the descriptions of the artwork in some old novels—I could almost see the book covers.  Actually, I also wanted to read the (non-existent) books.  There is an interesting mix of supporting characters, including some romantic interests for the leading ladies but I also like that Adams doesn’t make every relationship a certainty. 

While this is fifth book in the series, it reads well as a standalone.  If you’re in the market for a comforting, feel-good read with resilient women characters, this would be an excellent choice.

The Music of Coal

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

Most of the time we tend to review newer items, but today I wanted to share a hidden gem of our collection. The Music of Coal is a book and two CD set of music from the Coalfields.  The creators of this set culled classic early recordings and added newer material to represent the many faceted aspects of the region. Some of the songs are standards by the artists who made them famous, such as “Dark as a Dungeon” by Merle Travis or “Dream of a Miner’s Child” by Carter Stanley; some are well-known songs by contemporary singers; others are modern songs, some already considered classics.

The book portion features photos, background information, and the lyrics of the songs.  For example, the section on the song “Sixteen Tons,” tells how Merle Travis came to write the song, how Tennessee Ernie Ford came to record it, and why this version is sung by Ned Beatty.  Some of the selections give context for a song, such as explaining how a miner’s skin can carry the blue-black mark after a near miss from falling coal for the song “The Coal Tattoo” or a history of the conflict at Blair Mountain that forms the basis of “Redneck War.”

The songs range from heart wrenching to jaunty, from serious topics as black lung to “My Sweetheart’s a Mule in the Mines.” Many revolve around family, like “Coal Dust Kisses,” a daughter’s loving remembrance of her father coming home from the mines and the hard times families went through when coal went bust, as in Jean Ritchie’s “The L & N Don’t Stop Here Anymore.” There’s family history as told through “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive” and the 1934 tragedy at Derby, Virginia when a mine exploded. 

The singers are a who’s who of the Appalachian region old and new:  The Carter Family, Dale Jett, Dock Boggs, Blue Highway, Jean Ritchie, Ron Short, Darrell Scott, and Ralph Stanley.  It’s an amazing collection, one I have listened to time and again.  I think my personal favorite is “West Virginia Mine Disaster” sung by eleven year old Molly Slemp with a vocal wisdom beyond her years.

Highly recommended!

Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

Reviewed by Laura

            I began this book knowing that there was a movie involved that I might want to watch at a later date. I never dreamed I would end up liking the movie more than the book! Yes, I am one of THOSE people. The annoying ones who spout everything the movie got wrong and telling you how the book is SO much better! I even have a shirt that says, “Don’t Judge a Book by its Movie.”  And now here I am telling you to watch the movie. The world must truly be at an end. But first, let me tell you about the book.

            I loved the concept of the book, the story that it told. Bernadette is a wonderful mother with a teenage daughter who actually loves and confides in her. She is an intelligent woman, once an internationally known and respected architect, who is married to Elgie, a major player at Microsoft. Sounds like the perfect family, doesn’t it? These people must have it all together. Since she’s an award-winning architect, their house must be something worthy of a huge spread in a stylish magazine. Only their actual life is nothing like that. Bernadette no longer works, no longer uses her great talent to design amazing buildings. In fact, no longer goes out in the world at all unless it is an absolute necessity. Her home is falling down around her ears, with actual blackberry sprouts pushing through the floor boards. Her amazingly talented husband spends the majority of his time at work. Her extremely bright and personable daughter, Bee, attends private school and works toward being accepted to Choate, the boarding school of her choice. Bernadette hovers in her home using an online personal assistant for everything she doesn’t absolutely have to do herself. She sets an alarm to go and pick up her daughter from school, draping a scarf around her head and perching oversized sunglasses on her nose. She avoids contact with other parents at all cost and never volunteers for school functions as is expected. In fact, she and her husband have their emails removed from the school list so as not to be disturbed by the flotsam and jetsam that regularly arrives to annoy. Bernadette’s, oh so rare, interactions with her fellow parents are hilarious. She refers to them as gnats (annoying, swarming creatures). Interactions with a neighbor whose son also attends the school are some of the best passages in the book.

            Things come to a head, however, when Bee reminds her parents that they had promised to reward her history of perfect grades with a gift of her choice. Break is coming up and she has decided to choose a family trip to Antarctica. You heard that right; the family will travel to the ends of the earth while Bernadette struggles to travel to the end of the street. Naturally, this upsetting occurrence wreaks havoc with Bernadette’s already fragile psyche. Her personal assistant is called upon to work night and day ordering supplies as well as seasickness medications. Bernadette supplies all of her credit card numbers as well as personal information to ease the process, and yes, it turns out about as badly as you might expect. Then, Bernadette disappears. Exciting, right? Lots of intriguing plots and subplots, so why in the world did I not enjoy the book?! The story was fabulous and interesting, but almost the entire thing is told through a series of emails, letters, and reports from an amazing conglomeration of different people. I didn’t enjoy interpreting almost the entire story in this form. It became hard to read and sometimes confusing. It becomes apparent that all of this is information Bee has gathered to help her in the search for her mother, but the only part I really enjoyed was the daughter’s narrative, which was quite good. The entire time I was reading the book, I was thinking, “This would probably make a good movie.” I read all 352 pages because it was intriguing and I DID want to know how it all turned out. This book would have been awesome had it been told in a different format. A narrative from each of the main characters, relating their side of the story, or the daughter telling the complete story with a sidebar of the emails and the like added in, but not forming the main bulk of the story.  

       So there you have it, the reason I liked the movie better than the book was the writing style. The movie was fun and interesting and told the story in a much more enjoyable way. Yes, I was still annoyed waiting for incidents from the book to appear that never did. But overall, I found the story much more enjoyable as told through the visual presentation, rather than the verbal. And yes, it still pains me to say so.

Note:  We do have both book and movie at Bristol Public Library.

Pet Sematary by Stephen King

Reviewed by Christy

            “The book was better than the movie," as the saying goes. Although I am sure there are plenty, I’m having a hard time thinking of a better example than Pet Sematary by Stephen King. Though I enjoyed the movie, both the 1989 version as well as the 2019 remake, the 1983 novel is richer and even more upsetting.

            After accepting a job as director of a university’s health service, Louis Creed moves to Maine with his wife Rachel and their two children, Ellie and Gage. Louis becomes quick friends with their elderly neighbor Jud after Jud offers some advice on treating a bee sting suffered by their young son. Jud also cautions them about the busy road in front of their house and how dangerous it is, especially for pets.

            After a couple of months in their new home, the Creed family gets settled in and develops a routine. Louis is particularly fond of his nightly chats and shared beers with Jud. When Rachel visits her parents for Thanksgiving with the children in tow, Louis stays behind due to his tense relationship with his in-laws and spends the holiday with Jud and his wife. The cozy camaraderie is cut short, however, with Ellie’s cat is run over by a tractor trailer. Jud, knowing how much Ellie loved her cat and how inconsolable she would be over his death, introduces Louis to the pet cemetery behind his house. Once used as an ancient burial ground for the Mi’kmaq tribe, Jud later admits that the native people stopped using that particular land because the “ground is sour.” Louis witnesses this first hand when Ellie’s cat returns from the dead not quite right.

            To say too much more would spoil the story if you’ve managed to miss either movie. But it is dark, tragic, and enthralling. In Jud’s attempt to perform an act of kindness, he unleashes a series of events that lead to devastating horror. The friendship and bond between Louis and Jud is essential to the story (as evidenced by the book’s first line: “Louis Creed […] never expected to find a father as he entered his middle age, but that was exactly what happened.”), but this aspect is disappointingly light in both movies. It honestly took me a little bit to warm up to Louis but he won me over eventually. His relationship with his wife and children are cute and sweet which makes the book all the more horrific. I listened to this in audio form and the actor Michael C. Hall (Dexter) did a wonderful job narrating, especially as Jud. Though I’ve only read a handful of King novels, I think so far this one is my favorite. I would recommend this to any horror fan, even if you’ve already seen the movie and think you know the whole story.