A Work in Progress

Teaser Tuesday: Dear Mrs. Bird

I've had a windfall of library books.  They just sprout and bloom and then spread like weeds.  One book on the holdshelf turns into six by the time you go to pick them up.  So now I have a growing stack of library books and the hard choice of picking just one to read (unless I am lucky enough to be able to renew a few).  I am starting with A.J. Pearce's Dear Mrs. Bird.  I know this was released in the UK earlier this year, so maybe someone has read it and can give me the thumbs up? 

It sounds pretty delightful.  London during the Blitz is the setting.  A young woman, aspiring to be a journalist, gets a job as a typist for an advice columnist.  Rather than chuck out the letters dealing with any form of unpleasantness she answers them so the reader gets a peek of the lives of ordinary Londoners.  It sounds like bombs falling are just one of the concerns.  Flipping through the pages I was hoping for a more epistolary format, but I do still like possibilities.  And I never mind a nice light read.

So maybe a teaser to get a taste and you can help me decide.

"When I first saw the advertisement in the newspaper I thought I might actually burst.  I'd had rather a cheerful day so far despite the Luftwaffe annoying everyone by making us all late for work, and then I'd managed to get hold of an onion, which was very good news for a stew.  But when I saw the announcement, I could not have been more cock-a-hoop."

I like the jaunty lighthearded tone, though I words like 'cock-a-hoop' worry me--not that I don't understand them, but sometimes authors maybe try too hard for that verisimilitude and then it sounds a little artificial, if you know what I mean.  Still, I shall press on and see what adventures Emmeline gets herself into.

I See You, Clare Mackintosh

I feel pretty jaded when it comes to thrillers these days.  I have been struggling with the genre and have for a while now refused to buy or borrow a book that has "girl" in the title or one that has that samey quality to it--yet another book among the crowd with a similar plot.  A cover with a girl running, her back to the reader, that sort of thing.  What annoys me most is that paranoid quality to the protagonist--she has lost her memory or drinks too much, hence a totally unreliable narrator.  (Actually normally I love unreliable narrators).  I understand paranoia when it comes to thrillers, but it can feel like an overplayed card. 

I must be jaded as I am not generally too critical about the books I read.  That said, I was really pleasantly surprised by Clare Mackintosh's I See You (which I think my friend Liz might have suggested I try).  This is a story that felt very fresh and a twisty plot that I have not come across--a story not yet told (and then riffed on by other authors).  There was a little of the paranoia-thing going on, which I understand is a technique the author uses to ratchet up the tension, but it fit the story.  I think it resonated so much because it is about the assumed anonymity of taking public transportation and who might be looking when you are not paying attention.  I take public transportation and I can see that something like this might be all too plausible.

The story is narrated by three people, Zoe Walker who takes the Tube on her daily commute and notices something odd going on, Kelly Swift, a British Transport Police officer who narrowly missed being kicked off the force after an altercation with a suspect, and in italicized print the reader is privy to the inner workings of the murderer, which is always a little unnerving.  Both Zoe and Kelly are interesting and very flawed characters and into their messy lives enters a most curious criminal act.  One day Zoe notices a photo of herself in a newspaper ad for an online dating service.  Although grainy, it is definitely a photo of her snagged from somewhere on the internet.  She begins looking for the ad each day to see if her photo reappears, but it seems as if they show a different woman each day.  Most unsettling is some of the women have been the targets of a crime usually on their daily commutes.  She begins worrying she will be next and will anyone believe her if she contacts the police with her suspicions.

Kelly has been relegated to the "dip squad", which is working the trains and patrolling for pickpockets and other crimes of theft.  It's not the most glamorous or the most interesting, but she is lucky to have a job at all.  It was Kelly who aided in one of the crimes that may be linked to the ads, and eventually she and Zoe link up.  And the criminal narrates his trolling of the Tube and watching women and the things they do.  They fall asleep with their bags on their laps.  They immerse themselves in their books with such intensity that they barely look up when switching trains.  They don't pay attention leaving them with a nice target on their back that, according to the killer, just begs for them to be bothered (or worse).

I don't want to give too much away as the unraveling of just what goes on between the killer and the women and how the ads come into play is most inventive and what impressed me the most about this book.  It does make you think about how easy it is to become distracted.  Of course there is more at play in this story.  Zoe's paranoia blossoms and everyone in her life becomes suspect and more than a few people have things to hide, whether related to the crime or not.  Read this and you might think twice about who is sitting next to you on public transport. 

Clare Mackintosh is definitely on my 'must read another by her' list.  This is a psychological thriller that reminds me, albeit with a very modern take, of vintage Ruth Rendell (and in my book there this is high praise indeed).  This was my June prompt choice for 'planes, trains and automobiles'.  I'm already well into Michael Ondaatje's The Cat's Table, so I might even manage a second prompt book this month.

July Prompt: Sailing the Seven Seas

I literally just finished the June prompt book yesterday, but I have been thinking about July for a while now.   My prompt is sailing the seven seas, so something set on water.  Since last month I read a thriller, I want something a little different this month and I seem to have mostly reached for historical fiction.  I could have added a few more to the pile, but I am already going to have a difficult decision. 

The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje -- "By turns poignant and electrifying, The Cat’s Table is a spellbinding story about the magical, often forbidden, discoveries of childhood, and a lifelong journey that begins unexpectedly with a spectacular sea voyage."

Hornblower and the 'Hotspur' by C.S. Forester -- This is the third book in the series about Horation Hornblower (on whom I have had a longstanding crush--the man is a gentleman among men!).  I really need to get back to these books but it has been so long I wonder if I should start from the first one again.  April 1803. The Peace of Amiens is breaking down. Napoleon is building ships and amassing an army just across the Channel. Horatio Hornblower-who, at age twenty-seven, has already distinguished himself as one of the most daring and resourceful officers in the Royal Navy-commands the three-masted Hotspur on a dangerous reconnaissance mission that evolves, as war breaks out, into a series of spectacular confrontations. All the while, the introspective young commander struggles to understand his new bride and mother-in-law, his officers and crew, and his own "accursed unhappy temperament-matters that trouble him more, perhaps, than any of Bonaparte's cannonballs."

A Summer of Drowning by John Burnside -- I loved his short stories that I read last year!  "A young girl, Liv, lives with her mother on a remote island in the Arctic Circle. Her only friend is an old man who beguiles her with tales of trolls, mermaids, and the huldra, a wild spirit who appears as an irresistably beautiful girl, to tempt young men to danger and death. Then two boys drown within weeks of each other under mysterious circumstances, in the still, moonlit waters off the shores of Liv's home.  Were the deaths accidental or were the boys lured to their doom by a malevolent spirit?"

The Captain's Daughter by Meg Mitchell Moore -- "By turns poignant, incisive, and laugh-out-loud funny, The Captain’s Daughter is an unforgettable novel about the choices we make and the consequences we face in their wake."

She Rises by Kate Worsley -- "Louise Fletcher, a young dairy maid on an eighteenth-century Essex farm, has long been warned of the lure of the sea - after all, it stole away her father and brother. But when she is offered work as a maid in the naval port of Harwich, she leaps at the chance to see more of the world.  Fifteen-year-old Luke has been press ganged and sent to sea on board the warship Essex. Aching for the girl he left behind, he must learn fast if he is to survive. Louise and Luke's new worlds are dangerous and exciting, and when they collide the consequences are astonishing."

The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar -- "One September evening in 1785, the merchant Jonah Hancock hears urgent knocking on his front door. One of his captains is waiting eagerly on the step. He has sold Jonah's ship for what appears to be a mermaid. As gossip spreads through the docks, coffee shops, parlours and brothels, everyone wants to see Mr Hancock's marvel. Its arrival spins him out of his ordinary existence and through the doors of high society. At an opulent party, he makes the acquaintance of Angelica Neal, the most desirable woman he has ever laid eyes on... and a courtesan of great accomplishment. This meeting will steer both their lives onto a dangerous new course, on which they will learn that priceless things come at the greatest cost. Where will their ambitions lead? And will they be able to escape the destructive power mermaids are said to possess?"

I am all caught up on my previous months reading of prompt selections.  I always want to read more than one book, but I have not seemed to manage more than on, so I am going to have a hard choice to make--they all sound good!

Happy (too hot for me) Fourth!

Happy Holidays to those celebrating Independence Day.  It’s a little too hot for me so a coffeeshop and book beckon and then a movie in a cool theater later.  Enjoy your day however you will be spending it!

Teaser Tuesday: A Woman's Point of View

I am reading two novels about really interesting women, different lives, different situations and different eras but maybe not entirely different perspectives.  As unlike both of them I am, I still find quite a lot that is similar.  I have to laugh sometimes at Eleanor Oliphant and mentally nod my head in agreement with F.M. Mayor's Mary.  So, I thought today I'd share a few excerpts, which I think may well be very relatable to many of us. 

I am really enjoying Gail Honeyman's Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine and am really looking forward to the movie adaptation.  I am curious who will be playing Eleanor and Raymond.  Sometimes I feel like I should not be laughing at the things she says, but I can't help it.  Actual guffaws and in public.  But she is quite wise and introspective and sharp (actually very sharp most of the time) as well.  In the novel she has this crush/fixation on a handsome singer.

"I thought about all those paintings; voluptuous maidens reclining in curvaceous splendor, waif-like ballerinas with huge limpid eyes, drowned beauties in clinging white gowns surrounded by floating blossoms.  I was neither curvaceous nor waif-like.  I was normal-sized and normal-faced (on one side, anyway).  Did men ever look in the mirror, I wondered, and find themselves wanting in deeply fundamental ways?  When they opened a newspaper or watched a film, were they presented with nothing but exceptionally handsome young men, and did this make them feel intimidated, inferior, because they were not as young, not as handsome?  Did they then read newspaper articles ridiculing those same men if they gained weight or wore something unflattering?"

Yes.  Spot on.  I wonder the very same thing myself. 

***

And then there is Mary of F.M. Mayor's The Rector's Daughter.  A motherless daughter with a father who is more interested in his own worries and preoccupations rather than those of a young woman.  Stuck in a situation not of her making or maybe her desire, but she manages to get on well nonetheless, but she asks not nor needs anyone's pity.

"Mary liked the long Dedmayne winter evenings.  In October, as regularly as the leaves fell, she began the winter habit of reading her favorite novels for an hour before dinner, finding in Trollope, Miss Yonge, Miss Austen, and Mrs. Gaskell friends so dear and familiar they they peopled her loneliness."

"Such was Mary's life.  As the years passed on, the invalid's room became more and more her world.  Sometimes she felt the neighborhood, the village, even her father, becoming like shadows.  On the whole she was happy.  She did not question the destiny life brought her.  People spoke pityingly of her, but she did not feel she required pity."

I think things are about to change for Mary, however.  A day of vacation tomorrow.  I will be spending time with both Eleanor and Mary for a nice chunk of time, I hope.

A Little Monday Miscellanea

Have you met Libby?  I just downloaded her this weekend on my ipod so I can listen to audio books checked out from the library.  She is actually pretty cool and a nice way to organize my digital library shelves and she will sync the books between devices.  She's so smart.  If I try a book and find it is not what I am in the mood for I can just 'return' it with a click. 

It is always such a difficult choice as to what to listen to, but I am starting with Elizabeth Polinar's As Close to Us as Breathing which should keep me occupied for a good twelve hours.  I have not listened to an audio book for ages, so I have to adjust my attention/focus to catch all the little details.  This is a multigenerational family saga which means lots of family members to keep track of.

"Elizabeth Poliner is a masterful storyteller, a brilliant observer of human nature, and in As Close to Us as Breathing she has created an unforgettable meditation on grief, guilt, and the boundaries of identity and love."

Let me know if you have listened to something particularly gripping--I could use some audio distraction.  It helps pass the time on my daily walks.

Speaking of the public library, I am eager to go and pick up my (lone, which is good) most recent hold, Plum Rains by Andromeda Romano-Lax, which should fit in perfectly with my summer reading theme, Other Worlds and Alternate Realities.

"In a tour-de-force tapestry of science fiction and historical fiction, Andromeda Romano-Lax presents a story set in Japan and Taiwan that spans a century of empire, conquest, progress, and destruction."

I am looking forward to this one as it has not only real characters but some of the characters are robots, too.  Should make for interesting reading.

I'm not going to try and squeeze Megan Abbott's Queenpin in just yet (too many in progress books right now and I have to say 'no' to something, right?), but it/her books are well on my radar.  I am going to have to read her soon as she keeps popping up all over the place lately.

There is this about Megan Abbott and Hollywood and Gillian Flynn and Megan Abbott in conversation over at Vanity Fair, Megan Abbott's forthcoming novel, Megan Abbott on the difference between hardboiled and noir, and I suspect I may well have missed one or two yet.  I have not read her before, though I know she has quite a few books out (and I bet I have something on my reading pile that I have forgotten about--this book above is a library copy).

And one last note, I am thinking about my July prompt now and will have a list of choices to share very soon!