Blood On The Water

by Anne Perry
September 24, 2014

The fall Monk mystery!  I enjoyed reading this, as I do all of Anne Perry's books.  But, it was not one of her best.  The plot was good, but I've got some quibbles with how it ended.

Monk and Orme are rowing down the Thames when suddenly a pleasure boat explodes. Nearly 200 people from the boat and surrounding boats are killed.  Of course, the River Police begin to investigate but  then the case is taken from them and given to the regular police.  No one can understand why.

A suspect is arrested - an Egyptian named Habib Beshara. He is quickly tried and convicted for an act of terrorism that is seen as retaliation for England's involvement in the building of the Suez Canal.

In Perry's Law and Order style, the latter half of the book involves the trial of Beshara.  Despite having almost no real evidence proving Beshara's guilt he is convicted and sentenced to death.  

As Monk, who is skeptical of the verdict, makes further inquiries he is almost killed by a boat ramming into the ferry he is riding.  This event leads to more pieces of the puzzle falling into place.

Rathbone returns in the latter half of the book. Although he cannot practice law he gets involved in investigating  the case and advising the prosecutor of a new suspect.

My quibble with the book is the way Perry wraps things up in the last couple of chapters. This is common for her, as it is with other mystery writers. The solution is saved for the end.  But in this particular book it seems to be wrapped up too quickly.  It feels like the whole mystery & trial was just a way to get Rathbone back into the story.

And Rathbone was irritating to me in this book.  I was already tired of his lovesick angst.  His chapters seem to involve mostly Rathbone pondering and wondering and not doing very much else.

Finally, the unasked question regarding the man that was paid to blow up the pleasure boat was unbelievable.  It's unbelievable that no one asked how this man accepted the job from a man who wronged him in such a terrible way.  Really?  The question was unasked and unanswered.

Still, I enjoyed reading it in spite of it's big flaws.

By the way - I listened to this.  The narrator was ok. Nothing special.  I didn't really care for the way he did the voices of the various characters.

Joey Pigza

Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key
Joey Pigza Loses Control
What Would Joey Do?
I Am Not Joey Pigza
by Jack Gantos
February - March, 2013



     I listened to all four books in this series. They were all narrated by Jack Gantos  himself. After hearing him read his books Dead End in Norvelt and Hole In My                                           Life, I am a big Jack Gantos fan.

After many years of seeing these books on my library's shelf, I finally gave in and read them.  Norvelt convinced me that I shouldn't hesitate to pick them up.  I'm not sure what my reluctance was all about.   Jack Gantos was one of the  featured speakers at the McConnell Literature Conference, thus I was motivated to dig in to these.

Joey Pigza is a ten year old with ADHD.   "They say I'm wired bad or wired sad, but there's no doubt about it - I'm wired."   The description of Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key from Amazon.com is probably why I never felt the urge to pick these books up before now:

Joey Pigza has problems. Big problems. He was emotionally abused by his       grandmother. He has never met his dad. He can't get along in his elementary school classroom because of his mood swings and his "dud meds." We gradually see that Joey must have Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), which is not being effectively controlled with his current medication. Joey's life is a terrifying roller-coaster ride, 

Ugh. Who wants to read that book?  But, Jack Gantos is such a funny writer and Joey is such a very likable character that the book becomes on of my favorites.
This character and these stories are not based on Jack Gantos' life. But I'm sure his boyhood informed the plots.  He's a regular boy (living in an irregular world) that
many boys and even girls can relate to.

Joey's crazy grandmother is raising him when the series begins. His mother walks back into his life after being gone for years. His dad, who hasn't been a part of his life for even longer, also returns.  Jack wants to love them and wants to see the best in each one of them.  The wild ride his life becomes because of these people is the plot of the series.

I have heard that Jack Gantos has said there is another Joey book in him that is yet to be written. I hope so. And I hope he narrates the audiobook as well.  

The Fault in Our Stars

by John Green
January 2013

OMG. THIS IS THE BEST BOOK EVER!!!!

Not really.  It's a good book, but I wouldn't go as far as praising it the way some people are. Devotees of John Green  (Nerdfighters) are passionate about this book, as they are about all of Green's books.
I found it to be very much a teenager book.  That's not a put down, it simply means that I think it is written for teens and will be loved by teens.
To me it has the same feel as Franny and Zooey. The two main characters are smart and witty. There's lots of references to the likes of Kierkegaard, William Carlos Williams, Magritte, T.S. Eliot, and others. They are full of angst.  In TFIOS (as it's commonly called) the characters have a right to be angst ridden. They are cancer survivors. And everyone knows that cancer is lurking around the corner for those that have had cancer, remission or no remission.

"Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel’s story is about to be completely rewritten."
I liked The Fault In Our Stars, but I really felt my age reading it.

“I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you.”

― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

I listened to this one. It's narrated by Kate Rudd, who did a great job. The recording won the Odyssey Award this year from the American Library Association. That's the award for recorded books.

Drama

An Actor's Education
By John Lithgow
May 2012

I almost forgot about this one.  I listened to this memoir because of a friend's recommendation. She especially liked Lithgow's story of how reading aloud to his critically ill father helped the healing and recovery process.  I agree. That was an excellent story.  The rest of the book is just as good.  It is really Lithgow's account of his journey from childhood to his present career.  In fact, the book really ends when his movie career takes off.

I didn't know that John Lithgow began as purely a theater actor. He may have remained in the theater and been perfectly happy, but Hollywood called and the rest is history. 

I loved the accounts of his early life. His father was a theater producer and director, working primarily in summer theater and college theater.  John, who always wanted to be an artist, found his true calling by working in his father's productions.

I listened to the audiobook, which was narrated by Lithgow himself.  It was a little strange, at first. He read the book as if he was reading anyone else's book. But as the recording progressed, it became more and more conversational.

Very very good.

Hole In My Life

by Jack Gantos
May 2012

I've been seeing this book on the library shelves for years. It never appealed to me. You can't judge a book by its cover, but I did just that.
It wasn't until I listened to Dead End in Norvelt  written and narrated by Gantos that I took another look at it. A friend told me about it.

This is a memoir about the time Jack Gantos spent in jail for smuggling drugs.  He was just out of high school and fell in with the wrong people. Gantos wanted to be a writer, but he had no money and his parents were near financial ruin.  In 1972 he was offered $10,000 to help sail a boat into New York and help sell the cargo of hash.  It was one of those "just this once" deals.  Then he'd take the money and get into a good writing program.
Well, we know the rest of the story. That's prisoner Gantos on the front cover of the book.  We also know the rest of the rest of the story. He's now a successful author and not a drug dealer. So there's a lesson to be learned from this book. As a matter of fact, the first time I heard of this book it was when a teacher wanted to check out every copy the library had in order to get his students to read it.
It's about making mistakes, regrets, remorse, forgiveness, and moving on.  I enjoyed reading (listening to) it.  You can't judge a book by its cover after all.

Lionboy the Chase and Lionboy the Truth

by Zizou Corder
October 2011

The Chase is the second book in the Lionboy trilogy and The Truth is the third.  I read The Chase (because  the library didn't have an audio version) and listened to The Truth, narrated by the fabulous Simon Jones.

The Chase follows Charlie Ashanti into Venice and then to Ghana as he continues looking for his kidnapped parents.   This was my favorite of the trilogy.   The Truth concludes the story.


Note:  I began writing my summary and review of this book back in October 2011. For some reason, I never finished. Now it's May 2012.

I can't remember enough to give a detailed account of the two books, but I will say that I really enjoyed them.
The Chase takes place in Venice - a nice setting. The Truth continues the action into Africa. This trilogy is a good, fun, science fiction series.

The Night Circus

by Erin Morgenstern
November 2011

A book like this is the reason I am wary of over-hyped books.  There's been a buzz about The Night Circus.
Some have called it the next Harry Potter or the next Twilight. There's already a movie planned.  It will make a great movie because the story, for the most part, is good.

Marco and Celia have been raised as pawns in a contest between two magicians. These are real magicians, not merely illusionists.  Prospero ( Henry Bowen) is reunited with his young daughter after her mother dies. It's clear early on that she has supernatural powers. He sends for "the man in grey" (also known as Alisdair) and challenges him to a new contest or game. AH agrees and sets out to find a young ward of his own.  He raises Marco as a virtual prisoner in his home. Every effort and interaction with the boy is to teach him enchantment or magic. Marco studies and reads incessantly.  Prospero teaches his daughter in a more natural way, leading her to discover her abilities on her own. She assists him in his stage shows and later this experience leads her to join Les Cirque des Reves.  As Marco and Celia grow into adulthood, he begins to work for Chandresh Lefevre, who is the creator of Les Cirque des Reves and she is hired to be the illusionist.  Although Celia and Marco are opponents, they end up falling in love.  But, the contest can only end when one of the opponents dies.

The concept of the circus is interesting. It is only open at night and suddenly shows up in a town, only announced by a silver card with the words Les Cirque des Reves and the location.  It doesn't have a main tent with three rings and a ringmaster. Instead, it's a series of tents. Some include performers and others are simply environments for the circus goers to enjoy and marvel at.  The setting is turn of the century, although it wasn't always apparent to me. It could have been set in any age.

The book is written in third person, present tense, which is not easy to carry off and ends up making the reader feel very remote from the action and the characters. Consequently, I didn't really care about the characters. The writing style is also rather choppy. Matched with the narrator of the audiobook, it sometimes sounded like I was being read a list.

Ok, it wasn't that bad, but I became bored pretty quickly. After checking the comments on Amazon I found that several reviewers had the same opinion. So, I've skipped from disc 7 to disk 10, just to see what happens. It's a little more interesting now, but still not impressive.  The narrator is Jim Dale, who a friend of mine loves. He narrated all of the American editions of the Harry Potter series. He really didn't do much for me on this one. It's the only thing I've heard him read. I'll certainly give him another chance, but I think I've just been spoiled by the fabulous Simon Jones.

This book was marketed to adults and my library bought it for the adult collection. However, this is a young adult novel, in my opinion. It will appeal to the Twilight fans for its star-crossed, doomed lovers and to other teens for its magic/fantasy element and it's turn of the century setting.  You could even have a Night Circus party. It's ready made for a Teen Services librarian.

I'll finish listening to it simply to see what happens. If there had been more of a plot rundown on Wikipedia, I wouldn't even finish listening to it.  But I'll be waiting for the movie because Les Cirque des Reves would really be something to see.

Rutland Place

by Anne Perry
October 2011

I started listening to this, but I just couldn't make it.  Davina Porter does a good job, but I was bored. Besides, Porter makes all of her characters sound too snooty.  Unfortunately, she has narrated most of the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt books.
I ended up reading it.

I wonder why this series is called "Thomas and Charlotte Pitt" mysteries. Charlotte is actually the main character.  Thomas seems to be around simply to give Charlotte a reason to get involved in crimes (which happen to all be related to her mother or sister, for some reason).

In this mystery, Charlotte's mother asks for help in getting her locket back. She fears someone has stolen it. The locket isn't that valuable, but the photo inside could cause scandal and ruin her life.  While dealing with this problem, one of the residents of Rutland Place is found dead. She has committed suicide - or so it seems. Thomas and Charlotte are not convinced.

Most of this book is just about the manners and morals of the upper class of Victorian England.  The Monk series started this way, but were much more interesting.

Here's to hoping the series improves.

Count Karlstein

by Philip Pullman
September 2011

 I checked out and tried to listen to  River Secrets by Shannon Hale, but was really very disappointed. The readers were miscast. They were simply readers, if that makes sense. They didn't make their characters live.  It sounded like a mediocre college production.  I couldn't make it past the first chapter. So, on to another full cast audio: Count Karlstein.

I've learned that this was Philip Pullman's first book for children and it was originally written as a school play for the school where Pullman taught.
Kind of funny... the book that originated as a school play became a fantastic audiobook while River Secrets sounded like a school play!

Count Karlstein owns a large estate and cares for his two orphaned nieces, Lucy and Charlotte. He cares nothing about them, however. It's revealed early on that he has made a pact with Zamiel, "the demon huntsman" and plans to leave Lucy and Charlotte in a locked cabin as an offering to Zamiel.

The demon huntsman rides through the land on the eve of All Souls each year. People fear him and parents use his name to discipline their children. He's a boogey man, but he's apparently real.
Karlstein bargained with Zamiel and agreed to let him hunt in his forest, taking whatever he wanted if he left Karlstein himself alone. But twenty years have passed and the pact is about to expire. Karlstein must give Zamiel a special offering or face his wrath. That's why he's decided to give up Lucy and Charlotte.

The plot sounds horrible and scary. But the book isn't that way (at least not until the end). It's actually a rather funny book.

One of the household servants in Castle Karlstein is named Hildi. She learns of the plot and sets out to foil Karlstein's plan. Helping her is Max, the assistant to a traveling magician, and Miss Augusta Davenport, the girls' former teacher.

As I said, it's kind of a funny book, made more so by the great performances in the audiobook. The scene when Zamiel arrives is very scary (at least listening to it is). But there's a happy ending. I don't think it spoils anything to reveal that. Count Karlstein reads a lot like a fairy tale.
I really recommend listening to this book. Philip Pullman is a good storyteller and his first children's book is made all the better by the excellent cast of readers.

Wait Till Helen Comes

by Mary Downing Hahn
September 6, 2011

Another short audiobook to listen to until I can get to another Pitt mystery or the third installment of the Lionboy series.


Wait Till Helen Comes is a ghost story for junior high aged readers (give or take a few grade levels).  This would make a good movie and, in fact, I was surprised to learn that it had never been a made for TV movie.  I can just imagine watching it on the Lifetime channel on a Saturday afternoon.  It will become a movie next year, however. Jennifer Love Hewitt is set to direct a movie for the big screen based on the novel.  I hope that it doesn't become a modern horror movie with more blood and suffering than real suspense.

Wait Till Helen Comes is about a blended family who moves into a charming house and old church which has been converted into an art studio.  Mom (Jean) has two children, Molly and Michael. Divorced from her first husband, she is now married to Dave who has one seven year old daughter, Heather.  Heather's mother (Dave's wife) died in a fire four years earlier and Heather is still dealing with the trauma of the loss.

When the family moves to the former St. Swithins, they discover a small graveyard on the property, along with an old abandoned house called Harper House.  In the graveyard, Heather discovers a long forgotten grave with the initials H.E.H.  Heather's initials just happen to also be H.E.H. and she is exactly the same age as whoever is buried in that grave.  It's easy to see where this is going.

The tension that has existed by bringing the two sets of children together in one household escalates as Heather begins talking to someone named Helen.  No one notices Heather's new "imaginary friend" except Molly.  And, it's only Molly that realizes that something more sinister is happening than pure imagination.

Heather constantly accuses Molly and Michael of being mean. Dave, of course, sides with his daughter.  Jean defends Molly and Michael, which begins to drive a wedge between her and Dave.  Molly can convince no one that it isn't step-sibling rivalry that is causing the bad feelings.  She's on her own to save Heather from the lure of the ghostly Helen.

The book is predictable, but fun. 

Bird

by Angela Johnson
September 2011

I just needed an audiobook to listen to after finishing Lionboy.  This was short and seemed interesting.  That's what it turned out to be - short and interesting and not much more. I enjoyed the audiobook because it was read by three different people - all of them children.

The title character is nicknamed Bird. She received this name from her stepfather, Cecil. When Cecil leaves the family, Bird decides to go in search of him.  The book begins with her living in the shed of a farm family.  When they leave for church on Sunday mornings, Bird takes advantage of the empty house to get food and to take a bath. It's clear to the reader that she has been living this way for some time.  Only Ethan knows that Bird is there and he sometimes leaves food for her.

Ethan is hungry for friends. He has grown up isolated because of a bad heart condition. The book begins with Ethan getting stronger after a heart transplant.  He's fascinated by "the girl in the shed" and wants to meet her rather than simply leaving food for her.

The third child (I should really say teenager) is Jay. He's under house arrest by "borrowing" old Mrs. Pritchard's car for a joyride. He's also dealing with the death of his brother.  He meets Bird one day while sneaking out of the house for a change of scenery.

Ethan's, Jay's, Bird's and Mrs. Pritchard's  lives all intersect and they find that even the smallest kindness can begin to heal.

I wasn't completely satisfied with this book. Perhaps I would have liked it better had I read it and really paid attention. Listening to the 2 disc audiobook, I was a little surprise when the book just ended without much resolution.   But none of our lives are "resolved" until the day we die, so I suppose Bird is a book about real life.

Lionboy

by Zizou Corder
August 2011

"Zizou is a creature of mystery who likes accordion music, dancing in chandeliers and telling stories. She was born in a Hungarian nightclub, to a Circus Family, and now sails the world in a blue canoe hoping that one day she will find an orchestra up a tree."

Actually, Zizou Corder "is Louisa Young and Isabel Adomahko Young, whose names are too long to fit on the front of a book."  In the posts on Zizou's blog, Zizou is referred to as a male. His(her?) name comes from a pet lizard.

I had been wanting to read this book for a while. The cover caught my attention. I always assumed it took place in Africa. I had no idea it was a somewhat of a fantasy adventure set in London, Paris and Venice in the near future and featured a floating circus.  But these things made me like the story even more than I had thought I would.

11 year old Charlie comes home from school one day to find that his scientist parents, "Magdalen Start, PHD, MD, PQRST, LPO, TP" and "Aneba Ashanti, Doctor of Endoterica and Tropical Sciences at the University of Accra in Ghana, (currently on sabbatical at London University) " have been kidnapped. Whatever they had been working on in their secret laboratory was obviously of interest to a person or persons unknown.  Luckily, Charlie can talk to cats. The strays that live at the nearby ruins tell him what has happened, but not much else.  He manages to escape from the "fancy slimy git" named Rafi who has tried to nab him as well, and goes off in search of more clues as to his parents' whereabouts.  

Charlie ends up on a floating circus called "Thibaudet's Royal Floating Circus and Equestrian Philharmonic Academy." This is where he meets a pride of performing lions and where he aquires the nickname Lionboy.  

Charlie has no idea why his parents have been kidnapped. They never told him about their latest research project. The cats he encounters along the way know something, but they aren't very forthcoming with information.  Charlie has to piece together various clues which lead him closer to his parent's location and their secret project.

The book doesn't really end, but leaves us with the words "to be continued."  This is a trilogy. Book two is Lionboy: the Chase. The conclusion is Lionboy: the Truth."

I love that the book started as a series of bedtime stories told by Louisa to her daughter Isabel. According to an interview in Audiofile magazine, "The collaboration process gives Louisa constant access to another imagination. They discuss escape routes for lions or names for acrobats. Louisa types up the scenes, Isabel reads them, and they revise together."

I listened to the audiobook. Actually, what made me finally pick this book up to read (listen to) was the narrator - the fabulous Simon Jones, whose voice and reading I fell in love with while listening to him narrate the Bartimeus Trilogy.  Interestingly, Jones does not narrate the British audiobook. His is the American edition.  From the Audiofile interview:  

"Young Isabel likes to listen to audiobooks; whereas, Louisa likes to “read books for the silence.” They listen to audiobooks together in the car, though, and it was there that they first heard narrator Anton Lesser reading Philip Pullman’s RUBY IN THE SMOKE. Anton Lesser reads the UK audiobook production of LIONBOY at their request, and Simon Jones narrates the American audiobook. After eight years of telling each other stories from LIONBOY, it’s surprising to hear it read by someone else. When Louisa listened to Jones’s version, she found herself wondering what was going to happen next."

That last line - "...she found herself wondering what was going to happen next" - that's because Simon Jones is so good you find yourself getting completely absorbed in the story.

One sort of odd thing about this audiobook is the music. At various times throughout the book music plays behind the narration. Sometimes it makes sense, as in the calliope music of the circus boat. Other times, the music seems added randomly.  When I picked up the book itself to look at the spelling of a couple of characters' names, I saw that music is actually printed in the book.   I'm not quite sure why it's so, but apparently it was important to the authors to include it. In fact, you can buy a book of the piano music with a CD - Music from Zizou Corder's Lion Boy by Robert Lockhart.

Besides realizing the music was in the printed book, I found that there are some neat illustrations, including a map on each endpaper as well as a diagram of the circus boat.

Fortunately, the added pleasure of the illustrations will get me through the second book because,  unfortunately, the library doesn't own the audiobook of Lionboy: the Chase.  I'll have to read it in order to get to the third book, narrated by the fabulous Simon Jones.

Masterpiece

by Elise Broach
August 2011

This was a cute, sweet book about a beetle and a boy. As it began, it reminded me of books like Stuart Little or A Cricket in Times Square. I would have been happy if the entire story had taken place in the Manhattan apartment of James and his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Pompaday. Marvin, a beetle, lives with his family behind the walls of the Pompaday's apartment. The humans don't know of the beetles' existence and the beetles know how to keep out of the way of the humans.

But then Marvin makes one life changing decision. He tries out Marvin's new ink and pen, given to him by his father for his birthday. Actually, he doesn't use the pen. With his little beetle legs he draws a small and intricate drawing of the view out of James' bedroom window. The beetle is discovered by James who is delighted. The drawing is discovered by James' mother, stepfather and father. James' father thinks that the drawing looks a lot like an Albrecht Durer drawing. So he takes him to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see an actual Durer.

James is asked to draw a copy of a Durer called "Fortitude" to use as a decoy painting in a plan to fool some art thieves. Marvin (who has hitched a ride in James' jacket pocket) obliges and makes a near perfect copy of the Durer. From there the story turns into an art heist adventure.

It was a fun story, and exciting at moments. James devises a way to make the parents forget about James' amazing artistic talents. Marvin finds a way to satisfy his need for artistic expression without revealing his presence to the rest of the humans.

Hopefully Elise Broach will write another Marvin and James story, but I hope she doesn't feel the need to continue the art theme. To me, it was the weakest part of the book. In order to teach her readers about Albrect Durer, Broach had her characters spend a chapter talking about Durer: who he was and why we should care. It reminded me of an episode of Quincy M.E.

Expert: "Like any artist, Durer put his life everywhere in his work. These drawings were a
response to his own sadness and lonliness"

Quincy, M.E. (nodding head) "Is that right?"

And like Criminal Minds the three art experts take turns explaining Durer and his art to James, as if they'd practiced their lines ahead of time.

That was really the only chapter that annoyed me. Broach didn't seem to be talented enough to weave information about Albrecht Durer into the plot.

I listened to this book. The narrator, Jeremy Davison, was very good.

Bartimaeus Trilogy (plus one)

The Amulet of Samarkand
The Golem's Eye
Ptolemy's Gate
The Ring of Solomon
by Jonathan Stroud
Summer 2011


Madeline had been telling me to read this series and I finally did. What actually hooked me on them was the audiobook. The reading, by Simon Jones, is just fantastic. Bartimaeus, the 5,000 djinni is a sarcastic, egotistical, egocentric troublemaker. He is also charming and hilarious. To me, most of the charm comes from Jones' voice. He is and always will be Bartimaeus to me.

The trilogy involves Nathaniel, a magician's apprentice who summons Bartimaeus all on his own. He's smart enough to have made a foolproof plan for keeping the djinni from breaking the power Nathaniel has over him. It's a good thing, because Bartimaeus really doesn't like the boy. But it's his duty to serve his master.

The books are set in an alternate reality London where the government is run by magicians and common folk are considered to be inferior humans, fit only for manual labor and menial jobs. The chapters alternate between Bartimaeus and Nathaniel, the djinni's being told in first person and the magician's in third person. It's weird, but it works somehow.

Nathaniel has a great desire to become a great magician and to rise to the highest level of government. The problem is, he's not cut out to be part of the greedy, cut-throat world of magicians. The three books of the trilogy takes Nathaniel through that journey and follows Kitty, a commoner, in her quest to change the balance of power.

There's so much involved in these three books it would be difficult to describe it all.

The fourth book, a prequel to the series takes place during the time of Solomon, king of Israel and master of an extremely powerful magical token - a ring. Asmira, captain of the guard in Sheba, is sent to assassinate Solomon and take possession of the ring. Bartimaeus becomes involved as the slave of one of Solomon's magicians.

I loved these books. I hope that Stroud continues to write more and that Simon Jones continues to read them. With Bartimaeus' 5,000 year history, Jonathan Stroud certainly has lots of material from which to draw.



The fabulous Simon Jones

The Help

by Kathryn Stockett
finished May 2011

What a great book. I enjoyed this so much.
This book kept catching my eye for a long time. I would never read it because I thought that it would be really sad and frustrating. I knew it was set in the Civil Rights era.

But, a co-worker told me that she was listening to it and that it was so funny and charming. I asked her if it was sad and she said yes, in parts. But it isn't overwhelmingly sad.
Finally, I saw the trailer for the movie which is coming out soon. It won me over. I did listen to the audiobook - I downloaded it from NetLibrary.

Anybody wanting to read this ought to listen to it. There are four narrators. The chapters alternate between the three main characters and each is told in the first person. But there is one chapter told in third person. The accents and dialects are perfect.
It's interesting that one star comments on Amazon complain about the racist or stereotypical way the black people speak. I haven't really seen the printed book. Perhaps it comes off differently in print, because the spoken narration sounds spot on.

This is the story of change. Skeeter, a young white college graduate, gets the idea to interview "colored" maids for a book. Abilene, maid for Elizabeth Lefold, is the first to agree. She has been nanny to many white babies and has seen just as many grow up to let race come between them and the black lady they once loved unconditionally. She wants to change things even in the smallest way.

What a satisfying book.

My Latest Grievance

by Elinor Lipman

Finished August 24, 2009

I listened to this book on the way to Memphis and on the way back. Elinor Lipman also wrote the wonderful The Inn at Lake Divine and the excellent And Then She Found Me.

This book is narrated by Fredrica Hatch, the daughter of two Sixties radical Social Science professors (David and Aviva). She grew up living in the dorm at Dewing College, a small Massachusetts women's college, where her parents are also House Parents to the girls of Griggs Hall.

The plot is ignited by the arrival of Laura Lee, David Hatch's ex-wife. Laura Lee has become the Dorm Mother of another residence hall. From there the plot takes off with complication after complication. Conversations between Fredrica, her parents, Laura Lee, Father Ralph and other great characters make up a large part of the story and carries the plot along. David and Aviva encourage open communication in the family. Fredrica saves the reader from wondering what motivates this character or that. She simply asks, "Why did you...?"

I don't easily get hooked by a book-on-tape. In fact, before starting this one, I had tried listening to one called The Tea House on Mulberry Street. I thought for certain I'd like it because it was set in Ireland and involved quirky characters. I couldn't get much past the first chapter or two. It seemed that the book was only a collection of quirky characters. In contrast, Lipman's book involved wonderfully quirky characters and an actual plot!

I've got to read some more Elinor Lipman books. She's 3 for 3 !

Well... maybe she's three for three. I think I started reading another of her books and didn't finish. Or I did read it and don't remember much about it. It was The Pursuit of Alice Thrift. I'll have to check that one out again.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

by Jack Finney
Read September 2008

I listened to this on a Playaway. I'd seen the movie and don't think I ever knew it was a book.

I enjoyed this. It was exciting and a good science fiction story. I had a hard time deciding what time period this was set in. I thought it may have been the 1950's but there were references that made me think it was set much later. Hmm.

Not much to say about this one. The original movie may have been about hysteria surrounding the red scare or communism. The book was about mass hysteria in general.

As Tommy Lee Jones said in Men in Black, "A person is smart. People are dumb,panicky, dangerous animals..."

The Story of Doctor Dolittle

by Hugh Lofting
Listened to playaway in May 2008


I listened to the playaway of this book because another children's librarian told me that a patron had mentioned some objectionable words in the book. Knowing the original Doctor Dolittle's history and reputation for being racist, I guessed what the words were.

Prince Bumpo, who lives in Africa and wants to be white is part of the problem. I imagine that the original book had some not so flattering pictures of Bumpo and his black mother and father.

Listening to the book, however, I didn't have to worry about any offensive images. The shocking words actually came from some of the animal characters. At one point, as I remember it, the monkeys are getting sick. The lions are asked to help Dr. Dolittle, but they won't because they don't think it's their problem. The female lion gets angry at her husband and the other male lions and tells them to "work like n-----s". You fill in the blanks.

I think there's another scene in which the parrot, who has an acerbic tongue anyway, says something in the same vein. Now, a year later, I can't remember exactly what he said, but it was also a racial slur. I think it was the word "coon."

The company who published this audio version of Doctor Dolittle used the original edition. There has been more than one re-issue of Dolittle. I can't seem to find out how many and what exactly was cut in each one, but this playaway version is the original.

I imagine they used it because it was cheap and, possibly, in the public domain. No one has complained about it and it's been checked out of the library several times. We have a books-on-tape of the same version that has circulated a lot. No complaints. Huh.