Mansion Beach

Finished April 25

Mansion Beach by Meg Mitchell Moore

This novel is supposed to be a modern spin on The Great Gatsby, and follows Nicola Carr as she spends the summer on Block Island, where she is doing an internship as a marine wildlife researcher. She has left her previous partner and career and is taking her life in a new direction. She is staying in a small house that is owned by her cousin's wife's family. David is her favourite cousin, and they grew up very close, almost like siblings, including spending the summers at the lake in a family home. Now he is married to a real estate heiress, Taylor Buchanan. Taylor is very involved in her father's real estate empire and does whatever he asks of her, leaving her little time for David and their young daughter. 

Nicola soon discovers that her next door neighbour is Juliana George, creator of a fashion-based social media empire called LookBook. Staying with David and Taylor is an old college friend of David's, Jack, who is a pro golfer, taking time for an Achilles tendon injury. 

As Nicola continues getting a variety of job experience and exploring the small island, she also gets to know her neighbour Juliana and learn a little of her story of building her business and how her life has changed over time. She also finds herself courted by Jack, and unsure about Taylor given her standoffish attitude and how little time she is spending with her family. Nicola tries to avoid being drawn into any of the drama going on, but she also finds it all interesting, seeing these people in a world she is unlikely to ever live in. 

The story is interrupted by transcripts from a podcast about what happened on the island that summer, but that part of it feels like it isn't really needed for the story. 

This is an interesting tale of questionable relationships, social class, and misadventure. 

Orbital

Finished January 11

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

This exquisitely written book is short, just over 200 pages, yet one I took my time reading as the imagery she writes and the thoughts her writing provokes made me want to stop and think often, and reread certain passages. The novel was a Christmas gift chosen because it won the Booker Prize for 2024. 

It is set mostly in the International Space Station over 24 earth hours. There are four astronauts and two cosmonauts at the station and the story is told in third person, but giving us access to each of their thoughts at times. Sixteen orbits of the earth by the Space Station occur over the course of 24 hours, and the book is structured around these. 

We see their professional interactions and get a sense of the work that they engage in, both scientific and housekeeping. We also see their personal thoughts and concerns, sometimes in real time and sometimes through memories of interactions with loved ones. 

One of the things they observe on this particular day is a large typhoon moving over the Pacific Ocean as it heads towards people ill-prepared for the massive storm. Another is the launch of a rocket carrying four astronauts to the moon. 

I found it fascinating as the novel talks about the land moving beneath them, the countries and land masses sliding by, with the lights at night showing the presence of human life more than the land viewed by day. It gave me a new sense of our planet and its place in space. I was also moved by the human connections between these people thrown together through circumstance, and the disparate connections they had to people back on earth. 

This novel has taken its spot as one of my favourite books of all time. 

The Sweetest Dream

Finished December 16

The Sweetest Dream by Doris Lessing

This novel takes us from the early 1960s through the late 1980s, following generations of one family and their friends. We see relationships, both intimate and friendly, come and go, and we observe how the political landscape changes over time. 

In the early part of the book, the main character is Frances Lennox, a divorced woman, who sacrifices her own dreams to support her children, Andrew and Colin. Her ex-husband, Johnny, is deep into communism, travelling and speaking about his politics not just across the country, but internationally. Johnny's mother Julia had tried to give money to Frances when he didn't pay maintenance, but Frances found work and managed. Both boys agreed to go to schools funded by Julia, Andrew to Eton and Colin to St. Joseph's. It was only when Frances realized how much their living situation was resented by the boys, that she agreed to move into Julia's house, with Julia living on the top floor and them having the rest.

Frances soon found herself catering to more people, as the boys friends and girlfriends, ex-friends and girl-friends came to meals and some ended up moving in. 

The reader can see how Frances is resigned to her situation, and keeps Johnny at a distance as much as she can, but accepts whoever of the younger generation appears at her table, and even those young African men that Johnny brings as young communist idealists. She deals with the issues of the time, rebellion against her generation, rebellion against traditional expectations, experimentation with drugs, the sexual revolution, and more. She even deals with the added presence of Tilly (Sylvia) the daughter of Johnny's second wife, when she is moved into the house. 

The later part of the novel follows Sylvia as she goes to Africa as a doctor, working in a remote community and trying to help the local people who are starved for medical, and educational assistance. The country she goes to, Zimlia, is a fictional one, but has strong parallels to the former Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. 

The writing is so good, and the story interesting. The only issue I had with the novel is that there are no chapters, just occasionally a few blank lines, indicating a change in time, setting, etc. For me, as a reader, I like to have a feel for when I can make a pause in my reading and the lack of chapters in a book is something I find personally frustrating. 

That aside, this is an amazing read, with so much depth, both of characters and of setting, that it is worth reading. It immersed me into the story. 

Before the Coffee Gets Cold

Finished December 4

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, translated by Geoffrey Trousselot

This book is the first in the series names for this title. It is a book set in a small basement coffee shop in a back alley in Tokyo. The shop has existed for decades and there is a legend that the shop also gives customers the chance to travel back in time. 

In this book, there are four stories, each with a customer visiting the cafe with the hope that the legend is true and that they can make such a journey. But there are rules around these journeys: One is that the traveller cannot change the present, no matter what they do. Another is that you can only meet someone who has visited the coffee shop. A third is that there is only one place in the shop that you can sit to travel, and you must remain in that seat for the duration. A fourth rule is the limit of the visit, the time is takes from the coffee being poured until it gets cold. And the visitor has to drink all the coffee or they will be stuck as a ghost. 

The visitors here go back for various reasons, and we see all of these visitors in the introduction to the first story. Here Fumiko wants to go back to have a different conversation with her boyfriend Goru who recently went to work in America. 

In the second story, Kohtake wants to go back to before her husband Fusagi, who has early-onset Alzheimer's, forgot who she was. A staff member at the shop says that the reason Fusagi wanted to go back was to give her a letter, but that she can go back to get it herself. 

The third story is the story of sisters. Hirai runs a snack bar near the coffee shop. She came to Tokyo from the outskirts of Sendai, a city a few hours north of Tokyo, where her parents ran an inn. Her younger sister Kumi comes often to the cafe to try to meet Hirai, but Hirai won't talk with her. Hirai left because her parents expected her to take over running the inn and she didn't want to, and they eventually transferred their expectations to Kumi. When something happens to Kumi, Hirai knows that she wants to have that conversation with her sister that she's been avoiding. 

The fourth story shifts the conversations around travelling in time to contemplate travelling to the future and the difficulty of determining whether the one you want to meet with be there at the time you travel to. One of the coffee shop workers decides to do it, with the others promising to do what they can to ensure the meeting takes place. 

I liked the premise of the book, and the parameters around these travels in time. They are very different from what we often see in novels with time travel as a concept. 

A feel-good read that will appeal to a variety of readers. 

The Life Impossible

Finished October 31

The Life Impossible by Matt Haig

This is a story of life, of loss, of connection. It is about appreciating the world, and how everyone has their own story. 

The story is structured around emails by a man to his former teacher, and her response. Her response is the major portion of the novel and tells of her life, particularly when she received an inheritance from a former fellow teacher of a house in Ibiza, Spain. 

The narrator, Grace Winters is a retired math teacher. She tells of the brief friendship she had with Christina, an art teacher, particularly one Christmas that they spent together. Christina left for Spain soon after, and Grace went on to marry, have a child, and experience loss. Mathematics is both a comfort and a coping mechanism. Whenever she feels overwhelmed, she does math in her head. 

When she decides to go to Spain to see this house, she doesn't know what to expect, but it certainly isn't this ugly little house in the middle of nowhere. She finds she has also been left a car, and a list of recommended things to do. There is also a plan that she isn't aware that involves one of Christina's friends. The experience she undergoes changes her life forever. It takes her grief and loss, and her depression and takes her out of them, to see the world around her, in all its beauty and pain. Grace finds that she has been given a task, but also an opportunity, and she must open herself up to this experience as she faces her past and her pain and recognizes that others have their own stories that also resonate with her.

There is an amorphous being that is part of this story, a life presence from another place, that has power that Grace learns to draw from. This is a tale that feels both fantastical and relatable. A very interesting book that is hard to define. 

Keep Me Posted

Finished July 21

Keep Me Posted by Lisa Beazley

This novel is about a woman in New York City, Cassie, who begins a physical correspondence with her older sister Sid, who lives in Singapore. It begins as a thoughtful way for the two to keep in touch, as they live very different lives. Sid was inspired by old letters she found when visiting her grandparents and issued a challenge to her sister to reconnect through physical letters.

Sid had a child when she was quite young, River, and he is now an adult, taking a gap year before he goes on to further education. She has remarried a man who leads a busy life as an international businessman, and they have a young child Lulu. 

Cassie is married to Leo, and has twin toddlers, Quinn and Joey. They live in a small apartment in New York City. Cassie is vaguely dissatisfied with her life. She finds the apartment confining, and even though she and her sons go out often, the hassles of getting around are tiresome. 

The letter writing experiment goes well, and Cassie decides to keep copies of them online in a private blog, just for her to look back on. When a technical glitch makes the blog public, Cassie isn't aware until she realizes that they've gone viral and become the center of a social media discussion. Some of what they've written is very personal, and Cassie has to try to stem the leak, and find ways to tell the two people most important to her, Leo and Sid. 

I enjoyed the sisters relationship, and how they managed to keep the connection despite the distance between them. I also found it interesting to see how they dealt with the leak and made it part of the conversation in a wider, more inclusive way. 

The Kind Worth Killing

Finished June 20

The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson

This suspenseful novel had me caught up in the story, about a seemingly random encounter that has far-reaching consequences. The jacket says it is a modern reimagining of Patricia Highsmith's classic Strangers on a Train, a book that I haven't read. 

It begins at Heathrow, where Ted Severson, a wealthy businessman, is waiting in a bar for his plane to leave. Arriving to sit next to him is Lily Kintner, a woman travelling back to her home in the U.S. after visiting her elderly father. They begin talking, and continue the conversation on the plane, the sort of conversation one occasionally has with someone that you don't expect to meet again. The two only know each other's first name, but they share things that they haven't shared with other people. 

Ted talks about the recent discovery that his wife was cheating on him. and how he isn't sure what to do next, joking that he feels the urge to kill her for her betrayal. When Lily offers to help, the conversation takes a previous turn. 

Back home in the Boston area, the two meet again, and talk about possibilities. Ted is intrigued by Lily, and her beauty and intelligence, quite different from that of his wife. Ted's wife Miranda has been the primary contact for a new house they are building on the coast, in a spot they discovered on a romantic holiday. She's been staying in a hotel near the building site, and has been very involved in the building process, and with their general contractor. Ted, as he considers the possibilities in his future, is having thoughts about other, more traditional, responses to his marital issues. 

Lily, however, has a darker past than first seen, and as we gradually learn her story, we see a pattern of behaviour that is disturbing. 

There were many surprises along the way in this novel, and my sympathies changed a few times over the course of the book. 

Plot Twist

Finished April 23

Plot Twist by Erin La Rosa

Romance author Sophie Lyon had a hit with her debut novel, but the deadline is fast approaching for her second novel, she's spent most of her advance and she's coming up against a writer's block. She thinks maybe it's because she's never actually been in love, and she's decided to try and figure out why. That entails meeting up with her previous partners and seeing what they think. 

Sophie lives in L.A. and her best friend Poppy Montrose is from a well-known Hollywood family. Poppy's father and both brothers are actors, and her mom is a publicist. Poppy though has gone a different direction and owns a popular luxury spa. Sophie lives in a small home behind the large house of Dash Montrose, the younger of Poppy's brothers, so Dash is her landlord. Sophie had a crush on him as a teenager, and now that he's in her life more, some of those feelings are coming back. 

As Sophie meets up with her former boyfriends and girlfriend, she learns a bit more about herself and why those relationships ended. She also finds that she has trust issues, and that becomes a plot point here. 

Dash is another voice in the novel. He's not had an acting job in a while, and that's partly by choice. He's got a personal issue that he's overcoming, with some help. He also has found an interest that may be a way forward for him, and that's kind of interesting too. 

This is the second book in a series, but I haven't yet read the previous one. Sophie is a likeable woman, who's got a strong sense of self outside of her love life. Dash's struggles feel realistic here too. 

I found the use of Instagram as a story device kind of interesting. 

A fun read with some serious issues brought in. 

You, Again

Finished January 2

You, Again by Kate Goldbeck

This book had a promising premise with the main characters meeting multiple times before starting to spend time together and then finding sparks. 

Ari moved to New York City to become a comedian. Not an easy task, and she works a lot of other jobs even as she makes some headway in her dream career. She also gains friends along the way like Gabe, a fellow comedian, and Rachel, a roommate who works as a chef. Ari comes from a working class background and is a free spirit in many ways. She doesn't accumulate a lot of possessions, and is pretty easygoing about personal space. She is also very open sexually, up for almost anything with almost anyone, and this was a bit outside my comfort zone. She didn't seem to have emotional connections to her sex partners, and didn't seem to consider that they might have feeling for her. 

Josh is a chef, but he's skipped a few steps in experience due to his wealthy family background. That makes him a little arrogant, even as he's very capable and innovative in his profession. 

When they meet again years later, they are both in very bad places in their lives, and they find that shared experience a way to connect that they don't have with other people at the time. They can express very negative feelings about their situation and feel that they aren't alone. 

Because I didn't really connect with the characters and found some lifestyle choices off-putting, it took me a while to make it through the book. I was rooting for them in the end, but this wasn't one of my favourite reads. 

Annie Bot

Finished December 18

Annie Bot by Sierra Greer

This novel totally captivated me. I read it slowly, wanting it to last as long as possible and thinking a lot about Annie. Annie is a robot that her owner bought to meet his personal needs. She comes from a line of AI robots called Stellas, where owners can choose a mode from three main types: Abigail (who cooks and performs housework), a Nanny one to look after children, and a Cuddle Bunny mode to provide sexual and emotional pleasure for the owner. 

Annie is designed to learn from her experiences, and as she tries to learn how to please Doug, she adjusts her libido to his, simulates orgasms in response to his, and tries to meet his needs, she grows more confused. Why? Because Doug is human, and not predictable. When he gets an unexpected visit from an old friend, Roland, Annie meets someone new for the first time, and is exposed to more information, including that she resembles Doug's ex-wife Gwen. Annie is learning for the first time about this woman's existence and she struggles to figure out how she compares to her, causing her some grief from Doug. 

As Annie gains secrets, and tries to figure out not only how to please Doug, but also how the world works, and how she herself works, she is becoming more human, and finds herself experiencing what seem like emotions to herself. 

It is telling to see that Doug has modelled her on a woman he was previously in a serious relationship, yet one he has more control over. Doug can tell her what she's allowed to say about him or their relationship. He can punish her. He can ignore her for days and then just expect to have her play her role again. But because she is autodidactic and learns from her experiences, she grows more confused, and feels hurt, jealous, and even angry. 

Seeing her develop was fascinating. Doug was a man who thinks he knows what he wants, but when he gets it, he still isn't happy. There is gaslighting, manipulation, and a lot of other relationship stuff going on here that made me root for and fear for Annie more and more. I hated him more and more as I got further into the book.

It also made me think about AI a lot and how it works, and where it will appear in our lives. It gave me a lot to think about. 

An amazing read. 

The Lost Ticket

Finished June 21

The Lost Ticket by Freya Sampson

This charming novel begins with a scene from 1962 and an encounter on a London bus between Frank, a young man and an unnamed female art student. She gives him a phone number, written on her bus ticket, and he gives her the book he's been struggling to get into, and they agree to meet later that week. But when he gets home, he finds he's lost the ticket, and they never meet.

The story then jumps to the present, in spring 2022, with Libby Nichols, who has come to London to stay with her older married sister Rebecca getting on the 88 bus in London. She encounters an older man, Frank, who is struck by her red hair, and they have a conversation, where he encourages her to return to the art she used to love. 

Libby tells her story to Rebecca, and thus to us, that her boyfriend of eight years took her to a fancy restaurant to break up with her and take some time apart. Libby agreed to move out for a while to give him time to figure out what he wanted, and she's ended up here. Rebecca's nanny has had to go home suddenly to take care of a family member, and Libby agrees to look after Hector, her sister's son while she's staying there. 

Libby tries doing art on the bus, and finds herself angrily accosted by her chosen subject, and when she meets Frank again, she finds out about the girl he's been searching for for years, and how she changed his life. Libby decides to help him try to find this woman, and begins a social media and flyer campaign to put the story out. As she does, she finds herself making new friends, and thinking harder about what she wants in her life. But she also discovers that some things can't be planned and have to be dealt with as they happen. 

This is a feel-good novel of relationships, families, and chance encounters that are life-changing. A great read. 

The Whole Night Through

Finished May 25

The Whole Night Through by Christiane Frenette, translated by Sheila Fischman

This novel is set over one long night in a woman's life, but as she looks back on her adult years, we see how she came to this point and get to know the people in her life. Jeanne is the woman at the center of the story. 

As the book opens a moose emerges from the forest near Jeanne's home, and collapses onto the ground. The moose has been shot, and is dying. Jeanne cannot do anything to help, but she sits on her porch, keeping vigil over the moose through the night. Jeanne guesses that it is a stray bullet that has come to the moose, and over the course of the night, she goes over the events, the stray bullets, in her own life that have shaped it. 

When Jeanne was in college she had a close friend, Marianne, that she developed a crush on, but the intense friendship was short-lived. Following that, she tried to make a career in translation, but was struggling. When a chance meeting reintroduces another college friend, Gabrielle back into her life, she develops a deeper friendship with Gabrielle, Gabrielle's brother Paul, and Victor, the baker in their small village. 

This friendship has altered Jeanne's life in a large way, but she still feels alone much of the time.

This is a moving novel of a woman's life as she reflects on these things that influenced her choices in life. 

Over the course of the night, we see each event in Jeanne's life that she identifies as a stray bullet, something that found her unexpectedly, but had a big impact. 

Death at La Fenice

Finished May 4

Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon

This is the first book in the Commissario Guido Brunetti mysteries set in Venice. I've read a few of them, but not in the series order and decided to go back and start at the beginning. 

This book opens as the intermission at an opera is ending and the conductor Helmut Wallauer doesn't appear. He is found in his dressing room, apparently dead by poison. 

The police are called and Brunetti ends up on the case, looking for motive and opportunity. Of course, there is a lot of bustle behind the scenes at the theater and lots of opportunities for people to have approached Wellauer. As he talks with a variety of people, he finds that while the man was revered as a great conductor, he wasn't a nice man at all. 

There is some questions about whether he colluded with the Nazis during the war, or just entertained them, and he has had an impact on many careers by putting his influence against someone. 

As with the later novels in the series that I read, Venice is brought to life here as Brunetti walks its streets, travels its canals and ventures beyond the inner city to other neighbourhoods and even beyond in one instance. We also see him as his interacts with his superior and other police officers and we see his home life, not just with his wife Paola and his children, who are teenagers here, but also with his in-laws. 

The plot was interesting and this was definitely one that kept me reading to find out what was behind the crime. 

Unexpectedly Milo

Finished April 26

Unexpectedly Milo by Matthew Dicks

Milo is an engaging character. As the book opens he is living in an apartment, having separated from his wife Christine. Milo is a nurse. He worked in a care home for quite a while, but he now works in home health care, which means that his day is less structured. He has a number of regular clients that he sees, and he does a variety of tasks for them, some medical in nature, but also some more housekeeping, like raking a shag rug for one of his clients. 

Since he was a child Milo has had urges that come to him, things he needs to do or hear or feel. After giving in to the first time this urge struck him as a child in front of another child and having that go badly, he has hidden these urges from others. He has found a way of coping. Some of these urges have come and gone, other are more longstanding and pop up on a regular basis. He is aware that stress makes them worse, especially when more than one of them come up at a time. 

Because no one else knows about these urges, not his parents or his wife, or any of his D and D friends, he doesn't feel seen, and is a lonely man. 

Near the beginning of the book Milo comes across a bag containing a video camera and several tapes sitting beside a park bench. He sits there with it for a time, but no one returns, so he takes that bag and after finding no clue to the owner in the bag decides to watch the tapes in the hope that he will find out something from them that will let him return these things to the owner. 

This is how the mystery portion of the book begins. He finds the tapes are numbered and contain a video diary by a woman close to him in age. As she begins to reveal her secrets, Milo empathizes with her, and feels protective towards her. He feels bad watching them himself and is determined to stop when he finds enough information to locate her. He certainly doesn't want to share them with anyone else. One of the secrets he learns on the tape leads him in a new direction, trying to find a way to take away the guilt from the woman's past act of protecting a friend. 

Alongside the mystery, we have Milo's interactions with his clients and see their quirks. We also see his relationship with his wife, through their therapy sessions and encounters beyond that. 

Milo is asking questions about his life, his future relationships, while still hiding his OCD from everyone. 

This is a story of a man who cares deeply and feels extraordinarily lonely in his life. As a reader I cared about him and also found it fascinating how he finds ways to cope with these urges of his and how he characterizes them, ascribing them to a inner voice with its own identity. 

I really enjoyed this book and was hoping for the character to find a true connection with someone and some happiness in his own life. 

Sari Not Sari

Finished January 12

Sari Not Sari by Sonya Singh

This romance novel is set around entrepreneur Manny Dogra. Manny started her own company after college, building on a skill she realized she had in communication. Her company is called Breakup, and it provides services around ending relationships in a way that makes it easier for both parties to move on. Her team writes emails and letters for the person that hires them, but goes beyond that in helping manage the transition for them as well. 

Manny has recently been named one of California's Top Forty Under Forty CEOs, and is on a professional role. But her personal life isn't going as well. She is engaged to Adam, an architect who is very busy in his work life as well, and they haven't seen much of each other lately. Dates for their wedding have been booked and cancelled repeatedly as work conflicts arose. Adam is the first man that Manny dated after the sudden death of her parents three years ago as a result of a car accident. Manny is an only child, as were both her parents, and they raised her to go after what she wanted and to be an American by assimilating. This means that Manny hasn't had exposure to Indian culture, and as a result of some events in her life, she has begun to realize that she is missing this part of herself and this connection to her parents. 

As she agrees to help a client with a relationship situation, she negotiates an introduction to Indian culture for herself by going to an Indian wedding as his guest. The wedding is a typical Indian wedding, with many days of celebration, and a lot of family participation. As a reader, I learned a lot of terminology and culture along with the character. But I was surprised at how little Manny was supposed to know about Indian traditions prior to this. I'm not Indian and I was aware of many of the things that she was clueless about. Many of the secondary characters lacked depth and were stereotypical examples. There was also no discussion of which part of Indian culture Manny and her host Sammy Patel came from. From looking at other reviews, I see that Patel is a common Gujarati name, so it seems that this is the subgroup depicted here, but the references to Bollywood culture as a monolithic one were misleading. 

The overall message seemed to be that we need to understand where we've come from to really know who we are, and that has some truth to it. There were a few instances in the book where there were examples of exclusion, despite the inclusionary words that the characters professed, and those jarred a bit from the story.

I enjoy learning about other cultures, while being cautious about respecting boundaries, and this book touched on that. There are a lot of emotional scenes here, and the plot moved very quickly, taking place within just a few days, and I was surprised at how quickly the characters changed allegiances, even if those feelings around their previous situations had been percolating for a while.

This is a debut novel from a promising new Canadian voice. I look forward to seeing more from her. 

Life Without Children

Finished September 30

Life Without Children: Short Stories by Roddy Doyle

I always enjoy reading Roddy Doyle and this collection is an intriguing one. This book contains ten short stories, all taking place in Ireland during the pandemic, and all are around relationships.

Box Sets has a couple, Sam and Emer, reacting in their own ways to the pandemic. Sam has lost his job and doesn't muster the energy to look for a new one, instead losing himself in watching season after season of TV series, catching up on many he'd never watched when they came out. Emer is calm but removed. When Sam's frustration reaches a point where he finds himself having angry outbursts, this changes the dynamic and forces change on both of them.

Curfew has issues of health as well as bringing the male character memories of his own father.

Life without Children looks at a couple whose children have left home and how the pandemic changes the family dynamic.

Gone has alternating viewpoints of a couple where the wife has left the home just before the lockdown begins.

Nurse focuses on health and death in the context of a family.

Masks has a man walking through the streets, finding himself frustrated and disgusted by the discarded masks that he see everywhere and taking an unusual and provoking action as a result.

The Charger is told by a man who has come late to the ownership of a cellphone and, in the context of a stressful situation, finds himself focused on finding the phone charger, while he feels alone despite having all four of his daughters living back home during this time. The situation brings back the feelings from his childhood of abandonment.

The Funeral has Bob and Nell as a long-married couple with Bob's reaction to the death of his mother and the circumstances of his position as the responsible son.

Worms has Joe finding himself with earworms linked to specific places or tasks in his life, a quirk that at first he keeps to himself and then when his wife Thelma learns about it and joins in, finds himself reacting emotionally in a negative way until he realizes his underlying feelings towards her.

The last story, Five Lamps, has a man defying the lockdown and driving for hours to the city to look for his estranged son. He walks the streets, returning to his car each night, interacting with the shopkeepers and homeless as he plans on what to say to repair the relationship.

These stories show Doyle's skill with showing the complexities of human relationships, the emotions and resentments, the closeness and the frustration, all set within a very stressful time for everyone. A brilliant collection

Animal Person

Finished June 6

Animal Person: Stories by Alexander MacLeod

This collection of stories focus on the behaviours that people exhibit when put into positions that are dark, startling, or threatening. The link back to our basic animal instincts is made real in these eight stories. 

Lagomorph goes deep into a person's connection to the family pet rabbit Gunther, going back to how he was acquired up to the circumstances of one particular day.

The Dead Want is the story of an untimely death of a young woman and the cousin that she was close to, from his point of view. As the family gets the news and must travel to the place where she is, we see how he goes over memories of their relationship, and then deals with the situation as a young adult, caught between family and other ties.

What Exactly Do You Think You're Looking At? is the story of a man who tries to create a connection by borrowing other people's luggage, looking through the contents and making up stories about the person it belongs to and the things he finds. Until the day that something doesn't go the way he expects it to.

Everything Underneath tells the story of a boy and his sister, close in age. They are snorkeling for the first time, and moving away from shore, together, yet apart. He is reminded of another incident recently where the two of them did something together that ended with an injury, and suddenly the link between the two events becomes clear and urgent. 

The Entertainer is a story that caught me immediately. It is told from several points of view. One of them is a young piano teacher, seeing her best student freeze during a performance, another is the student themselves, caught between conflicting parental pride in their accomplishments and a feeling of disconnectedness with the music and their hands. The third is a man in the audience, there with his wife, who is also struggling with a form of disconnectedness. As they come together, something happens that is beautiful. 

The Ninth Concession has a boy looking back on an incident with him and a friend that changed their relationship, that was as he thinks, the beginning of the end. He thinks about the differences between himself and his friend, the financial differences, the social differences, the experiential differences, and a difference that he hadn't been aware of until it became real.

Once Removed is a story about a young couple who have a planned visit to a great-aunt of his who lives in the same city. With the day's heat and humidity, she, Amy, suddenly feels no longer up to the long bus rides to get their with their small child, but he insists, as they'd promised to come and he knew his relative would have prepared. On the trip over, she reflects on how she felt, and why. The visit includes the elements that she expected, the meal and conversation, and photo, but also an unexpected element, a task for the aunt's friend. This opens Amy's eyes to new thoughts about the aunt and a connection that she hadn't expected. 

The Closing Date is about a connection between a family and a man at a motel. The family is waiting for the closing date on their new home, and for the moving truck with their possessions to arrive. The man has a plumbing van. The child's friendliness, and a need for professional help complete the connection. It isn't until late that they discover the unsettling truth.

McLeod is an excellent writer that makes his characters and situations real as if they were happening to people you know. A great collection.

A House Among the Trees

Finished May 4 

A House Among the Trees by Julia Glass

This novel reads almost like a memoir, except we have more than one character's point of view. The biggest voice is from Tomasina (Tommy) Daulair, who was the assistant to the children's book author and illustrator Mort Lear. He has recently died and she is surprised to find that he has left her his house and its contents, as well as appointing her his literary executor. As Tommy reflects on her relationship with Mort, we see how they came to meet, and how she eventually became such an important person in his life. We also see how his life became hers in a way that she didn't expect or necessarily want. 

Another voice is that of Nicholas Greene, an Oscan-winning British actor who was recently cast in the role of Mort in a biopic about a portion of his life. Nick is in his thirties and, while he has been an actor for years, only recently came into real fame. We see his background, how he found his career, who he looks to for guidance, and his short, but intense, conversations with Mort prior to his death, resulting in Nick having secrets about Mort that no one else knows. 

The third voice is that of Meredith (Merry) Galarza, a divorced museum curator, who had formed a good relationship with Mort and his art, and was planning a new building featuring his work, along with other children's author/illustrators. She is surprised and disappointed not to be named his literary executor and get possession of his work. She is under pressure from her superiors to regain some ground in this regard, so the plans regarding the new building will be able to go ahead without significant reworking. 

One of Mort's most famous books is Colorquake, a picture book about a young boy, Ivo, who lives in a world without color until he discovers he can draw things that come to life and bring color to his world. He had done other picture books along with a series for teens and many other projects. 

One of the things he has tasked Tommy to do in his will is to create a foundation that will fund a shelter for runaway and homeless boys. This sense of a boy in poverty, feeling alone, is one that runs through the book in more than one way. 

Julia Glass is very good at creating strong, deep characters, ones that you really get to know the inner workings of. You see their insecurities, the personas they present to the larger world, and the way that they relate to a number of people in their lives. 

The novel brings these characters together and ties their stories together in interesting and unexpected ways. 

I really enjoyed this book and all three of these complex characters. 

The School of Life: An Emotional Education

Finished March 15

The School of Life: An Emotional Education, by The School of Life, introduced by Alain de Botton

This book is a culmination of years of research from The School of Life, which de Botton founded. The aim of the book is "to equip people with the tools to survive and thrive in the modern world." It believes the most important tool is emotional intelligence. 

The book is divided into five sections: Self, Others, Relationships, Work, and Culture. Each one of those sections is also divided.

The introduction was quite interesting, giving some background to the research that went into the book, the patterns of the past and how they became part of the culture of western civilization, and how emotional intelligence can help reset some of those habits to healthier ones. 

For the section on Self, discussions include self-knowledge, awareness of our past and how that influences us, and different therapies that we might experience to become more mentally healthy.

For the section on Others, topics include kindness, charm, and calm. In Relationships, the discussions are getting together, the importance of sex, and dealing with problems.

In Work, which is a shorter section without larger subdivisions, the considerations are: the dangers of the good child, confidence and the inner idiot, imposter syndrome, fame, specialization, artists and supermarket tycoons, consumer society, Maslow's hierarchy, advertising, and artistic sympathy.

Culture looked at romantic versus classical personalities, a very interesting discussion on the concept of value, imperfectionism, the concept of "good enough", and the ideas of gratitude and wisdom.

This is a book that hit home in some ways, that had me skeptical of some ideas, and that made me reflect on larger ideas and concepts. A very interesting read. 

Die For You

Finished January 15

Die For You by Lisa Unger

This is a fast-moving suspense novel that I had trouble putting down. 

Isabel has been married to Marcus for a few years, after he showed up at a bookstore where she was doing an author reading. Before that, she'd thought that a deep and lasting relationship like that of her sister's was something that would never be hers.

There have been a couple of blips in their marriage, but things are going well as the novel begins. Marcus leaves for work one morning, prepping for an important meeting, and doesn't come home. The following day, when Isabel goes to his office in search of answers, there is a dramatic raid there and she is left with even more questions.

When the police begin to dig into her husband's past and find that he wasn't who she thought he was, she remains determined to get to the bottom of things, and find the real answers as to why he married her and where he has gone. 

Isabel is a writer of novels herself and her mind works in problem-solving ways on a regular basis as she creates her plots. She is good at piecing together bits and pieces to make a story, and she begins to do that with her husband. She has some bits from her own experiences with him, and more from others who interacted with him, and as she researches she finds more disparate pieces that bring her to follow a faint trail back to his native Czech Republic. 

I loved Isabel as a woman who has been taken advantage of and won't give up in her search for answers. She has been underestimated by more than just her husband, and she faces the unknown with facts.