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January 2024 |
The Paper Caper: 01/30/24
The Paper Caper by Kate Carlisle (2022) is the sixteenth book in the Bibliophile mystery series. Joseph Cabot, owner of the Clarion paper has put together a look alike contest inspired by The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain (1881). To the winner he's offering $100K and that big purse has raised tensions around the city. While Derek and his security team expect the threats to be against Joseph or his lookalike, it's the head butler who ends up dead, poisoned in a way inspired by the poisonous gold newspapers for Queen Victoria's coronation. The further along this series gets the more removed the Bibliophile version of San Francisco gets from the city. Even in 2009 when the series started, the big newspaper days were over. The Examiner and the Chronicle had changed places for who had the largest audience. Joseph Cabot as a benevolent billionaire philanthropist is also somewhere between an anachronism and a pipe dream. He's designed as a Charles Foster Kane character but with a heart of gold. He's also so naive, that I'm surprised he's managed to survive and keep his company. The biggest problem, though, is how blatantly obvious the murderer is and how woefully ignorant, blind, confused, clueless Brooklyn and Derek are despite years of solving murders together. I swear the only managed to solve this one because the author reached her word or page count and had to wrap up the story. The next book is The Twelve Books of Christmas (2023). Three stars Comments (0) The Sign of Four Spirits: 01/29/24
The Sign of Four Spirits by Vicki Delany and Kim Hicks (Narrator) (2024) is the ninth book in the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop mystery series. Gemma Doyle listens through a closed door to a murder during a seance. She knows it can only be one of the people in attendance but figuring out which one is going to take a lot of work. The main thing that keeps Gemma from solving the mystery soon is herself. She helps at first because she was there. But she's otherwise not all that interested in the case. It's only later when she realizes that a good friend of hers is in danger that she decides enough is enough. I point out Gemma's reluctance to sleuth because it's the only thing that keeps this book going. The mystery is extremely easy to solve if you pay attention to the initial character interviews. Like Gemma I went first to the obvious suspect but then noticed a detailed from the actual murderer and knew who it had to be. Gemma, though, doesn't catch that detail. I'm not sure she ever catches the detail which strikes me as extremely odd for Gemma. Gemma, though, does her due diligence and uncovers compelling a motive for the murderer. That's better than just realizing most of the suspects wouldn't have easy access to the murder weapon. Five stars Comments (0) Night of the Living Deed: 01/27/24
Night of the Living Deed by E.J. Copperman and Amanda Ronconi (Narrator) (2010) is the start of the Haunted Guesthouse mystery series. Newly divorced Alison Kerby and her nine year old daughter have moved into the last remaining Victorian era house on the Jersey Shore; the others slated for razing and redevelopment. After an accident involving a bucket of plaster to the head, Alison has the ability to talk to the ghosts of the home's former owner and her P.I. They want her to solve their murder. Alison's story is a balancing act. She has a deadline to fix up her new home. She has her own threatening notes to contend with. She has the ghosts making demands. And finally, there's a rumor of a much older deed with ties to the American Revolution. It's all too much. This mystery reads like a mash-up of three other series I'm following: the Fixer-Upper mysteries by Kate Carlisle, the Beyond the Page Bookstore mystery series by Lauren Elliott and Haunted Bookshop mystery series by Alice Kimberly/Cleo Coyle. I'm not sure where the series is going now that the initial ghostly mystery is solved but I'm hooked. The second book is An Uninvited Ghost (2011). Five stars Comments (0) Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution: 01/26/24
Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution by Brent Berlin and Paul Kay (1969) began during a graduate seminar at U.C. Berkeley in 1967. The thesis is that languages develop their color words in a specific order regardless of language family or location. One can therefore understand the complexity and maturity of a language by how many color words they have. Languages, the authors content, begin with black and white (or dark and light). The first color to be added is red. From there the next color is yellow. And then things get tricky. Languages evolve either with blue or green. Then the other one (either green or blue) before moving onto the remaining colors: orange, brown, pink, gray. I was curious to read their study because I've read articles that describe how Homeric Greek and early English didn't use color language the way we do now. Before blue and green there were descriptive words like bilious, or for purple, livid. In the time since I first read those articles (about a decade ago) and reading Basic Color Terms, I've begun working seriously as an artist, which means thinking about color in ways I haven't done in years. In reading this study as an artist I can see some of the biases that went into their work. The authors of the study are native English speakers. Berlin, is an anthropologist. He and Kay worked primarily with other anthropologists and ethnolinguists to report on various languages usage of color terms. At no point did they speak with native speakers of languages who also happen to be experts in colors. By experts, I mean anyone who works with color on a regular basis: artists or people who make dyes, etc. The second obvious bias is towards western languages. English as the authors' native language gets a pass and is slotted in amongst the most advanced. English — a language notorious for borrowing words. But it's given a pass because the words were borrowed longer ago than other languages when English/Spanish/French introduced their words into the languages of the people they conquered. If English gets a pass on borrowing "orange" and "blue" for instance, so should any other language. Three stars Comments (0) The Marvelous Land of Oz: 01/24/24
The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum and John R. Neill (1904) is the second book in the Oz series. It was the start of a new long term relationship with a new publisher and a new illustrator, an illustrator who went on to illustrate and even write some Oz books after Baum's death. With so much at stake, it was also an opportunity to fine tune the Land of Oz, so it strikes me as no surprise that Baum chose to focus his second book entirely within the fantasy realm, leaving Dorothy at home in Kansas. Instead of Dorothy we have another orphan, a boy of about ten, named Tippetarius, or Tip for short. And by the end of this book, even the name Tip will never be used again. Along with being a tour of Oz, it's also an introduction to the other most popular character in the series, Ozma, one of two transgender characters in the series. We'll meet the other one in book three, Ozma of Oz (1907) Before I get too deep into this post, let me point you to two previous posts on this book. The first one is from 2014 when I reviewed an audiobook version. The second is from 2018 as part of my Road Narrative Spectrum Project. In The Marvelous Land of Oz there are a few big themes. One is gender. One is family. One is leadership. And finally one is fact vs fiction. Each one of these themes could be and should be separate essays or even separate chapters in a book long analysis of this book. I will touch on each here and someday write out longer versions. GenderIf we take Mombi and Glinda's account of events at face value, the Wizard as part of his palace coup took the surviving heir to the throne of the Emerald City/Oz and gave her to Mombi, an old woman the Wizard taught magic to in exchange for her hiding away the Crown Princess. Of course by The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, we know the Wizard has no issue with killing his rivals as he orders Dorothy, et al, to kill the Wicked Witch of the West in exchange for the help they've asked for. So hiding Ozma in Mombi's implies something else is at play. I have my own head canon which I will discuss later in this post. At the most basic, Tip's appearance as a boy is a result of Mombi's desire to keep the true ruler of the Emerald City/Oz hidden. Anyone looking for a blonde girl won't expect a brown haired boy. But Tip is part of a large discussion of gender, including "traditional" gender roles of women as housekeepers / caretakers and men as leaders / doers. General Jinjur, a young woman and her girl army (girl soldiers young enough to be sent home to their mothers when Jinjur is deposed by Ozma) conquer the Emerald City with nothing more than knitting needles. (Note: plenty of cozy mysteries have shown how sharp and deadly knitting needles can be.) First and foremost, abilities in this book are never attributed to one gender or the other. If a character complains about something being a particular gender's work, another character will typically call them on it. Housework, farmwork, kingwork, etc. all have unique challenges and require certain skills and mindsets. FamilyTip having no family of his own, ends up creating and befriending a family. Tip, with help, creates three sentient creatures over the course of the book: Jack Pumpkinhead, the Saw-Horse, and the Gump-Thing. All of them use a magic powder taken from Mombi and originally purchased from a black market wizard, Dr. Nikidik, who is clearly modeled on a snack oil salesmen. The most human like creature that Tip creates, is Jack, one he builds of sticks, castaway clothing, and a carved pumpkin for the head. Of note, though, is that the actual life giving act is performed by Mombi who also accidentally teaches Tip how to use the remaining powder. As Tip is a boy and Jack is in his early days, rather childlike, Jack takes to calling Tip either his father or his parent. For Jack's creation, Mombi, the giver of life, is the unspoken Mother. For the Saw-Horse, Jack offers suggestions but the actual act of bringing it to life (and constructing it) falls on Tip. The final one, done in desperation, is the Gump-Thing, a temporary, magical chimera put together by the Woodsman from items gathered by Tip, the Saw-Horse, the Scarecrow, and Jack. While the Thing as Tip calls it — is a flying creature made up of two sofas, a broom, some palm fronds, and a taxidermied Gump head for navigation — ultimately it's only the Gump head who stays alive and sentient, albeit retired to being a decoration in the palace at the Emerald City. Looked at differently, the closer Tip comes to becoming Ozma, the worse he becomes at creating life. Being female isn't an automatic way to good parenting. LeadershipThe next big lesson of The Marvelous Land of Oz is that leadership is hard. Individuals in leadership roles in the series so far: The Wicked Witch of the East, the Wicked Witch of the West, The Wizard of Oz, the Scarecrow, Nick Chopper the Tin Woodsman, the unnamed Good Witch of the North, Glinda the Good Witch of the South, the King of the Winged Monkeys, the Queen of the Field Mice, General Jinjur, Pastoria, and ultimately Ozma. Being a leader in Oz is hard and often deadly. For instance:
Fact vs FictionThere is a lot of contradiction in this book. A lot of characters will spout things as truth based solely on their extremely limited understanding of the world. The lack of consistency serves a bunch of purposes. First, it gives Baum, et al, wiggle room to retcon Oz as needed in future novels. Take for instance the Emerald City. Up until the final chapters of The Marvelous Land of Oz, including the entirety of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the given history of the city was that it was built by the Wizard. Even the Wizard says this numerous times. But when Glinda and the Scarecrow are debating who should be the rightful ruler of the Emerald City, the Scarecrow acknowledges that the Wizard took the city and the crown from King Pastoria, Ozma's father. It frankly makes more sense that the city would already exist and the Wizard is a self confessed humbug (or teller of lies) Second, it helps teach children that adults aren't always right and aren't always reliable. Children can be as or more reliable than their adult counterparts. You see this too in how Dorothy is able to care for herself and her companions in the first book, too. And it leaves room for head canons. Especially since the original set of books are in the public domain, there's plenty of room to make up your own version of things. For example, there are plenty of Oz pastiches in standalones and series:
My personal head canonWhat follows is not canon. It's my own what if based on evidence and many nights mulling over the course of my life. It covers what happened to Pastoria, who is is Ozma's mother, and who built the Emerald City. Pastoria and the Wizard could have built the city together. Both versions of the story could be true. My thought is this: Pastoria, the dead king of Oz/the Emerald City was a transgender man. He and the Wizard are the parents of Ozma — which would also explain why she later invites him to stay in the Emerald City as her beloved advisor. I suggest that Pastoria died from complications of childbirth. The Wizard could have given Ozma to Mombi if he was too grief stricken to care for himself. Five stars Comments (4) Ficciones: 01/23/24
Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges (1944) is a collection of short stories that explore how easily one's understanding of the world can be influenced by the stories or lies others tell. It also explores the fallibility of memory. I happened to read the book in the original Spanish to see if I could. Short story collections always take me a long time and this one took about six months. Although this collection contains one of his most famous stories, "La biblioteca de Babel", my two favorites were actually "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Teritus" and "Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote." "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Teritus" covers a man's obsession with finding the source of a quote another man tells him during a dinner party. The practical conclusion would be that the man with the quote made it up. But the main character becomes obsessed with tracking down its source at the cost of mental and physical health. In this regard, the story reminds me of a recent YouTube video I quite like, "The Tale of Tiffany" by CGP Grey. "Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote" is about a man so obsessed with Cervantes that he sets out to live his life as closely to the authors in the hopes of learning how to write like him. The end result is another copy of Don Quixote. Borges leaves it up to the reader to figure out if the extant version of Don Quijote is the original or the copy. I love the Quixote story because Don Quixote is one of my favorite classics. I've read all four volumes in translation twice and the first volume in Spanish once. I even did a dead dive in the lingering way Cervantes epic work continues to influence new stories. Four stars Comments (0) Break: 01/22/24
Break by Kayla Miller (2024) (January 2024) is set during spring break. Olive wants to spend a week with all her school friends but she and Simon are sent to the city to be with their father. Olive has ambivalent feelings towards her father. He and her mother divorced some time ago, before Click (2019). Simon who is probably too young to remember life with both parents is super excited to visit and do everything together. To help Olive stay in contact with her friends, her father gives her a new smartphone. Of course mere pages after that she drops her phone. I fully expected Break to be a pun about spring break and a broken phone. Fortunately the book doesn't go that direction. Instead the break pun is more about taking breaks from social media. My one, on-going complaint is how most of Olive's problems stem from her inability or unwillingness to communicate with her family. Sure, being the oldest does complicate things because the youngest children always seem more talkative. Simon (aka Goober) falls into that category. But now six books into this series, I'd like to see a little progress in being more assertive. Four stars Comments (0) Hummus and Homicide: 01/21/24
Hummus and Homicide by Tina Kashian and Rachel Dulude (2018) is the start of the Kebab Kitchen mystery series. Lucy Berberian has left her job as a patent lawyer after being passed up for making partner. She's home to help out at the family restaurant just in time to find the new health inspector dead in the parking lot. It's clear from the outset that something in the hummus bar was probably the source of the poison but Lucy knows she didn't do it and she can't believe her parents did it. So she sets out to clear the family name by investigating the death. Meanwhile Lucy's mom is trying to get her and her former fiancé together again. She wants them to marry so that together the can take over the business. Lucy likes the idea of taking over the business, but not with that caveat. This is one of those mysteries where I enjoyed the characters but had figured out the who immediately. Sitting through Lucy interview everyone but the obvious one was frustrating. To her credit, I didn't see the motive either until much later because some key information is held back until nearly the end of the novel. The second book is Stabbed in the Baklava (2018). Five stars Comments (0) My Aunt Is a Monster: 01/19/24
My Aunt Is a Monster by Reimena Yee (2022) is a middle grade graphic novel about a family of adventurers, a curse, and a lifelong rivalry. Safia was born blind but had a good, enriching early childhood with her parents who filled her world with nightly bedtime stories and audiobook when they couldn't read to her. When she's the only survivor from a house fire, she's sent to live with her aunt and companion. The house she's sent to has a reputation for being the home of a monster! Despite the cover showing Safie with her white cane walking side by side with a dapperly dressed monster I wasn't entire sure how literal Lady Whimsy's monstrous state was. I figured there was a 50/50 chance that her appearance was a metaphorical one, maybe brought on by dysphoria. It's not until the third part that I realized the curse was a literal transformation, especially after Safia acknowledges her aunt's unusual appearance. Through magazine clippings and audiobook snippets, we learn a lot about the paranormal aspects of the world and Lady Whimsy's previous career as an explorer. Getting back to my previous paragraph, the inclusion of these discoveries should have been enough for me to take the curse seriously. The one tedious bit is the rivalry between Lady Whimsy and a woman she calls "Pineapple Tart." These sorts of rivalries in professional circles just don't happen as often as stories would have us believe. To balance out the cliched rivalry, there's a third party at play. They're basically Team Rocket, but a threesome. Their part in book keeps things interesting and less predictable. Five stars Comments (0) Last Writes: 01/18/23
Last Writes by Laura Levine and Brittany Pressley (Narrator) (2003) is the second book in the Jaine Austen mysteries. Jaine has sold a script to a sitcom similar to Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Unfortunately it's being made by a D tier studio with no budget and fewer morals. When the man who play's the star's uncle is poisoned during a live taping of the show, Jaine has to solve the case to save her BFF's reputation and keep her out of jail. The mystery itself was entertaining. It was a run of the mill who done it with a manageable list of suspects, motives, and opportunities. It was frankly similar to another one I read recently, Hummus and Homicide by Tina Kashian (2018). What has me taking off two stars is the all the asides filled with stereotypes and borderline hate speech. Before you think I'm living in a suburban bubble of ignorant bliss re sex work in Hollywood, let me say that my commute used to take me down Sunset Blvd past the older, shadier studios and I'm well aware of the sex workers. My problem with the book isn't the inclusion of prostitution. My problem is with the author comparing every bad thing in her fictional studio with the sex workers Jaine can see out the window. I especially dislike all the times something especially seedy in the studio is then compared to the "trannies" working the street outside the studio windows. The third book is Killer Blonde (2004). Three stars Comments (0) Lost Lad London, Volume Three: 01/16/24
Lost Lad London, Volume 3 by Shima Shinya (2021) is the conclusion of mystery. The murderer of the Lord Mayor of London is revealed and captured. Other reviewers have commented on how rushed the ending feels. I agree with them to a point. The rushed ending stems from the murderer ultimately revealing themselves. Had the murderer kept quiet, this story could have ended with Al's arrest. Had Al been arrested and had the powers that be wanted more from this series (and I don't know if the length here was determined by publisher or mangaka), I can imagine a multi book arch of Detective Ellis trying to clear Al's name. Mind you, those main character wrongfully stuck in jail plots are often cheesy. It's probably a good thing ultimately to have the murderer crack and get sloppy. Four stars Comments (0) Love Is My Favorite Color: 01/14/24
Love Is My Favorite Color by Nina Laden and Melissa Castrillón (Illustrator) (2024) is their fourth collaboration on a picture book. This one, based around a poem Laden wrote in 2018, is brightly optimistic both in tone and hue. The poem is laid out in an almost call and response fashion. The narrator will make a statement: love is my favorite color. A second line follows as explanation or contemplation: I love every color I see. The lines are paired with one of Melissa Castrillón's delightful illustrations. The initial one presents colors in arrangements that I personally love to use (purple and orange, pink and green) but are often frowned upon in more traditional color theory discussions. Further into the poem the concepts become both more abstract and more revolutionary. They are calls for action to be more tolerant, more caring, more open minded, more in tune with the beauty and variety of life. Nina Laden has put together a blog post explaining the process of how this book came to be. She also includes a beautiful photo of the cover art under the dust jacket. I read an ebook version but I might have to get a physical copy just for the sheer artistry of it. Five stars Comments (0) Six Feet Deep Dish: 01/12/24
Six Feet Deep Dish by Mindy Quigley and Holly Adams (Narrator) (2022) is the start of the Deep Dish mystery series. Delilah with her fiancé's funding is set to open her new deep dish pizza restaurant in Geneva Bay. Unfortunately before the launch party things start going wrong. The signage arrives with an embarrassing typo. Her fiancé flees for parts unknown leaving the financial health of the fledgling restaurant unknown. And then her aunt's caregiver is shot do death at the end of the launch party. To clear her aunt's name and save the restaurant, Delilah decides to investigate the murder. She does this with the approval of Calvin Capone, the police detective assigned to the case. With Delilah having the last name of O'Leary and the detective being a Capone, there are plenty of moments that make jokes about nearby Chicago. A little bit of that goes a long way. Hopefully future volumes will dial these jokes back a bit. The mystery itself was pretty easy to figure out. The ending, though, has an interesting twist, one that has sympathy for the murderer. Although I've read other books where the main character expresses sadness over an otherwise good person being driven to doing the unthinkable. This is the first mystery I can think of where the main character actively defends the murderer and asks for clemency. The second book is Ashes to Ashes, Crust to Crust (2023). Four stars Comments (0) The Bookshop on the Corner: 01/11/24
The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan (2016) has the misfortune of being needlessly Americanized and retitled and given a cover design that has nothing in common with the actual text beyond the existence of books. The original February 2016 edition is called The Little Shop of Happy Ever After and has a stylized design of the Scottish highlands, a woman, a small farm house, and a van; these are the elements that are core to the novel. Nina Redmond loves her job as a librarian. But she and her library are both made redundant as Britain tries to centralize it's libraries. When her roommate refuses to let her bring any more library books to their flat, she decides to buy a van and do a mobile book shop. The only van Nina can possibly afford is in the northern reaches of mainland Scotland. It's a long bus ride away from Birmingham (roughly the distance of Hayward to Los Angeles). Acquiring the van, though, leads to a whole new range of problems: Birmingham won't let her set up shop with it, it's hard to drive it long distances, and the small town where she bought it is desperate for her to stay as they have neither library nor bookstore. The nuts and bolts of this novel is Nina's adjustment to life in Scotland and how she and the town are better for her decision to move there. There's also a bit of a romance, one that reminds me of the romances of Trish Doller and Jen DeLuca. It's a charming book but one that would have been better without the idiotic name change and cover redesign. The next book is The Bookshop on the Shore (2019) Five stars Comments (0) Dog Dish of Doom: 01/10/24
Dog Dish of Doom by E.J. Copperman and Christy Romano (narrator) (2017) is the start of the Agent to the Paws mystery series. Kay Powell's latest client is a shaggy dog named Bruno. He's slated to be the next Sandy in a Broadway revival of Annie. But his owner is suddenly murdered. I read a couple cozy mysteries a week, usually via audiobooks. I'll admit to sticking to familiar series and familiar authors. This one though came into my life during a chance encounter. My dentist owns a print copy. Besides the murder, there's the question of Bruno's provenance. He doesn't seem like much of a dog, beyond being a sweetheart. But his story doesn't add up. Figuring out Bruno's past was the most interesting piece of this mystery. Where the book stumbles is in Kay's interaction with the police. Cozies are built on the foundation of the amateur sleuth and their relationship with the head investigator. Lt. Rodriguez seems way too eager to have Kay's help and way too fond of snipers. The snipers end up being a running gag of Chekhov's gun(men). The second book is Bird, Bath and Beyond (2018). Four stars Comments (0) Julia's House Goes Home: 01/08/24
Julia's House Goes Home by Ben Hatke (2021) is the conclusion of the Julia's House trilogy. Although it was on my wishlist, its release completely slipped by me until I saw a post about it on the author's Instagram. Once again, Julia's house is on the move. Unfortunately it suffers a fall and one by one everyone is tossed from it. Julia begins the hunt for the house and reunites with its residents, one by one. The motto of the house is that there's room for everyone. So cheerfully Julia invites everyone she meets along the way to live in the house once it's found. But even she knows that the house is only so big. How she handles that problem is the second big plot point of the book after the house's location.
Like the previous two books, Julia's House Goes Home is on the Road Narrative Spectrum. The final book builds on the found family theme of the second book (33). This time the family's destination is the city (00). Their route there is once again an offroad one (66). Five stars Comments (0) Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, Volume 5: 01/06/25
Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! Volume 5 by Sumito Oowara and Kumar Sivasubramanian (translator) is all about sound design and the clock tower at the edge of the high school's property. Joining the Eizouken project is Doumeki, a collector and designer of sounds. As Midouri and Doumeki are working on sound design, they discover together the importance of the pillow shot. Pillow shots are those quiet moments in a film that are a restful scene of a single item and the sound that goes with it. These scenes help punctuate the mood to give room for the more dramatic, loud moments. This volume also looks at how art can do more than just reflect the world. It can also influence it. What begins as a project to recreate the sound of the clock tower before the clapper fell becomes a call to fundraise to restore the clock tower through sales of the Eizouken's latest animation. The final interesting piece to volume five is how it world builds. Through the exploration of the clock tower as well as an electricity problem at the cafeteria some of the history of the area is revealed. The final two volumes come out in English translations later this year. Five stars Comments (0) A Night's Tail: 01/05/24
A Night's Tail by Sofie Kelly and Cassandra Campbell (Narrator) (2019) is the eleventh book in the Magical Cats mystery series. Kathleen's brother, Ethan, and his band have arrived to perform in town. On their first night there, Ethan gets in a fight with an out of town investor, who later ends up dead. With the murder being related to a food allergy, I couldn't help but compare the overall structure to the more recent Take the Honey and Run by Jennie Marts and Cris Dukehart (Narrator) (2023) Whomever killed the man would have to know about the allergy and be trusted enough to get him to eat that first bite. That said, the bulk of this mystery draws from an even earlier source, namely, Murder on the Orient Express (1934). The dead man has ties to a number of potential murderers. It's a matter of figuring out who held the strongest/longest grudge. On the romance side, Kathleen is finally comfortable enough with Marcus to let him in on the secret of the Wisteria Hill cats. Honestly, given that he now has one as a pet I'm surprised he hasn't figured it out for himself. The twelfth book is A Case of Cat and Mouse (2020). Four stars Comments (0) Layers: 01/04/24
Layers by Pénélope Bagieu and Montana Kane (Translator) (2021), published in French originally as Les Strates is a memoir about life in and around Paris. It's a collection of 15 illustrated short scenarios. I tend to like graphic novel memoirs. A couple of the author's fiction pieces were already on my wishlist, so I thought I'd give this one a read. Her artwork is fine but the few scenarios I read just left me feeling off. There's a tonal misalignment between the the art and the text — an extremely off putting detachment. For instance she talks about how she and her sister were given a pair of too young kittens who managed to survive into adulthood. Then the family goes on vacation and takes the cats along. They let the cats go and don't seem all that concerned when they don't come back immediately. Then when only the author's cat comes back and her sister's is heartbroken she doesn't seem to feel anything beyond smugness. Didn't she have any affection for either the missing cat or empathy for her heartbroken sister? Shortly after there's a scenario where she and her boyfriend discover sex and she gets a UTI. Here she hasn't received even the most basic of sex education. She's lucky it's only a UTI given what they've been doing without any sort of protection. This part in her life is also just brushed aside with a shrug. What I'm trying to say is, these scenarios are treated as nothing more than scenes to illustrate. There's no emotional ebb and flow to them. There's no sense on how any of these things led to personal growth. One star Comments (0) The Secret Starling: 01/03/24
The Secret Starling by Judith Eagle and Kim Geyer (Illustrator) (2019) is a historical novel set in 1974 in England. Clara has lived a solitary life with her uncle, a rotating set of governesses, and an every dwindling staff. The last to go is Cook. And then Clara finds herself dumped in the nearby village with £200. Through an interesting set of circumstances, Clara ends up teamed with a boy her age, Peter, and his cat, as they try to save Clara's home, rescue Peter's grandmother, and learn about both of their pasts. I originally read a version of this book in 2021. It was a review copy I won on Library Thing. It was an imported copy with illustrations by Jo Rioux, a Canadian artist. I thought I had posted a review of that edition but it seems I didn't. So this review will cover both versions. There's a weird territoriality to publishing, especially when dealing with books written for children. More than any other type of book, these are heavily edited (Americanized) and their original art almost always replaced by artwork made by North American artists. Sometimes the titles are even changed to make them more approachable for children. In the case of The Secret Starling the changes were distracting. The original text uses British slang that both sets the pacing of the book and helps to set it in a specific era. With the changes, the story loses its grounding and save for the lack of modern technology and later some mentioned dates, could have happened anytime from now to a hundred years ago. Regardless of the unfortunate editing on the American edition, the novel sits on the Road Narrative Spectrum. Clara and Peter are sibling travelers (CC). Their destination is home (66) (in the desire to save both their homes). Their route there is the railroad (train and tube) (00). Five stars Comments (0) Wear the Damn Mask: 01/02/24
Wear the Damn Mask by Izzy the Frenchie, Rick Hendrix, and Shane Jordan (2020) is an adult picture book from the COVID shutdown year. It features a fancily dressed dog illustrating the when and when not to wear a mask and is aimed directly at the "Karens" of the world who refuse to do so. Izzy the Frenchie is a dog instagram influencer. I know of her through another instagram dog, Zoey the Aussie Kelpie. In the interest of transparency, I should add that I know Zoey personally because she belongs to the curator of the Sun Gallery in Hayward. The book opens with an introduction by Whoopie Goldberg. Izzy turns out to be her grand-dog-inlaw. That's a weird connection I wasn't expecting. But I'm not a celebrity Instragram follower, even among the canine set. The text of the book has a similar humor, snark, and frankness as If Someone Says “You Complete Me," RUN! by Whoopi Goldberg (2015). Accompanying the text are gorgeous full color photos of Izzy in different costumes and settings. They tend to be warm colors and very saturated. The various photographers are credited in the afterword. Five stars Comments (0) December 2023 Sources: 01/02/24
The first half of December was very busy but the last two weeks were quiet. After nine extremely busy months, I gave myself a vacation. Less reading and slower art creation. I also worked on my slide scanning project.
In December I read 14 TBR books, up from Decembers's 13 TBR. No books were published in December. Four books were for research. None were from the library. My ROOB score for December was -4.56, down from November's -4. It was my best December.
I predicted a -3.75 and surpassed it with the -4.56 for December and didn't hit it. For January, I'm predicting a higher (worse) number, -3.0.
My average for December improved from -2.97 to -3.09. Comments (0) Pumpkin Spice Peril: 01/01/24
Pumpkin Spice Peril by Jenn McKinlay and Susan Boyce (narrator) (2020) is the twelfth book in the Cupcake Bakery mystery series. Glass artist Rene Fischer-Klein accuses Mel of sleeping with her husband. Before Mel can clear things up, the artist is dead of a presumed overdose. Mel, though, is convinced she was murdered. The murder plot is pretty basic. By itself it could have been a novella or even a short story. There's really only one person who could have done it despite efforts to make two others seem likely candidates. To flesh out the book, there are two other subplots. The first is Angie's pregnancy. She finds out early in the book and suffers through morning sickness on and off through out the first. Of course her news brings out new fanaticism in her brothers. Really they are too much, bordering on the unbelievable. The second subplot is Oz. He's ready to move on in his career. Mel is heartbroken. She has to admit he's overqualified to work for her and Angie. But he's also a dear friend. The next one is For Batter or Worse (2021) Five stars Comments (0) December 2023 Summary: 01/01/24
December meant winter vacation, Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year's Eve, which meant a trip down to Los Angeles to pick up our oldest. With our youngest now a senior in high school, she and Ian took a brief trip to Canada to check out the University of Victoria while I stayed home with our oldest.
I read the fewer books in December, 18, down from 20 in the previous month. Of my read books, 13 were diverse and four were queer. I reviewed 19 books, down nine from the previous month. On the reviews front, 13 were diverse qualified and five were queer.
I have 13 books left to review of the 273 books I read in 2023. Comments (0) Beat the Backlist 2024: 01/01/24
Last year I set a goal of 250 books and by the end of November I had met that goal. I'm going to stick with that goal for 2024 and as always, strive for half of my read books being backlist titles. I'm not, however, posting a list of things I plan to read as that just ends up being confusing and messy for me. Below is my list of my completed backlist books from 2023 and earlier:
2023Comments (0)
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