Another really good Book Lovers SIG this month. Hadn’t heard from John in a long time, and it was early last summer that we heard from Nathan, so swell to see him again. Plus: Cynthia, who was new to our group last month, returned for another go. Glad she decided to stick around. And of course, the core of Peggy, Linda, Beth and Christina were there. So, eight in total in our jolly band.
In all, 59 books were read/discussed/reviewed. The full list can be found here:
https://www.mamensa.org/category/book-lovers-sig-book-talks/
Book Lovers SIG always meets the second Sunday of each month; in this case February 9. We meet online using Zoom, so it is easy to join in.
Folks generally start checking in around 2 pm for a bit of socialization. Book discussions begin around 2:30 pm, more or less, or when Peggy says, “OK, Let’s talk about books!”
To join us on Zoom, simply click on the link shown below:
https://tinyurl.com/BookLoversSIG
You can also open your Zoom app and use these parameters:
Meeting ID: 946 0436 4344
Passcode: 844358
*****
Beth
Alliance RisingI by C.J. Cherryh & Jane Fancher. We are back at the Sol/Pell/Cyteen universe. FTL is the mode of travel, and this story is set at the point where everyone has FTL except Earth. This is like steamships displacing sailing ships: serious disruption to the economy. New alliances form, while trying to prepare for whatever Earth is trying to do, at lightyear distances and decade long time frames. Good intellectual space opera in CJ Cherryh style. This is book 1 of 2.
Alliance Unbound by C.J. Cherryh & Jane Fancher. Book 2 in this series. I went back and started reading the first books in this series. This follows a story arc asking the question: “How would humanity organize itself if groups had the distance and time to do so with minimal interference from other groups?”. Space outside our solar system provides the setting. When they started out, they were on slower than light generation ships. They managed to keep some trade with the “Mothership”, but the distances are so far, and the time so long (decades between ships), and too far for enforcement, the only hold was supplying needed ‘biostuffs’ and minerals to outposts that didn’t have them. But the exploration went on, out of the reach of the Mothership. Eventually, systems were found with planets, minerals, ‘biostuffs’. Societies developed based on the people in charge and the resources available. They had decades to develop and stabilize their culture. We end up with the trades in slower than light ships, not connected to Earth, but shuttling between stations that kept things connected. We have Cyteen, with genetic engineering and cyborg type humans, Pell, with a tenuous relationship with the Downworld Hisa, and Alpha, the last link to Earth. Then comes FTL, which changes everything, but only as fast as ships can move, and people can learn to move them. The snag is that there is no FTL path from Alpha to Sol, and Earth is sending the pusher STL ships in with what looks like enforcement in mind, not trade. But all is not as it seems. This book follows the quest to find out what Earth is really up to.
The Waking Land by Callie Bates. This is good fantasy with magic and politics clashing. Our protagonist was taken hostage at age 5 and then became totally immersed in her captor’s world. Her parents do not come to rescue her, and she eventually believes they are the bad guys. She does have magical power, that she hides deep inside herself. When the king who befriended her dies of poisoning, she is blamed and then is thrust on her journey, with her dawning realization that she doesn’t know what to believe, except that lots of people are lying about a lot of things. She will have to learn to trust herself and make her own decisions, which she realizes affect many more people than just herself.
The Spy Coast by Tess Gerritson. A group of old spies has migrated to a small town in Maine, for peace and camaraderie. Until a dead body shows up on the driveway of one of them: an obvious hit. It turns into one last mission for our group, as we learn the back stories and a long, long story of revenge. This is a good page turner.
Hidden in Snow by Viveca Stern. A small town in Sweden, with lots of miserable people behaving badly and making poor choices. Then a teenager disappears coming home from a party. The temperature is low, the snow is deep, and there are lots of places to hide a body. I didn’t figure this one out. Once I got past the bad behavior, it was interesting.
The Last Dance by Martin Shoemaker. Good hard sci-fi set during the early exploration of Mars. Large spaceships run in a series of gravity assist maneuvers to cycle between Earth and Mars. This is the story of one Captain that everyone hates, unless you learn how to love him. It tells the story of an almost mutiny by exploring the experiences of people who worked with the captain throughout his life in the effort to show the Inspector General investigating the mutiny why things ended up where they were. This is a real page turner with a realistic yet satisfying ending. A well written space opera.
The Gracelin O’Malley Trilogy: Gracelin O’Malley by Ann Moore. The first book is the story of our protagonist from vibrant teenage, through arranged marriage to the Irish potato famine (which was only partly biological and mostly political). A very interesting read about a piece of history I was only vaguely familiar with.
Leaving Ireland by Ann Moore. Grace lands in New York, and how she manages to survive and thrive despite all the obstacles. Again, the political is given life through people.
The Morning Light by Ann Moore. Grace travels to San Francisco as she finds her way through the growth of America, with all its flaws.
In Any Lifetime by Mark Guggenheim. A love story and physics. A physicist proves that there really are multiple parallel universes. He wins a Nobel prize. Then things go sideways. His wife dies in a car crash. He eventually decides he can’t live without her and figures out how to travel to those alternate universes to find the one where she is still alive. Others think this is not going to happen and do whatever they need to do to prevent him from finding his wife. A colleague decides that our physicist has stolen his work and pursues him to stop him from realizing his dream. It also seems that the universe is determined to stop him. It is the story of obsession, regardless of the cost. I get the writer’s point, but he does not examine the cost of our mortality, just the power of our emotions to drive us beyond what anyone, or the universe, thinks can be done.
Hill of Secrets by Galina Vromen. This is a story of people caught up in the Manhattan project because someone in the family was needed for this very secret war project. Everything on the Hill was secret, and the families were just along for the ride, but were kept in the dark. As they worked to make some sense of their situation and find a reason to carry on, relationships develop. Because all the lines have already been crossed, the next line doesn’t hold the same boundaries. Sex and secrets, that reverberate through the years. Good story.
Through a Darkening Glass by R. S. Maxwell. World War II. Evacuees are in a small English village. Our protagonist is a college student displaced from Cambridge due to the bombing and evacuates with her aunt to her other aunt’s home in the English countryside. She is intent on writing the Gothic Novel. Once she arrives, her ideas are upended by reality, but her insatiable curiosity keeps her poking into everything that seems out of place, which of course is everything because of the war, and because that’s just how small villages are as people try to keep some things private in a space where everyone can see everything. This ends up being a story about how people cope with the unexpected and unwanted and how their actions reverberate down the generations.
Michael
Based on Beth’s review of The Last Dance, Michael recommended Aniara, a book-length epic science fiction poem written by Swedish Nobel laureate Harry Martinson from 1953 to 1956. It narrates the tragedy of a large passenger spacecraft carrying a cargo of colonists escaping destruction on Earth, veering off course, leaving the Solar System and entering into an existential struggle. In 2018 it was made into a Swedish Danish movie, the trailer of which can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MIlE9R00ik. Wikipedia — click or just search for Aniara (film) — has an excellent synopsis of the movie.
Good Material by Dolly Alderton. A very detailed break-up told from both sides.
Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bernino. A girl reports back to extraterrestrials about the sustainability of life on earth.
James Percival Everett. Huckleberry Finn from Jim’s point-of-view.
Italian Folktales by Italo Calvino. 200 of them, disclosing common themes in other nation’s tales.
Orbital by Samantha Harvey. Six astronauts in space observe catastrophes on earth.
The Wide, Wide Sea by Hampton Sides. Captain Cook’s voyages.
In Praise of Shadows by Jun-Ichiro Tanizaki. How different the world would be if Japanese style were dominant.
The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker. The Iliad from the POV of a female slave.
The Women of Troy by Pat Barker. Preparing for the return home.
The Voyage Home by Pat Barker.
Linda
What’s Next: A Backstage Pass to The West Wing, Its Cast and Crew, and Its Enduring Legacy of Service by Melissa Fitzgerald and Mary McCormack. If you’re a fan of the show, you’ll enjoy all the insider information here.
Lone Wolf (Orphan X #9) by Gregg Hurwitz. *****
Days at the Morasaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa. Set in Japan. Young lady goes to work at her uncle’s bookshop and finds out a lot about her uncle’s wife. Kind of old-fashioned even though contemporary. Not very much about books. ***
Spirit Crossing (Cork O’Connor #20) by William Kent Krueger. The most recent Cork O’Connor novel. ****
Fox Creek (Cork O’Connor #19) by William Kent Krueger. ****
Five more Harry Bosch novels; 4-5*. I’ve really been bingeing these lately, to the point of being kept up half the night. Just love his plots and characters.
Echo Park (Harry Bosch #12) by Michael Connelly.
Lost Light (Harry Bosch #9) by Michael Connelly.
The Closers (Harry Bosch #11) by Michael Connelly.
The Narrows (Harry Bosch #10) by Michael Connelly.
City of Bones (Harry Bosch #8) by Michael Connelly.
Bite: An Incisive History of Teeth, from Hagfish to Humans by Bill Schutt. Evolution and physiology of teeth in many animals. A little dry but interesting. ***
The Ravenmaster by Christopher Skaife. By the recent ravenmaster at the Tower of London. I love ravens so I loved hearing about these guys and their escapades. *****
The Cure for Women by Lydia Reeder. A history of the first women doctors in the U.S. and their fight to be admitted to standard medical education. *****
Peggy
City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert. An entertaining choice for book club after several months of mental health woe selections. A Vassar dropout goes to New York in the 40s to work in her aunt’s theater. Too much sex and booze, and more bad choices, before she settles down to run a dress shop. Entertaining characters in and out of the theater.
The Spies of Shilling Lane by Jennifer Ryan. Mrs. Braithwaite’s divorce has led to status loss in her small town, so she heads to WWII London to see her daughter. But the daughter doesn’t work where she said or live where she said so Mother goes on a hunt with the help of the timid landlord. Black markets, fascists, other adventures and by the end the harridan of a mother has softened, and the mouse of a landlord shows his bravery.
The Mistress of Bhatia House by Sujata Massey. Perveen is a woman lawyer in 1920s India and even with her father’s support she can’t represent clients in court. But that doesn’t stop her from investigating suspicious deaths. Is it family dynamics, business quarrels or a planned women’s hospital that has led to death? A new character in this series is an Indian Jewish woman doctor.
Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson. Sci-fi from 20 years ago. A 200 ft stone pillar appears in the forests of Thailand, but the pillar is dated 20 years into the future. Over the rest of the book, more pillars appear, and life is disrupted. A strange chain of causality seems to be drawing in the book’s main characters again and again.
Department of Rare Books and Special Collections by Eva Jurczyk. The library’s director has a stroke, a junior staff member goes missing, the newest acquisition isn’t in the safe, and a prize 500-year-old book turns out to only be 50 years old. What’s the librarian to do? An entertaining and whimsical mystery.
Grey Wolf by Louise Penny. A missing coat, an intruder alert, a scrap of paper with a mysterious list that involves the ingredients of a famous liqueur. Plus a hit and run murder, a visit to the Vatican and several more murders, only one of which happens in Three Pines. I finished this book in a day and the finish is a real rollercoaster.
Brad (77/28181): I ended up reading 77 books in 2024, totaling 28,181 pages.
Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa (Translated by Eric Ozawa). A young woman has fallen in love with a work colleague and feels certain he is going to ask her to marry him. Instead, he informs her at a special dinner that in fact he has been seeing someone else in the same office and will be marrying her instead. Crushed, she sinks into a deep depression and quits her job. Out of the blue, an uncle she hasn’t seen since she was a small child asks her to come and live with him. His wife left him some years ago and could use the company. Desperate and broke, she agrees, moving into a small room above the bookshop he runs, which has been in the family for generations. At first, she considers him somewhat of an eccentric oddball but gradually accepts who he is and comes to appreciate his wisdom.
This is a sweet story about loss and the support family can offer. ****
The Mercy of Gods by James S.A. Corey. By the author of The Expanse series. The Carryx are a species that is taking over the universe, one civilization at a time. They take what they can use and destroy the rest. The story is about what happens to the select few scientists who are spared and enslaved when their home world of Anjiin is conquered. LOTS of soap opera delving into personal relationships amongst the scientists – which is absolutely of no interest to me. I think this is the first in what is scheduled to be a three=part series, but I can’t see reading the next installment. ***
Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Readers’ Favorite Science Fiction (2024).
Home: A Memoir of My Early Years by Julie Andrews Edwards. Man. It is tough to imagine how rough an upbringing Andrews had as a child. Poor as could be. Her mother abandoned her father and took up with an alcoholic singer. Her mother was a real piece of work, let me tell you. Even as a young girl she had an amazing voice; she began appearing with her mother and stepfather at music halls throughout Britain, eventually performing on radio as well. At 18 she left home for the U.S. to appear in her first musical on Broadway, which led to her role in My Fair Lady, where Walt Disney saw her perform and offered her the role in Mary Poppins. Truly an amazing story of survival and perseverance. ****
Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips. This is a story about a woman and her young daughter in the aftermath of the civil war. Simple enough, right? While the author does an excellent job of capturing the voice of the different characters, the plot itself is a bit difficult to follow, as it jumps back and forth in time. I enjoyed it, but a bit of a frustrating read. ****
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN FICTION
The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz. The Plot is about the plot of a book, which contains a subplot, which has a subplot. A once-heralded author has not been able to live up to the expectations of his critically acclaimed (but poorly selling) first book. His second book drew little interest; the third and fourth were rejected by publishers. So now he finds himself teaching a writing workshop at a small, third-rate college. One of his students, an arrogant young man, informs the class that he has a sure-fire plot for a book he is going to write. It will be a bestseller, and A-list directors will fight to make it into a movie. In a private session he details the plot to the author/teacher. And then that’s it. He never hears from the student again, but he doesn’t hear that the book has been published either. It turns out the cocky student has died of an overdose. Since the book was never written, the author decides to adopt the plot into his own novel, which becomes a huge bestseller and is going to be made into a movie by Steven Spielberg. That’s plot one.
While on a tour promoting his bestseller, he is invited to take part in an interview at a local radio station out in Washington. The DJ is a jerk, but he finds himself attracted to the station manager, a young woman who appears to have a crush on him. Things develop, and she ends up quitting her job and moving to New York to live with him, becoming a producer of podcasts. Pretty standard stuff. Except soon the author starts receiving anonymous messages, saying “You stole this book!” The harassment escalates. The author is worried he will be exposed as a fraud and shunned by the writing community. That’s plot two.
Then things get interesting. It turns out the woman he is now married to is the SISTER of the young man who originally came up with the plot. What?! And that their parents have also died, somewhat mysteriously. So, the author, out of curiosity and self-protection, starts digging into the family’s background. More and more hinky stuff turns up. He finally figures out what is really going on … and I won’t tell you the rest. Basically plot three. Nice twist at the end, and then a cliffhanger of an ending, which will lead into the sequel, called, of course, The Sequel.
This is a good suspenseful read, but I must tell you, I figured out the end, so maybe it wasn’t the surefire plot it was made out to be. ****
Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Readers’ Favorite Mystery & Thriller (2021).
Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor by James M. Scott. Excellent, detailed history of Doolittle’s raid on Tokyo, the U.S. answer to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. It was fascinating for me to learn just how ineffectual the raid actually was. Sixteen bombers left an aircraft carrier; only two of them managed to hit their assigned military targets. Even so, the Japanese military had assured the civilian population that there was no way the Americans could ever reach Tokyo, so this ended up being somewhat of a propaganda victory. The bombers themselves had been forced to take off much further from the coast of Japan than planned, so they all ran out of fuel before they could reach friendly air force bases in China. One even had to land in Russia instead. This for me was the most interesting part of the story: how the various air crews, stranded in Japanese-held territory in China, managed to make their way to safety with the help of villagers and the Chinese military. This infuriated the Japanese, who conducted a massive retaliation against the civilian population; 250,000 Chinese died as a result. Our military had predicted this would occur but went ahead with the raid anyway. In fact, they chose not to inform Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Republic of China, knowing he would not cooperate if faced with such losses. They never tell us this in our history books.
Two of the bomber crews were captured by the Japanese and taken back to Japan, where they underwent tremendous torture, the exact same kind of torture President Bush authorized in secret CIA-run camps after the 9/11 attacks. Eventually three of the airmen were put to death by firing squad; the rest were sentenced to life in prison.
After the war, a Japanese version of the Nuremberg trials was held. However, the Japanese general who oversaw the torture and ordered the murder of the captured airmen was never brought to justice, as General Douglas MacArthur stepped in to prevent this from happening. Much with the Nazis who were spared by the Allies so that they could assist running post-war Germany, MacArthur needed Japanese war criminals to help run post-war Japan.
This isn’t covered in our history books either. American exceptionalism at work. Finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in History. Highly recommended. *****
John
A Hole in the World: An American Boyhood by Richard Rhodes.
The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean.
I Took a Lickin’ and Kept on Tickin’ (And Now I Believe in Miracles) by Lewis Grizzard.
Nathan
Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry.
The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible by Michael Heiser.
On the Incarnation by Athanasius of Alexandria.
The Life of Antony by Athanasius of Alexandria.
St. Francis of Assisi by G.K. Chesterton.
Roverandom by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling.
Cynthia
Imhotep by Jerry Dubs. A four-book series about a time traveler, Tim Hope, who travels between the modern world and ancient Egypt where he is Imhotep.
Thirty-seven Days of Peril by T. C. Everts. Chronicles the experience of Everts when he was lost in the vast expanse of Yellowstone with nothing but a knife and an opera glass to use for survival.
Christina
Discussed quite a few books; but she did not submit a list for inclusion in this report.
