Great book club in February. We had eight people online, including Jim, who we hadn’t seen in a couple months. His volunteer work has kept him pretty busy, including running some kind of regional math competition. Tim was a newcomer last month, and he joined us again, but had to drop off before he could tell us what he’s been reading. And Cynthia did a bit of multitasking, joining our conversation while watching the Puppy Bowl with the sound off.
Tammy couldn’t make it, but did send her reading. Sadly, Linda wasn’t able to join us because her stinkin’ internet went down. Boo!
Thankfully, our regulars Beth, Michael, Peggy and Christina had no such problem.
It’s pretty funny. We spend most of the time before book discussion talking about cataract surgeries, who has had them, and who is going to have them. And then somehow the discussion veered off into beer. And Peggy is planning a vacation to South Carolina, where she is looking forward to visiting Fort Sumpter.
Get a group of Mensans together and this is what happens. <g>
Oh! We also had a special guest join us late in the discussion by Rebeca, who is a friend of Beth’s. Rebeca has an hour’s commute each way to drive to work, so she listens to a lot of audio books.
How do you do your reading? Join us in March and tell us!
In all, 79 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 on the second Sunday of each month; in this case March 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
*****
Peggy
The Life of Herod the Great, by Zora Neale Hurston. Her last novel, which was almost destroyed in a garbage fire as they were clearing out her house after she died, takes a view of Herod opposite to that of the New Testament or Josephus. So, no murder of the innocents or horrific death, just a friend to Anthony and other Romans (if not Cleopatra) and a skilled soldier and politician. The writing is a little stiff, but it is 70 years old.
We Solve Murders, by Richard Oscan. If the Thursday Murder Club strains credulity, this new series goes another step farther. A best-selling author is under a death threat and her female bodyguard loops in her ex-cop father-in-law to solve a baffling series of murders around the world that are run by a contract killer. Unlimited money glides over some of the logistics (private jet, anyone?)
No One will Miss Her, by Kat Rosenfield. What starts out looking like a domestic murder in small town Maine has a big fat plot twist in the middle that had me go back several chapters to reread and see how I missed the twist. In the Gone Girl mode.
Night of Camp David, by Fletcher Knebel (also wrote Seven Days in May). A 1965 novel about what a President gone crazy might try to do (annex Canada and Scandinavia, sic the FBI on people you think are dangerous, accuse your VP of sabotage). The ending wimps out which cuts some of its bite. If you can’t find the book, read the Tom Nichols review in The Atlantic from a few weeks ago.
Shakespeare’s Unorthodox Biography: New Evidence of an Authorship Problem, by Diana Price. Comparing “Shakspere” with literary biographies of contemporary authors (Jonson, Marlowe and others), the author concludes that on many dimensions (evidence of education, correspondence concerning literary manners, evidence of having been paid to write, original manuscripts, books owned) the man from Stratford had nothing to identify him as a writer. Instead, she views him as a canny businessman in the theatrical profession, along with money-lending and real estate.
Beth
The Memory of Fire, by Callie Bates. Sorcery is still a crime punishable by death as we watch our protagonists try to change the world and save the people they love. They confront their deepest fears in the midst of a struggle for survival while betrayals change up good guys and bad guys without warning. I found the actions in discord with the level of maturity of the protagonist, and most characters are shallow.
Orphan X, by Greg Hurwitz. First book of the series. Good thriller mystery, because the protagonist is NOT working for the government but trying to do good in the world. Lots of twists could have gone lots of way. I ordered the next three books from the library.
Nowhere Man, by Greg Hurwitz Book 2 of the Orphan X series. All of Orphan X’s enemies are out to get him. He is kidnapped at the site of one of his rescues and taken to a secure location. He repeatedly tries to escape, and in the meantime all his enemies gather to bid on him so they can extract their personal revenge. It gets quite bloody.
Hellbent, by Greg Hurwitz. Orphan X’s mentor sends him to find a package. The chase continues, and X is learning what it takes to stay human. This is a capacity he has, but not the actual skills. This book focuses a lot more on the human side of our protagonist, while still full of daring twists and high-tech toys.
Out of the Dark, by Greg Hurwitz. Orphan X is exercising both sides of his conscience in his revenge quest for his mentor’s and other’s deaths. Good karate moves, high body count, and some really intricate setup to achieve his ends, while he is still learning to be a human.
Lethal White, by Robert Galbraith. Stike and Robin continue their romantic dance while chasing down two seemingly connected cases. This one is full of blackmail and the clash of classes (what else) in England. Another good page turner.
Moonflowers, by Abigail Rose-Marie. A woman ends up in a small hill community in Kentucky to paint a portrait of her ancestor and uncovers decades and generations of secrets and the courageous women who worked to survive the legacy, and make changes, one small step at a time. Nothing is what it seems, and people handle brutal damage in surprising ways.
The Lake of Learning, by Steve Berry and M.J. Rose. A book is unearthed from a 13th century castle restoration, and two people want it — at any cost. This is a story of the Cathars, a Christian sect that was ruthlessly persecuted in the Middle Ages. It’s a short book about the Cathar sect with a mystery to keep you interested. The history was more interesting than the quest.
The Hunter’s Chalice, by Marie Andreas. This is book three in a series about all sorts of magical creatures, magical power, and time travel with safe time and space packets. It even has drunken fairies. It is a fun read with people trying to figure out how to pool their resources and find out who the bad guys are and how to defeat them. At least one more book to come. It’s one of those books you can enjoy because none of it can be real and apply in the here and now.
She’s Up to No Good, by Sara Goodman Confino. Our protagonist’s marriage falls apart in the first chapter, and then her grandmother drags her to the little town in Massachusetts where her family is from. She learns the complicated story of her mother’s side of the family and manages to heal herself along the way. It works because her grandma is such a character and turns this from a romance to a family drama exploring the consequences of marrying for success vs young love.
The Women, by Kristen Hannah. A story of the daughter of a wealthy conservative family with strong military ties during Vietnam. The son graduates from Annapolis and goes to Vietnam. The daughter decides to go to nursing school, and on graduation, feeling the patriotism of her family, who lives on Coronado Island in San Diego, decides to enlist. Only the Army will take her without experience. Between when she signs up, and is to report to boot camp, her brother is killed in Vietnam. Despite the disapproval of her family, she goes anyway. The first part of the book is the account of her experience going from a naive, inexperienced new graduate to outstanding combat nurse. Then she comes home, and everything falls apart. The second half of the book is about the horrible welcome home that the soldiers received and how she and others dealt with it.
Symphony of Secrets, by Brendan Slocumb. A music professor is brought into the foundation run by the family of the composer he wrote his dissertation on, to transcribe a newly discovered final symphony. He recruits a friend who is a cyberwizard to help him. Things go sideways immediately. This is a story within a story of how outgroup people are ignored, disbelieved, stolen from, and treated as non-human, especially when money and power are involved.
Michael
The Silence of the Girls, by Pat Barker. The Iliad from the point of view of Briseis, Achilles’s trophy slave.
The Women of Troy, by Pat Barker. The Trojan Horse, the fall of Troy, rats, stuck on the beach, from Briseis POV.
The Voyage Home, by Pat Barker. Back to Greece with Helen and Cassandra, from Ritka, a slave’s POV.
The Iliad, by Homer.
The Odyssey, by Homer.
The Aeneid, by Virgil.
The Trojan Women, by Euripides (play).
Troy Women, by Karen Hartman (modern update of play).
Circe, by Madeline Miller (from an episode in the Odyssey).
The Penelopiad, by Margaret Atwood. Odysseus’s wife’s story, with his unfair killing of slave girls.
Homer’s The Iliad and the Odyssey, A Biography, by Alberto Manguel. A book of essays about these classic works.
Redemption, by Pat Barker. Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen as COs (i.e., Conscientious Objectors) to WWI.
The Eye in the Door, by Pat Barker. Homosexuality and Conscientious Objectors to WWI.
Ghost Road, by Pat Barker (Booker Prize).
The Oxford Book of War Poetry, Edited by Jon Stallworthy.
The Hero, by Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)
‘Jack fell as he’d have wished,’ the Mother said,
And folded up the letter that she’s read.
‘The Colonel writes so nicely,’ Something broke
In the tired voice that quavered to a choke.
She half looked up. We mothers are so proud
Of our dead soldiers.’ Then her face bowed.
Quietly the Brother Officer went out.
He’s told the poor old dear some gallant lies
That she would nourish all her days, no doubt.
For while he coughed and mumbled, her weak eyes
Had shone with gentle triumph, brimmed with joy,
Because he’d been so brave, her glorious boy.
He thought how ‘Jack’, cold-footed useless swine,
Had panicked down the trench that night the mine
Went up at Wicked Corner, how he’d tried
To get sent home, and how, at last, he died,
Blown to small bits. And no one seemed to care
Except that lonely woman with white hair.
Christina
Kid Stuff:
Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne. Classic stories that I probably didn’t understand at all when I was a kid. This was the Peter Dennis narration, and his insistence of punctuating every single word from Piglet with an annoying snort got really old really fast.
The Chupacabra Ate the Candelabra. I finally got the actual picture book from the library. It’s not a style of artwork I typically like, but the illustrations do make the story.
Dungeons and Drama by Kristy Boyce. Cute YA rom-com. Very tropey (enemies to lovers, fake dating) but the author knows her D&D. It feels a bit dated, though, in that the drama geeks aren’t already dating the gaming geeks.
Nine Magic Wishes by Shirley Jackson. Jackson’s final book, this is a story of a girl granted nine wishes by a magician. The edition I read had the original Lorraine Fox illustrations, which I didn’t really care for. Judging by the cover art, I think I would prefer the new edition illustrated by Jackson’s grandson, Miles Hyman.
Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers. Was all 20th-century kid lit this bizarre and disturbing? I’d watched the movie for the first time a few years ago and wondered the same thing about kid flicks. The book and the film are very different from each other, and I kinda hated them both, but for different reasons.
Defying Hitler: Jesse Owens’ Olympic Triumph by Nel Yomtov and illustrated by Eduardo Garcia. I downloaded the audiobook and then realized I should look for the illustrated version. Hoopla had it in comic book format, so I was able to listen and look at the same time, which went well.
The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco. I knew this was YA, so I don’t know why I was surprised by how YA it felt. I never really warmed to the story, but I can see how a younger reader might enjoy it. A witch from a family of witches, Tea discovers she is a necromancer when she raises her brother from the dead. So she and her brother are sent to a magic school far away. Much wackiness ensues.
Logan’s Greenhouse by JaNay Brown-Wood. This is actually a pretty brilliant introduction to the concepts of observation and classification. Just ignore me, muttering impatiently every time, “No, Logan, that is not a freaking carrot.” It’s a good thing I don’t have kids.
Crime Fiction:
Murder at Melrose Court by Karen Baugh Menuhin. I love a good English country house mystery! This one is very much in the Golden Age style and gets the series off to a good start.
Ten Low by Stark Holborn. This was an interesting SF desert adventure. Think Star Wars and Firefly meet Dune and Mad Max. Our protagonist rescues a young girl from a crash landing, and it turns out she’s a general marked for assassination. Much wackiness ensues.
The Gift by Freida McFadden. A clumsy attempt to make “The Gift of the Magi” spooky. Read for the Sleep When I’m Dead book club.
Apple Cider Slaying by Julie Anne Lindsey. A cozy of the “solve the murder to save the family business from ruin” variety. And the amateur sleuth falls for the hot cop, of course. Not amazing, but there are kittens. If the library offers up the second in the series, I might read it.
Homecoming by Kate Morton. A dual timeline Christmas-time mystery set in South Australia. I enjoyed it overall, but it was slow-moving and bloated, and not nearly as mysterious as you might expect. If you’re new to Morton’s work, start elsewhere. Read for 12 Recommendations from 12 Friends.
Staged by Elle Cosimano. I couldn’t stand the Findlay Donovon book I tried, so I decided a short story might be a good way to give the author a second chance. This little murder mystery wasn’t awful, but it helped me decide that Cosimano is not an author for me.
The Pot Thief Who Studied Calvin by J. Michael Orenduff. I got this as a special-edition ARC at Left Coast Crime in 2022. It was…interesting but I can’t say I enjoyed it.
Crime on the Fens by Joy Ellis. A different style of police procedural than I typically read. A young woman has gone missing and a mismatched team of detectives has to learn to respect and trust each other–and their somewhat unorthodox methods–in order to find her in time.
The Book of Judges (by Samuel?) After reading Christie’s The Wife of the Kenite last month, I took a closer look at the entire Book of Judges and the widely varying interpretations of it. Now I really wonder what Christie was up to with that story.
Nonfiction:
Making Space: Creating a Home Meditation Practice by Thich Nhat Hanh. I have relaxation-induced anxiety, so others will probably get a lot more out of this than I did. I did learn some things about Buddhism, though.
Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder. Brutally detailed rundown of the horrorshow that was Europe in the first half of the 20th century. Too, too timely. Read for 12 Recommendations from 12 Friends.
Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream by Joshua Davis. There is a 2015 movie based on this 2014 book that provides the fascinating backstories of this underdog robotics team that beat out MIT’s team in a high-stakes competition in 2004. It also, unlike the movie, follows them beyond their impressive win and examines their influence on the DREAMers movement.
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann. I gather this re-hashes a lot of stuff already well known to those who are already interested in seafaring history. That is not me, so I found it interesting, just not the 5-star read I expected from Grann.
The Big Sort by Bill Bishop. An interesting look at how Americans cultivate their filter bubbles geographically as well as digitally. Bishop predicted the national disasters we are facing, but this book is oddly narrow in scope, even for its time, and doesn’t really provide any kind of strategy for changing things. Read for Book Snobs.
The Rest:
Faux Ho Ho by ‘Nathan Burgoine. Adorable MM fake dating holiday romance set in Canada. It’s one of those “you idiots, everybody can see you are mad about each other” stories, and Burgoine infuses it with a lot of humor.
XoeteoX by Edwin Torres. Weird poetry. I listened to the audiobook and enjoyed it, but if you aren’t a fan of slam poetry, you might not feel the same. I suspect the text layout is important to some of these poems, so I may re-listen with a text edition handy. Read for Alphabet Soup.
The Christmas Book Hunt by Jenny Colgan. Cute little holiday treasure hunt, though a lot of elements didn’t really stick the landing. The best thing about it was the protagonist’s relationship with her great-aunt.
The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo. This is the first in the Singing Hills Cycle, a series of fantasy novellas in a setting inspired by imperial China. Don’t read the cover blurb, which is simultaneously confusing and spoilery. Just go in cold. It’s short. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to read any more.
Jim
How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from The Moth, by The Moth (Author), Meg Bowles (Author), Catherine Burns (Author), Jenifer Hixson (Author), Sarah Austin Jenness (Author), Kate Tellers (Author), Chenjerai Kumanyika (Introduction), Padma Lakshmi (Foreword).
The book describes how the staff of The Moth Radio Hour coach normal people who have story ideas about how to edit, structure, and then tell their story to a live audience. At the end of each chapter is a summary of the important points. Well worth the time for someone learning to write.
Tammy
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.
Be Ready When the Luck Happens, by Ina Gartens. Very interesting about her life and surviving parental abuse or neglect and rising above.
Cynthia
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, by Charlie Mackey. This is a lovely little book on relationships and the meaning of life. It is delightful to read through as a book, but I also use it as a point of meditation by simply opening to one random page and using that as my meditation guide.
Pocket Guides to Kansas Wildlife, Plants and Trees, by the K-State Extension Office. Fifteen small books offered by Kansas Great Plains Nature Center as an introduction to the diversity of Kansas. They contain excellent descriptions and pictures of their topics.
The Feckin’ Book of Irish Insults: For Gobdaws as Thick As Manure and Only Half As Useful, by Colin Murphy and Donald O’Dea. Fun to read when you’re looking for some way to disparage that’s fresh. The book contains the insult, translates it into English and includes a cartoon of using it.
Bird Songs – 250 North American Birds in Song, by Les Beletsky. A wonderful introduction to birding. Each bird included as a verbal description, a full-page picture and an audio of its song.
Linda
Still Binging Bosch, by Michael Connelly. (all 5*)
Nine Dragons #21
The Overlook #18
The Drop #24
The Black Box #16
The Burning Room #17
The Crossing #1
The Wrong Side of Goodbye #19
Two Kinds of Truth #20
The Bookshop on the Corner, by Jenny Colgan. A young woman in England loses her bookshop job (or library job?) and decides to move to Scotland and run a mobile bookshop out of a van. Romance and other things ensue. ***
We Were Never Here, by Andrea Bartz. Two young women participate to various degrees in several murders. Characters are very annoying. Involves a trip to Chile but not much info about the country. **
The Bee Sting, by Paul Murray. A family drama set in Ireland. Well-drawn characters but it gets a bit too weird in places. ***
Shakespeare: The Man who Pays the Rent, by Judi Dench. Judi is credited as an author but it’s actually a series of interviews with her about her experience acting The Bard’s work. Fascinating if you love theatre and/or Shakespeare. *****
Brad (5/2380)
Killers of a Certain Age, by Deanna Raybourn. So, there’s this super-secret agency, which started after the end of WWII. Some German war criminals had never been brought to justice, so this agency was formed to right wrongs, to kill those that had killed so many.
Flash to the present day. A group of women has just retired from the agency, and in place of a gold watch they are on a luxury cruise, top of the line. Except … it’s a trap! It turns out a burn notice has been put out on them and there is a bomb on board. After a harrowing escape they regroup to figure out why, and who.
The story jumps back and forth between when and how each of the women were first recruited, to how they were trained to become elite assassins. Now they must put all they have learned, both to survive and take revenge on those that betrayed them. Think Golden Girls with a license to kill. ****
Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Readers’ Favorite Mystery & Thriller (2022)
Damn Glad to Meet You: My Seven Decades in the Hollywood Trenches, by Tim Matheson.
My first knowledge of the actor Tim Matheson was the character Otter he played in Animal House. And later he appeared in a story arc in Burn Notice, one of my favorite shows. What I didn’t know was all the stuff before and after. For example, did you know he made regular appearances on Leave it to Beaver? Or that he replaced Dan Blocker (Hoss) in the final season of Bonanza? So many other great stories.
I really enjoyed this book. Well worth the read. ****
Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project, by General Leslie R. Groves. I worked in the defense industry for close to 40 years, including a stint in the Nuclear Weapons Complex. I knew a bit about the Manhattan Project, as I did my graduate work at the Ames Laboratory. But what I didn’t know was all the nuts and bold behind the project, and that’s what this book by General Groves dives into. Starting with, Groves was in charge of overseeing the construction of the Pentagon before being assigned to this project!
Lots and lots of fascinating stories, not told by an historian, but by the man that brought the whole project together, from finding the land, to building the facilities, to recruiting the scientists, to collaborating with the Navy to get the bomb transported, to coordinating with the Air Force to make sure the newest aircraft and the best crews were assigned and trained for the missions.
What I had no idea about was that Groves also put together a team, similar to the Monument Men, to capture and interrogate German scientists as the U.S. regained territory in Europe.
Great history. Highly recommended. *****
