What are you reading now?: October 19, 2024.

Coming around the last corner of Eagles Over the Sea. After that will come Glass Houses and Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity.

In Ascension and Strategy Shelved are next up.

Spent a lot of time this week reading The Norton Book of Women's Lives edited by Phyllis Rose, and a little time reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: The Illustrated Edition by J. K. Rowling.
I'm meeting with my friends tomorrow to discuss the first quarter of Women's Lives and am sure we'll have plenty to say.

I'm reading Exiles by Jane Harper, which is another of her Aaron Falk crime series. It's very good.

I am nit-picking every audiobook I try, so there's nothing I'm listening to there.

I'm about a third of the way through The Overstory by Richard Powers. I bought it when it came out six years ago but didn't find the time to read it. Now I'm wondering why I waited so long.

I'm reading both The Last Light of the Sun by Guy and the second book in Three Hainish Novels by Ursula K. Le Guin.

>4 fredbacon: I think you put it brilliantly and I hope you don't mind if I borrow: ". . . didn't find the time to read it. Now I'm wondering why I waited so long." That's my thinking on finally, finally reading these two books.

I'm enjoying Richard Osman's latest, We Solve Murders.

Truly Madly Guilty – Liane Moriarty

Digital audiobook narrated by Caroline Lee
3.5***

From the book jacket: Sam and Clementine have a wonderful, albeit busy life. Clementine and Erika have been friends since they were little When Erika mentions a last-minute invitation to a barbecue with her neighbors, Tiffany and Vid, Clementine and Sam don’t hesitate. Two months later, it won’t stop raining, and Clementine and Sam can’t stop asking themselves the question: What if we hadn’t gone??

My reactions:
As much as I’ve grown tired of dual timelines, I have to admit that Moriarty excels at this device. And, as she has done with previous novels, here she also uses changing points of view to explore the basics of our lives: marriage, friendship, sex, family, guilt and forgiveness. She shows how even the strongest relationship can be shaken by a single event, and how what we do or say can sometimes be overshadowed by what we do NOT say or do.

Moriarty’s characters are wonderfully revealed through their conversations and actions. Having the dual timeline and changing points of view keeps the reader guessing about what actually happened and who was responsible. This technique reminded me of the first of her novels I read - Big Little Lies.

Who among us hasn’t been plagued by “what if…”?

Caroline Lee does a marvelous job of narrating the audiobook. She has a lot of characters to handle, and she gives them unique voices. I particularly liked the way she interpreted Vid.

Mrs Plansky’s Revenge – Spencer Quinn
3***

Mrs Loretta Plansky is a recent widow, living in Florida, playing tennis at the club, trying to deal with her ninety-eight-year-old father, and contemplating requests for money from her children and grandchildren. One night she’s awoken by a late-night phone call from her grandson. He’s been in an accident in Colorado and needs bail money. And, please don’t tell Mom & Dad! So, of course, Mrs Plansky gives him her bank account number and password. She even tells him he can take a bit more than he requested. But when morning dawns she discovers that not only her bank account, but her investment accounts have been completely drained of all funds. And law enforcement offers little to no hope of recovering her funds. Well, THIS will not do! If the law won’t help, Mrs Plansky will get her money back herself!

This was just delightful. Loretta is resilient, intrepid, tenacious, and so unassuming that no one can possibly consider her a threat. She has no patience for the bureaucrats, police officers, journalists, etc who not only will NOT help her, but look askance at her and dismiss her. This elderly lady is NOT to be messed with! And when push comes to shove, Loretta gives as good as she gets. The final chase scene had my heart in my throat, but she’s got moves I never expected. She may be in her seventies, but Loretta Plansky is one kick-a$$ heroine! Brava!

I still think Quinn’s Chet and Bernie series is superior, but this was really a fun lark of a novel.

Counterfeit – Kirstin Chen
Digital audiobook performed by Catherine Ho.
4****

Most people would consider Ava Wong a successful woman. A Chinese-American with a law degree from Stanford, a husband who is a brilliant surgeon, and an adorable toddler son, she is, apparently, living the good life. But Ava hasn’t used her expensive law degree in years, and she’s at her wit’s end trying to deal with her son’s increasingly frequent tantrums. Then she runs into her old college roommate, Winnie Fang. Winnie is from mainland China and hoping to finally get her green card. And that is why she needs Ava’s help. All Ava has to do is go to China (with her genuine USA passport) and buy some designer handbags for Winnie’s business. What could possibly go wrong?

This is an engaging, entertaining, twisty heist involving counterfeit designer goods, a scheme to trick high-end department stores out of money, and an ever-increasing number of lies told to everyone about what is really going on.

Winnie is a master manipulator. Clearly a sociopath with no moral compass other than what is good for Winnie. Ava is torn between her loyalty to her husband and son, the pressure of hiding her illegal activities, and her desire to feel as good as Winnie’s schemes make her feel. As their enterprise gets into trouble Winnie vanishes, leaving Ava to face the authorities on her own. Will she crack? Can she, alone, pull off one more scam? Should she betray Winnie to save her own skin?

Chen goes back and forth in time to tell this story, occasionally interrupting the chronological flow to give the reader a snippet of Ava’s interview with a detective. This device is handled brilliantly by Chen. Keeping the reader off balance and guessing about what will finally happen.

Catherine Ho does a marvelous job of narrating the audiobook. She sets a good pace and I had little difficulty keeping the two women at the core of the story straight.

From the library: Murder at King's Crossing by Andrea Penrose
New and 8th installment in the "Wrexford and Sloane Historical Mystery series"

>2 PaperbackPirate: I've all of that Phylis Rose anthology and consider it an extremely valuable resource. As for myself, having finally finished the third quarter of The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust, I have now begun Shattered Tablets: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life by Joshua Leifer. This is a very recently published book about which I've read two positive reviews. I'll be interested to see how closely Leifer's observations agree with my own, and what new insights on the topic I'll gain from Leifer's writing.

Will
Will Smith
4/5 stars
This is the actor Will Smith's autobiography and published in 2021. I thought this was quite an interesting book and a good read. Biography

The new thread is up over here.