Current Non-Genre Reading III

I'm about to read Worth: A St Raphael’s College Story by Judith B King. It was recommended by SF author Katherine Benfante. It's only 90 pages and is a coming of age story, first of a series (the second of which is not out quite yet).

When I know what I think of it, I will share.
 
About to start 1929 by Andrew Ross Sorkin, a narrative history focusing on the people involved in the decisions and events leading to the stock market crash and the repercussions of the crash.
 
Actually read this awhile ago, but I've been slow to review:

Fallen Deer (A Cadence Mystery, #6) by Dianne L. Hagan

A disclaimer: The author and her husband have been friends for nearly 50 years and I am an early reader of her manuscripts. In short, my view may be biased.

Fallen Deer begins with … well, a fallen deer bouncing off the hood of Marian Greene’s car and staggering away. Followed almost immediately by a fallen man. He doesn’t stagger; he just lies on the hood, quite dead.

The search for where the body came from by Police Chief George Powless (possibly my favorite character across the series) and his deputies eventually finds more bodies, as well as a group of immigrants shipped from out of state to Hagan’s fictional (unfortunately) town of Cadence, N.Y., a multi-cultural utopian community that would be more utopian if outsiders didn’t abhor and try to sabotage a diverse body of inhabitants working together successfully.

With every novel I am impressed with how so many characters can be so well delineated, each with their own cultural background, approach to trouble and individual quirks. Again, as usual in the Cadence novels, much food is involved, providing the characters not just with sustenance but with moments of peace and quiet to regroup, exchange impressions and knowledge, focus on their immediate troubles, reaffirm their commitment to the community and each other, and recommit to face those troubles. As in real life, there are growing pains when confronting fear and conflict and the irrationality of those trying to destroy the community, and not everyone acts as their best selves. Along the way to resolution, deer herd people, truth about the founding of Cadence is unveiled, and one of Police Chief Powless’ deputies comes-of-age whether he likes it or not.

This may be my favorite of the Cadence books to date. The conflicts feel real, the situation is drawn from recent events, and the sense of Cadence as a solid, welcoming community grows a little more, as it has with each book.
 
Another by Dianne L. Hagan I've been slow to review:


Creature of Secret Sorrow (A Cadence Mystery, #7) by Dianne L. Hagan

A disclaimer: The author and her husband have been friends for nearly 50 years and I am an early reader of her manuscripts. In short, my view may be biased.

Marian Greene is Cadence’s canary-in-the-coal-mine: When Randy Nichols, the community’s resident geologist, goes missing, Marian joins the search for him and in doing so stumbles on a Black man hanging from a tree limb. Once again, the residents of Cadence find themselves unburying secrets and defending themselves from those outsiders who revile and attack a community based on respect for diversity and inclusiveness.

Recurring characters like Marian’s husband, Lester, their friend, Enoch, Henrietta (married to Enoch), Phil and his husband Joshua, Police Chief George Powless, and Madison Hayward, who continues to try and make reparations for her family’s sins against Cadence, are all present and accounted for, as are many others who populate the community and the series. They witness the arrival of the parents of a missing son who may be the man Marian found, the near destruction of two people by the hatred their mothers hold for them, a cursed object which appears to affect several Cadence residents, doppelgangers, a kidnapping, and the appearance of a mythic being as Hagan’s mystery careens toward horror. Even so, she maintains her focus on the humanity of her characters and the ways in which the residents of Cadence cohere to defend themselves, as once again not everything is as it first appears and the monsters we should be most wary of may pass by us every day unrecognized.

Darker than her earlier novels in the series – which is saying something – Creature is still filled with the friendships, loyalty and courage her earlier books demonstrated and that make Cadence a community her readers look forward to revisiting. I’m not sure I’d say this was a good place to start if you haven’t been reading the series – though the previous novel, The Fallen Deer, might be – because the tone is different from previous books, but it’s a good, solid addition to what has become a fine series of thoughtful mysteries that reflect our troubled times.
 
After reading Europe in Autumn I had a real hankering for a good spy novel so I borrowed a copy of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre.

I haven’t read a lot of spy genre stuff so there were a few moments in the book where I felt a little lost in the plot but overall I enjoyed it quite a bit. Thankfully I was more in the mood for a cerebral or procedural style spy story and not an action packed one, as this is definitely more of a thinking man’s spy novel.
 
Finished up another non-genre read: Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. This was a reread for me. I wanted to see if it landed differently for me as I read it a long time ago and can’t say that I loved it then. Well, I didn’t love it now either. It was fine but the writing style just isn’t to my taste. But my eyes were glazing over too often for this to really feel like a success for me.
 
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I saw the post about John Crowley passing and started looking back on his work. I have read "Engine Summer", but it was a long, long time ago. Anyway, I looked him up on booksinorder.com and found a link to a series of books called the "Akashic Noir" series. Apparently, he contributed to them.

www.bookseriesinorder.com

John Crowley - Book Series In Order

Complete order of John Crowley books in Publication Order and Chronological Order.
www.bookseriesinorder.com www.bookseriesinorder.com

A series of short stories in each book whose backdrop is a place in the world. Usually a city, but sometimes a general area. Gritty, sultry offerings in the vein of Dashiel Hammet or Elmore Leonard. For the first one I chose, "Lone Star Noir" since I'm in Texas and also because it is on Kindle Unlimited.

All the stories seem to traverse the entire spectrum of the worst society has to offer in its given locale. One story was particularly disturbing, the others, so far, are well crafted journeys into the darker side...of Texas, in this case. I suspect the other books will follow the same path.

The stories are too grim, for me anyway, to read too much at one time. But they are a nice change of pace when I'm between books and unsure of where I'm going next.

There are several others on KU that I'm going to take look at. Specifically, Miami, Tampa Bay, Alabama. Mississippi, USA & Las Vegas. The Vancouver Akashic noir is $2.99...which I thought was a good price for a city I know nothing about anyway. But the entire Akashi Noir series covers most of the major cities in the world and several places I had to look up.
 
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Finished "West with Giraffes" by Lynda Rutledge last night. Based on a true story in the late 1930's on the heels of the 1938 hurricane that struck New York City. Where a ship bound for port rode out the hurricane offshore, then made their way into dock carrying 2 African Giraffes in large crates bound for the San Diego Zoo. That event is true and their journey across the USA is recorded in various newspapers and Life Magazine. The author fictionalized the characters and the journey.

The story is told and written by a 105-year-old Woody Nickle. In a VA home for Veterans. As he struggles to write down the journey before he dies.

Woody Nickel (Woodrow Wilson Nickle...our MC), an orphan of the Dust Bowl. After burying most of his family on the dilapidated family farm. All lost to the dust pneumonia, Woody walks to NYC from the Texas Panhandle. A journey in and of itself as he panhandles, thieves and fights for any scrap of food. To his last living relative. A bad-tempered uncle known as Cuz. Who sees him as only another pair of hands to work the docks.

The hurricane kills Cuz and Woody finds himself adrift again. Then he spies the unloading of the giraffes from the ship to the docks and onto a 3-ton truck. Woody is drawn to the giraffes for reasons he can't explain. He steals a motorcycle and follows the truck to the New York Customs facility for Animals. Then cajoles the "Old Man" into hiring him as a driver after the old driver was fired for getting drunk. Thus, beginning the journey west...with Giraffes.

This was a fantastic read. Loved it. Highly recommended.
 
I struggled my way through the Booker longlisted Heart Lamp by Banu Mustaq. Probably my least favorite read of the year for me.

It’s a collection of short stories spanning her career. I usually get along with short fiction pretty well, but I didn’t like any of these. Mustaq has a turgid, style that leans heavily on unnecessarily overly complicated sentences that could be half the length and thus deliver a much more punchy story. Which is a shame because I wanted to like these a lot more than I did. The collection is mostly slide of life stories about Indian Muslim women. Which is fairly untrodden territory for my reading, so I was hoping something different would be a lot of fun. Unfortunately, it was quite labor intensive to keep my mind locked into the stories and make my way through them. Probably more of a “me” problem with writing that just doesn’t suit my reading tastes.
 
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