The Thief of Blackfriars Lane My Michelle Griep

 Constable Jackson Forge is so excited to start his first day as an officer on the streets of London.  On his way to work bumps into a young woman, Kit, who tricks him into handing over so cash to help a young street urchin. Later they find that they have a common interest in finding a cabby that has gone missing.  As the cop and the con start working together, their mutual attraction is undeniable.  Soon they find that the mystery they are seeking to solve runs deep into the underside and the upper-crust of London, and both sides don't want them to find out the truth.

I have read several books by Griep and I enjoy her Dickensian twist on the period romance. These are not the ladies in mansions, but the lower classes trudging through sewers.  Of course, Griep manages to fit in a ballroom scene with a beautiful dress, but can we blame her? If you have a beautiful heroine, you have to figure out how to get her into a lovey dress as some point. The characters are fun and the descriptions of the shadier side of Victorian England are interesting.  I am sure I will be revisiting Griep again in the future. (2021, 320 p.)

Children of the Fox by Kevin Sands

 Callan was trained by a master con man. Then one day his master disappeared and ever since he had been planning and carrying out his own little gaffs, trying to save enough money to give him a hope of a respectable life. One day he receives an invitation he can't resist--pull off one job, and be paid more money than he had ever imagined.  He recognizes it for what it is, a trick, but he still can't resist looking into it. His benefactor teams him up with other young teens and tasks them to steel a magical item from the head magician himself. Little do they know that by succeeding they might lose everything.

I put this book on hold after reading the last Blackthorn Key book. I was not disappointed.  This is an exciting and intriguing story with interesting characters. The setting and the magic system are a little fuzzy but I don't think most readers will be too disturbed by that. You can tell that the author is well established, because the book ends on a cliffhanger. They never let new authors do that, but here it works. I put the second book on hold right away, and it is already waiting in my cue. (416 p. 2021)

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

The SecUnit likes the small team of scientists it has been tasked with protecting as they investigate the possible assets of an uninhabited planet. The SecUnit, which calls itself, MurderBot, has secretly disabled its management program, and has downloads hours of action sitcoms to review while in stasis between its daily patrols and other responsibilities. It doesn't feel comfortable around the humans and always keeps its visor down around them.  Then one day something goes wrong. There is an attack on a base, and the team begins to wonder if there is more to it than the undocumented large fauna which injured one of the crewmen.  It is up to MurderBot to keep its unit safe as they investigate the unknown.

I can't remember who recommended this book to me but I really enjoyed it. The MurderBot has an interesting personality, both interaction-averse and highly protective of the scientists. It is querky in a kind of Asperger's way that is endearing. There is some language, but the book is otherwise clean for a YA SciFi. It is also really short and I think it would be a good choice for a teen reluctant reader. I enjoyed it enough I put the second on hold right away. (2017, 160 p)

P.S. As I was looking up the page count and publication date, I discovered it won a boatload of awards the year it came out. 

The Call of the Wraith by Kevin Sands

 In this forth book in the Blackthorn Key series, Christopher Rowe wakes up in a peasant's shed not knowing who he is or how he got there. The kind farmer tells him the was washed ashore after a shipwreck. As he starts to search for clues about his identity, he meets Tom and Sally, but even though they recognize him, he doesn't recognize them. They team up to try to figure out what happened, but also to solve a mystery.  Children in the village have been disappearing, and locals blame it on a ghost called the White Lady. As they investigate Christopher's past and the mystery of the missing children, Christopher's memories slowly return. 

When I was looking for what to read next, I found this book. I felt like I had read it before, but I didn't have it on my blog.  I started to listen to it, and realized I had listened to it before. It had been long enough that I didn't really remember the plot and I enjoyed listening to it again. I have really enjoyed all of the Blackthorn Key series. The characters are well drawn and the plots are clever.  I don't know how authentic the setting is, but the author does address a real middle-ages issue with each book.  This book deals with the problem of the Barbary Pirates.  I read book 3 in 2018, and I don't know why I waited so long to continue the series, but it won't be as long before I read the next book. (2018, 512 p)

Great Courses: Identity in the Age of Ancestral DNA by Anita Foeman

 Many people base a lot of their personal identity on their race and family narrative. What happens, then, if you take a DNA Ancestry test and discover that your race or family narrative is not what you thought it was? This is the guiding question of this 12-part Great Courses Lecture Series.  The presenter has spent 18 years doing research on this topic.  She finds volunteers that are interested in doing a DNA test, interviews them, and then gives them the test. When the results come back she interviews them again. She spends the beginning of the lectures talking about different ways people can deal with the results emotionally.  Then she does a couple of lectures talking about ethical issues surrounds DNA results, especially related to medical issues that might arise. Finally she talks philosophically about the different elements of personal identity and their importance in our lives.  

Sometimes when I finish a book and don't know what to listen to next, but I don't want to spend a lot of time selecting a new book, I just look at what Great Courses are available.  I don't know why I chose this one this week. It didn't turn out to be what I expected. I thought they would go into more of the science of how ancestral DNA tests determine where someone's ancestors are from, but this course dealt with that only tangentially. Instead it mostly dealt with how people feel when they get unexpected results.  It was a little amazing to me that the lecturer could find enough to fill six hours of lectures on this topic. After listening to it, though, I realized that because I am from a religion that encourages members to know their genealogy, I know much more about my ancestry than the common American. When I did an Ancestry DNA test it was no surprise at all that 97% of my ancestors came from the British Isles. Listening to these lectures opened my eyes to the plight of mixed racial people who might not know if their great grandparents were white, African, middle eastern, or American indigenous. I guess it could be a little disorienting if you have always identified as African American and then your Ancestry DNA test shows that you are only 1/4 African, 1/2 Asian and 1/4 white.  Do you then stop seeing yourself as African American and instead start identifying as Asian?  Or what if you do the test and find out that your parents used a sperm donor, and you have a dozen people who are your biological half siblings? It ended up being an interesting topic, though one I probably won't have occasion to apply to my personal life. (6 hrs, 2022)

The Vampire Knitting Club by Nancy Warren

 Lucy Swift is still smarting from a nasty breakup with her toad of a boyfriend.  She is going to Oxford to visit her grandmother who owns a knitting shop in the historic part of town.  However, when she arrives she finds the shop boarded up.  Neighbors tell her that her grandmother had passed away three weeks before. Lucy is devastated, and then overwhelmed when she finds out that she has inherited the knitting shop. Things get even more complicated when Lucy starts meeting strange people with ageless looks and cold hands who turn out to be the local vampires.  Lucy learns that her Grandmother has become a vampire, too, and though undead, seems almost like she was in life.  It turns out that her Grandmother was murdered and Lucy's life is also at risk unless she can discover who the murder is and what he was after. 

This book was recommended to me by one of my young adult patrons at the library.  It is relatively short and a very fun to read. Even though Lucy is 27, this book is appropriate for the 14-18 crowd and will appeal to teens who liked Twilight. This is more of a mystery than a romance, but there is a rather cute, single, police officer that keeps showing up at just the right time. The mystery elements are pretty good, though it wasn't super hard to guess the culprit.  Though the magic system is a bit fuzzy, there is a host of charming characters and a fair dose of humor. I just looked it up and it is the first in a series.  I just put the second on hold. (260 p. 2018)

Penny For Your Secrets by Anna Lee Huber

In this third installment in the Verity Kent series, Verity and Sydney Kent are pulled into murder mystery when Verity's friend, Ada, is accused of killing her unaffectionate aristocratic husband. A few days later they are asked to investigate another murder, this time the sister of one of Verity's spy buddies. As Verity and Sydney follow clues they continue to work on their relationship and deal with the ghosts of their past. 

This is a pretty fun series. There is a lot of chemistry between Verity and Sydney and their on again/off again passion leads to good sexual tension. That being said, all their marital exploits are completely off screen. The mystery elements are well crafted, and the portrayal of the roaring twenties in post war Europe is interesting. I only wish they had a different reader narrating the book. I don't know why they chose her.  Her accent and character voices are ok, but she totally doesn't understand phrasing. Oh well.  I am more tolerant of bad readers than some people so I will probably end up listening to more in the series. (2019, 336p)

Alice's Adventure in Wonderland: A Full-Cast Radio Play

 Alice is bored reading outside with her sister. The warm sun lulls her to sleep but she is awakened by a white rabbit with a waistcoat and a pocket watch.  She follows the rabbit down the well, where she finds of world of strange and of

ten rather rude characters.  In her attempts to follow the White Rabbit, she ends up growing very large, and very small.  She attends an "unbirthday" tea potter with the Mad Hatter and March Hare. Finally she ends at the Queen of Heart's garden party where she nearly has her head chopped off. Unflappable Alice is not afraid, and simply tips over the Queen's Soldiers, who are, after all, just a deck of playing cards.

I listened to this in preparations for an Alice themed library event we will be having a week and a half from now.  It had been a while since I had read Alice in Wonderland, but it is still as frightening and "trippy" as I remembered. This time through, however, I recognized that there are also some very clever puns and witty satire going on.  It is one of those books that people think were written for children, but which were really for adults. The recording is pretty good, with all of quite a large cast doing their parts pretty well. (2018, 2 hrs)

And There Was Light by Jacques Lusseyran

 When Lusseyran was eight years old an accident left him blind.  As an active child in Paris, he didn't let his disability slow him down for long.  He recruited other boys to help him run and play and by the time he was 17 he was something of a leader among the young men. Then Germany invaded France, and Lusseyran knew he had to find some way to resist. He organized his friends and other young men in Paris to produce and deliver allied newsletters.  After many months of success, he was betrayed and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp. There he experienced terrible conditions, and many of the young men from his group died, but in prison his disability was a blessing because it meant he wasn't sent out in the work groups.  Instead he worked as a translator and went through the camp encouraging others. 

One of my friends at work recommended this to me and I really enjoyed it.  It is the autobiography that was the inspiration for All The Light We Cannot See which I also enjoyed. Lusseyran's writing is very uplifting.  He describes how he continued to "see" the world by tuning into his other senses, and how it felt like all the world was filled with light, even when he couldn't see. His upbeat and positive attitude is an inspiration, as is his courage, not only during the war, but also as he grew up and lived an active life as a young teen. Also touching was he stories of the boys who befriended him and became very loyal to him. This is a great choice for those who like WWII history. (2014, 304p)

The Valet's Secret by Josi Kilpack

 At his cousin's unexpected death, Kenneth Winterton has become the heir of a legacy he never expected. He is overwhelmed with his new role so decides to change clothes with his valet so he can escape for a few hours on horseback to clear his head. While riding he nearly runs over Rebecca Parker, a widow who now cares for an alcoholic and sometimes violent father. When Kenneth comes to Rebecca's aid by the roadside sparks fly. Kenneth can tell Rebecca is a tradeswoman, so he pretends to be the valet of the new heir to the earldom so he can get to know her better.  He knows his deception can't last long, but he can't convince himself to tell her and give up their long walks together. Once the truth does comes out, Kenneth and Rebecca try to deny their mutual attraction. They are from different classes, and there is no way the ton would ever allow an Earl to marry a shopgirl.

As I listened to this short novel I felt like I had read it before. I hadn't, but the idea of a nobleman in disguise is not a new one. In fact there was nothing very original or surprising in the plot at all. Still, it was short and clean and the characters where sympathetic enough. I mostly chose this book because I was waiting for another one I had on hold, and it filled that role admirably. (288p, 2022)

Who Was (personalities from the 1800's in America) (various authors)

 This week I was waiting for a book I have on hold, so I didn't want to commit to a longer book.  Instead I listened to three Who Was books for children.  I decided to pick famous American characters from the early to mid 1800's.  I thought it would be interesting to compare their lives. 

Who Was Daniel Boone by S.A. Kramer 

Daniel Boone is famous for creating a passage through the Appalachian Mountains to Kentucky.  He was an adventurer, marksman, trapper and soldier. When I was a little girl, we saw these kinds of characters as heroes of American history. Now we are a little more sensitive to the injustices of western expansion, and how unfair colonists and pioneers were to native peoples.  This book does a pretty good job of addressing the ethical issues while acknowledging that people from the time period had a different moral yardstick than we use today.  Still, I finished the book feeling embarrassed and guilty about the way my ancestors treated others, rather than proud of it. (2006, 112 p)

Who Was Johnny Appleseed by Joan Holub

I found this a rather illuminating depiction of a character who had seemed more like a folk tale to me than a real person.  I had always pictured Johnny Chapman as a kind of 19th century hippy, going around planting apple trees and talking with wild animals.  That is a little bit true, but he was also an entrepreneur that took advantage of the government's rule that homesteaders had to improve their claims in order to keep them. He collected seeds from community apple cider presses, grew seedlings and then sold them to settlers.  I didn't realize that Chapman actually, at various times, owned thousands of acers of orchards. He seemed to not be a very good businessman, though, because he always lost his land because of mismanagement. Because he was kind to native people and non-violent, he is less morally questionable than Boone. (2005, 112 p)

Who was Harriet Beecher Stowe by Diana Meachen Rau

I knew less about Stowe coming in to this biography than I knew about the other two.  I knew that Uncle Tom's Cabin was very influential in promoting abolition, but I didn't understand exactly how successful it was.  I found it interesting that Stowe was just a housewife who liked to write.  She wrote short pieces for newspapers, and one nonfiction book for her sister's school. Uncle Tom's Cabin was her first novel, and it was an instant and huge success. It made her very wealthy and famous, and she used her fame to promote freedom for enslaved peoples. It was my favorite of the three biographies, maybe because I could relate with the protagonist better. (2015, 112 p) 

One historical insight I gained from reading all three books is that the push to settle the American West was not only fueled by population growth. It was also the result of poor farming practices and over hunting that left the land depleted only a short time after the Europeans arrived. Another insight I had was that in the early 1800's almost everyone was on the edge of food insecurity.  It didn't take much--a drought, an attack from hostile natives, depleted soil--to make it so whole communities didn't have enough to eat. That is one way that life in our country has improved. 

What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell

 Gladwell is famous for his books The Tipping Point, Outliers, and Talking with Strangers.  This book is a collection of articles he wrote over a long career for The New Yorker,  He divides the 19 essays into three groups: Obsessives, Pioneers, and Other Varieties of Minor Genius; Theories, Predictions, and Diagnoses; and Personality, Character, and Intelligence.  In the first he recognizes lesser known people who were really good at what they did and impacted the world. The second talks about intelligence failure, and focuses a lot on the fall of Enron. The third deals with how hard it is to use objective measures to predict how successful someone will be. 

Gladwell has a very entertaining and glib style.  You find yourself wanting to believe him just because of his smooth rhetoric.  After listening through 19 of his essays, I recognized a recurrent pattern in his writing. He sets up a case study that seems to clearly suggest something.  Then he carefully analyses it to show that you can't make the assumptions you did when you first heard the story.  His articles are thought provoking and interesting, and I found myself sharing some of his stories with people I interacted with all week. It is an older book, and some of the articles are older still.  Someone under fifty might have to do a little research to understand the Enron scandal and other cultural references to the 70's and 80's.  As someone over 60, some of the articles brought back memories of things I hadn't thought about in a long time, like the old Veg-o-matic commercials and the Loreal and Clairol hair color commercials.  The book is read by the author who does a great job.  I would certainly recommend this book to someone who enjoyed his other books. (2010, 448 p) 

Murder at Tophouse by Clair Poulson

 Officer Mike Denton doesn't like his partner, Cal Granberg, and thinks that he is a crooked cop. When Mike gets suddenly called into the Chief's office and put on administrative leave, he suspects Cal has been telling lies about him.  He decided to go to New Zealand because he suspects that Cal has dirty dealings in that country.  On the plane he meets Skylie, who is a college grad student who is being stalked by a creepy man she has barely met. Mike's protective side comes out, and soon he is determined that Skylie and her kind step parents are all safe. It is harder than it sounds, and Mike begins to wonder if Cal's dirty dealings and Skylie's stalker problem are related.

Why do I keep reading Clair Poulson, when I know the writing will be only B level at best?  Because they are predictable, unambiguously moral, and the mystery plots aren't half bad. I also find it a bit amusing to see the male form of the wish fulfillment fantasies I see in most of my clean romances.  In Clair Poulson's books the men get to have more than one woman who think they are "oh so strong and handsome."  The woman he chooses is the one that is both brave and venerable--the one he gets to save and take care of, but which also shows a little spine and initiative of their own. Poulson worked as a sheriff and in other capacities in the criminal justice system, so he has a decent understanding of how a police case is investigated. So, I will probably keep reading Poulson books, even though every time I do I wish I could go in and clean up all the awkward dialog. (2015, 272 p)

City of Ghosts by Victoria Schwab

 Since Cass had a near-death experience, she has been able to sense the presence of ghosts. Even her best friend, Jacob, is the ghost who saved her when she was about to drown. Her parents, who don't know of her ability, just happen to be famous writers of ghost themed novels, so they are very excited when they are offered the opportunity to film a TV series about ghosts from around the world.  Their first stop is Edinburgh, and Cass's parents are thrilled by the spooky atmosphere.  Cass, however, is overwhelmed by the quantity and malevolence of the ghosts she senses in the city.  For the first time she can't quite control the tug that tries to pull her toward the "in-between."  Luckily she finds a girl in Edinburgh that shares her gift, and together and with the help of Jacob, they face the most malevolent Scottish ghost of all. 

I was ready for a something different and found it in this decent middle grade paranormal thriller. It reminded me a little of Lockwood and Co, but not quite as intense. The relationship between Cass and Jacob is complicated, but they have good chemistry while staying squarely in the friend-zone. The book is clean, exciting, and there are good spooky scenes. The author also sneaks in a lot of interesting information about Edinburgh and Scottish culture (though I didn't fact check to see how much was accurate).  It was just what I was looking for after reading two nonfictions and a sappy western. I will probably read more in the series. (2018, 304 p)

The Essential Abraham Lincoln by Pete Whitfield

 This short audio-book gives a cursory look at Abraham Lincoln's life and legacy. It starts with a brief biography and then contains several of Lincoln's most famous speeches and a selection of his correspondence. It appears not to exist in print format and was created for the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth in 2012. 

The tone of the production is superficial and laudatory.  This is not a hard-hitting expose, but instead reminded me of what one might find in a US History class textbook. The editor clearly selected letters and speeches that shine a flattering light on Lincoln. For example, he includes a letter the Lincoln wrote a friend soon after Mary Todd refused his first proposal.  It shows how upset and depressed he was about her refusal.  I have read elsewhere about a different letter Lincoln wrote during the same time that contain unflattering statements about Mary but this author didn't include that one. Still, I don't regret reading the book. It is a nice reminder of Lincoln's major life events and political views even though does little to give the reader a new perspective on the great man.(2012, about 4 hrs long)

A City on Mars by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith

 What would it take to build a colony on Mars and is it worth the effort?  These are the questions the authors try to answer in this very nerdy and rather irreverent nonfiction. The book starts out with chapters on different technical issues faced by anyone wanting to create a colony in space.  Some are the standard questions, like how would you have food?  How would you get water? Where would be the best place to build a colony on Mars, or on the Moon?  They also address questions that are less often asked, like, how does sex work in zero gravity? Can babies even develop normally in the womb in space?  What would be the long term physical and psychological effects of living in space colony conditions, and could children raised in low gravity ever be able to return to Earth? In the second half of the book, the Weinersmiths address political and legal issues that space colonizers would have to deal with.  They discuss questions like what is the current international law about using resources from space? What kind of government would work?  Would there be increased risks to Earth populations if there were colonies on Mars?  To answer these questions they examine policies related to previous space endeavors, deep ocean development rights, and the settlement of Antarctica.

This is a very nerdy book.  The authors are not scientists, but seem to have done a lot of study to try to ground their assertions in fact or at least informed speculation. They have a snappy writing style, and readers should beware they are not shy in their choice of words. They claim that they started the project as a way to show how space colonization within the next 50 years would work, but (spoiler alert) end up deciding that it isn't really practical in that time frame. There is much mockery of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos that is pretty amusing. I am not sure I was the target demographic for this book (more like 30+ people who wear Dr Who t-shirts and attend Star Trek conventions) but I ended out enjoying it quite a bit, even the slightly more boring part about Antarctic politics. (448 p. 2023)

At Love's Command by Karen Witemeyer

 Matthew Hanger is haunted by memories of battles he fought as a cavalryman for the US Army. Now he and three other men hire as mercenaries, but only take jobs where they can see justice done without taking lives. The bad guys they chase are not so reluctant to use violence, and when one of them is shot, he is taking to a local doctor, who, much to Matthew's surprise, is a woman named Josephine Burkett.  Josephine understood when she chose to become a female doctor that her path would not be easy, and would probably never lead to marriage and a family of her own. That begins to change as she gets to know the quiet but powerful leader of the Hagar's Horsemen, who doesn't discount her ability as a doctor just because she wears a skirt.  Then the unthinkable happens when Josephine's brother is kidnapped and by desperados. Josephine swallows her pride and asks the Hanger's Horsemen for help. As  Matthew and Josephine work together to try to save her brother, their mutual respect and affection grows. 

Oh, my, what a book.  It is like Louis L'Amour for women.  Every western cliche can be found here. He calls her "Darlin" and during the shootout they hide under the chuckwagon. Matthew has a handlebar mustache and the bad guy wears all black.  It just goes on and on. Witemeyer is a very unapologetic Christian writer, so there are Bible verses and prayers aplenty.  I found I liked the fact that their relationship progressed without the misunderstandings or failure-to-communicate setbacks that are the norm in regency romances.  Their main relationship obstacles were from the outside, not between them. It is not the kind of book I want to read every week, but this week I found it rather amusing. Still, when I finished I felt I needed to listen to some nonfiction just so I wouldn't start to lose brain cells. (2020, 384 p)

The Curiosity Keeper by Sarah E. Ladd

Camille Iverness helps her father who is a collector and dealer of curiosities by tending the shop and keeping the accounts. Their shop is in the poor part of London, but Camille has learned to take care of herself. Jonathan Gilchrist is the heir to an estate in Surrey, but the future of his family's wealth is in jeopardy because a large uncut ruby has been stollen from his father's collection. When Jonathan goes to Camille's shop in search of the gem, he instead finds and rescues Camille from ruffians who are also after the ruby. Even though Jonathan is a gentleman, and Camille is a shop girl, their mutual attraction grows as they try to find out what has happened, to the gem but can they really trust each other with a family fortune at stake?

This is a pretty good historical mystery romance.  Camille is both capable and vulnerable, and Jonathan is noble and selfless. The book is more romance than mystery.  There isn't really an investigation and clues like in a detective novel, and there isn't a particularly clever resolution to the mystery. Still, the question of what happened to the gem provides a nice framework for the development of the relationship. I did struggle a little with this book when one of the main characters made a particularly dumb decision.  I hate when the main character is stupid, but in this case, it wasn't to bad, and I was able to finish to book.  There are more in this "series" but they are unconnected stories that just share the same time and setting, so it is not important to read them in order. I may read the next one, eventually. (2015, 341 p.)

The Unforgettable Logan Foster by Shawn Peters

 Logan has lived in a home for orphans since he was abandoned in an airport at age three.  He has a photographic memory and is super smart, but has few social skills, so the orphanage and school have always been a challenge.  Then one day a couple comes and wants to take him in as a foster child. They seem nice, but Logan's analytical brain soon sees things that are not right.  Why doesn't Gill, his foster father, never eat with them?  Why didn't his foster mom's arm not get burned when she leaned against the stove? Just when he believes he will never get the answers to all his questions about them, an earthquake hits and his life is thrown into danger and chaos. When it does, he soon finds out why his foster parents were acting so oddly, and just how much they really care for him. 

After the heavy Kwame Alexander book, this was a breath of fresh air.  It won't ever be an award winner, or a classic, but it was super fun to read. It reminded me of "The Incredibles" and could have been set in the same world. Logan is delightfully not neurotypical, and his spouting of random facts when he is nervous is endearing, as are his foster dad's really bad "dad jokes."  The book his full of heroes and villains, amazing battles and heart stopping escapes. Even though it is an action book, the violence isn't brutal, and is squarely middle grade instead of YA. I can think of a lot of kids who would enjoy it. (272 p. 2022)

The Door of No Return by Kwame Alexander

 Kofi lives in a village in Africa.  He and his friends go to a school run by a man from his village who had attended a mission school, and Kofi is better than many of his friends in reading and speaking English. He loves to swim, and he feels at home in the unchanging customs of his people. (spoiler alert) Then one day his brother does something that causes a rift between his village and a nearby village. Kofi and his brother as stolen and forced onto a heartbreaking path neither ever wanted or expected. 

This is the first in a series of books talking about Kofi's family's journey to America. As Alexander's other books, it is written in beautiful and often poignant free verse poetry. The portrayal of Kofi's life in the small village is both idyllic and harsh. Alexander does not shy away from the brutality of the slave trade, but manages to show that it wasn't only the white slave traders who were at fault. There are some really tough scenes, and parents should be wary in offering this to a sensitive child. Reading it reminded me of The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox, which won the Newbery Metal in 1974.  It may play a similar role in this generation as that book played for my generation, that is, a first introduction for children to the horrors of slavery. (432 p, 2024)

The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani

 In the small village where Sophie and Agatha live, two children, one good, one evil, disappear once every 4 years. It is rumored that the children are taken and put into the fairytale books all the children in the village love.  Sophie and Agatha are unlikely friends.  Sophie wants to be taken and feels sure if she is she will become a princesses and find her happily-ever-after.  Agatha doesn't want to be taken, but she is sure that if she was, she would become a villain and meet and unpleasant end. When both girls are taken they are surprised when Agatha is put in the school for Good and Sophie is put in the school for Evil.  They are sure it is a mistake, but every time they try to switch places, something goes terribly wrong.  And then there is Prince Tedros.  Sophie is sure he is destined to be her prince. Agatha has never really been interested in boys. As Sophie tries progressively more desperate means to win Tedros, her placement in the school of Evil and Agatha's place in the school for Good, begins to make more sense. 

I decided to read this because NetFlix had produced a movie based on the book.  Somehow I thought it was a new movie, but actually it came out in 2022.  I knew the series was very popular, so I decided I ought to read it. It is interesting.  The action is fast paced and there are a lot of plot twists and turns.  At some times it is rather funny, but at other times it gets very dark.  We have it in our I FIC section but it could as easily go into the YA section. The characters are very complex.  Just when you think one character is good and the other is evil, one of them does something that makes you question your judgement. The whole story explores what it means to be good or evil, and how that relates to appearances. Can a princess in a pink ball gown with a pet bunny be evil?  Can a hag with warts and long claw-like nails be good?  It is very sophisticated, and I think middle school age kids who have read lots of fantasy will enjoy and appreciate the moral ambiguity. (544 p. 2013)

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain

 Western culture seems to favor introverts.  They are the ones that get the leadership positions, make a lot of money, and become famous. In this book, Cain tries to explain what it means to be an introvert,  how introversion is different than being shy, and that introversion is not a disability. Introverts have the valuable traits of being thoughtful, deliberate and careful.  They are often less ambitious than extroverts and are less likely to get carried away in a moment of excitement and make stupid decisions. Cain gives lots of examples of how introverts make valuable contributions to society and spends time helping introverts come to understand themselves and their abilities. She urges introverts not to feel bad when they take steps to meet their own needs for solitude and quiet. She also explains how introverts can act like extroverts for small periods of time when they feel passionate about a cause. Throughout the books she quotes scientific studies and gives real life examples to support her assertions. 

I read this book because I am leading a panel discussion at the ULA Conference in May about how introverts can be leaders.  I had read the book, Quiet Power, by the same author written for teens and I found it really helpful in illustrating how introverts can succeed in school and life. I enjoyed this book, but I found it less compelling than the one for teens.  It rambles a little and is more slow moving. Still, it gave me a lot of ideas I can use when writing the questions I will ask my panel at the conference.  This is a good book for anyone who wants to understand how being introverted or extroverted affects how people function and view the world. (2013, 368)

Treacherous is the Night by Anna Lee Huber

 In this second book in the Verity Kent series, Verity attends a seance with a friend but during the experience the medium reveals information about Verity's classified activities during the war.  She also mentions one of Verity's Belgian contacts whose code name was Emily. Verity knows the medium is a fake and feels that the experience suggests her friend is in danger.  After trying in vain to get those still in national intelligence to help her, Verity wants to go to Belgium to find and warn her old friend herself, but she knows that returning to the front lines would be very difficult for her war traumatized husband, Sidney.  Their relationship is still fragile.  Should she risk her relationship with her long lost husband to solve the mystery surrounding her wartime friend?  

I liked the first book in this series, and I liked this as well.  Verity's relationships with Sydney, Max, and her own past remain complicated, but the chemistry between herself and her husband is undeniable. The mystery is a little improbable.  Do people really ever leave complicated clues for other people to find? Still, I like the fact that Huber doesn't glamourize war and gives a sincere nod to the fact that even in WWI men came back with PTSD. The main problem with this book and this series is the audio reader.  She has a really unnatural cadence to her voice. I found myself replaying key sentences in my mind with a proper inflection to make them make more sense. I don't know if I will listen to the next in the series. (336 p, 2018)

The Guncle by Steven Rowley

Patrick used to be a sit-com star, until his partner, Joseph, got killed in an accident and Patrick secluded himself in a large house in remote Palm Springs. Then his sister-in-law, who was also his best friend in college, dies after a battle with cancer and Patrick races off to Connecticut for her funeral.  After the funeral his newly widowed brother, Greg, asks if Patrick will take care of his two kids, Maisie, age 10, and Grant, age 6, while Greg goes to rehab to get over a prescription drug addiction. Over the course of the summer, Patrick bonds with the children and, in very unconventional ways, helps them grieve for their mother.  Meanwhile Patrick has to face his own grief over Joseph and learn to reclaim life. 

I read this book because a picture book call My Guncle and Me by Jonathan Merritt has been officially challenged at my library.  I know this book is by a different author, but I thought the challenger might be uncomfortable about that book because she was familiar with this book. I had mixed feelings about this book.  The writing is great and all the characters are really endearing.  There are funny scenes and really heartwarming scenes where Patrick and the kids interact with each other.  The book is successful in showing how having kids in your life changes your outlook in the world but also how children are real people who have real emotions that need to be acknowledged and understood. However, the book portrays the children in situations that the white-straight-conservative-mother in me cringes at.  Patrick drinks alcohol incessantly throughout the book, swears frequently, and goes skinny dipping and has sexual encounters with a much younger TV star with the children in the house. This doesn't seem like an appropriate environment for kids to me. The author represents this opinion using a character in the book, Patrick's sister Clara. Clara is an active feminist who rants about white male privilege, but secretly is harboring a personal tragedy that is manifesting itself in her prudishness. I kind of resented the fact that the author seems to be suggesting that if you are worried about the kids being in the environment of profanity, alcohol, and sex, you are a deeply troubled man-hater. Still, if I am honest, I enjoyed the book overall, though it felt a little like a guilty pleasure. (2021, 336 p)

The Age of Resilience by Jeremy Rifkin

 This is one man's idea about how the humans can survive the impending mass extinction brought on by global warming and rising numbers of pandemics. Rifkin spends the first part of the book telling all the ways the world is doomed.  Some that he mentions are global warming, soil erosion, increased extreme weather,  and the resultant civil unrest.  He makes a case that all these problems arose out of human's attempts to be "efficient." Then he spends the rest of the book explaining how humans and societies must change in order to survive the catastrophes that are coming. In essence he suggests that humans must move away from the age of fossil fuels, capitalism, and centralized government, and instead become empathetic to each other and nature and learn to live in harmony with both. 

Ok, so that summary sounds flippant, but I was amazed at how lacking this book--by a really famous author and environmentalist--is in sound logic and objectivity.  After reading it I looked up his bio and I wasn't surprised to learn that he has no formal scientific training, but instead only has a bachelor's degree in economics. As a result, the book represents he own personal views on a lot of loosely connected world problems which he promotes with great enthusiasm and confidence but not a lot of rigor. His language is very emotionally charged, and he seems to only speak in superlative.  He also constantly makes logical errors in his writing.  For example, he takes a few examples and presents them as irrefutable evidence of growing trends, when, in reality, they are only a few small examples. As an example, he talks about forest pre-schools where kids stay outside all day regardless of weather.  He boasts that there are 600 such preschools in the US, a clear evidence of their growing popularity.  600? really. There are about 90,000 preschools in the US, so only about a half of one percent are forest preschools. He also compares things that are not comparable.  He spends a whole chapter talking about the problems infants have when they are neglected and fail to bond with adults. Then he says that modern people suffer with the same kinds of problems because they fail to bond with their communities and with nature. I am not saying that everything in the book is wrong.  I think he has some good ideas.  It is just that the solutions he proposes are pipe dreams that would require a pretty drastic change in human nature to come to pass. Still it was interesting to me to see all the different ways he tries to influence readers. (2022, 336 p) 

The Wordhord by Hana Videen

Here is a book for the word-nerds among us.  Ms Videen is a scholar of Old English and this entire book explores the origins and oddities of certain Old English words. She starts the book by explaining the differences between modern English, Middle English and Old English.  While many people can understand Middle English pretty well, Old English sounds like a foreign language to modern English speakers.  Videen posits that by learning Old English we can come to understand the culture and look inside the thought processes of people living 1000+ years ago.  This book was published by Princeton University Press and is pretty academic.  I am not sure how much appeal it would have to the general public, but I loved it.  I love ancient languages and have studied Latin, ancient Greek and Hebrew. This book made me want to go back and learn Old English too.  I was fascinated to learn that there are only about 200 texts written in Old English that still exist. I had never before thought of the challenge of trying to figure out what a word means when it only appears once in all existent texts.  I loved learning how medieval Englishmen put terms together to describe the people and things in their lives. I also was struck by how much Christianity permeated everything they did in 1000 AD and it made me realize how much our modern western culture has strayed from that. Finally, hats off the the narrator of the book, Sara Powell, who had to read all of the crazy Old English words.   (2022, 296 p.)

Seams Deadly by Maggie Bailey

 Lydia is starting a new life after a painful divorce by working at a fabric store in a small town in Georgia. She has been reluctant to reenter the dating scene, but after her first awkward date with Brandon, the guy next door, he turns up dead in his apartment.  Lydia discovers that she is the top suspect, and so decides she needs to solve the mystery to keep herself out of a life sentence in prison. As she starts to talk to people around the close-knit town, she soon discovers that there is more than one person who had a motive to kill Brandon. It is hard to think one of her new friends is a murderer, but it is hard to deny that it had to be someone within her own friend circle. Can she figure out who it is before she is sent to jail by default?

I have read several "baking" mysteries and this book seems to have the same vibe, but with sewing instead of baking. It was alright. It is in every way a "cozy" mystery, with a lot of the people being really nice to each other, except for the killer, of course. Bailey does a pretty good job introducing the reader to all the quirky people in the village. The author sets up plenty of suspects, with plenty of clues.  I wondered if the book would have sewing projects at the end of each chapter instead of recipes like they have in the baking mysteries.  It didn't, but it did describe some sewing projects in the book that would be interesting to try. (272, 273) p