When Daphne and her husband Jonathon are in the museum, they are followed by someone who recognizes her, someone who was her stepfather for two years before her mother divorced him. As they reunite, Daphne remembers how much she had loved him and had missed him as a child when he had disappeared from her life. The family moved on; her mother remarried; she herself had her own career and marriage; it was forty years ago.  But she and Eddie had been in a serious accident together and the bond they formed at that time was still strong.

Patchett explores the relationships in this family, and it is a pleasure to read about happy, well-adjusted people who care for each other as the unpleasant parts of life occur.  Jonathon’s mother dies and he must help clean out her house; in a flashback Daphne, who remained close to her real father, sees him through chemo; their mother, who knew her husband was gay when she married him, is devasted when she realizes he is still in love with his college roommate; Eddie takes Daphne, when she is nine, for a drive at night to see the stars, misses the curve, and the car rolls partially down the hill.  Life happens to these people, but how they handle things, the grace, love, and kindness they give to each other makes this another Ann Patchett winner not to be missed.

Elizabeth Barton, a young servant, has a vision when she is ill.  Jesus speaks to her and she correctly predicts the death of a child in the household.  When her vision is reported to the local priest, he realizes the political advantages of being a holy woman’s protector and takes her into his care. She enjoys the privileges of warmth, extra food, and eventually travel. When Henry threatens to leave the Catholic church and set himself as head of the Church of England, supporters of the Pope see her as a possible tool.

Elizabeth’s predictions were collected into a book but, since she was on the losing side, all the copies, considered blasphemous during the Reformation, were burned, or so it was thought.  When a young medieval studies scholar finds a miscataloged copy, it is a coup. She can hardly believe her luck when she is invited to an exclusive scholarly consortium located in an old house near the priory where Elizabeth lived.

Soon there are hints that all isn’t as it seems. An old lover, studying local folk tales, is an unanticipated participant.  He, and some of the others, think there might be some truth to the legend that says there is treasure hidden in the old house. When the butler is murdered, that possibility becomes more plausible.

This is a five star book full of historical information and competing academics that develops into a riveting mystery that ties the two stories together with a satisfying ending.

Hilary’s friend, Julia, in hock to the tax man, has decided that since she is already poor, she might as well go to Venice for a bit of fun (by which she means sex) to take her mind off things. On her art lovers tour, she meets the beautiful Ned.  She is successful in her seduction, but when Ned is found murdered, she is the main suspect, held by the Italian police. Coincidentally, Julia’s law firm is already sending Timothy, a partner, to Venice on an estate/antiquities matter so he is there to assist.

The story is told through letters written by Julia and Timothy to their colleagues back in London where Hilary in a logical fashion worthy of Sherlock Holmes pieces together the solution. The arguments are lawyer-like and the language academic; the tone pokes fun, is exactly right, and very funny. The title with its “thus” and allusion to Adonis hints at what is to come. The plot with its attention to the small telling detail makes this comedic mystery a match for any Conan Doyle or Christie. 

When she was expelled from the University of Tehran for refusing to wear the veil, Nafisi chose a few young women students to form a clandestine group to study Western literature in the privacy of her home.

Nafisi divides Reading Lolita into sections according to the major authors they read: Nabokov, Fitzgerald, James, and Austen. Each section discusses that author in detail plus how the specific authors related to current events in Iran in the 1980s and 90s.

Nabokov’s Lolita is about having power over someone and stealing their life. Henry James’s characters are ambiguous, neither right nor wrong, a concept the religious fanatics have trouble with. Jane Austen’s women insist on personal choice despite society’s conventions.  Fitzgerald’s Gatsby is handled differently.  It is discussed in a flashback from when Nafisi was still teaching, and her class put the novel on trial.  One group saw it as evidence of America’s decadence and materialistic values; the other understood the book to talk about the corrupting nature of wealth and loss of dreams.

Now that we are at war with Iran, the book is timely once again. In addition, its indictment of religious extremism is current in a way Nafisi didn’t foresee.

The story starts when alarms go off – phone, civil defense – not just in the US, but all over the world at the same time. Unstoppable, until finally they all do stop exactly together. It doesn’t take long for governments to realize the implications.  What have they been warned of?  What is coming next?

Soon, the initiating signals are traced to China, and its government and the US become the focus of the plot. When things escalate and elevators around the world are stopped mid-floor then dropped, killing hundreds of thousands, the race is on to discover the villain.  We see the inner workings of both Chinese and US governments as each president agonizes over who to trust – in the other country and at home

A part of the story focuses on the terra cotta warriors discovered in a tomb in Xi’an, China, in 1974, where the authors take poetic license to imagine its inside (maybe too much).  And it wouldn’t be a Louise Penny book if there wasn’t lots of good food – coconut buns, scones with clotted cream, hole-in-the-wall noodle shops, food writers, all playing a starring role.

Like other books that have come my way recently, the story starts with a focus on powerful men, then slowly shifts to the unnoticed women behind the scenes. An additional subject is a fraught mother-daughter relationship. There is a lot going on here.

There are an enormous number of twists and turns.  Mandarin wasn’t my favorite Penny book, but then I’m not a thriller fan and I missed the softening effect of Gamache and Three Pines.

Years ago, the partners took a risk and accepted shares of a bitcoin company in payment for services. Now, to their astonishment, the shares are worth millions, and they have decided to cash in.

When one of the two is killed, and the other, the best man of Joyce’s new son-in-law, disappears, the four members of the Thursday Murder Club reunite to find the two lost halves of the combination and find the killer.

A strong sub plot involves Ron’s daughter who finally leaves her violent abusive husband.  Another centers on Ibrahim who counsels ex-fraudster/dealer/prisoner Connie, who at the same time is mentoring a hustling “protégé.”  Elizabeth, possibly still an MI6 secret agent, is starting to recover from the death of her beloved husband.  Retired nurse Joyce, so sensitive to the needs of others, clashes with her daughter, newly married Joanna.

Osman strikes just the right lighthearted tone. He brings all the plots together in a satisfying conclusion as four endearing people work out family complexities while they “solve the case.” 

Most readers agreed: “It was the best of tines; it was the worst of tines…”

After the hospital, Charlotte recuperates at her daughter and son-in-law’s house.  On the day Rose brings her mother home, she takes a day off work, thus forcing her elderly employer to ask a niece to accompany him to give a lecture.  The niece, Marion, must therefore let her lover know that she will be unavailable. His wife stumbles upon her message and throws him out. Charlotte, bored while recuperating, misses the adult literacy class she teaches and offers to tutor a handsome student, an Eastern European immigrant, at her daughter’s home.

Charlotte is a reader and her musings on the place of reading in her life give depth to her character. “Charlotte knows herself to ride upon…knowledge, some of which she can summon up, much of which is half lost, but in there somewhere, and has had an effect on who she is and how she thinks.  She is as much a product of what she has read as of the way she has lived.”

Lively allows the ripple effect of the first event to grow into a sneaker wave while she develops the stories of seven characters. All of a sudden I realized I was caught up and had come to care about these very charming likeable people.

A bonus is the book cover where the letters of the title fall down, echoing the opening scene of the book.  Clever.

Stella remembers the faraway places she worked, the people with different cultural expectations, the two men she loved, the women who were her good friends. With memories of the past, Lively tells the story of Stella’s life, plus seamlessly educates us on what the discipline means.

There is a lot of teaching, but Stella lives in the present, and slowly, a story in the current time develops.  There are new friendships and neighbors, a sense of unease creeps in, there is tension and a finale.

Lively’s work, unlike her name, is leisurely and thoughtful.  Between these two books, How It All Began is the more captivating choice.

The book, a la The DaVinci Code, is a lovely romp through Europe, ending in cultural Verona with its ancient churches, beautiful old paintings, even Juliet’s balcony.  Anya, a student of medieval artifacts who has just successfully translated an obscure folio, has been hired to catalog priceless manuscripts for a new library. Her fiancé, a computer specialist, moves with her to Scotland where they will work at a small renown institute. But mysterious things happen and soon the couple is on the hunt for one more precious relic, a manuscript called The Book of Wonders.

This is a hybrid cozy mystery/thriller.  The amateur sleuths and lush descriptions of the natural surroundings and small-town academic atmosphere say “cozy.”  The (too) many cold-blooded murders and the embedded power say “thriller.”  The women are as lethal as their male counterparts. The book raises that question about means justifying the end. How much manipulation and violence are okay to achieve a worthwhile goal?

The first main character is a successful financier, a mathematician with an intuitive gift for the stock market, with capital to invest. The second is his wife. The financier is a powerful man, self-assured, and certain in his decisions.  His wife is… sweet? unhappy? mentally ill? or something else entirely?  The four versions are different presentations of the characters and of their lives together.  One is a short novel, another an unfinished autobiography, the third, a memoir, and finally a diary.  The stories don’t feel repetitive.

There are times when the structure of the book, echoing its topic, is tricky to unravel.  It is also one of those novels that must be read to the very end to jell. Which story we choose to believe is the truth or who we can trust to tell us the truth is the provocative subject of this unconventional book.

On this 250^th birthday of our nation, Geroge (who cannot tell a lie) and I wish you a Happy Fourth of July.

The main character, Orquidea Montoya, grew up in Ecuador, unwanted, the source of her mother’s shame.  She is determined to escape and make a life for herself, so when the circus comes to town, this young woman joins it, leaving her old life behind. It is just the start. The circus has a special performer – the living star, an unusual man who glows and pulses light. Is it just an act?

We first meet Orquidea when she is an old woman, dying, who has invited her family to claim their inheritance. Now living in the Midwest, she is whispered about and avoided by the townspeople.  Her many gifts are too unusual – her house just appeared one morning, the barren land blooms, she has a reputation of being a witch.  Her grandchildren, nieces, and nephews, respond to her invitation.

This story, with a heavy dose of magical realism, will appeal to the reader who agrees with the author that stories from different cultures and belief systems are important.

The young man who died, a stranger to town, is a fit twenty something.  When the coroner says heart attack, the villagers begin to whisper about other odd happenings in the bookstore and stop coming in. Flora must do something to save her shop, and intuition tells her this surprising death has nothing to do with natural causes.  Jack, the reclusive mystery writer, agrees with her and together they search for clues.

The dead man has just celebrated his birthday and there is a mysterious cake with only one piece eaten.  Grains of pollen point to a missing bouquet of flowers. When a second person dies of a heart attack, the plot widens.  In addition to the bookshop, there’s a library and a book auction.  What’s going on with the books? 

This is a well-crafted story. I especially liked that all the characters had a role to play in solving the mystery. Even the early minor ones fit nicely into the puzzle. I also liked that the author didn’t indulge in a lot of extraneous detail about her pet subject.  There are some historical details provided but they are pertinent to the story.

Cozy English mysteries almost always have happy endings, and this is no exception.  The nefarious killer is exposed, the book shop survives, and the reclusive writer is reclusive no more.  It’s the getting there that’s the fun. 

Jessica was the murdered man’s mistress until recently when he left her for a stunning redhead. Was she angry at being replaced?  Or was it the wife who knew about the affairs and was furious? What about the new woman? Or was it something in the man’s background, his work at the bank, that made someone afraid of what he might know?

In addition to being a well plotted mystery, this book is filled with “in” knowledge from 1930s politics. It has a pleasant gossipy tone and there’s plenty of sex in genteel Roosevelt circles. References to both Eleanor and Franklin’s other partners are very matter-of-fact.  To reinforce the 1930s setting, the author uses some dated words.  I loved it when people absquatulated. Geophagy not so much.

It is interesting to note that Elliott Roosevelt died in 1990, and this book was published in 1999. I’ve read that he left behind several unpublished manuscripts but also that these later, and maybe all, of the Eleanor Roosevelt mysteries were written by a ghost writer.  Elliott just provided the juicy Washington tidbits.

“The practice is not entirely serious – but it raises awareness of the many sexist tropes built into everyday life,” says The Guardian in a lighthearted article about this serious subject. Click here to read it.

Every night the shepherd stepped outside his caravan with a book, a mystery, in his hand.  The flock gathered expectantly around him.  He began to read as the sheep listened attentively.  When he finished a chapter and went back inside, there was lot of noise.  Baa baa is what it sounded like, but really the sheep were discussing who the murderer might be.

It was good practice for them. Several days later, when their shepherd is found dead and the sheriff rules natural causes, it is up to them to uncover the killer. 

The sheep are not all the same but have very different well-developed personalities. Calm, lovely Lily is the head of the flock. Mopple remembers, and Sebastian is the winter lamb.  The story is of course a fable, with several important messages. The subjects are serious, but the movie is filled with humor.  There is an excellent plot and the sheep figured out who the real killer was before I did. The film isn’t animated. The sheep just talk.

This very appealing movie is based on the book Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann – which is on my list.

May’s bonus blog talks about three easy-to-read, relaxing books. Sometimes we want a break from instructive nonfiction, thoughtful tomes, or the news. While not the best things I’ve ever read, they are good enough. They fit the bill for sitting outside on a warm spring day or in the favorite chair inside if the pollen is too much.  There’s a feel-good happy ending, a romance/mystery, and an old-fashioned, classic mystery.

She inadvertently brings a tiny mouse into the house.  Her first instinct is to get rid of it, but how exactly should she do it?  If she decides on a live trap, she could put it safely outside – but it looks so vulnerable and it is cold and pouring rain. As she begins to feel responsible and care for it, she is drawn out of her solitary existence.

As her life enlarges, so does the reader’s view of her.  She is not the stereotypical “old lady” we have been imagining. She is an accomplished woman. She has a past! This charming story is a delightful pick-me-up. 

Stepping gingerly around each other, they look back on his life for clues. The three marriages, an old lover, and a hugely successful business with partners offer many people to look at, but none seems very plausible.  Not until a school literary journal and old photo appear does everything fall into place.

This book was fine, but I didn’t like it as much as her first mystery, The Last Thing He Told Me. It is too touchy-feely, too much emoting. Then there is the setting. The characters are architects who develop luxurious resorts all over the world. The constant descriptions of their upscale developments are intrusive and off-putting.   I mentioned in my last blog that this is a difficult time to read about catering to the world’s super rich.  We are at war, social programs are being decimated, the ultra-rich who appear in the news are extremely unlikeable.

The story did have some unanticipated twists, more mystery than romance-like, which helped it.  Also, someone especially interested in design and architecture might not find this aspect of the story overdone.  Neuroarchitecture anyone?

In A Shilling for Candles, Josephine Tey talks about the theater and its hangers on, the rural English countryside, the aristocracy, and a bit of politics. The actress, who has escaped poverty through hard work and talent, rents a house in the country in hopes of some quiet.  No one knows where she will be. But someone finds out, and when she goes for a swim in the morning, she is drowned. While suspicion falls on her house guest, there are two other possibilities.  Her husband, Lord Edward, has misled the detective on some basic facts.  Then there is the ne’er do well brother who has been disdainfully left a shilling in her will.  Had he expected more?

Three different plot lines make for an exciting story, but I thought it had a flaw.  The actress wants to help the young man get a start in life so leaves him a bequest in her will.  Really?  She is only 30.  Doesn’t she expect to live another fifty years? How will this help him get started? This fact is necessary for the plot but such a misstep spoils this otherwise pleasant cozy mystery.  

Will her energy and drive assure her of success?  Not in the early 1900s.  The only path open to her is a “successful” marriage.  She does her best.  She cajoles and browbeats her parents into taking her to New York City where she catches the eye of Ralph, son of an old money family. She has yet to discover that “respected-old-family” doesn’t equate with rich.  When he is unable to satisfy her extravagant desires, she divorces him for someone wealthier. Her next husband is from the French aristocracy, but alas, he thinks money is for conserving not spending.  Soon, there is an old flame on the horizon, someone from her hometown who shares her materialism and has become fabulously wealthy.  Will she finally achieve her goal?

The book is much more than a story of an ambitious, selfish woman.  It also directs our attention outward to the culture that shaped her.  Undine, like other women of her time and class, is oblivious to where money comes from and hasn’t a clue about business, thus putting all the pressure on her husband to support them as she wishes.  She can’t understand why he is so obstinate about her expenses.

The men’s expectations are also explored.  Ralph thinks that because she is young, he will be able to mold Undine to his quiet interests and family standards.  The French husband assumes that when she becomes a wife, she will give up her extravagant party ways and devote herself to his parents and rural estate. They are both mesmerized by her beauty, see what they want to, and don’t know her at all, for Undine is well named.  Like the myth of the undine, or mermaid, she is beautiful on the surface with a serpent’s tail underneath.

Wharton has plenty to say about the values of the wealthy classes of the time, both new and old money, American versus European.  Her critique was fresh when the book was written, but since then much has been written about the material values of our world.  It is also a painful time to be reading about the excesses of the super-rich.

Haruki Murakami, in his short story “Samsa in Love,” writes a “sequel.”  The cockroach wakes up one morning and has been turned into a man. It’s one of the best things I’ve read lately.  It’s especially good if you can remember the original.

“Samsa in Love” is one of the short stories in Murakami’s collection Men Without Women. Each story centers around a man who has lost a woman he loved and has become one of the “men without women,” either really or figuratively.  The collection deals with their loneliness and isolation.

One of the men has a woman, a fiancé, but they have grown up together and he can think of her only as a sister, not as a lover whom he would like to marry. Another’s beloved wife dies and he will never know why she had affairs during their marriage. Someone gets a call in the middle of the night that brings back memories of a first love long gone.

The men have different ways of dealing with loss which revolve around becoming someone else, even if just for a while. The actor does it professionally; another immerses himself in stories; another quits his job. Murakami is a perceptive storyteller with an original point of view.

The dead man is a stranger, unknown to anyone in the tightly knit small town. What has brought him here?  What is his connection? In another story line, an Englishman, a newcomer, has turned up in town, renting with the intention of settling in.  The townspeople give the murder, and the newcomer, their casual interest, but when a second murder occurs, this time of a local boy, the mood changes. As often is the case, the root problem goes back many years, to a summer of parties at the home of a local bohemian artist.

This is a typical fast-paced, well plotted Ann Cleeves mystery full of the Shetland Islands atmosphere.  I liked it while reading it, but afterwards, when I thought about it, I didn’t think the identity of the murderer rang true.  An odd rather than satisfying resolution.

You can find the story in the February 2, 2026, copy of The New Yorker.  If you don’t have a subscription, try your online library.  Ours is Libby and has a large collection of magazines.

Shoalts, a professional explorer, expert canoeist, and skilled outdoorsman does just that.  He begins on Lake Erie, canoes across it and Lake Ontario, then north until the navigable rivers end in the Canadian wilderness.  There is a weeks long hike  – over rough trails when he is lucky – bushwhacking when he isn’t.  Lastly, he is back to the rivers and finishes his journey by canoe.

There are beautiful descriptions of the remote places he sees and observations about the interconnectedness of things.  Most striking are the parts about his interactions with the few people he meets.  Scruffy looking from remote living, he doesn’t expect much, but everyone he meets is kind and generous, offering hm food, water, a bed, a ride, and mostly encouragement. Why are people so helpful to a stranger? Someone he meets says it is because he is actually doing what others only dream about. This vivid adventure is perfect for the armchair explorer.

She pretends to be a lowly worker, not too bright, but in reality risks her life to observe and record the Nazi thefts at the museum in hopes the artwork can be recovered after the war. It is not only the art belonging to the museum that she tries to protect, but thousands of pieces stolen from individual Jewish families that passed through the museum on the way to Germany.

The number of things stolen is appalling.  The Nazi high command just helped itself to priceless paintings, tapestries, rugs, jewels and had them shipped by the train carload to Germany.  She details visits from Goring and his insatiable appetite for artistic treasures.

Suspicion falls on Rose many times but she talks herself out of danger.  She is particularly at risk since she is in a lesbian relationship which she carefully hides.

After the war, Rose worked with the Monuments Men traveling around Europe and into Germany.  Repatriating art stolen from French museums and individual Jewish collectors became her lifelong work until she died in 1980.  Lawsuits about reparations are still going on today, eighty years later. 

Someone in our book group pointed out that the Monument Men were predominantly American.  So interesting to think about our government paying to help France recover its looted treasures.  Would we do that today?

The story revolves around a dinner party for ten, the two servers, and a few extras who will come later.  All the guests have interesting back stories, but the book eventually focuses on the newly married couple, the groom with the wealthy mother and the beautiful red-headed bride who is a little odd.

“I believe in destiny,” says her new mother-in-law.  The novel tells us, step by step, how chance, coincidence, casual error, and last-minute decisions, all play a stronger part in life than we might think.  It was intriguing to see the “murder mystery” used not as a puzzle but as a mechanism to comment on how, despite all of our hard work and planning, we don’t really have the control over our lives that we would like to think we do.  

This is a story of his Jewish family who were at home throughout Russia, Paris and Vienna. Wealthy and cultured, they were friends with Proust and Renoir.  Their magnificent, lavish homes contained precious paintings, furniture, jewels – and netsuke.

De Waal, who is a potter, has a feel for beautiful things – and he is very interested in exactly how the netsuke feel when picked up. This is a story that would appeal to the artist who loves the details of color and design.  It is a story that would appeal to the historian; De Waal’s ancestors who owned the netsuke, starting in the mid-1800s, are brought to life in the settings of the times – first Paris, then Vienna. 

While I appreciate the portrait of the cultural life of different eras, I’m just not interested in the details of so many “things.”  I prefer a book that talks about ideas, makes perceptive observations. This one finally came to life for me about three quarters of the way through, when the Nazis invaded Vienna, and went after the Jews.  De Waal describes the scene in present tense.  His family’s home is invaded by the Gestapo, their beautiful desk thrown out the window, their paintings inventoried and taken away, even the jewels and rings they are wearing are stolen.  They are forced to live in two dark rooms while the Nazis who revile them move into the rest of their family home.  We see the devastation of war that does not take place on the battlefield. 

The second generalization raised by this book is that not only the poor, but the super-rich, will always be with us. I couldn’t help but compare this fabulously wealthy family with those whose stories make the news today.  And this moral question: would I be as sympathetic if certain current homes were invaded and their things appropriated? 

So – a mixed review on this book.  Some interesting perceptions about life in general (if you look), but the main thrust is the luxurious lifestyle lived by this family of collectors for whom valuable netsuke were only a nominal part.

The freon, an environmentally destructive gas, was then destroyed.  Doing so gave them points to sell to large companies looking for environmental offsets. They earned enough to make a profit and do something for the environment.

Sam’s adventures are the story part of After Cooling by Eric Dean Wilson, the full title of which includes On Freon, Global Warming, and the Terrible Cost of Comfort. As often is the case, a story is needed to make scientific information palatable to us nonscientists in the general public.  This book starts with an explanation of how cooling occurs, moves on to what artificial cooling methods have been used in the past, and ends with the large-scale expectation of and availability of air-conditioning both in our homes and automobiles.

This easy accessibility of temperature control arose because of the invention of freon, thought to be a harmless refrigerant. Wilson takes us through the eventual recognition that it was causing changes in the atmosphere and leading to the destruction of ozone, a gas necessary to life on the planet. We learn of the eventual banning of its production although the use or sale of what had already been produced is still allowed.

From his discussion about air-conditioning, Wilson segues into the more serious topic of global warming. He moves from science into philosophy on the causes of the problem and the changes in mindset needed to solve it. He would like us to think about communal health in a world of finite resources.  Do we really want to bequeath rises in seas, burning forests, monstrous winds, and food scarcity to our grandchildren?

I liked this book because of the general discussion about the problems of global warming and some of the specific thoughts about what to do about this very important subject.  I understand that a scientist must provide facts to his peers, but I found them difficult to follow.  I also found the other end, his philosophy, obscure. So – another mixed review – an important work, well researched, thoughtful, but I was glad when I had finished this “good for me” book.

Harriet Vane has been invited to a gaudy, or celebration, at her old college. She re-establishes contact with old friends and a long-lost way of life. But there is trouble. The staff is receiving nasty letters and there has been malicious damage to the buildings. Harriet, a detective fiction writer and assistant to private investigator Peter Wimsey is asked to help. 

The backdrop for the story is a detailed portrait of academic life in an Oxford affiliated women’s college in the 30s.  The subject is whether women should receive an academic education rather than prepare themselves to be housewives.  It is discussed endlessly, from all possible angles.  Can a woman both marry and have a professional life?  If so, which should take precedence?  Is the academic obligated to stay single (and celibate)? This philosophical debate is personified in Harriet and Peter’s love affair.

How pertinent are these questions to a 21^st century reader?  Sadly, almost a hundred years later, they are still relevant, but not enough to make up the majority of the book, or to overtake the question of the destructive “poltergeist.”  Gaudy is interesting for its history of women’s rights in academia, but I will look for a more current writer for my mysteries.

Many popular science magazines are reporting on research published in the Journal of Neuroscience. Bird watching, a complex skill, contributes to neuroplasticity, the ability of the brain to continue to restructure itself and adjust functions even in our senior years.  And like anything else, the more it is exercised, the better the brain can perform.  Learning a new language or playing a musical instrument does a similar thing, but the study on preserving mind function was done on bird watchers. 

But what about the others? Well, this isn’t a fairy tale. In Nathan Harris’s The Sweetness of Water, there is no “other side;” there are no knights in shining armor. There are just ordinary people, full of flaws, who stumble through life, usually doing what is easiest. But the opportunity to do something that matters comes to them. The ones who make the brave choice are not immediately showered with success and happiness.

The setting is the South at the end of the Civil War when slaves have just been emancipated, and Confederate soldiers are returning home.  Two young black men, freed slaves, are living in the woods, making their way to one of the tent cities that have sprung up.  Two white men, soldiers about the same age, best friends since school, have just come home.

One set of parents welcomes the social changes. They have often held views that were different from their small-town neighbors, and they do so now when they employ the two freed blacks to work on their farm and pay them fairly. The other set of parents insists that things will go back to how they rightfully were. Maybe the Negroes won’t be slaves, but they will be kept in their place.

The returning school mates share a secret that, when exposed, becomes the match to the tinder. Deep seated prejudices explode, damaging more lives than the war.

But House of Day, House of Night isn’t new.  It was written twenty years before Plow, and has just been republished to take advantage of the interest in her since she won the Nobel in 2018.

The term for it is “constellation” novel. There are fragments of stories, ideas, observations, which range from one page to a full chapter.  The main character, who is unnamed, lives in a small rural town in Poland with her husband/partner R.  She tells about her days walking in the woods and mushroom hunting. (I never heard of so many unusual kinds.)  There is an elderly neighbor, a wig maker, who emerges only in the spring. They tell each other folk tales such as the one about Saint Kummernis, written by a monk who very much wanted to be a woman. 

In the book, one subject sparks another and Tokarczuk doesn’t hesitate to move from one odd, creative idea to another.  Two or three characters return periodically to give the book some cohesion.  There is the recurrence of her online dream group, people who post their dreams from the previous night. We are taught the history of the area which had originally belonged to Germany but is now repopulated with Poles from the eastern part of Poland which had been ceded to Russia.

I love her use of metaphor, personification in particular, which is creative and edgy. I have to remember though that this is a translation.  How much is Tokarczuk and how much is her translator?  Here are some favorites:

…the clouds drew aside, revealing the moon, suspended like a bombshell, which began to rise over the allotments, got tangled in the fruit trees, and then shot straight into the sky, clearly on view as it took possession of the entire earth.

The sun was slowly disappearing…the shadow on the floorboards was creeping farther forward…finally it reached our backs…painlessly and imperceptibly, it swallowed us.

Of interest to the gardeners out there: R tells the story of the slug family.  He describes the master of the house.  At night he glides through the grass…he eats wet lettuce and tender young zucchini shoots.  He enjoys gnawing holes in them, but it’s not out of malice – it is his form of creativity.

If you’re interested in something quirky, with regular pop ups of perceptive ideas, this is a book to try. If you want a traditional story, I’d pass.

Nova has moved to a small Cornish town with her fiancé where, as part of her job in a community center, she starts a book club. One of the members, a Miss Marple wannabe with time on her hands, has many theories about murder.  Arthur, a caregiver for a wife unable to read any more, is looking for reading suggestions and company.  Ash, a gangly lovesick teen wants to impress a would-be boyfriend.

Trouble comes to the community center when money earmarked for a new roof is stolen.  When the mother of the prime suspect is murdered, the book group mobilizes to find the murderer and save the center and Nova’s job.

If that bothers you, feel free to say swoodles (sweet potato), coodles (cucumber), or broodles (broccoli). Just don’t let the terminology spiral out of control, or you might end up with an impasta on your plate.

A century ago, collecting the down left behind by the ducks was part of a self-sufficient lifestyle.  People on the small outer islands fished teeming waters, ate eggs from massive flocks of birds, and sold the eider down.  Now, the natural habitat is so changed that the ducks need assistance to survive.

Anna had lived the expected life; she married, had children, worked at a job in town that she enjoyed. But she had heard about the independent women who lived on the outer islands caring for the ducks and had been taken there to visit by her father who also loved that lifestyle. When she was fifty, she answered an advertisement for a duck woman on one of the islands.

Each spring, during nesting, she lived on the island, building safe nest boxes and protecting the birds from predators.  She became an expert; she saw her duck numbers increase, and eventually brought the eiders back to an island they had abandoned. Recognition came from UNESCO, making this area a World Heritage Site. Twenty years later when Rebanks joined her, it was Anna’s last season with the ducks.

The pace of this memoir echoes the pace of life on the islands. Both are slow, deliberate, observant.  Rebanks notes the small changes as spring progresses, the bite of the wind, the swelling of peony buds.  We learn about their meals of fish, potatoes, and pancakes and how the three duck people pass the time on a rainy day.  There is the art of making a nest acceptable to a picky duck mother and a tremendous amount of hard physical work.

Is it worth it?  If the ducks are unable to survive on their own, should humans devote a large amount of time and resources to helping them (and by extension other endangered animals)? After a whole season of work by three people, there was enough eider to make two duvets.

If the payoff isn’t monetary, or usefulness to humans, what then?  What is intimacy with something wild worth?

How could we give them up, these wild birds living the lives they’ve lived for millennia?  Isn’t there room for wildness in a 21^st century world?  Where do we envision wilderness 200 years from now? These are the looming questions behind this quiet beautiful story.

The top writers of the day, artists whose work we admire, who have won the big prizes, are as callow, jealous, and ambitious as can be.  They would do anything, anything, to be published, receive an award, be admitted to the “club.”  Such is the main character and many of the people he meets.

David is a gifted writer desperate to be published and acknowledged.  When he moves into a house and learns that the other tenant is a big-name successful writer whom he idolizes, he makes the mistake anyone would and assumes this is the break he has been waiting for. He is wrong and his idol is detestable. But David is no better. As he fights tooth and claw to get ahead, we see his career succeed, while his integrity disappears.

This is a wonderfully plotted story with an unnerving depiction of the need for success.  I understand that a person and his product are two different things. I drive a Tesla, after all. But getting to know the main character and watching his ascent/descent was just too painful.

Her previous novel, The Grey Wolf, which is actually the first half of a two-book whole, ends with the realization that the plot Chief Inspector Gamache and his staff had uncovered was only the first step.  There was still a problem.  But what else was going to happen?  They weren’t looking for the perpetrators of a crime – not yet – but trying to prevent something unknown. Whatever it was involved government officials, in both the US and Canada, at the highest level.

What develops is a sophisticated plot concerned with water supplies, mega forest fires, and global warming, all intertwined with power and greed.  Gamache matches wits with the black wolf to stop political chaos.

Three Pines, that mythical village of safety and home, plays a smaller part in this novel than others.  This might be all right.  There are only so many allusions to fresh hot brioche and seared Arctic char that a person can read.