20 Books of Summer Wrap-Up

This will be a LONG post of pictures. I have to get help fixing why pictures won’t display properly in more than one row right now!

Thanks again to Cathy at 746 Books for hosting this all-summer event.

My start post is here.

Totals

1. Nonfiction–7
2. Short Stories–1 (included in fiction); Excepts –1 (included in fiction)
3. Essays–1 (included in nonfiction)
4. Translated into English–4
5. Fiction–19
6. Audio–23
7. Print/Kindle–3

 

 

 

 

These are not in any special order–my reviews are linked:

20 Books of Summer

Kiss Me in the Coral Lounge by Helen Ellis (nonfiction)

Bruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker

The Postcard by Anne Berest

Women in Translation Month selection, too

Charm City Rocks by Matthew Norman

Vintage Vacation by Maddie Please

How I Won a Nobel Prize by Julius Taranto

The First Wife by Paulina Chiziane, translated by David Brookshaw 

Women in Translation Month selection, too

The Real Queen Charlotte by Catherine Curzon (nonfiction)

Seven Empty Houses by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell

Women in Translation Month selection, too

The Little Italian Hotel by Phaedra Patrick

A House in the Mountain by Caroline Moorehead (nonfiction)

Mrs. Porter Calling by AJ Pearce

Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life by Anna Funder (review tomorrow)

Dirt Town by Hayley Scrivenor

The Silver Ladies Do Lunch by Judy Leigh

Munich by Robert Harris

The Summer House Party by Caro Fraser

The Door-to-Door Bookstore by Carsten Henn, translated by Melody Shaw

Cheap Land Colorado by Ted Conover (nonfiction)

Ghost Music by An Yu

Heat Wave by Penelope Lively

La Finca by Corky Parker (nonfiction)

Confessions of a Domestic Failure by Bunmi Laditan

The Rooster House: My Ukrainian Family Story: A Memoir by Victoria Belim (nonfiction)

Eight Months on Ghazzah Street by Hilary Mantel

Cat Tales 

Did you participate in #20BooksofSummer23? Leave me a comment or a link to your own wrap-up post! I’d love to see what you read.

#WITMonth Review: The Postcard by Anne Berest, translated by Tina Kover

My Interest

The BBC claims this as one of the best books so far in 2023 (You can read that here)–and I’m sure others will follow. I’ve read tons on the Holocaust–in fiction and non-fiction. The horror never ends. I have dreams and nightmares after nearly every book, but I’m compelled to read more.

The Story

A mysterious postcard arrives with the names of the recipient’s grandparents, aunt, and uncle–all devoured by the Nazi killing machine. What was their story? Assimilated Jews who had moved from

Review: A House in the Mountains by Caroline Moorehead

My Interest

A few years ago I stopped reading “Woman Spy in WWII” novels. There are more such novels than there were spies, I think! Partisans–the resistance, saboteurs–these sounded more interesting (yes, I know many of the novels have these women, too). Nonfiction was a better fit for me. Plus, I found her earlier book, A Train in Winter, about the similar women from France sent to the concentration camps to be very interesting and moving.  

 

credit for map

Piedmont is in the upper left corner, near France

 

The Story

The story begins at about the time Italy left World War II. Four young women worked in the Resistance near Turin while their country came apart into what some regarded as civil war. What they did was not any different from what other Resistance fighters did in other countries, but where they did it was–in the mountains of the Piedmont. 

Around them women of all ages took risks doing things such as striking in the FIAT plants and elsewhere. Others “harvested” salt from sea water–salt was nearly unobtainable in Italy so it formed a valuable currency. 

At the end of the war the women were, naturally, not well recognized (if recognized at all) and even the Communist party recommended women go back home and be housewives and have babies. 

In amongst the names of these Partisans were the names of Primo Levi and Natalia Ginsburg. I knew who they were, but did not know enough to realize either could be in this book.

My Thoughts

If my “the story” section sounds a tad vague–well, this wasn’t as good of a book as it should have been. It is hard, knowing history, to put up with today’s “history” books in which every aspect of the war (so it seemed, but from the page count this can’t be true) is re-told for readers who never had history in school or only learned of people like Marilyn Monroe or Princess Diana. It became very annoying hearing constantly about Mussolini and Hitler or of the men surrounding the women. So much so that I came to view the title as a marketing gimmick. This is book four of the author’s “Resistance Quartet” series, so women had to be the focus as they [supposedly?] were in books 1-3. Having only read the first book, I expected much more about the women and less about Hitler and Il Duce.

My Verdict

3.5

A House in the Mountains by Caroline Moorehead

I listened to the audio version

Review: How I Won a Nobel Prize: A Novel by Julius Taranto

Thank you to #Netgalley for a free copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

My Interest

Having spent much of the last 15 years in Academia, this one caught my eye on #Netgalley. A Nobel Prize! Well, well…. And, it is supposed to be “wickedly funny.” Ok, I’ll listen.

The Story

“…change doesn’t happen so much as it accumulates.”

“Why must politics always be the main theme? We are meant to be in a haven from so-called woke oppression but the constant controversy is more taxing than wokeness ever was”

Helen, a physicist (this is the summer of physicist with Oppenheimer in the theaters and now this book…. yet another book I’m reading mentions a relative who was a physicist) drags husband Hugh off to a sort of Island of Misfit Toy Academics–“Cancel U” as it is euphemistically known. A “no rules, just right” place for canceled academics and a few politicians, writers, etc., funded by a politically incorrect zillionaire with overtones of an ex-POTUS and a guy with a fixation on one letter, if you catch my drift. (If, being in the halls of the Christian Academe I missed an obvious parallel to a real place, please leave me a comment, ok?).

She and Hugh have been woke since before it was even waking up. They are an “open device” couple who share all their passwords so there are no secret phone friendships or anything similar. They often ignore each others’ “digital presence” and want “privacy” in their heads. Yeah. Are they vegan? hahhaha, Do you really have to ask?

Anyway, Helen is a genius with physics while Hugh attends “actions” (protests). When rich old B.W. recruits her for “The Institute” she goes to work with Perry (or is it Harry–I SWEAR the reader said both) who is a legend, but got ‘canceled’ for a same-sex relationship with an undergraduate. While Hugh is in their apartment “metronome-ing” (that’s an actual quote) to a recorded music, Helen and Perry are doing something amazing with physics–at a level that should, in time, see them grasp a Nobel Prize from the hands of Grumpy King himself, Carl XVI Gustaf in Stockholm.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch in the midst of regality as Hugh stresses over “predatory Capitalism,” Helen has a weird almost epiphany. What if people don’t have to be canceled completely–what if you can still admire the good things they’ve done while not forgetting the bad? And, about this time BW takes out a page in the Wall Street Journal offering free education to a couple of neo-N— ish young people–all to promote the exchange of ideas etc., etc. etc. Only you just know he doesn’t really mean it, right?

When things go too far one night puke-ing-ly-earnest, but adorable Hugh decides to grow a pair (sort of) and deal with stuff going down upstairs. Helen? She gets some home truths from BW that causes it all.

My Thoughts

I liked the way Julius Taranto periodically zapped reader (no spoilers–you’ll now it when you read it). That was different and fun. The humor–it wasn’t all that funny. There is so much you can really bust a gut laughing at in academia today, that this only hit the top level of bombast and cringe. It never dug deeper than the surface for humor.

We were supposed to admire Hugh, I think. I guess I may have as many trust issues with guys who think of lentils as a staple as I do with guys who wear MAGA hats. Give me the men in the middle of the political spectrum, please. Helen–I took off a lot for all the dull-as-dirt science discourse. Physics? Really? We’re Americans. We flunk or skip science. But having her be a physicist let her go the Island/Institute and set up the story, so, ok–that worked. The editor, though, should have stepped in and axed about 75% of the science babble. Without the cool special effects in Oppenheimer, physics is dull. Helen’s predictable diatribe on environment (we get it–it’s all our fault) and that women should be taught about #metoo from a standpoint of defending ourselves physically is old news.

Like many another law school grad though, Julius Taranto can spin a story. I’d definitely read something else by him–this was his debut novel. NPR will be all over it, I’m sure. Like Lee Cole’s Groundskeeping earlier this year, I responded to this due to the writing–it was well written, just not “wickedly funny” as promised.

My Verdict

3.0

I couldn’t give it a higher rating due to all the dull science chit-chat

How I Won a Nobel Prize by Julius Taranto, publishes September 12

Review: Poland, a Green Land: A Novel by Aharon Appelfeld

My Interest

What do you think? Yep–searching for an audio book! But a Jew traveling from Israel to Poland to see where his parents came from? Sure, if I’d found it some other way I’d still have wanted to read it. 

The Story

Yaakov, a former Captain in the Israeli army and now the owner of a successful women’s clothing story, journeys back to the Polish village of his parents’ families. While there he learns the tragic fate of most of the Jews of the town–his parents excepted.  Throughout his childhood, his mother told him of his parents’ time in hiding. He also heard so much about this village that he feels he knows it.

Arriving in the village he finds people who pass the blame–it was all “the Germans” or it was “the Soviets.” The type of hatred he encounters for people who lived cheek and jowl with those telling it is sickening. His landlady, Magda, is a passionate soul, but not always balanced. When he learns what happened to the majority of the Jews–for his mother never told him that part of the story, Yaakov begins to see the big picture.

My Thoughts

Told in the “present” (the time of the story) and in flashbacks to the past, as well as in dreams, this is an interesting book. I kept thinking of another book, a nonfiction book, Three Minutes in Poland--a book that could have been telling his extended family’s story. It was often hard to remember that this was fiction (unless we were hearing a dream). The senseless hatred people can harbor–it doesn’t matter in what time or in which country–it is so sickening. The way the Jews of this village died (no different from some other places) shows just how insane people can become when slavishly following a “leader.” 

My Verdict

3.5

Poland, A Green Land: A Novel by Aharon Appelfeld

I listened to the audio book.

Review: Mrs. Porter Calling: A Novel by A.J. Pearce

My Interest

I’ve loved both Emmy Lake books, so of course I was pumped to read/listen to the 3rd!! And, it did not disappoint!

The Story

Poor Lord Overton!! He’s passed on in the middle of a war! Emmy and her co-workers at Woman’s Friend magazine, have a new owner! Lord O’s niece, the hon Mrs. [Cressida] Porter is the new owner. Only, she wants our beloved WF to be a new version of the Tatler! And, she’s doing it with a dog called “Small Winston” in tow! Oh no!!! What will she do to WF?? Change afoot at the WF? What will Guy do?? [No Spoilers!!!]

Emmy’s friend Thelma and her children George, Marg, and Stan have a huge role. That’s all to the good! Em’s mother, too, play’s a part. [No Spoilers!!!!] And what about the folks on duty at the fire station?

My Thoughts

I LOVE this series! There’d better’d be a Book Four!!! Laurel and Hardy, Huey, Dewey, and Louie all must have a book 4!! These people are so wonderful!! But there’s all of 1945 and the election yet to go. AJ must not stop here!!!

Review: Munich by Robert Harris

Finally! A movie tie-in cover I love!

My Interest

My interest in this book involves l*st, You see, Jeremy Irons is in the film!![The film made by the demon Netflix–the promoters of that red haired royal and that woman]. That man could read me tax returns and I’d swoon. Ok, it also involves history–and very important moment in world history. That helped. So did his book, Conclave, which I read (my review is linked) and enjoyed.

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“This is what I have learned these past six years, as opposed to what is taught in Oxford: the power of unreason. Everyone said—by everyone I mean people like me—we all said, ‘Oh, he’s a terrible fellow, Hitler, but he’s not necessarily all bad. Look at his achievements. Put aside this awful medieval anti-Jew stuff: it will pass.’ But the point is, it won’t pass. You can’t isolate it from the rest. It’s there in the mix. And if the anti-Semitism is evil, it’s all evil. Because if they’re capable of that, they’re capable of anything.”

The Story

Hugh Legat is a “rising star” in the British Foreign Office. Serving as a Private Secretary to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain at the time of the Czech/Sudetenland Crisis, his facility with the German language makes him useful. So to does [No Spoilers]….

Review: Charm City Rocks by Matthew Norman

My Interest

I went looking for covers with recorded music on them to do another themed covers post–and found this delightful book!

The Story

“…I tend to live on coffee, alcohol, and anxiety”

Billy wears cardigans and loves his funky, edgy, Baltimore neighborhood. He’s a good dad to Caleb, a high school senior who lives with his mom and step-dad. He also inspires kids to love music with his passionate, and often unconventional, piano teaching. [Second book this month with a piano teacher!]

Margo is a one-time hugely popular rock and roll drummer. Her band broke up, her ex-husband the equally successful British actor, Lawson, is in the past. Her daughter Poppy is grown and going all-out in her career. But lately….well a documentary called her a “rock n roll recluse.” Ouch.

Caleb makes a foodie mistake and ends up creating a scenario no on could imagine.

To write more would be to write spoilers!

My Thoughts

What a delightful book! Sweet, but never precious. Real world enough to believable–just lol. I loved Billy and Caleb’s relationship. Love his peace with his life’s choices and with his gritty neighborhood. I liked that Margo was stuck in her ways, safe in her own world.

This is a sweet, wonderful book that would make a great rom-com film.

MINOR SPOILER

Once again, I found biblio-therapy! Billy has to move from his long-term rental home, too.

My Verdict

3.75

Charm City Rocks by Matthew Norma

Review: The Real Queen Charlotte by Catherine Curzon

My Interest

Having been totally let down by my most anticipated book of the summer (which I even returned to get my Audible credit refunded…more later) I found this on the library’s e-audio books list. I haven’t watched Bridgerton, but I did, many years ago, read a book about the daughters of George III and Queen Charlotte. They had an astounding 15 children–all of whom survived birth and only 2 of whom died in childhood. Amazing. 

The Story

This small book tells the story of Queen Charlotte, consort of George III and mother to his 15 children!! He insisted when they married they she only be in his company. No friends or relatives about. They were very happy and domestic, spending most of their time with their many children–keeping a closer eye on their brood than many future Kings and Queens would do. 

Tragedy struck when George became menially unstable. Without a circle of friends, Charlotte kept her daughters at home with her, denying them the happiness of homes and husbands of their own. While the couples many sons lived lives of debaucher and entered into common law marriages with unsuitable women, Charlotte and her daughters lived in the “Windsor Nunnery.” Hence the enactment of the Royal Marriages Act that is still in force today.

Review: Ghost Music by An Yu

My Interest

At least one of you guess my interest, right? I went looking for an available audio book! Yep! And, a this was nice and short. I did think it might be translated–#Womenintranslation is coming up, but the author writes in English. The story blurb sounded like a Japanese novel even thought the author’s name is not Japanese. It was very like some of the Japanese books I’ve read–but I no expert on them.