Bookish Thoughts...

On library book triage.  Do you ever check out too many library books? This happens to me more often than it should. And when it does, I find myself forced into a kind of bookish triage: stacking the books that can't be renewed into the "must read first" pile, throwing the books I'm not sure I really want to read, or that I know I can easily renew for 3 more weeks, into the bottom of my bag, and then hoping I'll get a chance to read the books that are left before they're due. You'd think I'd learn to limit the number of library books I check out, but I never do.

On Little Black Lies.  Sharon Bolton is one of my favorite authors, and her latest mystery is my favorite kind of psychological thriller: page-turning, suspenseful, with unexpected twists and turns, and a nice mix of complicated characters. It's set in the Falkland Islands and centers around some missing children. But it's so much more than that. I loved the setting and definitely did not see the ending coming. To tell more than that would be to give something away. So I'll just say that Little Black Lies is an awesome read.


On my library still being closed for renovations.  It's been over two months! Two very long months and my library is still closed. They were supposed to reopen on July 6th. But they didn't. Now they're saying maybe the middle of August. But I'm not holding my breath. And the next closest library, while nice, is so small it never has any copies of the books I really want to read. It's so frustrating. So, that's my bookish complaint this summer. What's yours?

Reading the Alphabet, Part V

Author:  VanLiere, Donna
Title: The Good Dream
First Line: I didn't set out to be an old maid.

My Thoughts: I picked this book up because of its title, but it was the first line that made me want to check it out. And I'm glad I did. It's set in 1950 in the small town of Morgan Hill, Tennessee. The main character, Ivorie Walker, is only thirty, but everyone in town has already declared her to be an old maid, something she doesn't exactly mind. "I gave up trying to talk to single men when, years earlier, I told Lloyd Parker I felt fine as frog hair. There's no way back from something that idiotic."  But since her mother's death, she's felt an emptiness in her life that she doesn't know how to fill. Then, one night, a young boy wanders into her vegetable patch and steals her tomatoes. He is dirty and malnourished and comes from the hills. His mother is dead and can no longer protect him from his father, but Ivorie thinks she can ... even against the advice of everyone else in town who warns her not to get involved.

This is an amazing and beautifully told story; I didn't even mind that the narrative alternates between Ivorie and the boy. Ivorie is a great character--stubborn and funny and kind. And very memorable. I really liked her. This novel is both heartbreaking and heartwarming...a great combination in a book when you can find it. And I'm very glad I found this particular novel on the V shelf. Reading the Alphabet has been a lot of fun; I can't wait to see what bookish serendipity the U shelf holds for me.

Happy Reading!

July's Bookish Art...

Alfred Chantrey Courbould--Girl Reading in a Sailboat

"She had always been an unashamed reader of novels..."

Barbara Pym, Quartet in Autumn

Reading the Alphabet...

The W shelf has been good to read. I was wandering the library stacks the other day and ran across a book written by an author I've never read before; I picked it up on a whim and quickly got caught up in a very well-written thriller. Talk about bookish serendipity!

Before I Go To Sleep by S. J. Watson tells the story of Christine Lucas, a woman in her forties who has a rare form of amnesia--whatever pieces of her life that she manages to remember while she's awake, she forgets all over again when she goes to sleep. Her husband, Ben, has to tell her who she is each morning. But he doesn't know about the journal she's been keeping; only Dr. Nash, the psychologist she's been working with in secret, knows that. It is a journal with a warning on the first page: Don't Trust Ben. It's a journal that holds the truth.

"My own truth, one I have not been told but have remembered. And it is written now, etched in this journal rather than my memory, but permanent nevertheless. I know that the book I am writing may be dangerous, as well as necessary. It is not fiction. It may reveal things best left undiscovered. Secrets that ought not to see the light of day."

But they are secrets that Christine is determined to figure out, no matter the cost.

This is a hard book to put down. Not knowing whether or not to trust Christine's memory as she begins to uncover her husband's lies one by one makes this novel even more chilling. Which version of her life is the truth? And the mystery surrounding her loss of memory deepens with each journal page that she reads. This novel, with its unexpected twists, especially at the end, is quiet suspense at its best. I'm so glad I spent another week reading from the W shelf.

Happy Reading!

Bookish Link #5:

Got love for Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird?

Then The Mockingbird Next Door: Life With Harper Lee by Marja Mills

is the perfect read for you.

Bookish Link #4:

Fascinated by the mysterious Edgar Allan Poe and his macabre tales?

Then check out these equally fascinating mysteries that feature Poe

as one of the main characters: The Pale Blue Eye by Louis Bayard

and The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl.

Bookish Link #3:

Ever get nostalgic for the  days of Nancy Drew?

Then check out Girl Sleuth by Melanie Rehak, the true story

of Nancy, her creator, and the women who authored the series.