2 A.M. in Little America

Thoughts by Ken Kalfus, Highbridge 2022, 256 pages/ 6 hours 25 minutes, narrated by BJ Harrison

Challenge: for TOB2023, #WiaN2023 – Category punctuation

Genre/Theme: Speculative Fiction

Type/Source: audiobook / Audible

What It’s About: Ron Patterson is American but America is no longer a safe place to live. He is a migrant worker, trying to survive, trying to find a country who will allow him to live within its borders. Americans are often not welcome.

Thoughts: When I said Babel was “ambitious, carefully crafted, clever work”, I could say the same of this; much slighter in size but equally thoughtful of its elements and construction. However, this one needs more discussion and clarification to explain to me what Kalfus was trying to do! or rather, why he chose what he did to tell this story.

Ron comes across as a good guy, trying to keep his head done, to go along to get along and be left alone. But he suffers from faceblindness — usually or only memorably when applied to women. Other reviews state this to be on purpose; to show his confusion and wish that he could go home to America/motherland aka MOTHER. Yet others call this blatant disregard and disrespect for women. I can’t figure out where I stand on trying to understand that dichotomy. It is suggested that the confusion of being a migrant and not having personal identity – to be always grouped into that “MIGRANT = unwanted” category was what Kalfus was attempting to show. Yea, I dunno.

What would happen if America descended into civil war and became a violent unruly unsafe scary place to live? How would the world treat Americans?

This book had violence and many unnamed elements – some places were described but never identified. But Target the retailer and McDonalds, and Skittles even, were named as super-American things of the past. (One review stated that Target is a supporter of the publisher and this was total name placement for marketing purposes! That makes me laugh but I don’t not doubt it!!)

Points in its favor was that I kept listening, I was interested and curious and gave enjoyable time to the THINKING-ABOUT – rather than being frustrated. Weird when that happens, right? Why do some unknowns frustrate and vagueness/confusion in other situations be of intrigue? #shrug

Rating: Three slices of pie. No pie mentioned.

Copyright © 2007-2023. Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

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⧫ November ⧫ 2022 ⧫ Recap

HA! WP just prompted me to share 5 things I’m good at…

1. Maintaining a passion for writing letters
2. Being a pie ambassador
3. Loving on the dogs
4. Keeping up with this blog, even if inconsistently
5. Picking myself back up when I fall

 Monthly Recap Time! November

• 5 books; 91 for the year
• 1317 pages, 21.75 hours | 25775 total pages, 217.8 hours for the year so far

I continue to have a flailing ability to focus on reading. I have managed to do more audiobooking due to being in a car more than ever, commuting to the J-O-B. It’s been cold and the old dog has been off & on with wanting to walk so that has diminished, AND!!!

EXCITING NEWS! We got another dog! Who is *not* leash-trained so managing an audiobook/walk is a future goal with this boy:

His name is Copper. He is a 3 yo Wirehaired Pointing Griffon. Esther is not amused…

I started an abandonning of more books lately, or acquired-and-not-even-started!! library books lately, … you may not even be able to call me a “reader”. Oh well, I still managed 5 titles, short as one might be. I finished the Bookclub pick (Into the Abyss) and did OK on adding in some Nonfiction, so I am reasonably satisfied with the results.

Into the Abyss, which I convinced club to read because it was #NonfictionNovember (yay me!) also gave me a pie mention which was delightful to encounter.

…, so he asked me if I would make pies out of them.

~80% in when sharing about Paul peeling a bunch of apples.

Write For Your Life was my favorite. It would be a good gift if you have a letter-writer/reader in your life.

and finally, we come to December. I know blogging has been hit or miss with me but I do love to track my books. The TOB Long List has been out a few weeks now and the Short List should be any day; I hope I get more excited but I do not think I will be as obsessed with the Tournament as much in 2023, what a new family member to work with and distract from sitting around and, well. SITTING. He is high energy!

What was YOUR favorite book of November? Especially NONFICTION so I can add to my list for next year.

Happy Holidays! Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Jolly Jolabokaflod!!!

Copyright © 2007-2022. Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

⬥OCTOBER⬥ 2022

 Monthly Recap Time! October

• 8 books; 86 for the year
• 2740 pages, 25.78 hours | 24462 total pages, 196.1 hours for the year so far

I have had a rollercoaster of an emotional month. But I read these! And they were all 4 or 5 slicers of pie reads: I gave 5s to World Piece, Address Unknown (a short story about how seemingly nice people buy into evil rhetoric and then join radical movements that justify other people as subhuman), and Fidelity. The rest got 4 slices. I didn’t even know who Tom Morello was – interesting guy. I do love the Audible musician stories. I wish I had read + listened to the Cruz, but that is all on me. I recommend it; definitely a terrific immigrant story with humor and love.

I had an increase in blogging, too. Thanks for the comments and support there.

October was the BRING BACK of audiobooks. I listened to some. I have a new job that gives me drive time in the car.

Of course, World PIEce had pie. And The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek had a lot of pie, too. How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water featured pastelitos, a fried handpie of goodness on many Dominican menus.

November is another month; I hope it brings you HOPE. Hope is the belief in things unseen.

What was YOUR favorite book of October? ARE YOU PLANNING ON READING FOR NONFICTION NOVEMBER? Tell me your recommendations.

Copyright © 2007-2022. Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Status ⬥ The Month After July ⬥ 2022

 Monthly Recap Time! August

• 7 books; 72 for the year
• 2740 pages, 28.5 hours | 21128 total pages, 169.3 hours for the year so far

“… a party being made better because of the pie you brought…”

LESSONS in CHEmistry

Pie for the win. EVERY BOOK I READ HAD PIE! Pretty impressive..

“Maria helped herself to the last bites of Eddie’s apple pie and unfolded her notes on the table, but instead of Devil’s Bargain she found herself thinking of the scale model of Mercury.”

– MERCURY PICTURES PRESENTS

And my audiobook game has returned. THREE audiobooks finished and meaty books, too — not just a 1 hour created-for-Audible nibble.

My favorite was Bonnie Garmus’ Lessons in Chemistry. Hands down, my kind of book. Strong female character, touches all the ugly bits of reality yet balanced with love and humor, plus a cool dog. Some reviews recommend print over the audio, though I didn’t catch the mispronunciations or chemical terms …. oops. I did notice a long “e” sound for the word “been” and something else with an eeeee sound that to me should be more of an “i” sound like “bin”.

I read French’s The Searcher for book club. It was good but not my favorite of hers. And another book that suffered I HOPE! from bad mood and poor timing, was Anthony Marra’s Mercury Pictures Presents. I want to try it again someday.

“He finds a café and gets himself a slice of apple pie and more coffee to pass the time till his laundry is ready.”

the searcher

Perhaps, August was just meant to be devoted to nonfiction? I really liked Destiny of the Republic by Candace Millard. She’s good! and she wrote a lovely tribute to David McCullough, a favorite of mine for readable fascinating enjoyable history, who died August 7. I’ve not read near enough of his oeuvre and now I need to add all of Millard’s.

I read The Sum of Us. Fascinating and sad how systematic racism is sneakily argumented away and seems invisible to sum. Why don’t towns have a city pool? because they didn’t want to share with ALL the citizens of the town. Stupid. Evil.

Which brings me to share that I finally finished brown girl dreaming by the lovely Jacqueline Woodson! Here memoir in verse, my mid-year, many months, poem-a-day project. LOVELY.

“…Remember the time, they ask,
when we stole Miss Carter’s peach pie off her windowsill,…”

brown girl dreaming

Then I listened to Taste by Stanley Tucci, because I think celebrity memoirs are a great way to break a slump. Plus, the lack of audiobooks in prior months meant I had credits to burn. I have a print of this at the library to pick up so I can get the recipes. (His cookbooks have hold lists but this I got right away.)

What was YOUR favorite book of August?

September has a couple of pie days. The 15th is Butterscotch Cinnamon Pie Day! (A healing pie in the video game UnderTale.) Sept 23 is Pot Pie Day (Lessons in Chemistry has pot pie! and a terrific explanation of pie pastry. KFC’s chicken pot pie is decent, too. Look for a coupon.) Sept 26 is Key Lime Pie Day – read a book set in Florida! LOL — and Raspberry Cream Pie Day is Sept 28.

Today, as I write and prep this post, I’m contemplating a Grape Galette. You can see a photo (it’s readable! perhaps I should add a link to my pie page… Hmmmmm) of my recipe in a post from 2017; enjoy.

Copyright © 2007-2022. Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

The Sentence

Thoughts by Louise Erdrich, Harper 2021, 387 pages

Challenge: TOB 2022

Genre/Theme: Adult Literature

Type/Source: eBook / Library

What It’s About: This is the story of Tookie, a Chippewa woman in Minnesota who works in a bookstore. The book starts with how she came to commit a crime, be sentenced and serve time in prison. A former teacher sends her a dictionary and so begins a love of reading. This same teacher helps her get the job at the bookstore once she is released from prison. This is also the story of how one of the bookstore’s most loyal customers dies and begins to haunt Tookie when she is at work. The story is timely; we see the dates approach March 2020 — the start of the pandemic. And June, when George Floyd is murdered at the hands of the cops. And the subsequent protests.

Thoughts: As I attempt the above paragraph, I find my appreciation growing for how Erdrich accomplished all of the personal and broad storylines, as well as weaving in the love of reading. There is a grappling of balancing political issues and getting involved and this was successfully done (to me) — effectively paced with empathy, love, and respect; everything I love in my literature. I would even say she manages a balanced lightness with heavy topics and was able to bring some humor to the humanity.

I found that I could not read just any book. It had gotten so I could see through books—the little ruses, the hooks, the setup in the beginning, the looming weight of a tragic ending, the way at the last page the author could whisk out the carpet of sorrow and restore a favorite character. I needed the writing to have a certain mineral density. It had to feel naturally meant, but not cynically contrived.

Rating: She even included pie! Rounding up to 5 slices of pie. A book lover’s book: the author provides a list of all the books mentioned in the text.

I grew up in Rondo and that was a warm neighborhood, full of kindness, pie, elderly folks, kids, craziness, and sorrow. It was a place to belong. All my life I’ve missed it, but never understood until now.

 

PS I voted this for my TOB Zombie.

 

These Precious Days

Thoughts  by Ann Patchett, HarperCollins 2021, 320 pages

Challenge: I have love and adoration for AP

Genre/Theme: Memoir/Essays/Nonfiction

Type/Source: Hardcover / Purchased as a ticket for a virtual event (which I missed…)

WHAT’s it ABOUT:  Ann Patchett is a successful prize-winning novelist (Her latest, The Dutch House, was nominated for the Pulitzer) who also owns a bookstore in Nashville TN. This writer-plus-bookshop-proprietor was a magazine article writer in order to support her fiction writing habit; she published a collection of these called This is the Story of a Happy Marriage in 2013 between two best-sellers State of Wonder (2011) and Commonwealth (2016). She pub’d this one, this year and it’s a heartbreaker, consisting of goodness.

WHAT’s GOOD: I love her.

Here’s what I said in my review of This … Happy Marriage: “From word one, I fell hard into this and couldn’t stop enjoying, thinking, relating, pondering. I had no idea what to expect; I really didn’t know anything more about Ann Patchett other than the first fact:  1) she wrote Bel Canto and the second, that 2) she owns a bookstore. I am now a fan . . . “

So this new collection is also just a few random essays but the title one refers to her friendship with an artist, a friendship that began slowly and by a series of cogs, levers, acts of this and then that and THEN the pandemic. I cried with this essay, but I also cried on the very first essay and it was about .. oh, well, OK. It was about death. That essays don’t die. I cried at a few other lovely essays, too.

Maybe I should get my thyroid checked again. I cried lovingly.

What’s NOT so good: I have no criticisms.

FINAL THOUGHTS: I find AP inspiring. I want to reread this book already. I’ve put Updike on my tbr. I have added Eudora Welty to my tbr. I have placed a book called Barking to the Choir by Gregory Boyle on my tbr.

RATING: Five slices of pie.

“That was when I started cutting frozen butter into pea sized chunks with a frozen knife in my frozen hands to make a pie crust..”

Copyright © 2007-2022. Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

The Day the World Came to Town

Thoughts by Jim DeFede, HarperCollins 2021 (orig 2002), 261 pages

Challenge: Book club

Genre/Theme: Nonfiction / September 11th

Type/Source: eBook / Libby to Kindle

What It’s About: This short book is packed with heart-warming stories involving the challenges to the town of Gander, Newfoundland, in dealing with unexpected “guests” due to planes not being able to land in the US when the terrorists attached the World Trade Center on Sept 11, 2001.

We get a little bit of history on why Gander, an exploration of Newfoundland culture, and glimpses into lives of passengers and residents, all the many varied interactions. We even meet some animals!

Thoughts: I teared up a dozen times or more. This was a wonderful read about the goodness of humanity in facing the consequences of evil tragedies. This edition is great in that it gives updates to the friendships made; a ‘where are they now’ look, 20 years hence.

Rating: Four slices of pie. Homemade pie.

 

 

Copyright © 2007-2022. Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Tender is the Flesh

Thoughts by Augustina Bazterrica, Scribner 2020, 211 pages

Translated from the Spanish by Sarah Moses

Challenge: TOB

Genre/Theme: Contemporary Lit, South American Lit, Dystopia, Cannabalism

Type/Source: Tradeback/Indie bookstore

What It’s About: What does cannibalism look like? This book offers imagery and description, a generation after the Transition.

Our protagonist Marcos is skilled at what he does – problem solve. But he hates his job, hates his life, hates the world. He has suffered personal loss – his son has died of what I assume was SIDS, his wife has left — taken her grief home to her mother, his father suffers from dementia in a nursing home. Marcos must work to afford his father’s care and protection.

His job is right hand man to the chief of one of the best of the “special” meat processing plants – humans bred and slaughtered specifically to be a food source. The book explores the language, the conspiracy theories, the adjustment of society to the eradication of diseased animals (or so says the government) to embracing the new protein delicacies, the fear of birds, the need for Scavengers to be a balancing cog in the food chain. It’s all quite revolting.

Thoughts: The author skillfully brings the reader into a sympathy with Marcos; we share his disgust and feelings of being trapped. Will he, can he escape?

Rating: Three slices of pie. Four possibly for story-build but … I just can’t say I enjoyed this one. No pie mentioned.

SO. Possible Spoilers? The other night, we watched an episode of The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, Beyond the Pale, and I reflected on what happens at the end of this book in relation to that story; of a soldier in England who sends for his English wife who cannot have children of her own. The social and cultural entanglements and justifications, surrogate motherhood, acceptance and scandal, bias and deep-seated beliefs concerning classism and race. That’s all, just got me thinking.

and why doesn’t my end quote copyright show up in the tiny print I want??

Update Feb 28 2021 Sunday

Monthly Recap Time!

I finished _9_ books in February. This makes 15 for the year so far.

Total page count (including print page count for books I listen-read) = __2736__, + 1485 Jan = 4221 TOTAL pages for the year so far. 35% of yearly goal? wow.

The three audiobooks summed to _~42__ hours. (and 18 minutes)

Hardcover = 2

eBook (Kindle or Libby) = 2

Tradeback = 2

Count from the library =  _3_, remainder purchased or given to me.

My favorite was Piranesi.

Seven featured a pie mention: 2 Apple, Strawberry Tart, lots of generic “pie”.

I visited California a few times, New Mexico, a few days in Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania and possibly New England (woot! for a Newport RI mention); international travels took me to Japan, Scotland and England, and possibly another out of this world dimension (Piranesi)

Most published in 2020 – all for the TOB. One in 2017, the one nonfiction; memoir/humor.

Cherry Pie Day was February 20th and here a photo of the meringue crust: then I filled it with cherry pie filling (from a can) and then, finally a slice of it:

 

 

Stats for LetterMo:  I thank the many of you who wrote me! WOOT. I received _28_ pieces of correspondence. My tracking is usually suspect but my official chart says I mailed 112 pieces, averaging to 4 per day.

Mailed to 28 states and three countries: UK, New Zealand and Germany.

I mailed 3 books – one to RI (Deacon King Kong to Sarah), one to ME (The Vanishing Half to Auntie Lil), and one to NJ (Telephone to Ellen of the Garden State).

Happy Chocolate Soufflé Day! Banana Cream Pie Day is March 2nd.

Copyright © 2007-2021. Care’s Online Book Club aka Care’s Books and Pie. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Online Book Club aka BkClubCare.  It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Update Jan 31 2021 Sunday

January Recap! Going to make this a habit. Maybe I create the last-day-of-the-month posts in advance and add to each with each book completed?  Always a goal, right?

I finished 6 books, have 3 underway right now.

If I count the hardcover page count rather than hours in my sums when I consider the books I listen-read, I get a total of 1485. Otherwise it is 901. I’m still wrestling with my attempt to keep THIS page count accurate with whatever goodreads calculates — they don’t do great at accurate hour counts for audiobooks.

The two audiobooks summed to 17 hours.

One in hardcover, one eBook (Kindle), two tradeback. Three library loans, three purchased.

My favorite has to be Luster by Raven Leilani. All were pretty worthy and enjoyable, recommendable. Memorial was my least favorite. Of course, A Village Life as a poetry collection received a high rating; quite moving and intense.

Three of the six featured a pie mention: Apple, Caramel, Chitlin. I visited Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Texas, California and Georgia. Mostly US-centric but one hopped over to Ghana for a few scenes. Four books had black protagonists; one of these shared MCs with a Japanese American. This same title would be LGBTQ+.

Four published in 2020 – all for the TOB. One in 2009, one in 1999. One nonfiction; about dogs. One poetry. Only one author of the male gender, as far as I know.

I made a few pies – including the Elvis Pie I made for Christmas. See this post on my First Book 2021 (Long Bright River).

I made a RhuBlue (BlueRhu? RhuBerry?) for my mom’s birthday:

MR are her initials.

Bring on February where my focus will be LetterMo. Write me a letter and I must reply in kind.

 

Copyright © 2007-2021. Care’s Online Book Club aka Care’s Books and Pie. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Online Book Club aka BkClubCare.  It should not be reproduced without express written permission.