Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Thoughts by Gabrielle Zevin, Alfred A Knopf 2022, 401 pages

Challenge: for March 2023 Tournament of Books

Genre/Theme: Adult Fiction; friendship, gaming industry

Type/Source: Hardcover, loaned to me by a friend (thanks SuzP!)

What It’s About: Sam, age 12, is a lonely boy in a hospital, recovering from a car accident with extreme long-time physical and emotional repercussions when he meets Sadie, age 11, and they become friends, bonding over games. They are both smart, both go to Boston from California to attend college, and both are ambitious to create their own game, together. They grow up in the process. It all reminds me of the motto of Kansas, “Ad Astra per Aspera” Latin for “to the stars through difficulties.” This is about the creative process, captures a particular time for a unique industry, but basically, it is about love and friendship.

Thoughts: I had that comfortable feeling of being in the hands of a talented writer. I believe that the thread-count of this one exceeds her prior novel that I read (and enjoyed but seemed, fluffier, rather than tight?, AJ Fikry – which, by the way, Zevin wrote the screenplay for and subsequent film has been adapted! Who has seen it?!)

A truly enjoyable read. Lots of lovely vocabulary words that were fun to look up. Trenchant, collogue, sere, nihilism, echt, ersatz…

Rating: Five slices of pie. One boring mention of (pizza) pie and that is good enough:

“Sadie hadn’t eaten since the plane that morning, and she ended up eating almost the whole pie.”

39%

Finally, just want to share a fun link that a dear friend brought to my attention (Thanks Stef!)

Stuck on Your Novel? Bake a Pie! “Cliche Chicken Pot Pie”

 

 

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The Rabbit Hutch

Thoughts by Tess Gunty, Alfred A Knopf 2022, 338 pages, National Book Award 2022

Challenge: for March 2023 Tournament of Books

Genre/Theme: Adult Fiction; decaying town

Type/Source: Hardcover, library

What It’s About: A decaying town, lack of industry, climate change effects such as flooding, lost people trying to survive, kids in the system, contrasts between poverty and privilege, mystics, and weird pie.

Thoughts: I didn’t really enjoy reading it and I was luckily enough to have time to make myself sit with the book and READ. “Just keep reading.” I was both repelled by the behaviors and attracted to any scraps of redemption. Some really great passages, and terrific turns of phrase.

And, OH. The last line. Good, really good.

Rating: Four slices of pie. A pie shop, sour cream pie with black licorice, butterscotch cream pie. Possibly a contender for Care’s 2022 Pie in Literature Award!

“Home is a pie in the oven, live saxophone downtown, and a backyard of fireflies.”

65%

 

 

Into the Abyss

Thoughts by Carol Shaben, Hachette Audio, 10 hours 1 minutes, Narrated by Tiffany Morgan

Challenge: ICT Book Club

Genre/Theme: NonFiction; Overcoming Challenges, Surviving Tragedy

Type/Source: both library and Audible, because I can never manage to do one or the other…

What It’s About: Four men survive a plane crash during horrid snowy weather in Canada. Six people on the flight do not make it. This is the story of that night, what happened leading up to it and its aftermath.

Thoughts: I was extremely impressed with the journalistic research skills that Shaben put into use to create and share this story. She managed personal insights to give it that uniquely sensitive touch and … okay – you all got that from “personal insights” and I’m going with it. (Her father was one of the survivors.) I must say, WELL DONE in crafting the story layout and digging for tidbits that felt real and relevant with out being exploitative. WELL CRAFTED beginning to end.

Gosh, being human is extraordinary AND ordinary. And personal. AND all business. What struck me the most might be unusual, tell me if you agree or not, but the idea that we only care about others when tragedy strikes, hurts me & amazes me. We don’t do well with frustration and despair BEFORE a possible tragedy, in my opinion. I get it, it is a delicate balance! Paranoia or indulgence – is that what capitalism makes us question? It is awful. Seriously, if the pilot was not so overworked, and had been able to have a co-pilot, the crash could very likely been averted, but … NO! Think of the cost of the lives, the investigations, the inquests, the consequences! My heart hurts.

The stories that the 4 survivors live before and after bring up so many questions about fate and attitude and opportunity. No answers are given. It was all quite fascinating.

Rating: Four slices of pie. Pie is mentioned! The HERO of the story, who is the least injured and provided the life-saving tasks and efforts to help the others survive, too, has a mention about peeling apples and requesting a pie be made.

I asked our book club to suggest or consider a nonfiction pick for this month’s read and I’m glad to have read this one. It really made me think about what is possible, no matter what happens.

 

The Last Flight

Thoughts by Julie clark, Blackstone Audio, 7 hours 18 minutes

Challenge: For October Book Club

Genre/Theme: Mystery Thriller

Type/Source: Audible! On an INCLUDED list until 10/31 <click here>

What It’s About: We know early that there is a plane crash. This story involve two characters desperate to escape their lives by running, by taking on new identities. With an unfolding that is told “6 Months Before the Crash” and “2 Days Before the Crash” back and forth between Eva and Claire, we learn what is happening in their lives that propels the story and to their meeting.

We know on one side that it is not a random encounter but we do not know how they are linked. The unfolding is definitely edge of your seat action and drama. Did she get on that plane?!

“I’m not very good at forgiveness.” Liz nodded. “Not many people are. But what I’ve learned in life is that in order for true forgiveness to occur, something has to die first. Your expectations, or your circumstances. Maybe your heart. And that can be painful. But it’s also incredibly liberating.”

Thoughts: I enjoyed this. We meet strong females braving against the odds, we experience the best of women friendships. We also see domestic violence, drug trade machinations, powerful men being evil and controlling.

I usually don’t like mystery thrillers but this one didn’t happen to annoy me. I had to know how Eva found Claire! What was the missing link? All explained to my satisfaction despite the ending being vague and open to question. Should be a good club discussion. (Better than the Evelyn Hugo book anyway…)

Rating: Four slices of pie. No pie mentioned.

“You know, life is long. Lots of things can go wrong and still end up all right.”

When this title was brought up for consideration, the library copy count was adequate but someone wondered out loud, if the audiobook was available I was super chuffed to check Audible and see it was “on special”! I recommend you hurry, if you do have an Audible subscription and think this one sounds good.

 

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox

Thoughts by Maggie O’Farrell, Blackstone Audio, 7 hours 18 minutes

Challenge: none

Genre/Theme: Adult Fiction; Sisters

Type/Source: Tradeback / Purchased at Half Price Books, I think

What It’s About: Told in flashbacks and from the perspective of three characters: Esme – the youngest sister, Kitty – the eldest, and the granddaughter Iris. Esme has been locked away since she was 16 and now 60+ years later, while Kitty is suffering from dementia in the nursing home. Then there is Iris, the only living relative who owns a vintage clothes shop and pines for her married step-brother. It gets even more complicated when Iris is contacted about Esme when her facility is being shut down. Iris has never heard of Esme and didn’t realize Kitty was not an only child.

Thoughts: Despite the showing of audiobooks this month, I’m still not at my former levels of audio-focus. That or this one just starts confusing, gets muddled and wilding messy in the middle, and might also suffer from cultural unknowns. (Like, what WAS that red cord?! What that MEAN? Do I really know how it ended? I have made assumptions that work for my interpretation of the story, but this would be a terrific one to discuss. With a Scottish person!)

But boy do I love the feisty old ladies. Both of them had feistiness and secrets and regrets and ambition. No excuses for Kitty, but Esme and Iris could have benefited from asking and expressing and having a true exchange of what was going on. Of course, the plot wouldn’t have thickened if they were able to truly share and connect.

She has no idea that her hands and eyes and the tilt of her head, and the fall of her hair, belong to Esme’s mother.

We are all just vessels thru which identities pass. We are lent features, gestures, habits and then we hand them on. Nothing is our own.

We begin in the world as anagrams of our antecedents.

Rating: Four slices of pie. No pie mentioned; a fabulous story idea and not quite convincingly executed. Though a fun ride anyway, I think this one is likely better in print. The stories just bounce between narrator and time with no introduction — it was hard to tell when those changes occurred.

I read this because… I think it was an Audible freebie by an author who has a new book out that looks phenomenal, The Marriage Portrait, which follows a successful Hamnet. Possibly a writer that will go on my “must-read-everything” list.

 

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek

Thoughts by Kim Michele Richardson, Sourcebooks 2019, 309 pages

Challenge: What’s in a Name 2022: Category Person with Description

What’s in a Name Challenge: Description category

Genre/Theme: Adult Fiction; history, pack horse library, blue people of Kentucky

Type/Source: Tradeback / Purchased at Half Price Books, I think

What It’s About: This story focuses on the last of the Kentucky blue people and how our protagonist worked to make her own journey in the world, as a Pack Horse Librarian, during the Depression. The story isn’t light – it contains disturbing violence, racism, and death. There are also tender moments and some humor.

Thoughts: I actually allowed myself to get swept away in this and it could be because I needed a hero to truly cheer for after a struggle with NightBitch, I’m not sure. It certainly is more plot and story and not the introspective contemporary snob-literature that I often find myself really falling for. I didn’t notice, for example, all the melodrama and the repetition of her being blue, over and over again until I read it in a review. Oh. Yeah, perhaps. Maybe it was all the references to pie. It surely gained it an extra slice on the rating for pie being a many-mentioned element.

And I also agree that the ending was … a bit much. Too much for only a few pages! WHAT JUST HAPPENED? Good thing I didn’t have a chance to go read reviews before I finished which is what happens when I have doubts mid-way. But I just kept trucking with the story until the last page.

“The first Friday in June, Troublesome always held its pie bake dance, a pie auction to hitch unmarried folks.”

page 60

Rating: Four slices of pie. Because of the pie and the fast flow.

“Winnie‘d been … the only one to bring a pie and sit with me one long Sunday, and then the next, reading to me while I recovered.”

page 73

Question: Will I read the second in the series? The Book Woman’s Daughter, published in May of this year. I don’t know. I’m not rushing out to get it, and I rarely read series books… I probably won’t, to be honest.

 

 

Burning Questions and The Candy House

Thoughts by Margaret Atwood, Doubleday 2022, 496 pages

Challenge: n/a

Genre/Theme: Essays

Type/Source: Hardcover / Gift from a friend

What It’s About: Wonderful essays on the climate, politics, book reviews and author tributes, bits about poems; reminisces on her childhood, her marriage, and husband, lectures she has given, etc and more.

“However, this does not make The Handmaid’s Tale a “feminist dystopia” except insofar as giving a woman a voice and an inner life will always be considered “feminist” by those who think women ought not to have these things.”

Thoughts: She’s Margaret Atwood!

“She came by her perky Mom voice and her “Howdy Stranger“ tropes honestly. She was a refugee, not to America but from within America: a mom and Apple Pie America, and America of the past that was being rapidly transformed by material inventions, …”

Rating: Five slices of pie.

“My own mother was of the non-interference school unless it was a matter of life and death. ___ She later said that she had to leave the kitchen when I was making my first pie crust, the sight was so painful to her.”

-Polonia (2005)

 

Thoughts by Jennifer Egan, Scribner 2022, 334 pages

Challenge: TOB Summer Camp

Genre/Theme: Linked Short Stories, 2nd in the Goon Series

Type/Source: Hardcover / Library

What It’s About: These stories continue the looks into the lives of characters touched on in The Visit From the Goon Squad. I can’t even pick a favorite. Actually, some seem abrupt or bring up people I would have hoped to explore more or really taxed my brain power! That said, I loved it. It felt SO GOOD to just read and relax and get lost in a story.

“The fact that so many thoughts could have gone through my head in 3.36 seconds is testament to the infinitude of an individual consciousness. There is no end to it, no way to measure it. Consciousness is like the cosmos multiplied by the number of people alive in the world (assuming that consciousness dies when we do, and it may not) because each of our minds is a cosmos of its own: unknowable, even to ourselves.”

Thoughts: I must link in my review of Goon Squad – because I don’t remember it nor was I able to capture its charms exactly – only entertained myself in the attempt. Others have noted that it is a wise plan to keep notes of characters at the start of BOTH these books, something I did not do but recognize it might be valuable advice. Me, I only hope to reread both of these, back to back. Put it on my ‘Retire-to-a-Deserted-{Desserted?!)-Island-Reading-List’.

My kind of story-telling. Five slices of pecan pie.

“… tweezing forkfuls of turkey or pecan pie through a rectangular mouth slot.”

ARthur p.26

A View of the Harbour

Thoughts by Elizabeth Taylor, Virago Modern Classics 2006 (orig 1947), 304 pages

Introduction by Sarah Waters

Challenge: Buddy Read with Laila of Big Reading Life; Set At or By the Sea Category of #ReadICT

Genre/Theme: Adult Fiction; quiet small British seaside village post-WW2

Type/Source: Tradeback / Purchased at Watermarks Indie bookstore

What It’s About: This story focuses on the inter-relationships of the neighbors living directly on the harbour; from the doctor’s family, the pub workers, the widowed proprietor of a tourist wax museum, the librarian, the vicar, etc. The pivot view to all begins with Bertram, a painter who has moved to the area for the season: to catch the right light off the sea, to capture the perfect seascape, to be “an artist”. He fancies himself a man-of-the-people as he rudely? comically? insinuates himself into the neighborhood. A lot of life happens in this book.

“Always intelligent, often subversive, and never dull, Elizabeth Taylor is the thinking person’s dangerous housewife. Her sophisticated prose combines elegance, ice wit and freshness in a stimulating cocktail – the perfect toast to the quiet horror of domestic life.”

—Valerie martin

Thoughts: I love this author. True, her stories do not have a lot of action exactly, but they have drama! and depth and comedy, beautiful sentences and interesting glimpses into every character – the good and the bad, the endearing, the appalling. Ah, not really! not that much appalling exactly. Well, maybe. (One more reason I love classics – humans have always been dastardly and behaved badly, amiright?)

“I know who to,” Beth said, shocked to find herself ending with a preposition. But she was much thrown out by the surprise of it all.”

Rating: Four slices of pie. LOTS of whipped cream. Shepherd’s Pie mentioned

“Forking up shepherd’s pie with an expression of contempt.”

 

 

Poetry 2021 Edition 4

Poetry Goal 2021:  to read a poem* every day.

Collection #6 by Maggie Smith, Tupelo Press 2017, 100 pages

From the blurb at goodreads.com: Poems written out of the experience of motherhood, inspired by the poet watching her own children trying to read the world like a book they’ve just opened, knowing nothing of the characters or plot.

 Past

 What is the past?

We need a word for everything before,

See how my saying this is already there, and there

for good ̶ no fishing it out of that deep water,

the deepest there is. The past is a tide that drags out

but won’t return to shore: even your question has been

carried off. Look, you can see it floating.

(only the first half of the poem, get the book to read the rest.)

Four slices of pie.

---

Collection #7 by Rita Dove, WW Norton 1999, 96 pages

from the poem on page 76

“The situation is intolerable”

Hush, now. Assay

the terrain: all around us dark

and the perimeter in flames,

but the stars—

tiny, missionary stars—

on high, serene, studding

the inky brow of heaven.

. . .

Our situation is intolerable, but what’s worse

is to sit here and do nothing.

O yes. O mercy on our souls.

I found these poems accessible and confident, powerful. Five slices of pie.

*Or more. I’m not tracking, I’m just reading. I’m not limiting this experience to one poem a day – that is only the minimum.

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.

 

Hood Feminism

Thoughts by Mikki Kendall, Viking 2020, 267 pages

Challenge: Self-education and Professional

Genre/Theme: Nonfiction / Feminism

Type/Source: eBook and hard cover, both library

Recommended by: [Cover links to gr; this link goes to my review.]

What It’s About: subtitled: Notes From the Women That a Movement Forgot

“There’s nothing feminist about having so many resources at your fingertips and choosing to be ignorant. Nothing empowering or enlightening in deciding that intent trumps impact. Especially when the consequences aren’t going to be experienced by you, but will instead be experienced by someone from a marginalized community.”

– Mikki Kendall

Thoughts: I am not well-read on the foundational readings of feminism. That said, I believe in equal rights equal pay equal respect. I know little of the history of the movement. I choose to not be ignorant. (I am weak and working on the impact over intent consideration. And if you have heard me at my most admonishmenting: I am working on me, to be better.)

What I do have is some experience with less-than-mediocre white men getting ahead and I’ve seen exceptionally bright and capable black women be disregarded. Me, myself, I have privilege; I just want a simple life that is quiet and safe and allows me to read my books and watch my movies and plant my plants and walk my dog. Love and hug the family on holidays and then leave me alone. However and sadly, I have sat back confused and even be frightfully agog with ‘what just happened?’ when personally witnessing or listening to what I consider WRONG THINKING. I’m saddened by this. I’ve experienced blatant misogyny and harassment and survive with mostly confusion, if not lost opportunity and advancement. Perhaps, maybe, I do not want opportunity and advancement, that is likely my own issues to deal with. I get it but I also don’t. But yea, I feel like I’m settling. I’m settling with safety and security in my little bubble.

I also know white privileged women who are far away from understanding and respecting the Notes as explained here by Ms. Kendall. I have had women tell me that it disgusts them to drive by poor houses on the highway like it was a personal insult to them. I’ve seen those posts on FB that express horror, anger, and indignation at what the “libtards are doing to take away their freedoms”. And I don’t confront it – the “it” conflicting image or how or what — that the United States is supposed to be for ALL; that systematically, marginalized people are exploited and stepped on. I don’t have the power inside to formulate the words and argument required to withstand whatever the backlash might be. The backlash of outrage “I’m not racist?!” Oh, but yes, you are – you/we are supporting a racist system.” I am not strong, I’ve never been able. I also fear a fight would not be a process that would get to a successful outcome that would align with the ideas and ideals needed to respect Ms. Kendall’s truth. But I should try.

“No one needs a savior to ride in, take over, and decide for them what would be the best approach to solve a problem. No one has time to play emotional caretaker for allies who would be accomplices, in general, if you have come to these spaces looking to take things away for your benefit instead of looking to contribute, than you’re already doing it wrong.”

I want to contribute.

I want to contribute.

This book has me signing up for the League of Women Voters. It’s my start. And I’ll be buying this book. To share.

Rating: Five slices of pie.

” …the time a guy tried to rob my mother at an ATM and pointed a gun at me to make her comply is as American and mundane as apple pie..”

Do better. Be better.

 

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.