Friday Book Snippets: THE THINGS WE NEVER SAY

Title: The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout

1st snippet-- Opening sentences:

It was the middle of June and the sun all day had kept right on shining with sweet mightiness. "Stay jovial, please, Artie! Just promise me that. Please stay your old jovial self."

2nd snippet, page 52

As Artie lay there in the not quite darkness of the hospital room he thought about this, Reginald rolling his eyes at him, and Artie felt a real sense of sorrow for the man, to have such a poverty of spirit.

Summary: Artie, a popular high school teacher, seems to be having an existential crisis. Shouldn't he feel happier and more content than he does? What if there is no such thing as free will? Why is he so lonely when he is surrounded by people all day? To make matters worse his best friend is moving, his wife seems more remote than usual, and he and his son are out of touch, unable to talk about what is really going on in their lives. Just when a near-death experience shocks him out of depression, a piece of news from his son shakes Artie to the core.

My thoughts: Today our pastor started his sermon by confessing of all the services he leads he appreciates doing funerals the most. Why? Because, he said, it is at funerals where we often hear many stories about the person, giving us a fuller picture of how they lived their life. No one story can sum up a life, yet often people only think of us one way, using only one story as a reference. But at a funeral people share many stories about the departed person and their many stories coalesce. 

Artie is a wonderful teacher -- so wonderful he won the Massachusetts Teacher of the Year Award -- yet he feels lonely, even suicidal. People know one story of Artie, that he is a good teacher, but he is full of conflicting thoughts and feeling that don't match that story. Once when he and his wife, Evie, attended a neighborhood party, where Artie felt isolated, he asked her why people never talk about anything important when they gather with friends. "I wonder why people never say anything real," he mused. I've wondered that very thought myself. Even among friends of many years, we often only talk about surface topics. All those superficial relationships led Artie to feel very lonely and depressed.

Carl Jung: "Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible." --the epigraph in The Things We Never Say

Before today's sermon, I had very mixed feeling about this book. I was so exasperated by Evie. She never listened to her husband. I was frustrated for Artie, who seemed unable to actually express his feelings. There was no happy ending to the the story, though I would argue it had a strong moral message. It is hard to like a book which contains so little happiness. But as I sat in church and pondered the idea that we all have many stories which make up our lives, this book kept coming to mind. The book addressed many topics we usually don't discuss with others -- loneliness, shame, guilt, suicide ideation, insecurity, and feelings of inadequacy -- and suddenly my whole estimation of the book shifted. Artie may have been living a life of quiet desperation but he helps point the way to another path. One we can choose or help others choose.

The Booker Prize committee chose The Things We Never Say as a finalist for 2026. Here is what they said about the book: "With exquisite prose and profound insight, Elizabeth Strout captures the way grief reverberates through decades, the comfort found in deep friendships and the freedom that comes when we break free of our secrets." -Booker Prize  I would add, that we are often not aware of the influence we can have on the lives of children. Artie, the wonderful teacher, had a profound impact on the lives of his students. That's not nothing. 

Upgrading my estimation of the book to 5 stars.

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Welcome to a combined Book Beginnings on Friday and Friday56 with a new name Friday Book Snippets. I am co-hosting this weekly blogging event with Olivia at Bemused & Bookish. You can link up at either of our sites but be sure to still visit and comment on other participant's blogs to increase our community.

Directions: Share two snippets (a sentence or short paragraph) from a) the book's opening and b) page 56 (or another page) from the book you are currently reading. No spoilers, please. 

Click on the "OH-NO" message and it will take you to the linkup this week. I'll find you there.

LinkUp: 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

-Anne

Friday Book Snippets: MAD MABEL

Title: Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth

1st snippet, from the prologue:

It is interesting to note that there are two groups of people who are rarely, if ever, suspected of murder. These groups are elderly women and little girls.

2nd snippet, 69% of the preview:

School is an arduous thing. Sure, there are a few who sail through it like a yacht on the breeze, untouched by its breathless cruelty, but the vast majority would agree that its ghastly.

Summary: Elise Fitzpatrick is eighty-one years old. She wasn't always Elise. Once she was Mad Mabel Waller, the youngest person in Australia to be convicted of murder. Was she really mad or was she just misunderstood? Finally she is tells her story to correct the record.

My thoughts: A month ago I attended a birthday party for a friend who was turning 70. Her friends and family came together to celebrate her big day. I only knew a few people at the event so I ended up in a small group with people I didn't know when it was time to play the guessing game. As we sat together we started visiting and as per usual the topic turned to books. One of the gals talked about her favorite recent reads -- Mad Mabel. To my memory she talked about how funny and complex the book was. When it came time to select a new book for our club, several gals suggested Mad Mabel and that conversation came back to me. I looked forward to reading a funny, complex novel.

When I finally started listening to the audiobook I found myself waiting for "funny." The book's summary led me to believe it would happen: "Sharp, surprising, and wickedly funny, this is the unforgettable story of a woman who’s spent a lifetime being underestimated—and is about to prove everyone wrong. Again." Maybe I don't have a good sense of humor. The story is certainly complex but not funny to me. Maybe there were a few funny moments but by-in-large, not funny. When Elise finally gets the chance she tells a story of a tragic and neglected childhood. In the second snippet we learn about what her life was like a school -- tortuous. Then she would go home and the neglect would begin. Her story was really heartbreaking. 

I thought that Sally Hepworth did a good job threading the needle, though. The story really wasn't super maudlin. I only cried a tiny bit. But by the end of the book I found myself cheering for Elise and her new life as a neighbor and a friend. It was a very tender ending. 

I'll be interested to hear what the other gals in my book club think -- funny or not funny. I'll let you know.

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Welcome to a combined Book Beginnings on Friday and Friday56 with a new name Friday Book Snippets. I am co-hosting this weekly blogging event with Olivia at Bemused & Bookish. You can link up at either of our sites but be sure to still visit and comment on other participant's blogs to increase our community.

Directions: Share two snippets (a sentence or short paragraph) from a) the book's opening and b) page 56 (or another page) from the book you are currently reading. No spoilers, please. 

Click on the "OH-NO" message and it will take you to the linkup this week. I'll find you there.

LinkUp: 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

-Anne

Friday Book Snippets: ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE

Title: Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout

First page snippet, from the story "The Sign": 

Tommy Guptill once owned a dairy farm, which he'd inherited from his father, and which was about two miles from Amgash, Illinois. This was many years ago now, But at night Tommy still sometimes woke with the fear he had felt the night his dairy farm burned to the ground.

2nd snippet, page 57, from the story "Windmills":

Now, as Patty drove into her own driveway and saw the lights she had left on, she realized that Lucy Barton's book understood her. That was it -- the book understood her.

Summary: Anything Is Possible is the 2nd book in the Amgash series by Elizabeth Strout. It is a collection of related stories about people who live in or around the small town of Amgash and who knew Lucy Barton, the protagonist of the series, when she grew up there years ago.

My thoughts: Lucy Barton grew up poor, real poor in Amgash where she and her two siblings were outcasts at school and desperately unhappy. Lucy's dream of becoming a writer was helped by a counselor at her school who helped her get a scholarship to college. She did become a writer and published several books which, to the people left behind in Amgash, makes her either a celebrity or someone who advanced beyond her station in life. This book is populated with these people, who periodically interact with Lucy.

Back in 2016 one of my book clubs read I Am Lucy Barton, the first book in a new series by Elizabeth Strout. In the book Lucy has an operation, which she barely survives. During her convalescence, her mother comes to stay with her. It isn't until this book, published in 2017, where we come to understand how astonishing it is that the mother came to be with Lucy since the she had never shown Lucy or her siblings any kindness at all when they were growing up. In fact we learn about how dire Lucy's whole childhood was and how amazing it was that she made it out of the life of such terrible poverty. 

I'm not sure at the time I realized the first book was part of a series at all and so I didn't read on until 2022 when that the same book club selected the 4th book in the series, Lucy By the Sea, for a club meeting. This time I felt more connected to the story since it was a COVID lock-in story, one we could all relate to since we had all lived it. In 2024 when the 5th book in the series, Tell Me Everything, was published I was first in line to read it. Having now read the 1st, 4th, and 5th books in the series it was time to go back and read #2 and #3. Oddly I picked the third book, Oh, William, to read next and now finally I have finished the whole series by completing the second book, Anything is Possible.

I liked the whole series, I think I gave all the books a rating of 4 stars, and I really like Elizabeth Strout's writing style, which I find very readable. In this book, for example, I was able to easily make the jump from one story to the next as I learned about Lucy Barton's life through the eyes of others. It was a very clever writing technique. If you are familiar with the author's body of work at all you have probably heard of her Olive Kitteridge book and series. The first book won the Pulitzer Prize for literature. In that series, as in this series, characters from other books often make cameo appearances, which makes one feel connected to the town/setting. I like that a lot. Today I will start a new book by the author, published in 2026, The Things We Never Say. I expect to meet some old "friends" along the way.

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Welcome to a combined Book Beginnings on Friday and Friday56 with a new name Friday Book Snippets. I am co-hosting this weekly blogging event with Olivia at Bemused & Bookish. You can link up at either of our sites but be sure to still visit and comment on other participant's blogs to increase our community.

Directions: Share two snippets (a sentence or short paragraph) from a) the book's opening and b) page 56 (or another page) from the book you are currently reading. No spoilers, please. 

LinkUp: 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

-Anne

Classic Review: THE SUN ALSO RISES --- 100 years old!

The Sun Also Rises was Ernest Hemingway's first novel and it was published in October 1926. Today I found the original review of the book published in the New York Times (Oct. 31, 1926) and decided I would share a few snippets from that review and add a bit of my own commentary to it.

NYT: Ernest Hemingway's first novel The Sun Also Rises, treats a certain of those younger Americans concerning whom Gertrude Stein has remarked: "You are all a lost generation."

It is well known that Hemingway served as a Red Cross volunteer in the Great War as an ambulance driver on the Italian front. After the war he became a correspondent for the Toronto Star living in Paris, 1921-28. While in Paris he famously palled around with other authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and James Joyce. The Sun Also Rises is one of the novels most closely associated with the Lost Generation due to the novel's epigraph, which is the quote by Gertrude Stein. This generation became disillusioned with traditional values after the terrible war and the huge toll it cost on human life. This disillusionment was on full display in The Sun Also Rises.

NYT: Mr. Hemingway has chosen a segment of life which might easily have become "a spectacle with unexplained horrors"...On the face of it, he has simply gathered, almost at random, a group of American and British expatriates from Paris, conducted them on a fishing expedition, and exhibited them against the background of a wild Spanish fiesta and bullfight. The characters are concisely indicated. Much of the inherent natures are left to be betrayed by their own speech, by their apparently aimless conversation among themselves. Mr. Hemingway makes his characters say one thing, convey still another...

The characters are Jake Barnes, a news correspondent working in Paris; Bill Gorton, an American novelist who is celebrating a recent publication of a book; Lady Brett Ashley, a British lady waiting for her divorce from a husband who returned from war with severe PTSD (though it wasn't called that in the book); Mike Campbell, Brett's fiancé, a hard-drinking Scottish war veteran; Robert Cohn, another author who is out of ideas for a new book, he is obsessed with Brett; and Pedro Romero, a bullfighter.

The characters, minus the bullfighter, spend the majority of the book drinking copious amounts of alcohol and talking about each other, often behind someone's back. Jake loves Brett while Robert is obsessed with her. She is with Mike but chases other men endlessly. In a letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald who asked what the book was about, Hemingway said, "the only instruction is how people go to hell."

NYT: The story is told in the person by Jake Barnes, an American newspaper correspondent. The approach notoriously invites digress and clumsiness. The way Hemingway plays this hard-boiled Jake is comparable to Jake's own evocations of the technique of the expert matador handling his bull. In fact, the bullfight within the story hears two relations to the narrative proper. It not only serves to bring the the situation to a crisis, but also suggests the design which Mr. Hemingway is following. He keeps goading Jake, leading him on, involving him in difficulties, averting serious tragedy for him, just as the matador conducts the bull through the elaborate pattern of danger.

It wasn't until I read this review that I understood what Hemingway was attempting to show us about his main character, Jake, through the example of bullfighting. Sometimes I have to get hit in the head before I finally understand why a book has become a classic. There it is. A bullfighting story to explain a man.

NYT: It is truly a gripping story, told in lean, hard, athletic narrative prose that puts more literary English to shame. Mr. Hemingway knows how not only to make words be specific but how to arrange a collection of words which shall betray a great deal more than is to be found in the individual parts. It is magnificent writing, filled with that organic action which gives a compelling picture of character.

Isn't this amazing? The reviewer recognized aspects of Hemingway's writing that the author came to be known for throughout his career: athletic prose and specific words arranged carefully. This was Hemingway's first novel and already he was showing us what to expect from him in the future. 

Whew. I admit I like the book a bit more after reading this 100-year-old review, written in what I think of as old-fashioned language. Hemingway's writing style isn't my favorite. I miss the transitions and descriptions. I hated the constant and limitless drinking. I spent half the book worrying that someone was going to die from alcohol poisoning or that they were all alcoholics, which I've pretty sure that at least two of them were. Maybe the unrestrained alcohol use was Hemingway's idea of what going to hell looked like. I guess I would concur. Hemingway and the other Lost Generation writers were known for their heavy drinking. And alcohol use, or the numbing that happens when one drinks, could certainly be a symptom of the meaninglessness of a disillusioned generation.

Amor Towles, who wrote the introduction for the Penguin Classics edition I read, said this in conclusion: 

The immediacy of the novel is one the central reasons for its durability. By focusing his narrative on an acutely observed moment in time unburdened by the baggage of the past or the moralizing of the future, by stripping his prose of qualifications, interruptions, and unnecessary verbiage, by allowing the flaws of his characters to be on unvarnished display, Hemingway ensures that we are fully present in the tale.

Hemingway takes us from alluring Paris, gives us a fishing trip for a reprieve, and ultimately we end up to Pamplona and are in the terrain of the bull. "The Sun Also Rises remains deeply satisfying despite essentially being a novel about unpleasant people behaving unpleasantly." 

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Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. Penguin, 2022.

“MARITAL TRAGEDY; the SUN ALSO RISES. By Ernest Hemingway. 259 Pp. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. $2..” The New York Times, 31 Oct. 1926, https://www.nytimes.com/1926/10/31/archives/marital-tragedy-the-sun-also-rises-by-ernest-hemingway-259-pp-new.html. Accessed 15 Oct. 2026.

-Anne

Friday Book Snippets: DUNGEON CRAWLER CARL

Title: Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

First page snippet: 

2nd snippet, page 47, last page of preview:

Summary: Carl and his girlfriend's cat, Princess Donut, happen to be outside on a freezing cold night when the whole world is transformed and the only survivors had nothing over their head when it happened. The survivors, like Princess Donut and Carl, had just a few minutes to decide to enter the dungeon (and the game) or die. They chose the dungeon. Once inside they make their way to a safe room where the rules of the game are explained to them by Mordecai (he's the rat on page 47). And when I say them, I mean the man and the cat. Donut gains the power of speech when she enters the dungeon even though she remains a cat. 

There are eighteen levels in the dungeon and the goal is to make it to that level and to win the game. But that also means the winner is the sole survivor. Each level must be mastered within a time limit and once that time is done that level is destroyed. If a player doesn't make it to the next level before the time limit, they will be destroyed along with the level. Carl and Princess Donut make it to level 3 before book's end. There are several more books in the series, four at least with a possibly an additional four after that. (Eight in total?)

My thoughts: My eldest daughter listened to the Dungeon Crawler Carl audiobook with her book group and told me how much she liked it but cautioned me against it because of all the foul language. Since I let her buy the book on my Audible account, I also had access to the audiobook and on a whim I decided to have a listen. My first reaction was "Well, this is fun." And silly, and crass, and unbelievable, and dastardly. In some ways it reminded me of The Hunger Games due to the fighting in a game setting where aliens from other planets can watch the players as they attempt to survive all the creatures bent on killing them. And the viewers can sponsor participants, giving them powers to heal quicker, or deflect incoming weapons, etc. The battles are usually fairly cartoonish and remind me of the green slime on that old Nichelodeon show kids thought was so funny years ago. Admittedly I got a bit fatigued by the book. Unlike The Hunger Games book/series, there doesn't seem to be a lot of psychological depth to it.

I was prepared to give the book a 3 star rating, but then the audiobook production was explained by the narrator and I thought, "Hmm. This IS a good audiobook in terms of the uniqueness of the production" --all the different voices, sounds, and qualities I've never experienced before. So I upgraded my estimation of the book to 4 stars. I kind of doubt I will read on in the series, but I am not sad that I spent time reading/listening to this one. As I reflected on the book's storyline I thought about how the kids at the school where I was the librarian would have loved this book. I bet I would have purchased more than one copy and kids would be lining up for the sequels. There are so few books which get readers really excited. The ones that do need to be celebrated.

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Welcome to a combined Book Beginnings on Friday and Friday56 with a new name Friday Book Snippets. I am co-hosting this weekly blogging event with Olivia at Bemused & Bookish. You can link up at either of our sites but be sure to still visit and comment on other participant's blogs to increase our community.

Directions: Share two snippets (a sentence or short paragraph) from a) the book's opening and b) page 56 (or another page) from the book you are currently reading. No spoilers, please. 

Click on the "OH-NO" message and it will take you to the linkup this week. I'll find you there.

LinkUp: 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

-Anne

Friday Book Snippets: THE ASTRAL LIBRARY

Title: The Astral Library by Kate Quinn

Book beginning, Chapter 1:

I was doing poverty math the day my life fell apart.

2nd snippet, 52% of preview:

Fantasy. That is where I have always wanted to live, since I first crawled between the pages of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader at age eight.

Summary: Welcome to the Astral Library where books are not just things but portals to a new world and a sanctuary from the old one. The day Alix Watson's life falls apart she finds herself in the Boston Public Library when she passes through a door into another realm, The Astral Library. When she learns that she can enter one of her favorite books and escape her horrible life, she is ready to go. But suddenly the Astral Library Board threatens to make a decision which will wreck this magical place.

My thoughts: I read this book knowing it was not historical fiction, what Kate Quinn has become famous for writing. But when I recently read several reviews of Goodreads, one would think that Quinn committed some crime by not sticking to her favored genre. Readers complained that the book, which is identified as fantasy, wasn't what they wanted or hoped for. Well I, for one, was delighted by the book. The idea of living inside a favorite book and using that existence as a sanctuary from the horrors of life on earth was a fun and compelling idea. Yet, Alix Watson never had the chance to live inside a book because of the increasing meddling by the Library Board. Eventually Alix assisted the Astral Librarian and the books themselves in righting the ship to save literature for future generations.

My favorite part of the book was how strongly it spoke to importance of libraries and to the practice of reading.  Here are a few snippets from the book on these topics:

“What makes you think anyone can control stories? They take on a life of their own, once the author sets down the pen. Stories are not obedient. Even old well-loved favorites sometimes grow teeth.”

“A library is a sanctuary. It's one of the only places left where you can walk through the doors and draw breath and stay, without needing to buy something, without having to justify your presence.”

“And the smell. The book smell that was my favorite smell in the world, the smell that all libraries had, the smell that said home to me more than any home I'd ever actually had.”

Clearly Kate Quinn is a book lover and a staunch supporter of libraries. The recent book banning attempts all over the US in the past few years has alarmed her, as it should alarm all of us. This book is her paean to libraries and to books. It is beautiful, fun, silly, happy, sad, maddening, and hopeful. I liked it a lot.

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Welcome to a combined Book Beginnings on Friday and Friday56 with a new name Friday Book Snippets. I am co-hosting this weekly blogging event with Olivia at Bemused & Bookish. You can link up at either of our sites but be sure to still visit and comment on other participant's blogs to increase our community.

Directions: Share two snippets (a sentence or short paragraph) from a) the book's opening and b) page 56 (or another page) from the book you are currently reading. No spoilers, please. 

 Note: I always try to comment on everyone's blog post but I am still out of the country. Please don't think I've abandoned you. Come back! Thanks for sharing your snippets. I'll be around next week to visit for sure.

LinkUp: 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

-Anne

Friday Book Snippets: THE TYPING LADY

Title: The Typing Lady and Other Fictions by Ruth Ozeki

First line of first story: "The Typing Lady: An Author's Note":

I first met the typing lady in a library. "Met" is not the right word. Let's say I noticed her, became aware of her presence, caught sight of her out of the corner of my eye.

First line of third story: "Leafblower" (page 52):

Leafblower. It's a lovely word, really.

Summary: The Typing Lady and Other Fictions is a short story collection by Ruth Ozeki. There are twelve stories in this collection each with the characters standing at a threshold of their life. "The Typing Lady is an electrifying meditation on the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we abandon, and the stories we become. Threaded with the tactile ephemera of writing—typewriters, letters, manuscripts, and disappearing ink—the book reveals how we record ourselves in language, and how language, over time, records us in return."  (Storygraph)

My thoughts: I am a Ruth Ozeki fan. Her book A Tale for the Time Being is one of my favorite books. It is so complex and it just about blows my mind. She is a Zen Buddhist Priest and all of her books and stories bring a different awareness to them that is missing in other books. This collection of stories is both clever and funny. Each story focuses on a character (or two) who is at a threshold in their life, wondering where they should go next. For example, the story "Leafblower" is about a girl who is trying to decide what to do with her life but in the meantime she is tasked with taking care of a woman who is slowly slipping into dementia. In the last story, "The Problem of the Body", a grandmother is trying to figure out how to help her granddaughter. All of the characters are complex and interesting, fully fleshed-out. I loved many of the stories and liked all the others. 

If you think you'd like to read short stories but don't want to wallow in overly long ones, or read a collection of some good and other bad stories, this would be a great place to start. I liked all the stories and none were overly long. My rating 4.5 stars.

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Welcome to a combined Book Beginnings on Friday and Friday56 with a new name Friday Book Snippets. I am co-hosting this weekly blogging event with Olivia at Bemused & Bookish. You can link up at either of our sites but be sure to still visit and comment on other participant's blogs to increase our community.

Directions: Share two snippets (a sentence or short paragraph) from a) the book's opening and b) page 56 (or another page) from the book you are currently reading. No spoilers, please. 

Note: I always try to comment on everyone's blog post but this week and next I will be out of the country and I just don't know if I will be able to make comments like usual. Please don't think I've abandoned you. Come back! Thanks for sharing your snippets.

LinkUp: 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

-Anne

Friday Book Snippets: EVIL UNDER THE SUN

Title: Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie

Book beginning, first snippet:

When Captain Roger Angmering build himself a house in the year 1782 on the island off Leathercombe Bay, it was thought the height of eccentricity on his part.

2nd snippet, page 64:

     It was eight o'clock when Linda, sitting at her dressing table, turned a little thick, calf-bound volume face downward, sprawling it open and looked at her own face in the mirror.

     Her lips were set tight together and the pupils of her eye contracted.

     She said below her breath:

     "I'll do it..."

Summary: Christie's 23rd Hercule Poirot novel, Evil Under the Sun is set on a tiny resort island off the coast of Devonshire. By the time the murder occurs almost every single guest at the resort is a suspect, including Linda, a sixteen-year-old daughter of the main suspect. In typical Poirot fashion, every single piece of evidence in uncovered and tied together to point at the actual murderer.

My thoughts: I enjoy Agatha Christie novels as much as the next person but I have to admit that one of the reasons I do is that all the pieces of evidence are all used and explained by Poirot by the end of the novel. One needs to pay close attention to even the smallest items because they will reveal some aspect of the plot later. And Christie also sprinkles her stories with red-herrings. All this makes reading her books both fun and very active. I did have a few problems with this particular book, however, which led to my rating of 3.25. Evil Under the Sun was published in 1941, presumably written in 1940. There is no mention of the actual date of the plot, so I kept assuming it was the late 1930s or early in 1940. Britain had already declared war against Germany by that time.  I just couldn't get past this point when nothing was mentioned about war at all in the plot. Other than that, it was a fun, fast read.

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Welcome to our second week as a combined Book Beginnings on Friday and Friday56 with a new name Friday Book Snippets. I am co-hosting this weekly blogging event with Olivia at Bemused & Bookish. You can link up at either of our sites but be sure to still visit and comment on other participant's blogs to increase our community.

Directions: Share two snippets (a sentence or short paragraph) from a) the book's opening and b) page 56 (or another page) from the book you are currently reading. No spoilers, please. 

Note: I always try to comment on everyone's blog post but this week and next I will be out of the country and I just don't know if I will be able to make comments like usual. Please don't think I've abandoned you. Come back! Thanks for sharing your snippets.

LinkUp: 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

-Anne

Nonfiction Review: LONDON FALLING

Title: London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth by Patrick Radden Keefe

Chapter 1 snippet, Opening: 

After Zac Brettler died, his parents tried to decode the mystery of what happened to him, endlessly revisiting moments from his short life.

2nd snippet, page 25:

Education mattered a great deal to the Brettlers, as it did to their greater social milieu, in which families were quietly judged by other families over where their children went to school. Zac was old enough, and socially perceptive enough, to grasp this, and it must have stung. Eventually he found a place at another private school in London, called Mill Hill, and it was there that he started to change.

Summary: London Falling is the account of a family trying to make sense of the death of their nineteen-year-old son, Zac, when they discover that he had been living a double life. Prior to his death Zac had been pretending to be a rich Russian oligarch's son living alone in the city when he jumped into the Thames River. Was it a suicide or a murder? His secret life drew him into the dangerous criminal underworld which exists beneath the beautiful gilded city.

My thoughts: The book starts at Zac's death and then moves backwards to figure out what happened. The 2nd snippet needs a little context. Zac wasn't accepted to a very prestigious school where his older brother was attending. Joe, the older brother, was more academic than Zac, and it came as a blow when he was rejected. This is what must have stung. It was at the second school, Mill Hill, where Zac met rich children, some related to Russian oligarchs, and he started pretending he was one of them. 

Patrick Radden Keefe is a master at writing narrative nonfiction. He met the family several years after Zac's death and they gave him full access to all of the police reports and information the family had gathered. And he was able to do some independent research to add to their insights of what probably happened during the last minutes of Zac's life. He also gave the reader insights into all the money which has been flowing into London since Asians were expelled from Uganda in the 1970s and the break up of the USSR in the late 1980s, early 1990s. This information never became overwhelming or boring, however, based on Keefe's storytelling skills.

My husband and I listened to the audiobook this past weekend and both of us were fully into the experience. We both rated it with 5 stars. It is an amazing, eye-opening story. I highly recommend it.

Welcome to our first week as a combined Book Beginnings on Friday and Friday56 with a new name Friday Book Snippets. I am co-hosting this weekly blogging event with Olivia at Bemused & Bookish. You can link up at either of our sites but be sure to still visit and comment on other participant's blogs to increase our community.

Directions: Share two snippets (a sentence or short paragraph) from a) the book's opening and b) page 56 (or another page) from the book you are currently reading. No spoilers, please. 

True confessions: I usually listen to audiobooks so figuring out if a quote is from page 56 (or any page) is very difficult for me. I just try to add some interesting snippet from somewhere in the book and I don't worry about the page number. I encourage you to think outside the page 56 parameter, too. 

LinkUp:

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

-Anne

Classic Review: SIDDHARTHA

Siddhartha: An Indic Poem by Hermann Hesse is my Classics Club Spin selection for this Fall. The book/poem was published in German by Hermann Hesse in 1922 and translated into English by Hilde Rosner in 1951. The title of the book I read/listened to had the particular wording you see on the cover photo which included "An Indic Poem" on it. I found it interesting since I don't think of the book as a poem since it appears to be written in prose and I've never seen the word "Indic" before. Both require a bit of research. Let me see... 

A.I. was my only willing helper on the question of poetry. It said Siddhartha is poetry: "because of its lyrical prose, symbolic exploration of spiritual awakening, and focus on emotional truth over historical fact." Hmm. That is unsatisfying but I guess I will admit that the book is very lyrical. I wonder, and this is just a guess, if some of the poetry was lost in translation? I'll never know.

Secondly, the word "Indic" just means anything relating to India, its culture or its languages. When I typed it into my search bar, the computer kept correcting my spelling to Indian. Methinks they are essentially the same word.

Now that I've gotten past the title, what is the book about? In this story Siddhartha is the son of a wealthy Brahmin who decides to leave home to seek spiritual fulfillment. first he tried the life of the Sumanas who starved themselves to try and empty themselves and their desires. Next he listened to the teachings of the Gotama Buddha but he left this because he realized true understanding comes from personal insights, not just listening to another wise person. At this point Siddhartha tries the worldly life full of riches, sex, and fine clothes and food. Eventually he became disgusted with himself and left everything again. Lastly he found answers from the ferryman who taught Siddhartha to listen to the wisdom of the river. He ended up seeing the wisdom of the river as an illusion that all things in the world are connected to one another. In this life Siddhartha finally found peace.

Years ago I was asked by an English teacher to put together sets of world lit books for her classes so she could have several groups or book clubs within her class. I selected Siddhartha as one of those books, representing Indian Lit, even though I'd never read it. Later I asked my husband, who had read the book in high school, what it was about. He said it was the story of a man's search for meaning. For some reason that answer put me off reading it personally. If it spoke to him as a man, how would I, a woman, relate to it? Well it's taken me over a decade, but I've finally read it and honestly I'm not sure I made such a good choice for that long ago class book club. Why? Because I wonder at the maturity of sophomore boys to attempt to understand the underlying message of the book without them getting hung up on the sexual bits. Ha!

After completing the book I did a tiny bit of research about the author and the book on Wikipedia. What I learned led me all the way forward to my husband and why he read the book in high school. 

In his lifetime Hesse was a well-known and influential author in the German-speaking world. He won the Nobel Prize in 1946 and this still didn't catapult him to a broader readership. In the 1950s his popularity began to fade. By the time of his death in 1962 his works were relatively unread in the USA. A memorial to the author in the NYT stated that his work was largely "inaccessible" to American readers.

The situation changed in the mid-1960s when his works suddenly became bestsellers in the United States, with many of the novels republished in inexpensive paperback editions. The revival in popularity of Hesse's works has been credited to their association with some of the popular themes of the 1960s counterculture (or hippie) movement. In particular, the quest-for-enlightenment themes of Siddhartha, resonated with those espousing counter-cultural ideals. ... In large part, the Hesse boom in the United States can be traced back to enthusiastic writings by two influential counterculture figures: Colin Wilson and Timothy Leary. (Wikipedia)

When I shared this information with my husband his eyes lit up. He told me that the teacher that assigned Siddhartha to his class was the Art teacher, tapped to teach one section of English Lit. Likely this teacher, a big guy with a burly beard, was a product of the 60s and the hippy generation. He, no doubt, read the book just a generation before he introduced his classes to it. Honestly, me reading Siddhartha led my husband down a rabbit hole which ended up with him looking up the teacher in an old yearbook. Over the years, Don and I have had many fun moments with literature and our day spent reminiscing about Siddhartha was one of them.

So why read Siddhartha? If any book still has a lot to say to its readers over 100 years after it was written, Siddhartha is that book.

My rating: 4 stars.

-Anne

Review: COUNTRY PEOPLE (+Friday56 LinkUp)

Title: Country People by Daniel Mason

Book Beginnings/First Line Friday quote:

Friday56 quote:

Summary: Kate has been offered a one year visiting professorship at a college in Vermont. Miles, who has never quite finished his dissertation on Russian folktales in the twelve years since he started working on it, looks at the move as a chance to finally get going on it again. The kids, Wesley, age 12, and Olive, age nine, are along for the adventure.

But when they get to Vermont, Miles finds lots of things to distract him from his dissertation: helping a colleagues husband in his orchard, being a parent volunteer at Olive' school, figuring out how to fix everything that keeps breaking down in the rental house, ski lessons, and getting to know a cast of characters as colorful as folks in his fairytales. Then Miles runs into a local very bizarre legend which seems circumstances lead to a conclusion that it might not be a legend at all, possibly true.

"Joyous, absurd, and life-affirming, Country People is a luminous exploration of marriage and parenthood, the nature of belief and the power of stories, and the ways in which we find connection in an increasingly fragmented world" (Publisher).

Review: Kate and Miles are from California where they both worked at a large university in an urban setting. Moving to Vermont is almost like moving to another country for them and meeting the folks who live in Vermont (country people) is almost like learning about a new culture from them. Miles, as you have probably guessed, never does get to work on his dissertation, but he sure has a magical year with his new friends and his family.

My husband is from a rural town in Eastern Oregon. I, on the other hand, grew up in a city and have never lived in a rural setting. The drive to visit his parents involved driving through lots of little towns along the way. One time as we drove through one of those little towns, Don tuned in the radio to a local station. The news of the area came on. There was an announcement of who had anniversaries that week and then they named folks who were galloneers -- people who had donated at least a gallon of blood (over time, of course) at the local blood bank. I was charmed. Don laughed and told me that was the same thing they did in his town. In case you are wondering the connection, part of Country People involves a weekly radio programs with a DJ who always has a topic but has a hard time keeping the callers from going off topic. 

When we go back to Don's hometown now, he always sees people he knows -- a friend of his brother's, a Sunday School teacher, a person he swam with, a gal who played bridge with his mother -- here in the "big" city we rarely bump into people we know. This dawned on Miles, too, and at some point he came to expect and enjoy bumping into the same people over and over.

I was a huge fan of Mason's book North Woods, published in 2024. It wasn't a terribly serious book but it was certainly more serious than Country People so I wasn't expecting the silly situations and corny humor. At first I was put off by it but then I relaxed into the story and found myself laughing along with it. At one point there was a tiny bit of tension and I realized this was NOT the type of book where something awful would happen. I was right. It didn't. My rating: 4 stars.

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Note: Gillion of Rose City Reader is retiring soon from hosting Book Beginnings. And I've been wondering if it is time to retire Friday56, too. There seems to be so little interest based on the shrinking number of participants and the low number of comments made on each other's blogs, including mine.  I'm willing to stick with it for a while if you think you want to continue. Let me know what you think.

Sign up for The Friday56 on the Inlinkz below. 

RULES:

*Grab a book, any book

*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your e-reader (If you want to improvise, go ahead!)

*Find a snippet, but no spoilers!

*Post it to your blog and add your url to the Linky below. If you do not add the specific url for your post, we may miss it! 

*Visit other blogs and leave comments about their snippets. Expand the community. Please leave a comment for me, too!  

Also visit Book Beginnings on Friday hosted by Rose City Reader and First Line Friday hosted by Reading is My Super Power to share the beginning quote from your book.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

-Anne