Category: Books

pink hibiscus flowers

Tidy Tidbits: Escaping in Place

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BINGEING ON CRIME

DCI Banks (Amazon Prime)

This detective series is a BBC production from several years ago.  I think it is excellent.  Alan Banks is a middle-aged chief inspector in Yorkshire with a dour demeanor and a sometimes-sour look.  You’d think he’d be hardnosed, but underneath that façade, he is compassionate toward victims and diplomatic when necessary.  Yet, he drives his team forcefully in the hunt for any killer.  His primary colleagues are two women:  DS Annie Cabbot, a smart energetic individual who’s in love with Banks, and DI Helen Morton, a by-the-book precise person dealing with complexities in her own life.  

Banks with Helen Morton & Annie Cabbot (imbd.com)

 Each case is over two episodes.  The cases are complicated with multiple threads which is what makes them engaging.  There are crime scenes, but they are not overly gruesome.   The focus is on identifying suspects, following up links, and arriving at answers as to who killed a person and why.  The TV series is based on author Peter Robinson’s long running book series which now totals twenty-six titles.  Highly recommended!

The Fall (Netflix)

Set in Belfast, The Fall is a crime series about a serial killer and the detective from London who is brought in to oversee an earlier failed murder investigation.  Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson sees linkages between a much earlier murder and more recent ones, but they have no solid leads.  Paul Spector, the serial killer, is smart and ruthless.  He stalks young professional women and then breaks into their homes to do them in.  He leads a double life as a grief counselor and a married father of two young children.  Gibson is a complex character also, a sharp, high-ranking woman in a field dominated by men.  And the setting in Northern Ireland with its political issues adds another layer of tension.

What holds my interest is the police investigative work.  The enactments of the murders are graphic.  At this point, after four episodes of Season 1, I am ready to quit.  The pace is measured, the crime images troubling.  Although it received high praise as a psychological thriller, I don’t really recommend it, unless you are strong-hearted.  For those who are curious, there are three seasons.

CHANGE OF PACE READING

The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali

I stumbled upon a reference to this novel online and ordered it.  It is beautiful.   Set in Tehran in 1953 and in the Boston suburbs in 2013, it’s a love story.  But a love story marked by political upheaval, class distinctions, and the passage of time, decades even.  Roya and Bahman meet in a stationery shop in 1953 just before the coup that ousts the Iranian prime minister.  They are seventeen, passionate about one another, and eager to spend their lives together.  

With the political crisis, everything changes and Roya leaves Iran to attend college in California.  She marries Walter and has a mostly satisfactory life.  When she’s 77, an unexpected encounter opens a floodgate of memories and the chance to re-visit part of her past.  

Kamali has a delicate style. She weaves together strands of politics and Persian food and culture into a novel about parental love, familial obligations, and romance. For more information about Kamali’s childhood in Iran and her life in the States, follow the link on her name above.

MY STATIONERY SHOP

Like Roya and Bahman in the novel above, I too sought quietude, but no romance, in my local bookstore.  G. W. Ockenfels was located downtown.  They sold books, but also greeting cards and stationery.  It was a quiet shop, with a wooden floor and aisles with tall shelves as I recall, and the smell of paper and ink.   Mr. and Mrs. Ockenfels who owned and ran it were always welcoming.

I was in my teens, and didn’t have much spending money.  Customers were few and I could browse uninterrupted for long periods.  Over time, I became a regular, known to them by face and then by name. After I had selected and paid for a book, it was always carefully wrapped in pale blue paper and then meticulously tied up with very thin twine. 

In later years, Mr. O. became a bit confused.  He also began dispensing bear hugs that then were uncomfortable, but today might be reportable.  It was a sanctuary for me that became a little less so and then, as often happens in small towns, the Ockenfels went out of business.

Note: Header and book jacket photo ©JWFarrington.

View from Newagen to Hunting Island

Maine Time: Viewing & Reading

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RECENT VIEWING

Soldier Father Son

This New York Times documentary is moving and extremely well crafted.  Brian Eisch is a single parent of Isaac and Joey and a career soldier fighting the war in Afghanistan.  When he sustains a serious leg injury, he returns home to a life very different from the one he had envisioned.  He’s in constant pain, can’t do the activities he’s always done with his sons, and his sense of manhood is diminished by this loss of physicality. Opening in 2010, the film follows Brian in Afghanistan through having part of his leg amputated and all the adjustments recovery requires. The intervening years bring new relationships (Brian’s girlfriend Maria) and unexpected grief, ending in 2019 when Isaac has transitioned from high school student to Army soldier. It presents a slice of life many of us have never experienced and is raw and tender and gritty. Highly recommended!

Endeavour (PBS Masterpiece)
Thursday & Morse

This is Season 7 of Endeavour.  Only three episodes in all, but each one is 90 minutes, and unlike previous seasons, they are all interconnected.  A series of murders on the canal towpath seem to have been successfully solved, but then another one occurs.  Morse has a new woman in his life and a budding friendship with a rich Italian.  He and Detective Thursday have their usual grumbles and disagreements, but this time Morse may have gone too far and caused a permanent rupture.  And we get a warmer, more relaxed side of Superintendent Bright in tender moments with his invalid wife. In each episode, we also have more of the private lives of the principals, adding to the richness of the series.  Recommended!

BEACH READ—SARASOTA SCENE

Footprints in the Sand by Mary Jane Clark (2013)

I believe I got an online offer for this Piper Donovan mystery.  It’s part of a 5-book series of Wedding Cake Mysteries, and not something I’d ever normally purchase.  I was probably lured by a cheap Kindle price and by the Sarasota/Siesta Key setting.

Siesta Key Beach (bestwesternsiestakey.com)

Protagonist Piper Donovan is an actor turned wedding cake baker who gets hired to make these fancy cakes in gorgeous locations.  She and her parents fly to Sarasota for her cousin Kathy’s wedding.  Kathy’s best friend is missing and then found dead. Thus, begins a whole series of murders.  Piper sticks her nose in foolishly and, with telephone advice from her FBI boyfriend Jack, attempts to help solve the mysteries.  

This is what’s called a cozy mystery, murders yes, but little in the way of gore or horror.  It’s light fare.  I enjoyed it as much for the Sarasota locales I know as for the Amish culture and characters Clark weaves in.  The Amish have a strong presence in Sarasota’s Pinecraft neighborhood each winter.   

BLOG HISTORY—STATISTICS

About a month before I retired in Summer 2014, I created Jots & Jaunts and wrote my first blog post.  That year, I produced 15 posts total.  In January 2015, I committed to writing a new post each week.   When traveling, especially internationally (those were the days!), I posted a new entry almost every day, thus creating an online journal for myself and others.  

Besides accounts of faraway places, blog topics include books, movies and TV, and the arts scene, as well as food and favorite restaurants.  The past five months have been challenging with no movies, no concerts or plays, and no restaurant dining—lots more content about reading and viewing.  

To date, I have published 396 posts with this one being #397.  That represents an average of 67 postings each year in the more than five years since 2015.  Besides the web, I share my blog on Facebook and with a select group of friends.  I enjoy and appreciate the feedback I get from my readers.  Thanks for your continued interest!

Maine rocks

Note: Header photo of water off Newagen and rock photo ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).

Pond reflections at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens

Maine Time: Other Lives & Gardens

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READING BIOGRAPHY

When it comes to nonfiction, I read more biography than anything else.  I find historical biography often compelling and am regularly drawn into memoirs written by contemporaries.  The past few weeks, I’ve been dipping into two works in this genre.

The True History of the First Mrs. Meredith and Other Lesser Lives by Diane Johnson

Novelist Diane Johnson wrote this biography in 1972.  New York Review Books re-issued it this year with a new introduction by critic Vivian Gornick.  Mrs. Meredith, or Mary Ellen Meredith, was novelist George Meredith’s first wife.  She ultimately left Meredith for artist Henry Wallis, with whom she’d been having an affair—a scandalous act for a woman in the 1850’s.  

What makes this biography unconventional is Johnson’s attention to other individuals in Mary Ellen’s life, even those to whom she had only the briefest of connections. Mary Ellen’s journals and quotes from poems are included as well as tidbits of history and lore.  Johnson was fortunate in her search for material to locate a cache of letters from Mary Ellen to Henry secreted in the former home of their son Felix.  

It’s a quirky book and quite delightful, a bit like exploring an old-fashioned desk with pigeonholes filled with seemingly unrelated items.  It was also an inspiration for Phyllis Rose. She’s the author of one of my favorite collective biographies entitled, Parallel Lives:  Five Victorian Marriages, published in 1983.  

Flowers at the botanical garden
The Shadow in the Garden:  A Biographer’s Tale by James Atlas

James Atlas was a publisher and biographer whose works include the life stories of novelist Saul Bellow and poet Delmore Schwartz.   His Schwartz biography was nominated for the National Book Award.  In this work, Atlas talks about his approach to writing a life and, along the way discusses classical biographical works by Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Gaskell and others.  He also shares his conversations and encounters with noted critics of the 20th century such as Elia Kazan, Philip Rahv, and Allen Bloom.  

It’s a chatty book, written in an informal style. I quickly found myself warming to this self-effacing man who was persistent when on the hunt for source material.  I have yet to finish it (have been happily distracted by my granddaughters) but will enjoy continuing his journey.  The book was published in 2017 and, I just learned that Atlas died in 2019 at age 70.

THE MAINE GARDEN

Aluminum sculpture panels by Meg Brown Payson

The website for the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens is mainegardens.org so it seems appropriate to call it the Maine garden.  Despite all the restrictions imposed due to Covid-19, the garden is beautiful and a draw for locals, tourists, and kids.  I was concerned that our granddaughters would be disappointed since the playhouse, story barn, and water pump in the Children’s Garden are not available. They loved the Fairy Village, however, and requested a return visit.  The village was the highlight, but they were also entranced by a waterfall, intrigued by hunting for and counting frogs, curious about the honeybee exhibit, and happy to traipse along the woodland trail noting the occasional sculpture or rock outcropping.  

Cleaning house in the Fairy Village
Waterfall over rock
Gazing at the Sheepscot River
Looking out at Sheepscot River

Note: All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved)

Newagen Harbor

Maine Time: Reading & Granddaughters

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SUMMER READING

The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow

Anyone who’s read Austen’s Pride and Prejudice may recall Mary, the youngest Bennet girl and the one who gets the least positive attention.  She is smart, but she’s plain and outspoken, and she wears glasses.  In this novel, Hadlow takes up Mary’s cause and projects a life for her after the death of her father and the marriages of her four sisters. Part I mostly sets the stage by recapping the events leading up to sister Jane’s marriage to Bingley, and her sister Elizabeth’s bumpy road to becoming Mr. Darcy’s wife and the lady of Pemberley.   In a little like Goldilocks looking for the perfect resting place, Mary spends time on lengthy visits to Jane, then to family friend Charlotte Lucas and Mr. Collins, and then to her aunt Gardiner.  

This aunt takes Mary under her wing, sees that she has the proper attire for evening affairs and dinners, and oversees her developing friendships with two young men.  In time, Mary comes into her own, blossoming into an assured and self-confident individual who has much to offer and the opportunity for a more fulfilling life. 

I found this novel both successful and satisfying.  Hadlow remains mostly true to the mores of the day, and Mary’s transformation from ugly duckling to poised woman is convincing.  I might quibble that the third and fourth parts are longer than they need to be, but the expedition to the Scottish Lake Country is finely wrought and moves the story forward in the right way.  I found myself rooting for Mary from the get-go. Recommended! (~JWFarrington)

Secrets in Summer by Nancy Thayer

Nancy Thayer is not as popular an author as Elin Hilderbrand, but she too sets her novels in Nantucket and has written a slew of them.  Darcy is a fulltime resident living in the house she grew up in and inherited from her grandmother.  A children’s librarian, she has a dream job which she loves, but is distressed when her ex-husband and family rent the house next to hers for the summer.  The houses are close together, and she becomes entangled in the affairs and secrets of his teenaged stepdaughter, Willow. Add to this, Darcy’s attraction to both carpenter Noah, working on house repairs for her, and musicologist Clive, in town to work on a book, and you have a stew of romance, misunderstandings, and miscommunication.  The Nantucket details are fun, and the story is perfect beach reading—even if you’re reading from home!  

Lone seagull on a rock

GRANDDAUGHTER DIVERSIONS

The Chief Penguin and I are fortunate that we are in Maine (very low Covid-19 numbers and no cases in this county) and lucky that our granddaughters, 4 and 8, are here for a long visit.  Equipped with laptops and borrowed card tables, their parents can work while Grandpa and Grandma are on duty. We have done a lot of the obvious things with the girls.  Exploring the rocks and sandy coast for shells and sea glass, taking walks out and about, reading books together, baking and icing cupcakes, and assembling blueberry pancakes, an annual tradition.  

Besides the drawing and coloring they can do on their own, two purchases I made are providing hours of fun and diversion.  I don’t usually tout brand name products, but the tablecloth map of the United States from Uncommon Goods is simply fabulous!  Every state is labeled with its name and state capital and its state bird, state flower, and state animal are there to be colored in.  The cloth comes with a set of washable markers and can be decorated and then washed and colored all over again.  I printed out a list of state birds and flowers as a reference.  We talked about the states we live in and have visited, the best route to get from one place to another and so on.  That then led to a discussion of other countries and how far away they might be.

The next day we talked about Norway and the other Scandinavian countries and found them on a map on the computer, but how much more fun it would be for them to color all the countries of the world!  The U.S. tablecloth is so popular that I will definitely order the world map version. 

My other smart purchase for their visit was a handy travel case of Classic Legos.  Included are the small Legos in a variety of colors and shapes along with a booklet of ideas to make.  Between the suggestions and their imaginations, the girls have stayed occupied for long stretches.  They also had fun spreading out the U.S. tablecloth on the floor and then inventing scenarios with their Lego creations—car, castle, house, lighthouse—and placing somewhere on the map.

READING IN PROGRESS

When not engaged with my granddaughters, I’ve been poking my way through a quirky biography from 1970 and have just started a memoir about the biographer’s art that was published three years ago.  I expect to have a few thoughts about these two works in my next blog, at which point I will identify them.  Curious, yet?

Note: All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).