Tag: mysteries

Summer Reading Recap & Reviews

JWF Leave a comment

With Labor Day upon us, it’s time to review and recap the books I’ve read this summer.  Some from my June summer reading list for sure, but many others discovered along the way.  Here’s a list of titles followed by notes on three recent reads, each one featuring strong women who served their countries during wartime.

MYSTERIES

Missing Presumed by Susie Steiner

The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz

Something to Hide by Elizabeth George

HISTORICAL NOVELS

American Duchess by Karen Harper [Consuelo Vanderbilt & NY society]

Last Garden in England by Julia Kelly

The Magnolia Palace by Fiona Davis [Frick family & museum]

The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles

The Postmistress of Paris by Meg Waite Clayton

OTHER NOVELS

Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark. [set in Maine]

Haven Point by Virginia Hume [Maine colony]

The Midcoast by Adam White [Damariscotta, Maine]

Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce

One Night on the Island by Josie Silver

What Remains of Love by Susan Trauth

RECENT READING:  LAFAYETTE, MITFORDS, & SNIPERS

Women Active in Wartime

The Women of Chateau Lafayette by Stephanie Dray

Stephanie Dray specializes in long historical novels about fascinating women.  Patsy Jefferson, the president’s daughter was one subject and Eliza Schuyler Hamilton another in a novel called My Dear Hamilton.  I read and really enjoyed the latter one and was prompted by that to read The Women of Chateau Lafayette.

It’s set in three different time periods and focuses on three women, each of whom has a connection to Chateau de Chavaniac, Gilbert Lafayette’s home.  While American schoolchildren learn early on that Lafayette was a key figure in the American Revolution, few, I would wager, have any idea of how active and dedicated his wife Adrienne was both to him and to the cause of liberty.  

Beatrice Chanler (br.pinterest.com)

During WWI, American socialite Beatrice Chanler, trapped in marriage to politically connected wealthy Willie, surpasses him in her efforts for peace and American involvement in the war.  She shuttled between Paris and Chavaniac to assist sick children being housed and cared for there. 

Lastly, Marthe Simone, a French teacher and aspiring artist, becomes deeply involved in protecting and harboring children at Chavaniac during the 1940’s in Nazi-occupied France. 

It’s clear from the author’s end note that she did prodigious amounts of research to re-create the lives of these three courageous women, their spouses, families, and friends.  Adrienne Lafayette and Beatrice Chanler and some supporting characters were real people.   It’s a riveting novel with much about the French Revolution I did not know! (~JWFarrington)

For Book Lovers

The Mayfair Bookshop by Eliza Knight

Interior of Heywood Hill (nytimes.com)

My blog readers know I’m a big fan of bookstores, particularly well curated independent ones.  This novel about Nancy Mitford is set in London around WWII and in the present day.  The bookstore in question, Heywood Hill, still exists today and is charming and inviting.  It’s a place I frequented quite often when the Chief Penguin and I lived in London.  During the war years, Nancy Mitford worked there and was invaluable in Heywood Hill becoming a literary salon and a haven for soldiers home on leave. 

N. Mitford (English-heritage.org.uk)

Based on Mitford and her wildly diverse and even infamous siblings, the novel brings to life Nancy’s layered life as novelist, aristocrat, and war volunteer.  Unhappy and bereft in her marriage to Peter Rood, she enjoys a host of friendships with others of her class, writers including Evelyn Waugh, and an especially close relationship with Sophie Gordon (aka Iris), another war volunteer.  All the while, she seeks someone to love her for herself.

Paired with Nancy’s story, is a contemporary story about young bibliophile Lucy St. Clair, on assignment to Heywood Hill from her job in the U. S.  Lucy is a fan of Mitford’s writing and is determined to identify Mitford’s friend Iris.    

The Nancy chapters are full of reflections on her pursuit of love and the notoriety brought about by her siblings.  This is done partly through letters to a few friends.  For me, they resulted in a portrait of a complex individual.  

The Lucy chapters provide a framework for locating the fictional Iris and, while pleasant, are thin in comparison.  Nonetheless, I found this an engaging and perceptive look at one slice of life in England from 1937 to 1945. (~JWFarrington)

Sharp Shooters

The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn

Mila Pavlichenko (reddit.com)

If you’re looking for a gripping, suspenseful historical novel about WWII, The Diamond Eye could be it!  I’ve read and enjoyed several of Kate Quinn’s earlier novels, but this one really grabbed me.  It’s the story of Mila Pavlichenko a Ukrainian woman who became a crack sniper for the Soviet Red Army.  In battles against the Nazis, she logged more than 300 official kills!  Working with a partner and later training and leading a small band of snipers, she gained a reputation and the nickname Lady Death.  

The novel opens with her visit to Washington, DC to meet Eleanor Roosevelt and the president.  She’s part of a delegation whose goal is to push the U.S. to enter the war.  In flashbacks, the reader sees her in battle and learns about the precise calculations required to be successful in taking another human life. 

But Mila was much more than her expertise and her heroics with a rifle.  She was a book-loving woman and a mother who was studying to become a historian when she joined the army.  

Quinn’s author’s note at the end explains her research, provides more detail about the principals, and shares where she has created fictional characters and situations.  Highly recommended! (~JWFarrington)

Note: The header photo of children reading books in little boats is a whimsical touch, source unknown.

pink hibiscus flowers

Reading Round-up: July-Sept. 2017

JWF Leave a comment

READING ROUND-UP.  What follows are the mini reviews of all the books I’ve written about in the past three months.  A friend suggested I aggregate them so here they are.  Everything from Madoff to an advice columnist to a neglected author in nonfiction to several mysteries plus a host of novels from the most literary to bonbons for the beach.  Enjoy!  Please let me know if this compendium is useful as it takes a bit of work to pull it all together.

NONFICTION

Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist by Anne Boyd Rioux

As a relative of James Fenimore Cooper, Constance Fenimore Woolson gained entrée to select company and, initially, received more attention for her work than she might have otherwise.  Later praised as the finest woman writer of her time, Woolson wrote a wide range of short stories and several novels.  She traveled widely and often lived for several months in different climes, everywhere from Florida and Florence to England and Egypt.  She became acquainted with Henry James, and although both were somewhat solitary souls dedicated to their writing, they enjoyed a close friendship.   At one point they even lived in the same building in Florence one floor apart.

Woolson’s work, however, didn’t fall neatly into one movement or another; she wasn’t strictly a regionalist nor was she a student of social mores.  She came between Sara Orne Jewett and Edith Wharton in time and hence, after much success, but uncategorizable, she was mostly forgotten after her early death.  The fact that her death was most likely by her own doing didn’t help.  I knew about Woolson from my reading of James’ biographies and was pleased to learn more about this vibrant, independent woman.  (~ JW Farrington)

Strangers Tend to Tell Me Things: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Coming Home by Amy Dickinson

Many of the memoirs I’ve read in the past year or so have dealt with the act of dying.  While Ms. Dickinson has had more than her share of hardship and disappointment, she has a basically positive attitude about life and this book ends on an up note.  I especially enjoyed her account of growing up in a teeny tiny burg in upstate New York (not all that far from where I grew up) and what it was like to choose to return there to live permanently as a middle-aged adult.  Not something I would have chosen for myself.

From finding love post 50 to navigating the shoals of gaining acceptance from her newly acquired stepdaughters, it is a heartfelt, candid book.  Dickinson also writes the “Ask Amy” syndicated advice column carried in many newspapers. (~JW Farrington)

What Happened by Hillary Clinton

I am a Hillary fan (not that I think she ran a perfect campaign) and was one of her supporters.  I got her new book immediately, have begun it, and am about a quarter of the way into it.  Two immediate observations.  One, she comes across as warm and flexible and human in a way that she has never been before in her public life.  Two, she shares her regrets, personal mistakes, and apologizes for her loss in the election.  She doesn’t take all the blame, but she says she’s sorry in a way I can’t ever imagine a male politician doing.  I can’t envision any man writing this kind of soul-baring prose.

But, it is a very long book and she is wordy and so determined to be comprehensive that I get bogged down periodically and have to set aside the flow of words.  Even though she lost, her candidacy was an historic first, a fact that may have gotten lost recently.  She provides a very good chapter on what the challenges and obstacles are for female politicians in general.  Some of those also apply to women scaling the corporate ladder.  I will persevere on the book.  (~JW Farrington)

The Wizard of Lies:  Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust by Diana B. Henriques 

While the details of the financial maneuvering and chicanery Madoff indulged in were beyond my understanding, I found this a chilling read.  Made me want to re-check my own financial advisor’s credentials (subsequent conversation with said advisor was most reassuring!) Painstakingly detailed, the book gripped me and I read it quickly, mostly for the timeline and scenario of how his lying and scheming developed and who of his team was complicit.  I would have liked more probing analysis of Madoff’s psyche and his early life.  The book was made into a movie which I’ve not seen. (~JW Farrington)

MYSTERIES & SPIES

Bloodmoney by David Ignatius

I occasionally read Mr. Ignatius’ columns in the Washington Post and decided to read this spy novel set in Pakiston on the recommendation of my good friend Margaret.  I didn’t find it as fast-paced as many reviews indicated, but I was fascinated by the tradecraft of spies—surveillance detection routes, for example—and the disguises, duplicity, and double-dealing required by operators on both sides.  I became more engrossed the deeper into his version of Pakistan I got.  (~ JW Farrington)

Finding Nouf by Zoe Ferraris

Thanks to the extensive mystery section at Bookstore 1 Sarasota, I picked up this first detective novel by Zoe Ferraris published in 2008. Entitled Finding Nouf, it’s set in Jeddah and the nearby desert. Desert guide Nayir ash-Sharqui is asked by the wealthy Shrawi family to help locate their missing teenage daughter, Nouf. He knows the family quite well and is friends with Othman, one of Nouf’s many brothers. What is most fascinating about this mystery is its depiction of this segregated Muslim society where women’s lives are cloistered and separate from the world of men. This is a challenge for Nayir in his investigation which is somewhat overcome as he becomes acquainted with lab technician, Katya Hijazi, an independent career woman, who can provide entrée and insights. Author Zoe Ferraris was briefly married to a Saudi man and lived in Saudi Arabia for a time. This was a Washington Post Best Book of the Year and is the first of three mysteries set there.  (~JW Farrington)

Murder in the Marais by Cara Black

If you like mysteries and are familiar with the streets of Paris, you might enjoy the Aimee Leduc series written by Cara Black. I just read the first one, Murder in the Marais, published in 1998 and set in 1993. Detective Leduc supposedly specializes in crimes related to corporate security and the internet, but she gets pulled into investigating a woman’s death related to the neo-Nazi movement and former Nazis.

I found it took me a little to get into the book, but then I got hooked. Aimee reminds me a little of Lisbeth in The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo given her unconventional clothing, many disguises, and physical daring (into the sewers of Paris, e.g.). But she is a more social person than Lisbeth and works with her partner, Rene, a double amputee and whiz computer hacker. The city is a character in its own right too. I enjoyed this neighborhood in particular since years ago we stayed in the grand Pavilion de la Reine in Place des Vosges. (~JW Farrington)

FICTION

Along the Infinite Sea by Beatriz Williams

I have been noticing Williams’ novels on bookstore shelves, but this is the first one I’ve read. It’s a historical novel and a romance, but that doesn’t completely describe it. It also has a frothy element as its two main characters, Annabelle and Pepper, are rich and beautiful women who could have any man they wanted. The stories of these two alternate with most of the novel focusing on Annabelle in 1930’s France and Germany and her involvement with two men, Stefan, a German resister, and Johann, a high-ranking Nazi general. Annabelle and Pepper meet in 1966 in Florida when a pregnant Pepper sells Annabelle her 1936 Mercedes roadster and Annabelle takes her under her wing, sort of. It’s a delightful romp in the high life, mostly, and perfect escapism. (~JW Farrington)

Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

Oprah is back in the business of recommending books and this is her pick for 2017. Not surprising, it is a very engaging and accessible read. It is also timely given that its topic is the immigrant experience. The novel opens in 2007, and Jende Jonga and his wife Neni are immigrants to the U.S. from Cameroon, full of optimism and hope for all that America will provide.

With the help of his successful lawyer cousin, Winston, Jende gets a job as chauffeur to Clark Edwards, a high level executive with Lehman Brothers. For a while, life is good for the Jongas and their small son Liomi. Neni goes to community college and even does some short term work for Cindy Edwards, thus bringing the families closer together.   Everything changes when the financial crisis hits and Jende’s status in the country is challenged. Marriages are threatened and life becomes much harder and more tenuous requiring difficult decisions.

Ms. Mbue, a native of Cameroon and now an American citizen living in New York, knows whereof she writes. Her book is warm and generous and balanced in its portrayal of these two families. Neither family is perfect and each individual has faults, but both families want to provide the best opportunities for their children. Named one of the best books of the year by NPR, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and the San Francisco Chronicle. (~JW Farrington)

The Dollhouse by Fiona Davis

This is a fast-paced coming of age story set in Manhattan at the famed Barbizon Hotel for Women.  Darby arrives there in 1952 from small town Ohio while in 1916 Rose lives there in a refurbished condo with her successful and rich boyfriend.  Darby is a Katie Gibbs “girl”, but through a strange twist of events ends up never marrying and is still living there. A journalist, Rose has had career issues.  When boyfriend Griff decamps back to his ex-wife and kids, she is stuck and becomes obsessed with the mystery surrounding Darby McLaughlin.  The period detail is great, the story fanciful with attributes of a fairy tale, but overall, it’s great escapism! (~JW Farrington)

A House among the Trees by Julia Glass

I have read every one of Julia Glass’s previous five novels and enjoyed them all, some a bit more than others.  And I had the pleasure of seeing and hearing her at a reading in a Bay Area bookstore several years ago.  I found this new novel, A House among the Trees, equally satisfying. Her works are not heavily plot driven, and some readers might find the pacing slow as the characters are revealed through their conversation, their thoughts and their own writing.

Glass has a fondness for the theater and at least one earlier work had elements of the theater and performance in it.  Here we have an award-winning aging children’s book author, Mort Lear, mostly keeping close a secret from his childhood, and a handsome boldface actor, Nicholas Greene, who will play Mort in an upcoming film.  Both of these characters have well developed public faces, facades that protect who they really are.  Linking these two is Tomasina Daulair, a middle-aged woman who has, in essence, given over the entirety of her adult life to serving Mort.  She is coordinator of his daily life, protector of his privacy, negotiator with his publisher and fans and yet neither lover nor wife.  When Mort dies before Nicholas gets to meet him, Tommy becomes the guide to Mort’s life.  In the process, she and Nick learn new things about themselves as they deliberately or inadvertently shape Mort’s legacy along with their own futures.  I like Glass’s writing a lot; to me it’s rich and juicy, full of yummy detail.  (~JW Farrington)

If I Could Tell You by Elizabeth Wilhide

Another historical novel set during WWII written by an American who has lived in London for more than 40 years. As a depiction of what it was like to live and work in London during the Blitz, it’s graphic and well conveys the hardships and the stress on one’s spirits. Wilhide also presents a detailed picture of the challenges facing those tasked with making documentary films and the unusual jobs women took on working with artillery. While the main character, Julia, makes a wrongheaded choice in her affair with Dougie, I felt that the novel was more a vehicle for the history Wilhide wanted to share, than a well-shaped story. I call it a mixed success. (~JW Farrington)

Miss Grief and Other Stories by Constance Fenimore Woolson

Readers owe a debt of gratitude to Anne Boyd Rioux for her engaging literary biography of Woolson and for resurrecting a representative sample of her short stories.  Having read the biography with its detailed discussion of Woolson’s work, it is a treat to discover her.  I have now read a few of the stories here and so far liked the most the title story, “Miss Grief,”  about a successful young male writer and a middle-aged poor woman writer who wants to be published.  It has both some humor as well as pathos.

I found the nature imagery too rhapsodic for my taste in her Great Lakes story, “St. Clair Flats,” but I thought the premise of “A Florentine Experiment” with its twists and turns was intriguing and with its emphasis on dialogue definitely reflective of Henry James.  Both the biography and the story collection were published in 2016.  (~ JW Farrington)

The Muse by Jessie Burton

This novel was on a display labeled beach reading at Longfellow Books in Portland. I was aware of Burton’s earlier novel, The Miniaturist, so decided to take a chance on it. Like other historical novels, it links characters from two different time periods, in this case London in 1967 and Spain in 1936. Olive Schloss is a young English woman living in Spain who becomes friendly with Isaac Robles, a painter and a political activist and his sister Teresa, who adopts the Schloss family and works as their housekeeper. Like Isaac, Olive also paints, but is extremely reluctant to share her art.

Odelle Bastien is from Trinidad and has been in London for five years. She gets hired by a prestigious art institute and is mentored by a quixotic older woman named Marjorie Quick. Odelle brings to the attention of the institute a painting thought to be by Isaac Robles and finds herself immersed and enmeshed in a net of secrets and deceptions.

Well researched, and intricately plotted with a myriad of relationships and liaisons, The Muse explores questions of creativity and ambition midst tangled love and desire. Why is Olive so determined not to have her name on her work? Is it simply her reluctance as a woman at that time? What price does she pay for her love for Isaac? Can Teresa be seen as evil? I found this an engrossing book even though I sometimes found it hard to accept the characters’ motivations.  (~JW Farrington)

The Stars are Fire by Anita Shreve

For this novel, Shreve has taken as her jumping off point a disastrous fire on the coast of Maine in 1947 that destroyed several towns. The opening chapters are a mood piece chronicling the daily life of Grace, a wife with two young children and a difficult husband, in the weeks leading up to event. All the mundane chores of running a house on a limited income, feeding a family, and minding the children, interspersed with bright chatter with next door neighbor and close friend Rosie. When the fire hits, Grace retreats with her children to the beach and they survive; her husband’s fate is unknown.

As usual, Shreve’s characters are believable and her story pulls the reader in. I read this book quickly and it engaged my emotions, but I found the ending fanciful. Perhaps Shreve thought her readers needed a happy ending to offset the devastation of the fire. (~ JW Farrington)

 Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler

Thanks to my friend Bonnie who reads a different Anne Tyler novel every summer, I purchased this new one.  It’s a contemporary re-telling of The Taming of the Shrew and is humorous and fun.  The writing sparkles and you can’t help but be caught up in this eccentric family and its detailed rules for living.  Scientist father Louis Battista routinely forgets his lunch and expects it to be delivered to his lab, younger sister Bunny is light on brains, but attracted to Edward, her supposed Spanish tutor, while prickly, blunt-spoken Kate makes a week’s supply of meat mash for their nightly dinners.  When her father cooks up the idea that Kate should marry his foreign lab colleague, Pyotr, so he can stay in the U.S., their joint campaign tests her mettle.   This book is one in the Hogarth Shakespeare series of his plays retold by noted novelists of today.  (~JW Farrington)

Maine Musings: Books & More

JWF 3 Comments

ON THE MAINE COAST

After the humidity and heat of Florida, the Maine coast is a welcome change—even when you have several days of gray skies, continual fog, and temperatures that don’t climb out of the 60’s.   We’re on an island here and that means it’s more susceptible to foggy, misty conditions. Sometimes just going across the bridge into town brings one into sunshine. The other day town was foggy too, but farther inland in Damariscotta we were plunged into warmth, even heat. There it was bright sun, humid and 85 degrees!

Our days here are punctuated by hours of reading, dinners with friends, bingeing on The Americans, and the occasional special activity such as a craft fair, the library’s annual book and bake sale, or the house and garden tour, an always enjoyable peek at how others live. The Chief Penguin and I each have projects. We’re both spending time weeding our online photo collections and deleting both duplicates as well as lesser photos. I also brought with me one of the many handwritten journals I’ve kept over the years and am transcribing it on my laptop for posterity—or at least for our son and granddaughters. It’s a jaunt down memory lane for sure. This one is from 1990 and although that sometimes seems like recent past, it’s actually more than 25 years ago! 

Finally, I’ve been tracking the box of books I mailed from Florida on July 8th. It’s been to Jacksonville, FL twice, three times to Springfield, MA, and now is on its second stop in Jersey City, New Jersey, all while supposedly on its way to Maine!

Frustrated, I belatedly put in an e-mail query about it and then I talked to an authoritative woman in the local post office. She said the address entered (I’m assuming this was done by the woman at my local substation) was my home address, not Maine! She and another postmistress are trying to get it out of its loop-de-loop travels and delivered here. Fingers crossed! Update—it finally arrived at the local post office after its two week journey and I am delighted to have my lost books.

ON THE SMALL SCREEN

Crime in the Shetlands

I’ve recently been immersed in an excellent crime series set in the rugged Shetland Islands, appropriately titled, Shetland. Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez is a widower with a teenage daughter who works with Tosh (Alison McIntosh) and Sandy, two junior detectives. Also starring in this thoughtfully produced series is the stunning scenery. Cliffs and peat and simple shingle and stone buildings against a backdrop of serious sea and gray skies. Most episodes are two-partners and you get the flavor of the culture and a sense of life in this isolated rural environment with the ferry the lifeline to the mainland. I find the character of Perez in particular to be very well drawn. He’s a detective with a mission to solve the latest murder, but he’s got a compassionate soul.

RECENT READING

Mishap in Saudi

Thanks to the extensive mystery section at Bookstore 1 Sarasota, I picked up this first detective novel by Zoe Ferraris published in 2008. Entitled Finding Nouf, it’s set in Jeddah and the nearby desert. Desert guide Nayir ash-Sharqui is asked by the wealthy Shrawi family to help locate their missing teenage daughter, Nouf. He knows the family quite well and is friends with Othman, one of Nouf’s many brothers. What is most fascinating about this mystery is its depiction of this segregated Muslim society where women’s lives are cloistered and separate from the world of men. This is a challenge for Nayir in his investigation which is somewhat overcome as he becomes acquainted with lab technician, Katya Hijazi, an independent career woman, who can provide entrée and insights. Author Zoe Ferraris was briefly married to a Saudi man and lived in Saudi Arabia for a time. This was a Washington Post Best Book of the Year and is the first of three mysteries set there.  (~JW Farrington)

The Muse by Jessie Burton

This novel was on a display labeled beach reading at Longfellow Books in Portland. I was aware of Burton’s earlier novel, The Miniaturist, so decided to take a chance on it. Like other historical novels, it links characters from two different time periods, in this case London in 1967 and Spain in 1936. Olive Schloss is a young English woman living in Spain who becomes friendly with Isaac Robles, a painter and a political activist and his sister Teresa, who adopts the Schloss family and works as their housekeeper. Like Isaac, Olive also paints, but is extremely reluctant to share her art.

Odelle Bastien is from Trinidad and has been in London for five years. She gets hired by a prestigious art institute and is mentored by a quixotic older woman named Marjorie Quick. Odelle brings to the attention of the institute a painting thought to be by Isaac Robles and finds herself immersed and enmeshed in a net of secrets and deceptions.

Well researched, and intricately plotted with a myriad of relationships and liaisons, The Muse explores questions of creativity and ambition midst tangled love and desire. Why is Olive so determined not to have her name on her work? Is it simply her reluctance as a woman at that time? What price does she pay for her love for Isaac? Can Teresa be seen as evil? I found this an engrossing book even though I sometimes found it hard to accept the characters’ motivations.  (~JW Farrington)

Note:  All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved)

On Screen & On the Page

JWF Leave a comment

FILMS AND BOOKS. From a daring adventurer (Gertrude Bell) and a fictional newly minted doctor, Ally Moberley, to a grief stricken father and son and devastated parents to murder and Belgian emigres, I’ve covered a lot of ground in my recent filmgoing and reading.  Much of it has been in international settings too: Persia and the Middle East, England and Japan and also Paris.  A lot of heavy stuff, but some of it (the latest Maisie Dobbs mystery) just enjoyable. A real potpourri!

FILM FARE

Letters from Baghdad

Gertrude Bell was a most remarkable woman. She, more than anyone else including T.E. Lawrence, was responsible for carving out the borders of what became Iraq and for establishing the Iraq Museum to house its antiquities. She traveled on her own to then Persia and other countries in the Middle East becoming knowledgeable about the lands and the native peoples. And she wrote several books.

After WWI, the British government hired her to work with them, the lone woman among powerful senior officials. Many of them had little regard for her initially, but she worked closely with Sir Percy Cox, High Commissioner for Mesopotamia, who was both mentor and protector. Brusque, arrogant and strong-willed, hers was a challenging personality. Thwarted in love, she maintained her close ties with her parents and wrote them wonderful letters.

What is amazing about this film is not only what it reveals about this accomplished, but less well known woman, but the fact that it makes use of very early archival films and is based on her letters and diaries and a biography by Janet Wallach.   The film is in black and white and Tilda Swinton is the voice of Gertrude Bell. Besides portraying a fascinating woman, it’s an absorbing history lesson.

Dean

This is a sweet film written by and starring Demetri Martin. It’s a portrait of male grief as a father and his adult son mourn the loss of their wife and mother. Both are somewhat lost souls, the son more so than the father. The father, affectingly played by Kevin Kline, decides to sell the family home, a decision upsetting to son Dean. Dean is an illustrator, formerly engaged to Michelle, who escapes NY for a job interview in Los Angeles. It’s not really his scene, but he stays with a friend, parties, and is attracted to Nicky, a charming young woman.

The film could have been tighter and shorter, but is worth seeing for how this father and son communicate or don’t. It’s different than how women do it. One final note, the drawings are clever and funny or morbid and all done by Martin.

RECENT READING 

Signs for Lost Children by Sarah Moss

This historical novel from Britain is best read slowly. Set in 1878, it concerns the intertwined lives and separate careers of architect Tom Cavendish and newly minted medical doctor, Ally Moberley. They marry just before he goes on assignment to Japan to oversee building a lighthouse. She, fascinated by diseases of the mind, starts work in an insane asylum in the English countryside. In alternating chapters, Moss presents what each of them is doing. They write letters, but their time apart is long and their young marriage fragile.

Moss’s writing is sensitive and nuanced and she is skilled at capturing the vagaries of weather and scenery and how they echo or inform Ally and Tom’s perceptions of themselves. I found the novel both moving and poignant.

 

The Heart by Maylis de Kerangal

Set in Paris and translated from the French, this is a beautifully written short novel about the death of a young man and all the steps from his accident to the transplantation of his heart. Covering the details of the accident and all of the people (doctors, nurses, technicians) whose lives and actions touch him afterward, it is intense, graphic, and matter-of-fact all at once. The sentences are long and almost unending as they unfurl, and the paragraphs few.

You, the reader, become acquainted with Simon’s parents in their moment of extreme distress and are privy to the medical policies and procedures that lead from them agreeing to donate his organs to the steps involved in making a match, to how the eventual heart transplant is carried out and to whom. I found this a hard novel to read despite its evocative writing.

In This Grave Hour by Jacqueline Winspear

The latest installment in Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs series is set in London just at the start of WWII as England declares war on Germany.  Private investigator Maisie is recruited to investigate the death of a railway worker who also happens to be an immigrant from Belgium.  He came over as a youth during the previous war and stayed to make his life in Britain. Other deaths, presumably also murders, occur and the search for answers widens.

The slate of characters, Maisie’s office staff Billy and Sandra, her friends Priscilla and Lady Rowan, and the detectives and inspectors, McFarlane and Stratton, are familiar from earlier books, but Winspear is good at providing a bit of backstory for new readers. These are mysteries that unfold slowly and precisely, made enjoyable by the force of Maisie’s personality and her fond adherence to the precepts she learned from her mentor Maurice. Good choice to take to the beach.

Note:  Header image at Brooklyn Botanic Garden ©JWFarrington; all other images are from the web, courtesy of PBS Learning Media, French Embassy, and Moss and Winspear’s own websites.