Sigrid Nunez, Anne Tyler and Edmund Crispin: A Perfect Trio of Novels

 Did you ever read three books in a row that you liked very much and read quickly? That happened to me recently. Often I read excellent books but rather slowly. The three I found to be page turners are Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler, The Friend by Sigrid Nunez and Buried for Pleasure by Edmund Crispin. 

 

Breathing Lessons centers around Maggie and her husband Ira in a 24 hour period. They attend a funeral in the morning and pay a surprise visit to their ex-daughter-in-law and grandchild age 7 in the afternoon. Maggie is a force of nature, she is known for trying to fix and change people and hopeless situations, sometimes with disastrous results.

 

My favorite of this trio of books is The Friend by Sigrid Nunex. I had not read any books written by this author so was delighted to find this book so refreshing and interesting. It is about a woman writing in the first person and the dog Apollo, a Great Dane dog she is stuck with, and her relationship as a dear male friend of many years to Apollo's owner. Apollo is wonderful. Nunez writes perceptively as the main character thinks while watching dogs play: You know nothing of envy. No yearnings or nostalgia. No regrets. You really are a different species.

 

I had not read any of the Gervase Fen mysteries by Edmund Crispin, and Buried for Pleasure              was fun to read. Fen is a light hearted Oxford Don and amateur detective and there are 10 books in this series. Fen was bored with his routine of teaching and decided to run for MP in a small rural area. During his campaign he works to solve several murders and mysteries, and starts to hope he will lose the election. Fen's quips and thoughts are entertaining.

If you have found some great books to read let me know about them.

Bel Lamington by D.E. Stevenson, Upbeat Novel, and Wildfire Smoke

 I read Bel Lamington by D.E. Stevenson recently and recommend it to anyone who enjoys an upbeat charming novel wherein the main character is a young woman who faces challenges. This novel is set in about 1950, first in London and then in Drumburly, Scotland.

Bel was orphaned when a child and raised by her kind aunt in an English village. When the aunt died Bel had to sell the house and take the small amount of money from the sale and move to London to find a job. She found a job as a secretary in a shipping company where several potential suitors meet her. Bel is innocent and runs into a big problem. She flees to the tiny outpost of Drumburly in Scotland where her friend and her father are on vacation fishing. 

I liked this book so much I was happy to hear there is a sequel, so I bought it and will soon learn more about Bel and her adventures.

I discovered D.E. Stevenson only a few years ago. We fans call ourselves Dessies. My very favorite of her novels is Miss Buncle's Book, which is very humorous. I am glad many of her books are back in print and also available as ebooks. If you like immersing yourself in stories set in 1940s and 1950s in rural England and Scotish border towns and people facing problem and even falling in love, these novels provide that. Humor too.

By the way, I have very eclectic taste in reading. For example I enjoy the Murderbot series by Martha Wells and just bought the third book in her series, Rogue Protocol. "Sci-Fi's favorite anti-social AI is back on a mission." "Who knew being a heartless killing machine would present so many moral dilemmas?" I will review the Murderbot series in a future post. I recently discovered two authors new to me, Jamie Buckingham and Sean Dietrich "Sean of the South." So many good books out there. What are you reading today?

 Smoke from Wild Fires in Canada and Northern USA

June 30 2023. I am adding this note to say I am concerned about all the poor air quality and smoke in much of eastern Canada and eastern USA and in northern states including Michigan, Wisconsin and New York. My sister says the air in western Wisconsin where she lives is very smokey and in the unhealthy zone. She has developed a cough from going out in her garden. I am praying that the fires in Canada go out today! Does everyone know that room air purifiers with HEPA filters remove smoke? I got two of them (for living room and for bedroom) to remove pollen and dust and during California smoke hazard days learned that they help clean the air from smoke too. Love you guys.

Castle Richmond by Anthony Trollope, my favorite book read thus far in 2022

 

Castle Richmond by Anthony Trollope

Writing this review in September, Castle Richmond stands out as my favorite book I have read thus far this year of 50 books read. I like Trollope’s novels so much that I always buy the print copies and keep them. He wrote in the 1850s -1880s and his books give a wonderful picture of the Victorian era in England and Ireland.

This book is set in 1860 in Ireland in the time of the Irish potato famine and explores the ups and downs of the fortunes and loves of three families. Owen Fitzgerald of Hap House, Patrick Fitzgerald of Castle Richmond and the widow aged about 38, Lady Desmond, and her daughter Clara age 17 of Desmond Court. The Fitzgerald cousins deeply love Clara and each was briefly engaged to Clara. Meanwhile the famine begins and is raging across the land, while Patrick works to provide work and food to the poor. Trollope writes with great insight about the rivalry and mistrust of 2 Protestant ministers and the local Catholic priest as they set aside differences to save the lives of starving people.

How will the love triangle of Clara and her two suitors be resolved? Lady Desmond has her own lonely and impoverished life to consider while she struggles to find the right husband for Clara. Who will inherit the title and estate of Castle Richmond as evil blackmailers cause immense suffering for the family? The whole novel and especially the ending are brilliant and Trollope provides some humor and also his clever asides to the reader, when he makes comments as the author directly to us.

Do you read Anthony Trollope as I do? I just realized some readers might like to try one of his novels, a good one to start with is Barchester Towers. Richmond Castle is also a good choice. Who is your favorite author and what are you reading today? I have many authors I enjoy reading and Trollope is at the top of my list.

Elizabeth Cadell, Novelist Who Lived in India, the UK and Portugal

 

I recently put a book "Game In Diamonds" by Elizabeth Cadell on my list of books to read. The plot sounds fun, mystery, family rivalry and romance. Those are great ingredients for a novel, I think.

Have you read that book, or others by her? I read a couple of her books and found them entertaining, perfect reading for the sadness that sometimes arrives. My friend texted me that "we widows have a hard time in this pandemic with isolation." So true.

Do you sometimes hear about someone you would like to know more about? When I read that Cadell was born in Calcutta, India in 1903 that sparked my interest. During WWI she went to London to prepare for a career in music, but decided to return to India where she married and had two children. Widowed ten years later she returned to England. 

Cadell wrote 52 humorous and romantic novels, and her daughter is bringing them back to readers by publishing them. Cadell's story was not over; in 1960 she moved to Portugal. I like her spirit of living in different countries. She wrote many novels set in Portugal, lived there for 29 years, and died at the age of 85. She must have been an adventurous woman; I haven't found a memoir or biography of her. 

Rumer Goden is another author whose writing I admire, who lived in India and the UK. Any authors whose personal lives you find fascinating?

I'd Rather Be Reading, this author gets me and Rules for Visiting novel

 Hi Anne Bogel, can we hang out? You get me, and I get you, as your book shows.

I don't know anyone who loves to read as much as I do. Reading is a bit like oxygen to me. I have friends who read, and we trade books. Yet, when Anne Bogel wrote of a Reading Twin, I was a bit jealous. She met her reading twin after many years. They share titles that mean a lot to them, fiction and nonfiction, of many genres. I keep acquiring books and work hard to give them away, and aim to have my book collection grow smaller, not larger. My favorite book that I read this year is The Splendid and the Vile. I don't know how Anne (yes, we are on a first name basis, on my side) would like this book, but perhaps it is a wowser of a read for her too.

Does Anne love Anthony Trollope, C.S. Lewis and P.G. Wodehouse as I do? Perhaps so. How could she not? Ha ha.

Here is quote from her book. "People read for a multiplicity of reasons. Nearly forty years in, I can tell you why I inhale books like oxygen: I'm grateful for my one life, but I'd prefer to live a thousand - and my favorite books allow me to experience more on the page than I ever could in my actual life. A good book allows me to step into another world, to experience people and places and situations foreign to my own day-to-day existence." 

I laughed at some of the stories she shares. Any other bookaholics out there? I have a list of novels I want to read, and now that our library is open (you can request books and pick them up outside the library) I am reading them. 

 

I just read "Rules for Visiting" by Jessica Kane and found it a delight. A lonely 40 year old single woman who is a landscape gardener at a university is given a month off of work and she has a brilliant idea to visit her four friends from long ago and re-connect. This involves quite a lot of traveling as they live around the USA and in England. Along the way, at the request of her father, she searches for the ideal tree to plant. I enjoyed this book and give it 4 stars. I just put "House of Trelawney" by Hannah Rothschild on request at the library, a story of an eccentric English aristocratic family, their crumbling home, and the ties of family and love. Hey, does that sound good? Others I want to read are "Ordinary Grace" and "The Church of Small Things." How about you and your reading?

Fun book, unlikely friends and Heated Cat House

This is the story of Arthur, Mandy and Lucille, as they form a friendship which is surprising to all of them. Mandy is a hurting teen, Arthur is widowed from Nola, the love of his life, and Lucille is his lonely next door neighbor. Arthur, age 85, encounters Mandy in the cemetery where he visits his wife every day and where Mandy goes when she skips school. Arthur looks at cemetery grave stones and thinks he hears clearly glimpses of the buried people’s lives. Mandy playfully changes Arthur’s last name to Truluv, isn’t that charming? Together the three of them find their way forward in life. I am avoiding giving away plot details, but let me tell you, now I know why Berg is read by so many people. There is another book by her, "Night of Miracles" that has some of the same characters in it, and is a sequel, which I want to read.

You won't believe what I just did. I ordered a cat house with a heated floor for my cat who sleeps on my patio. The photo above is what the house looks like. I live in California so it is not all that cold but she is aging, like me, and the heated pad will be comfy for her, I hope. My sons and I think that my dog will take naps in it during the day. The pad only heats when a cat or dog sits on it, a clever feature. An important feature that I learned about when researching before buying is that a cat house needs front and back doors so your cat can not be trapped in it. Both doors are clear plastic and the back door only opens outwards.
I will post photos of my kitty in her new house in future, when she gets in. So far she is not interested or definitely cautious.
What's new at your house, in your life?
P.S. Added Nove. 24. My cat Fluffy discovered her heated cat house on Thanksgiving and slept in it that night and she finds it warm and cozy.

Senior Citizens in New Novels

Now that I have achieved the much wanted (ha ha) title of senior citizen I am finding some novels that have older main characters ranging in age from late fifties to age 100.
Here are a few I have read recently.

"Old Age Private Eye" by A.W. Blakely. The first in the Old Age Pensioner Investigations series about Stanley, a pensioner about 68 years old who is so bored in retirement that on a whim he posts a notice that he is a private investigator. He is amazed when he is hired for a job and finds he needs to hire help so he hires his daughter who is newly divorced and job hunting; the other team member is his trusty dog, Roobarb. The setting is "the heart of England."

"The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules" by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg. The first book in the League of Pensioners series, all the main characters use Zimmer frames or as we call them in the USA, walkers. The main gal, Martha is 79 and decides to begin a life of crime to free her from her home from the aged, which she compares to a prison. The setting is the Netherlands and she recruits four friends from the home where she lives to form a gang. They pull off some dramatic crimes, and attempt jewel, bank and art robberies. They are so inept sometimes they succeed. After all, who could believe these harmless oldies could steal priceless Impressionist paintings?

"A Man Called Ove" by Fredrik Backman
Ove is a curmudgeon, a widower with a short fuse and he is a mean and prejudiced neighbor to people trying to be helpful. I don't know why Ove is a mere 59 in this novel, he seems like 69 or older. Against his will he is befriended by the young couple who move next door. You will find humor, despair and hope here, and the novel deserves the description of "heart warming." The author is Swedish. I love this book and plan to read the others Backman wrote.

"The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared" by Jonas Jonasson. Alan has no plan except to escape out a window in order to miss his 100 year birthday party at the retirement home. Wow, does he have adventures. He finds stolen money, there are murderous thugs chasing him, he meets a friendly elephant and makes friends along the way. The author is a Swedish journalist. I read that there is a sequel to this book and Alan is 101 in it.
Are there other books you can add to this list? Please add them in comments, I think we would all like to hear about more books featuring senior citizens.