4.5★ This is a full-cast audio like a radio drama, with music, sound effects, and excellent actors.
We're in London in WWII, and Winston Churchill is f4.5★ This is a full-cast audio like a radio drama, with music, sound effects, and excellent actors.
We're in London in WWII, and Winston Churchill is fed up with celebrating Dunkirk - nobody celebrates a retreat - and he says he's prepared to do a deal with the Devil if it will beat the Nazis.
Enter a Baroness, or so she seems, with an offer he hurries to accept, as long as they can agree on terms.
It's another of the "Earworms" series from Audible, and a lot of fun it is, too. I enjoy a good reader/narrator, but this kind of performance is really next level....more
5★ “She lived on the seventeenth floor. Sometime after four [a.m.] she went out a high window. She swung out past the sidewalk and landed in the street5★ “She lived on the seventeenth floor. Sometime after four [a.m.] she went out a high window. She swung out past the sidewalk and landed in the street, a few feet from the curb, touching down between a couple of parked cars.”
She’s Paula, a somewhat flaky young waitress in a bar. She’s not a very good waitress, mixes up orders and has a drug habit that shows sometimes, but she always smiles and greets customers by name.
“Her greeting always made you feel you’d come home. When that’s all the home you have, you tend to appreciate that sort of thing. And if her career wasn’t perfect for her, well it certainly hadn’t been what she had in mind when she came to New York in the first place. You no more set out to be a waitress in a Ninth Avenue gin mill than you intentionally become an ex-cop, coasting through the months on bourbon and coffee.”
Block’s narration of his own story is perfect. Scudder is a wry, world-weary drinker who is surprised to be stirred awake when Paula’s sister approaches him to find out why Paula is dead. She is positive it isn’t suicide.
I completely enjoyed the story and the author’s narration. I’m pretty sure I’ll be hearing his voice in my mind when I read something else by him. ...more
4★ “I did not sleep well, for you see Moriarty was more than an occasional consultant. I viewed him as an important ally in the underworld and even, da4★ “I did not sleep well, for you see Moriarty was more than an occasional consultant. I viewed him as an important ally in the underworld and even, dare I say, a friend, as much as one can have a friend in our way of life.”
These are three clever short stories about ‘the’ Moriarty, the infamous professor who was the only person to get the best (or did he?) of Sherlock Holmes. The narrator is an underworld figure himself, which makes for an interesting viewpoint.
The first is The Adventure of the Dishonor Among Thieves, from which I have quoted the following to give you a good idea of the tone and style Weir has adopted. I think he’s done an excellent job.
“On a cold windy night in the winter of 1871, I went about my many tasks as the head of the Straight-razor Ruffians. Temporary leave from the army had led me to graduate from pilfering military supplies to directly overseeing a small syndicate. I was by no means an influential crime lord in the city but I was beginning to make a name for myself and earn the respect of my peers. Only recently I had been called upon to personally see to a rival gang’s leader who did not show proper decorum in relation to territorial boundaries. The police did eventually find his body but made little in the way of inquiries as his identification was rendered impossible by the lack of a head.”
Of course, today’s forensics would probably make short work of a headless body, but not so back then. The narrator’s brothel business, which moves nightly, is raided, which should have been impossible, unless…
“I was forced to face the unfortunate realisation that someone in my employ must have tipped off the police, not only to whereabouts of the brothel but also as to the list of policemen who could not be trusted with information concerning the raid. One cannot slit throats willy-nilly in a situation such as this.”
The engagement of Professor Moriarty begins an interesting partnership.
“The Adventure of the Unscrupulous Assassin” is the second story, where our narrator fears for his daughter’s safety. She has been protected from his life and well-educated, with good manners polished at a finishing school.
She is now back in England and has been moved into a safe house, but it seems someone is trying to burn down the family home and the safe house as well.
Story number three is The Adventure of the Sealed Room.
Moriarty is on one end of a bidding war for a dilapidated tenement property. His opponent is having trouble getting a permit, so kills the permit officer. This is a bit of a turn-around. Moriarty calls in a favour from our narrator.
“The irony is palpable when an evil man is arrested on suspicion of a crime he did not, in fact, commit. It is a frustrating thing. Deep down there is a strong sense of justice in all of us, even those who have a predilection toward a perverse dissociation with the law. I am wont to believe that if the law is going to catch me it will be something of which I am actually guilty. You can imagine my surprise when I received a missive sent by Moriarty from the police lockup.”
This is the situation in which the narrator commented above that he considers Moriarty more than a consultant or an ally – he has become a friend, although he’s not a friend you’d want to cross. I was reminded of how we may all be okay with being caught for our misdeeds but how absolutely infuriating it is to be unfairly punished when you know you never touched the cake!
I didn’t realise Andy Weir wrote this kind of thing, and I’m delighted to say I enjoyed all three stories. I think he and Graeme Malcolm, the audio narrator did a great job placing the stories and setting into the world of Sherlock Holmes. ...more
4★ “I didn't want to wake up at 6am, especially on a Saturday. But the man I was cuddled up to was... a morning person.
Perish the thought. I am not a m4★ “I didn't want to wake up at 6am, especially on a Saturday. But the man I was cuddled up to was... a morning person.
Perish the thought. I am not a morning person either, except in my youth when I’d be up after midnight. I enjoy seeing photos of sunrises and dawn skies, but like Annie in Annie’s Day, I would prefer to go back to sleep and get up for brunch.
I had read and enjoyed a couple of these stories before I ran across an audio of this collection of nine. They are all entertaining, of course, coming from Andy Weir, but as with most collections, they vary in appeal.
Access is a tale about people’s magic powers. This person’s magic power is never being thrown out of anywhere as long as she looks like she belongs. An interesting idea.
Antihypoxiant is about a scientist who invents a virus that distributes oxygen storage into cells, a very handy idea for keeping bodies going well for a long time, but with unexpected consequences (of course).
Annie's Day is an old favourite, free to read online, and from which I quoted above about not being a morning person.
The Real Deal is what a man says he has finally found, waxing lyrical about a smart, wonderful woman he took to lunch and whom he says he’s going to marry. Yeah, right.
Bored World is about a character who is bored because it has no imagination, so it captures a human as a pet to amuse it with some imaginings. I loved the surprising pet!
The Midtown Butcher is about a girl hearing news reports of a serial killer, and when she comes out of her shower, she’s surprised by the people in her living room.
Meeting Sarah is about rich Daniel Stolz who has invented some kind of time travel, apparently to search for someone.
The Chef is about a woman who wakes in hospital remembering only an explosion and that she is a chef. When a doctor asks her about teaspoons and tablespoons, things get confusing.
The Egg is a favourite story I’ve read before about a guy who has died and is told by ‘god’ that he will be reincarnated again and again and that he is all the people in the world.
These are not only fun, they are thought-provoking. Weir makes us smile and think. This is a collection I’m likely to dip into again one day just for fun. You can see my brief reviews for two of the stories I wrote about before.
3.5~3 “God knows, Doug is used to apologising, practice making perfect.”
Doug is an accountant, a tall, unassuming fellow who surfs every morning with t3.5~3 “God knows, Doug is used to apologising, practice making perfect.”
Doug is an accountant, a tall, unassuming fellow who surfs every morning with the Dawn Patrol, a group ranging from a professional surfer to local enthusiasts. They are genuinely fond of him and loyal to each other to a fault.
They all understand the code of surfing, one main feature being that you don’t cut in on someone else’s wave. You are supposed to look out, see where others are in the water, and give way to someone who caught the wave before you.
But Doug, dear Doug, who knows the code, says he has to watch his feet or he’ll fall off. This is true. They’ve seen it happen. Of course, this means he doesn’t see anyone else on the wave, and he’s caused a lot of mishaps.
This particular morning, he slams into the wrong guy, a guy who’s shorter than Doug but has impressive muscles and tatts. Doug tries to apologise. As it says above, he’s used to it.
“He apologises to his wife, to his boss, to other surfers. He has even apologised to branch managers he's caught skimming when they've come to the office to collect their severance checks.”
But this guy won’t stand for it, so the Dawn Patrol steps in. The guy is determined to get even – somehow, and what eventuates between him and the Dawn Patrol ‘family’ makes for an entertaining story with a perfect ending.
Ed Harris narrates this, as he has other Winslow stories, and while it’s perhaps not special, it left me smiling. What more could you want?
This is a free story for Audible members, and only a bit over an hour in length. ...more
3.5★ “I don’t know what the answer is, precisely, but I know it starts when we stop blaming Obama or Bush or faceless companies and ask ourselves what 3.5★ “I don’t know what the answer is, precisely, but I know it starts when we stop blaming Obama or Bush or faceless companies and ask ourselves what we can do to make things better.”
Because the author is now running for the US Vice Presidency, I figured I’d borrow this from the library and read what he had to say about himself in 2016. Born in 1984 in Middletown, Ohio, into what he describes as a hillbilly family from eastern Kentucky, J.D. was raised mostly by his mother’s parents, Mamaw and Papaw Vance.
They had moved to Ohio as had many others from Appalachia where jobs had been hard hit by mine closures. He makes a point of saying that the hillbilly community is white people, generally of Scots-Irish descent, and this is not about race. This interests me, since there is a long history in Scotland and Ireland of the same sorts of dreadful childhoods due to poverty, alcoholism, violence, addiction and sexual abuse.
I was interested in his personal history since he is a genuine rags-to-riches story, and he's running for high political office. He readily admits that his success was not all his own doing.
“My sister always protected me, even after I’d physically outgrown her. Dan and Aunt Wee opened their home when I was too afraid to ask. Long before that, they were my first real exemplars of a happy and loving marriage. There were teachers, distant relatives, and friends. Remove any of these people from the equation, and I’m probably screwed. Other people who have overcome the odds cite the same sorts of interventions.”
He also points out that because of his extremely disadvantaged background, he was eligible for scholarships and support that other equally talented but slightly more well-off students couldn’t access. That’s how he made it to Yale Law School, but of course, he had the grades to make it into their program and grandparents who encouraged him.
Not only that, when he joined the Marines, they grew him up properly, taught him many of the social niceties most middle-class people take for granted. (Doesn’t 'social niceties' sound odd coming from the Marines? Yet, that's what they did for him.) His status as a veteran also made him eligible for more help.
His mother went through a long string of boyfriends and five husbands, and while his grandparents were devoted to him, they were also rough and ready, shouting, screaming, swearing, and loving. They travelled back ‘home’ to Kentucky to see relatives often and prided themselves on their hillbilly identities.
Everyone needs to feel they belong, and that is where he felt he belonged. But their strong sense of community doesn’t extend to church, he says.
“Despite its reputation, Appalachia—especially northern Alabama and Georgia to southern Ohio—has far lower church attendance than the Midwest, parts of the Mountain West, and much of the space between Michigan and Montana. Oddly enough, we think we attend church more than we actually do.”
As a pre-teen, he began spending more time with his biological father who had become a peaceful family man with a new wife and a strong connection to his evangelical church. Whether it was to please his dad or he just wanted to do something with him, the church appealed to young J.D.
“I became a devoted convert. I devoured books about young-earth creationism, and joined online chat rooms to challenge scientists on the theory of evolution. I learned about millennialist prophecy and convinced myself that the world would end in 2007. I even threw away my Black Sabbath CDs. Dad’s church encouraged all of this because it doubted the wisdom of secular science and the morality of secular music. . . . Other authors have noted the terrible retention rates of evangelical churches and blamed precisely that sort of theology for their decline. I didn’t appreciate it as a kid. Nor did I realize that the religious views I developed during my early years with Dad were sowing the seeds for an outright rejection of the Christian faith.”
He eventually left the evangelical movement to become a Catholic. His politics seems to have moved the other way. He refers to more moderate political views in Appalachia than what he seems to have found down whatever rabbit holes he’s been exploring.
I would like to think that if he could see what was wrong with the extreme views of his father’s church that he will eventually see what’s wrong with the extreme views of his current political associates.
I think this is a man who wants hard and fast rules to follow, right and wrong, some historical context. The shifting grounds of what's acceptable and what isn't may disturb him. So old-fashioned Catholicism with its dogma might suit him, and maybe that's what he wants from politics, old-fashioned rules. The question is, of course, "whose" fashion? Tudor England? Ancient Greece? A lot of us would like to be benevolent dictators so we could se the 'right' rules.
For me, there’s nothing socially or politically new in this, other than it’s Vance’s personal account of how he survived his original destiny.
I deplore his current politics. I wish he'd do some more growing up.
P.S. If you believed the couch and glove story that went viral, you were fooled like lots of people. There's nothing like that in the book. It was a joke a guy on Twitter made up, and people took it seriously. Snopes fact check...more
4★ “The only real sign that the embassy is an embassy at all is the little brass plaque on the door (which reads, ‘the embassy of cambodia’) and the na4★ “The only real sign that the embassy is an embassy at all is the little brass plaque on the door (which reads, ‘the embassy of cambodia’) and the national flag of Cambodia (we assume that’s what it is—what else could it be?) flying from the red tiled roof.”
‘We’ are the people of Willesden (an area of north-west London), which actually has a number of more buildings more surprising than this. There’s a health center next door and some very fancy houses, assumed by the residents to belong to wealthy Arabs.
Fatou is a young woman from Ivory Coast who’s working for a well-to-do family, using their membership card to swim in the health center pool, without their knowledge. Before going in, she likes to sit across from the embassy to watch and hear the “Pock, smash. Pock, smash” of the badminton rallies.
I wondered if she wondered if the high walls were hiding people, and if so, whom. Did the pock, smash of the shuttlecock possibly serve as a reminder of battles and aggression?
She happens to see an article about a Sudanese ‘slave’ in London in a rich man’s house and reflects again about her own situation. Her father had taken her first to Ghana, where they worked in a hotel, and then he moved her on.
“Two years later, when she was eighteen, it was her father again who had organized her difficult passage to Libya and then on to Italy—a not insignificant financial sacrifice on his part. Also, Fatou could read English—and speak a little Italian—and this girl in the paper could not read or speak anything except the language of her tribe.”
Fatou discusses history and world events with her friend Andrew Okonkwo, a night guard who is studying business and can access the internet with his student card.
Zadie Smith gives us a sharp reminder that privilege and opportunity are not handed out equally at birth. How long will those of us who were born ‘lucky’ be able to fool those who’ve been born in such appalling conditions that we are doing them a favour by hiring them for menial jobs and restricting their movements?
How many of the people who employ women like Fatou can read in a second language and have a smattering of a third, as she and many refugees do? A lot of those in the privileged world speak only the language of their tribe, like the Sudanese slave.
5★ “ ‘Douglas—‘ And then he stops, looks up at the men above them, the men who are always watching. The men who are always whispering. His forehead gro5★ “ ‘Douglas—‘ And then he stops, looks up at the men above them, the men who are always watching. The men who are always whispering. His forehead grows cavernous lines. He says, ‘P-23. Will you come with me?’
‘Yes,’ Douglas says, because of course he will, and also because the Supervisor called him Douglas.”
Oh how I wish this precursor to Klune’s In the Lives of Puppetshad been included in the digital copy I read and reviewed a few months ago. I’m glad I’ve read it now. They are separate stories but have the same bittersweet appeal.
P-23, Douglas, is being given a leave-pass to visit “the apartment” and have a one-week holiday.
“ ‘On your last day, you will return promptly to the factory at nine in the morning. If you do not arrive on or before this time, you will be considered a runner, and—'
‘Why would I run?’ Douglas asks. ‘Where would I go?’
‘Good. Douglas, this is an important opportunity for you.’’”
All I can say is that I hope all future androids will be like Douglas and that future humans will be as generous and welcoming as Jesse, Simon, and the others. Also, that René Descartes continues to be read.
4★ “But the boat wasn’t the only thing bothering Bailey. There was the dead guy leaking blood on the deck beside him, the chains attached to Bailey’s a4★ “But the boat wasn’t the only thing bothering Bailey. There was the dead guy leaking blood on the deck beside him, the chains attached to Bailey’s ankles, and the handcuffs digging into his wrists. There was also the man sitting opposite, tossing a gun between his hands like a cricket ball.”
Okaaaay, you’ve got my attention. Again, I might add. I’ve enjoyed the previous four books in this series, and when a story opens with this, I’m in.
Well, I’m in, because I know that John Bailey is an investigative journalist in Sydney, and his work takes him around the areas where I spent much of my earlier life. I love revisiting the greater Sydney area where I spent much of my younger adult life. (Fortunately, my experience with Pittwater and the Hawkesbury River never involved handcuffs or chains, though.)
Bailey moves in very different circles. Cops, hardened crims, and CIA, not to mention powerful business figures who think they can get away with murder – or at least buy their way out of it.
Bailey gets a call about a break-in at the house that had been willed to him a few years earlier by Sharon Dexter, a homicide detective who was the love of his life. The place is completely trashed. He hasn’t been able to bring himself to sell it, but it’s obvious someone thinks something important is still there.
He checks her hidden safe and finds some old files on a murder case about a decade ago.
It was a case file about the murder of a woman named Sally King, who was found strangled to death in an alley outside the Sydney Club, an exclusive men-only establishment in the heart of the city.
Bailey didn’t recognise King’s name but he knew all about the man who had been jailed for her murder. Joel Griggs was a violent serial killer who had raped and murdered five women.
Glancing at the pages, Bailey could see that Dexter was one of the homicide detectives who had worked on the investigation...
But the case file about King’s murder also told Bailey something else.
Dexter was convinced they had jailed the wrong man.”
Bailey’s retired editor friend Gerald, had been on the board of the Sydney Club and attended the party that presumably led to the murder. He was appalled by what he saw.
“ ‘Do you have any idea how many men my age – and older – shove cocaine up their noses? That’s a whole other world I didn’t know existed.’
‘C’mon, Gerald. You know Sydney. It’s the bloody cocaine capital of Australia.’
‘This was a different level, Bailey. I feel sick about it.’”
Then Bailey’s house is trashed. Bailey’s current girlfriend, Annie Brooks, is a television reporter who is often first on the scene with her cameraman, so they share intel and begin working with the police to investigate. She once dated one of the possible suspects, which gives us an idea of how much these people mingle.
Detective Superintendent Greg Palmer, Commander of the NSW Homicide Squad, certainly believes something’s up.
“ ‘An old police detective mate of mine seemed to think there was something off about that case. But we can’t talk to her because she died in the line of duty around five years ago.’
Sutton knew he was talking about Sharon Dexter. Every cop in Sydney knew the story about how she was killed while bringing down a global terrorist network in London. Her death was front-page news and her funeral had been attended by half the force.”
Also making a reappearance is American Ronnie Johnson, the huge, cigar-smoking CIA operative who is Bailey’s friend and sometime houseguest, but now and then he betrays Bailey for secrecy’s sake. An infuriating guy, he is “six and a half feet tall and a tree of muscles” who also rubs elbows with international mercenaries and other questionable associates when necessary.
The point of view is mostly Bailey’s, but sometimes Annie, and a new young detective, Holly Sutton, get a chapter. Holly is an interesting new character (with a gambling habit) whom I hope we see again.
I heard Ayliffe interviewed today and he reckons he’s got many more books in him and would like to do for Sydney what Michael Connelly has done for Los Angeles. He’s aiming pretty high, but why not?
Thanks to #NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for a copy of #TheWrongMan for review....more
4★ “I am telling you the truth, guys! It was a terrible, terrible first day at school.
The bell rang, and then the teacher said, ‘Come on, everyone, tel4★ “I am telling you the truth, guys! It was a terrible, terrible first day at school.
The bell rang, and then the teacher said, ‘Come on, everyone, tell your name and age to the class.’ ”
Poor kid. Whispering isn’t going to work.
[image]
“ ‘I can’t hear you over here. Louder, please’ the teacher said. And I nervously screamed: JACK-RUSSELL BEAGLE VAN DE HOUND age 6’ ”
Sitting alone on a little stool, contemplating names, ‘Jack’ says to us:
“What was going through my parents’ minds when they were choosing my name? Really… what? Awful, awful day. I hate my name. Like I am some kind of dog… Jack-Russell… ugh!”
On the next page, we have a dog asking if they have something against dogs. Oops! Turns out the dog has an odd name, too. Then we meet other animals who aren’t happy with their names.
[image]
“ ‘Do I look to you like Marshmallow Stripes? I am a leopard, you know!’”
There are even a couple of characters who love their names and brag about them, but they aren’t allowed to join the club. This is an exclusive club.
The illustrations are just wonderful. I love them. The idea is a good one, and some of the names are quite funny. I wish the text had lived up to the artwork. The author/illustrator is definitely talented.
The final page is the whole club (so far!), and they certainly look to be a happy bunch.
[image]
I avoided (I think) saying he or she, since it wasn’t necessarily obvious, but the there are a couple of creatures with skirts or frocks, including Miss Bathilda Slimepuddle, “ ’But everyone calls me The Bad Hilda.’’ I think she is a hippo.
Thanks to the author who posted the link on Facebook to a time-limited free download of her book on Amazon for readers and reviewers. I couldn’t resist her pictures. They are worth 5★....more
4★ “A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man’s hands were behind his back, 4★ “A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man’s hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord.”
This is after the American Civil War, and there are sentinels at each end of the bridge, in case someone should come along. The man being hanged seems to be a planter, but that’s all we know. Everyone stands stiff and silent.
“Death is a dignitary who when he comes announced is to be received with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him. In the code of military etiquette silence and fixity are forms of deference.”
The planks of the bridge have been moved so that finally, only the man being hanged and a sergeant are standing on either end of a plank that is carefully balanced. When the sergeant moves, the man will plunge towards the river.
There’s no blindfold, so the man watches the river, sees the driftwood, some piled up, some moving, and begins thinking about his wife and family and also about the possibility of being able to use the driftwood to escape downstream.
There is good description of the woods, the surrounds, and the history leading up to this moment. This particular paragraph caught my attention. I think it is scarier than many supposedly scary stories.
“Striking through the thought of his dear ones was sound which he could neither ignore nor understand, a sharp, distinct, metallic percussion like the stroke of a blacksmith’s hammer upon the anvil; it had the same ringing quality. He wondered what it was, and whether immeasurably distant or nearby— it seemed both. Its recurrence was regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death knell. He awaited each new stroke with impatience and—he knew not why—apprehension. The intervals of silence grew progressively longer; the delays became maddening. With their greater infrequency the sounds increased in strength and sharpness. They hurt his ear like the trust of a knife; he feared he would shriek. What he heard was the ticking of his watch.”
Horrific tension. This was an Audible freebie, but after I heard it, I decided I wanted to read it, so found it at the library. I’m glad I did, because it had an interesting note about Bierce’s life.
“Ambrose Bierce was an American writer, critic and war veteran. Bierce fought for the Union Army . . . Bierce’s harrowing experiences during the Civil War, particularly those at the Battle of Shiloh, shaped a writing career that included editorials, novels, short stories and poetry. Among his most famous works are An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, The Boarded Window, Chickamauga, and What I Saw at Shiloh. While on a tour of Civil-War battlefields in 1913, Bierce is believed to have joined Pancho Villa’s army before disappearing in the chaos of the Mexican Revolution.”
Goodreads adds that in one of his final letters he wrote:
"Good-bye. If you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags, please know that I think it is a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease, or falling down the cellar stairs. To be a Gringo in Mexico--ah, that is euthanasia!"
4★ “From now on, it was disillusionment and cynicism. That awful year of 1968. The Tet Offensive, Martin, Bobby.”
Five high school boys, good pals, are 4★ “From now on, it was disillusionment and cynicism. That awful year of 1968. The Tet Offensive, Martin, Bobby.”
Five high school boys, good pals, are pretty much marking time in school, hanging out, stealing liquor from parents who drink and don’t count their bottles. They smoke a little weed, but nothing serious, except for one who’s a heroin user. He says it just comes from a different plant - the poppy.
As they awaken to the new reality of their lives, the war in Vietnam, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy – especially Bobby – they make plans to leave Rhode Island. There’s no future for them there, and they’ll all be facing the draft soon.
Oregon is way across the continent and sounds like a possible spot to go to lie low, hide away without leaving the country, but they need money. They create an Oregon Fund, selling weed very carefully, never spending any money, calling no attention to themselves.
“ ‘We can’t get greedy. We need enough to do Oregon. When we get that, we quit.’ He knew they were in a race. Get the Oregon money and get out before they got caught.”
It was a great plan, going well, and it really should have worked.
I hadn’t read anything by Don Winslow before, but I knew the narrator, award-winning actor Ed Harris, which convinced my to give it a try. At just over an hour, it’s a good, self-contained story that was no doubt enhanced by his narration.
This is an Audible Original short story and a pretty good one at that. Thanks to Goodreads friend ☮Karen for her review which brought it to my attention....more
5★ (audio short story) “...Son of Sam killings. That's what the whole city, the media, the department is focused on. It's August in NY, 102, with a tho5★ (audio short story) “...Son of Sam killings. That's what the whole city, the media, the department is focused on. It's August in NY, 102, with a thousand percent humidity. No one is going to bust balls over Batshit Bobby. Go through the motions. shrug. and put it on the shelf.”
Dietrich is a broken-down alcoholic who is still a detective only because the city is short-handed due to the Son of Sam manhunt. When the murder of the aforementioned local homeless man is reported, he and his partner are assigned to ‘investigate’ the case, that is, close it.
They’re sure they know the crime boss responsible for it, but almost nobody seems to know anything about it. When Dietrich finds a lead, and thinks they might actually be able to put this guy away, he gets a little more enthusiastic about his job.
Maybe he’ll ease off on the heavy drinking, but then another murder is reported.
“Dietrich stands over the body in the alley behind Domico’s Pizza Place. [The body] lies face down in a smear of dried blood. Someone put two in the back of his head.
‘Natural causes?’
‘You get two bullets in the head, naturally you're going to die’ ”
I don’t think I’ve read any Winslow before, but after hearing the first-rate narration by Ed Harris, I may have to try some more. Harris is terrific. This is an Audible Original, and only about an hour of listening. ...more
3.5★~4 “It being the second Tuesday of the month, Free Billy hits the Residents Inn on Carmel Mountain Road. The hotel serves free hot breakfast from 63.5★~4 “It being the second Tuesday of the month, Free Billy hits the Residents Inn on Carmel Mountain Road. The hotel serves free hot breakfast from 6 to 9am, and Billy arrives at 8:15 so as not to attract attention by being the first or last there.”
This is an amusing, even charming, short story by Don Winslow, produced as an Audible original story and performed by Ed Harris. It’s his voice and performance in the last couple of Winslow stories I listened to that convinced me to give this one a try.
It’s not a mystery, but instead a quirky account of a laid-back 30-something surfer dude in San Diego who’s worked out how to live free.
Short of dumpster-diving - I’m not going to take food from the homeless (or words to that effect) – the only money he needs is just enough to keep gas in the VW van he lives in, as long as he doesn’t go very far. He’s adept at parking for no longer than a night or two in one spot, so nobody complains. And is schedule for meals is something to aspire to.
But then he meets a lovely woman. What on earth is he to do?
It’s an entertaining way to spend an hour or so, and although I could see where it was going, the getting there was fun.
4★ “So Keawe took the bottle up and dashed it on the floor till he was weary; but it jumped on the floor like a child’s ball, and was not injured.
‘This4★ “So Keawe took the bottle up and dashed it on the floor till he was weary; but it jumped on the floor like a child’s ball, and was not injured.
‘This is a strange thing,’ said Keawe. ‘For by the touch of it, as well as by the look, the bottle should be of glass.’
‘Of glass it is,’ replied the man, sighing more heavily than ever; ‘but the glass of it was tempered in the flames of hell. An imp lives in it, and that is the shadow we behold there moving: or so I suppose. If any man buy this bottle the imp is at his command; all that he desires—love, fame, money, houses like this house, ay, or a city like this city—all are his at the word uttered.’ ”
The man goes on to say that Napoleon once owned it, sold it, and then died. Captain Cook likewise. Keawe can’t resist.
The author has what I find a humorous claim at the beginning:
“Note.—Any student of that very unliterary product, the English drama of the early part of the century, will here recognise the name and the root idea of a piece once rendered popular by the redoubtable O. Smith. The root idea is there and identical, and yet I hope I have made it a new thing. And the fact that the tale has been designed and written for a Polynesian audience may lend it some extraneous interest nearer home.—R. L. S.”
I don’t know who “O. Smith” was, nor do I know why Stevenson considered the English drama from the early part of the 1800s to be “unliterary”. I also don’t know why the decided to write his version based in Hawaii for a Polynesian audience, but there it is.
The style is stilted, making it sound like a folktale, in fact, like a translated folktale, which suits the story.
This is another example of be careful what you wish for, but I did like the way this one finished.
It is one of the stories from The Short Story Club, which you can join here. The moderator always provides a copy of the story if you don't have the current collection being discussed. You can join the conversation or just read what people think. https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
5★ “All anyone cares about are the Children, Libby thinks, grabbing a roll of packing tape. She seals the box until it shines. She is insignificant.”
We5★ “All anyone cares about are the Children, Libby thinks, grabbing a roll of packing tape. She seals the box until it shines. She is insignificant.”
Well, they’ll be sorry! If they don't care about Libby, those children will remain forever lost in the woods. Libby Lost and Found by Stephanie Booth is one of the debut books I think looks interesting in this big omnibus of previews.
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Libby Lost and Found
Libby is a popular children’s author the way J.K. Rowling was an outrageously popular children’s author during the Harry Potter craze. But readers were more than. Parents, siblings, grandparents friends, and teachers were all reading this series at the same time, often waiting impatiently for their turn.
Here, we have Libby Weeks.
The publisher’s blurb:
“Meet Libby Weeks, author of the mega-best-selling fantasy series, 'The Falling Children'. When the last manuscript is already months overdue to her publisher and rabid fans around the world are growing impatient, Libby is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. Already suffering from crippling anxiety, Libby’s symptoms quickly accelerate, and she has to admit she needs help finishing the latest book. Desperately, she turns to eleven-year-old superfan Peanut Bixton, who knows the books even better than Libby does. Tensions mount as Libby’s dementia deepens—until both Peanut and Libby swirl into an inevitable but bone-shocking conclusion.”
The excerpt is quite long and includes several pages of Libby’s current manuscript for the latest in the series of The Fallen Children. Her situation is exacerbated by the absence of any family or friends in her life to help. She lives completely through her stories and considers these “falling” children to be hers.
How can she leave them stranded, stuck in the forest? Fans are waiting – sending bribes to an anonymous address, urging the author to write faster. What will happen to her real-life dog if he has to go to a shelter when she deteriorates from this rapid Alzheimer’s condition?
I skimmed the Falling Children pages because it’s Libby’s own predicament that intrigues me. ==============
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Brightly Shining
Another that looks nice is Brightly Shining by Norwegian Ingvild H. Rishøi. It is not a debut, as she is already a published author, but this one has been translated. Her bio:
“Ingvild Rishøi was born and raised in Oslo. She has published several collections of stories in Norway, and her debut novel, originally titled Stargate, was published in Norway in 2021. She is one of Norway’s most revered literary voices. Caroline Waight is a literary translator working from Danish, German, and Norwegian. She has been a finalist for the PEN Translation Prize and the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation.”
I enjoyed it. Here’s the blurb:
“Beautifully told with humor and tenderness, a Norwegian Christmas tale of sisterhood and financial struggles, far-off dreams and tough reality, acclaimed by reviewers and beloved by readers across Europe, where it has been a major bestseller.”
Two young sister are being raised by their father who lives pretty much hand-to-mouth doing whatever jobs are around (that he wants to do). I enjoyed the tone of the older sister, who tells the story, and the warmth and imagination between the sisters.
The older girl spots a flyer for a Christmas tree seller, and she’s so keen that her father get the job, she takes all of the flyers so nobody else will see it. Father sounds dubious, declaring it a job for country bumpkins, but she convinces him it’s better than nothing, which is what he has now.
“ ‘Maybe we can have a Christmas tree this year, then,’ I said.
‘What?’ said Dad.
‘If you’re a Christmas tree seller,’ I said. ‘Then can we have a Christmas tree?’
‘Of course,’ said Dad, turning to face me. ‘My Robber’s Daughter. You reckon employees get a discount?’
‘Yeah, definitely,’ I said.
‘Or even a free tree, maybe?’ Dad said, and I nodded, because I did think so.
‘My Robber’s Daughter,’ Dad liked to call me. ‘You are my Robber’s Daughter and my Treasure Chest and my Rainy-Day Fund.’
He liked to call us Star and Moon and Macaroni and Caramel. He called us Ronja the Robber’s Daughter and Melissa Moonlight, he walked in through the door and said, ‘Where’s my Robber’s Daughter and my Moonlight?’
‘Here,’ we’d say. ‘We’re just sitting here eating Frosties.’ ”
I got the impression that ‘Frosties’ were probably their staple diet, and they could use a little luck and a bit of income. ==========================
“She doesn’t look like the sort of girl who just shot her brother.
The two cops in the adjoining room, arguing about what to do next, don’t stop to think about whether or not Nora is cold. Lodgepole, a three-hour drive from the nearest small city, is not equipped to handle a murder or a murderer, and not equipped for a thirteen-year-old criminal of any kind. The older cop is thinking of his fourteen-year-old daughter, sleeping at home under a polka-dotted comforter, and her upcoming ‘quinceañera’, when she thinks she’ll become a woman. The younger cop is thinking of how quickly the life drained out of the three holes in the dead boy, how quickly a human body pales without its blood. Both wring their hands, at times squeezing so hard their fingertips blanch. This kind of thing doesn’t happen in their town. It only happens on the news. It can’t be real.”
In addition to the excerpts are long lists of the books readers and the industry are looking forward to in the coming months. If you like being up to date with what’s on the bookselling radar, get a free copy of the Buzz Books when they come out and have a look at the lists.
5 ★ “While this was going through her mind she had done the easiest thing you could do in a cornfield—got lost.”
Jinny is being treated for cancer, has 5 ★ “While this was going through her mind she had done the easiest thing you could do in a cornfield—got lost.”
Jinny is being treated for cancer, has lost her hair mostly, and she’s stepped out of the very hot car in the very hot sun to get some fresh air in the shade while her husband is visiting friends in a trailer home. She didn’t care to go in to visit, but wanted to stay outside.
She reflects on her condition and her progress. I always like Munro’s descriptions of even minor characters.
“The oncologist had a priestly demeanor and in fact wore a black turtle-necked shirt under a white smock—an outfit that suggested he had just come from some ceremonial mixing and dosing. His skin was young and smooth—it looked like butterscotch. On the dome of his head there was just a faint black growth of hair, a delicate sprouting, very like the fuzz Jinny was sporting herself. Though hers was brownish-gray, like mouse fur. At first Jinny had wondered if he could possibly be a patient as well as a doctor. Then, whether he had adopted this style to make the patients more comfortable. More likely it was a transplant. Or just the way he liked to wear his hair.
You couldn’t ask him. He came from Syria or Jordan or some place where doctors kept their dignity.”
It’s no wonder she was a bit distracted when she wandered into the cornfield next to the trailer. But this isn’t about her getting lost or struggling with cancer. It takes quite a different turn when the teenaged son of the trailer family comes home from work and shows her the floating bridges. Beautiful.
It’s a very different story from what I thought it was going to be, but I mean that as a good thing. I’m glad Munro has a big back catalogue for me to dip into. If you’d like to read some of this Nobel prize winner’s work, you can find some stories free online at LitHub.
4.5~5★ “Years ago, before the trains stopped running on so many of the branch lines, a woman with a high, freckled forehead and a frizz of reddish hair4.5~5★ “Years ago, before the trains stopped running on so many of the branch lines, a woman with a high, freckled forehead and a frizz of reddish hair came into the railway station and inquired about shipping furniture.”
And there we have it. Munro has given us a setting, a character, and the beginning of what we think she has planned. The stationmaster becomes a bit exasperated with her questions and demands for assurance that the furniture will be properly looked after. He remarked to himself later that she reminded him of a nun he’d met.
“This nun had smiled once in a while to show that her religion was supposed to make people happy, but most of the time she looked out at her audience as if she believed that other people were mainly in the world for her to boss around.”
In fact, Johanna does have a streak of this, but she is a housekeeper, so doesn’t have the freedom to do what she likes. Her previous employer died and she’s now taking care of an older man and his teenaged niece, who is moving out. Johanna wishes she could have that kind of freedom.
The niece and her friend laugh at Johanna and get up to some terrible mischief, which leads to her going to the train station.
Johanna has a pretty jaundiced view of the world, and to be fair, it’s easy to see why, given her life so far. She inherited her late employer’s good, long coat, but now she needs a new dress.
“She opened the door and went inside.
Right ahead of her, a full-length mirror showed her in Mrs. Willets’s high-quality but shapeless long coat, with a few inches of lumpy bare legs above the ankle socks. They did that on purpose, of course.
They set the mirror there so you could get a proper notion of your deficiencies, right away, and then—they hoped—you would jump to the conclusion that you had to buy something to alter the picture. Such a transparent trick that it would have made her walk out, if she had not come in determined, knowing what she had to get.”
Munro puts us into people’s heads better than so many writers. Of course, with stories like this, you have to fill in a lot of the blanks yourself, but really, the whole thing is here.
Her books and stories are everywhere (it seems), and you can read many online. Go on – do it! There’s a reason Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013.
4★ “Ready, steady, GO!”
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“As soon as I wake up the day jumps into life. ‘Hurry up—breakfast is ready,’ Mom calls.
‘Finish that quickly. We’re 4★ “Ready, steady, GO!”
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“As soon as I wake up the day jumps into life. ‘Hurry up—breakfast is ready,’ Mom calls.
‘Finish that quickly. We’re late!’”
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“The city is already awake and singing. Horns blare, sirens wail, and no one ever stops. People rush by spinning, beeping, and running.”
They are running to school, almost at the gate, and Mom wishes time would slow down. Guess who doesn’t? School goes forever, it's boring tagging along after Mom at the veggie market, and how long do you have to wait for Mom to mix the cake and bake it?
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“Mom loves to measure time. But how long is ‘a bit’ or ‘a little while?’ And what about ‘just a moment?’”
If we could change time, we could fast forward and have another birthday party and jump from one holiday to the next!
And if the weather is stormy, we could speed it up to the next sunny day and then plant seeds that would grow instantly to trees taller than mountains. (Ok, kid. Now you’re stretching it a bit.)
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“But I can’t speed up time, so instead I just wait… wait… wait…”
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“But as I wait, I see things as I’ve never seen them before… A tiny snail leaving a trail and shrinking inside his shell, safe in his jewel-like home. A magpie sitting on her eggs to keep them warm. A beautiful flower shyly opening its petals one by one. All of these things are waiting too.”
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“In the forest, I stare up at the trees… I hear them whisper ‘We had to wait to grow mighty and strong. Just like you, we were once little before…’”
There are other little creatures tucked under the leaves at the foot of the trees, curled up, napping. They are looking forward to spring but are dreaming now, cosy and warm.
There is an enormous cavern that says “Everything around you took time to grow. Drop by drop…’”
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“If you wait long enough rocks can turn into sand. Trees can turn into forests.”
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“But long before there was a forest, a tree or even a sapling, every tree was just a tiny, little seed—waiting for the perfect moment to sprout up and say hello.
This very moment. A moment when I wish I could just pause time.”
This is a lovely book. Author/illustrator Marina Ruiz’s dedication says “For all the little saplings in my life, and those yet to sprout.”
I think any little saplings in our lives might enjoy recreating this walk and seeing what things are growing or hibernating, sprouting new leaves or shedding old ones. And there are always bugs and birds to find.
Thanks to #NetGalley and Frances Lincoln Children’s Books for a copy of #InTime for review....more
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