Last week I finished:
I'm a huge fan of the George Bushes. And I'd pretty much like to be Laura Bush, so I'm glad to have finally gotten around to George and Laura by Christopher Andersen, who has written oodles of biographies of ultra-famous folks. Last month I read (listened to) his The Good Son, and I loved it, so I moved this book up to the top of my list. If you know much about the first couple, you know he was a perpetual frat boy, she's a quiet school librarian, and after suffering infertility and looking into adoption, they had twin girls, Jenna and Barbara (named for their grandmothers). You'll know about the loss of his little sister when he was a young boy, Laura's car accident that took the life of a teenage friend, his alcoholism, and the way they held this country together after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. This book explores all that, fleshes them out a bit more, and takes you up through the events of 9/11. Since the book was published in 2002, it doesn't deal a whole lot with President Bush's two terms. It's not really a political book, just a biography of each and of the couple. While it wasn't stellar, it wasn't boring, either. I enjoyed it, and I'm glad I finally got around to reading it. My rating: 4 stars.
This week I finished the third book in the Maisie Dobbs series, which I started in January. I read the first two, and I listened to the third. I'm not sure which I prefer. Since I have these in paperback, and the print is so tiny, I might prefer the audio, but there was something about the print books that made me feel immersed in the story in a way the audio didn't. Pardonable Lies may be my favorite of the three books, though I really did like them all. In this installment, set in the early 1930s, detective and psychologist Maisie Dobbs is asked to prove to a father that his son died in the war (World War I), to find what happened to a friend's brother in the war, and to prove a young girl didn't murder her stepfather. The cases were perhaps more interesting to me than the ones in book two, but with each book I like Maisie Dobbs and the series even more. I find it difficult to think of them as separate books, the series flows so well. They are so well written and serious, and though they're not flashy, they are just fantastic. I recommend them highly. My rating: 4 stars.
I'm always searching Amazon for new books of poetry by poets I know but don't know well. When I saw that Tony Hoagland had a new collection coming out, I was very excited to add it to my TBR list. Titled Priest Turned Therapist Treats Fear of God (great title, no?), the collection is full of good poems. I marked several to return to, and while I checked this out from the library, I think I might want my own copy. I did mention earlier that I was surprised to come upon the "c-word" which I sort of have a visceral reaction to, but other than that, it wasn't objectionable (well, there was a dig at Fox News Channel, but that's to be expected from all American poets these days, so predictable). The poetry is maybe "intermediate," not infinitely approachable, but not too pedantic, either. I'd recommend this one to anyone wanting to know what's being written by established poets these days. My rating: 4 stars.
Next up:
After reading Celeste Ng's Little First Everywhere earlier this year and loving it, I have been excited to read her first novel, Everything I Never Told You.
My evening reads:
I continue with Carry On, Warrior (very therapeutic), Rose Kennedy's Family Album, and I began A Dog Runs through It, a collection of Linda Pastan's dog poems.
My Kindle read:
I abandoned the biography of Billy Graham. I guess I'd say it's preaching to a different choir, so I moved on. I finally settled on The Two-Family House which was on sale for Kindle this week. It's a keeper. I'm enjoying it very much.
Last week I abandoned:
I got maybe one track into The Age of Innocence on CD before deciding my reading list is too long to listen to this. Maybe I'll try it another time when I have more patience with slow, wordy books.
My audiobook:
I had to wander the library a bit to find a new audiobook that would fit the weird reading mood I'm in, and I settled on The Wildling Sisters. It's atmospheric, mysterious, moody. Very good so far.
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