What I'm reading this week (8/5/19)

Last week I finished:

I've read six or eight Agatha Christie mysteries in the past few years, and while I've enjoyed each one, I do like some more than others. I didn't think I was a Miss Marple fan until At Bertram's Hotel, though. This is one of my very favorites. It felt so different from the other books where a body is discovered in the early pages. This book was nearly over before there was a body at all. This mystery takes place in Bertram's Hotel in London. Miss Marple was gifted with a weeklong stay at the hotel where she had stayed as a little girl--and which hadn't changed much at all in the decades since. It is almost too good to be true, attracting an old-fashioned, dignified clientele that is treated the way they would have been in bygone years. But something doesn't feel quite right to Miss Marple, and when an absentminded clergyman goes missing, things certainly don't seem all they appear to be. I really liked this one. Perhaps I tend to like mysteries that don't involve murders more than murder mysteries, but the book also owes its charm to the setting. I was reading it while enjoying a few days in our favorite Minneapolis hotel, which was a lucky coincidence. I think I'll read a few more from the Miss Marple series soon. Perhaps I'll find more treasures. My rating: 4 stars.  

I'd originally planned to read Peter Heller's Celine, but I just could not get into it. I did, however, get far enough to realize it might make a good audio option for me instead. And the audio was very good. Celine is a mature amateur detective who specializes in reuniting families. She is asked to find a woman's father who went missing while on a photographic assignment in the northwest. Celine and his husband go on the trail looking for clues as to the man's whereabouts, as Celine (and the man's daughter) does not believe he was eaten by a bear as the official reports indicate. The writing here was excellent. The character of Celine is very well-imagined. And the action of the case is interesting. And yet, as good as I thought it was, I couldn't bring myself to love it. I tend to dislike strong, capable female characters, women with no fear or intellectual deficit. They all feel like an author trying too hard. I know I'm in the minority here, and I was impressed by Celine's emotional vulnerability, but I just didn't love her the way I'm sure other women will. It was definitely a case of "it's me, not you." It's a great book, well executed, with a satisfying ending, and better in many ways than his newer The River, but there was something that held me back from loving it. My rating: 3.5 stars.

I try to keep up a bit with current middle-grade award winners when they appeal to me, so I decided to listen to Kelly Yang's Front Desk. It won the 2018 Asian / Pacific American Award for Children's Literature. Lately, I feel that too many books for children are dealing with social justice issues. I don't really care for this sort of thing in adult fiction and nonfiction, and it often reads as indoctrination to a cause in children's literature. This book is for tweens, and while this is the age for encouraging empathy, anything beyond that looks and feels like a social agenda being pushed by adults. This book tips the scales a bit in that respect. In it, young Chinese immigrant Mia Tang (age nine, if I remember correctly) and her parents take a job running a motel for an unscrupulous man. While the parents tend to the rooms and laundry, Mia runs the front desk. She has many run-ins in both the motel and at school of prejudice, and she often takes matters into her own hands to make things right--to which there are seldom any negative consequences. I enjoyed the story, but I was distressed at how often Mia lies, fibs, and bends the rules to fit her social agenda. What a horrible example for little kids. So I had some medium-to-big-sized qualms about this one, but the overall message was to look out for one another, and that's something we can all get behind. My rating: 3 stars.

This week I'm reading:

This is an odd story, but it's definitely been fun to be along for the ride.

My evening reads:

 

I am loving all of my nightly reads. Burnt Toast is a re-read, and I love this book. The others are all very enjoyable, and my evening reading hour goes much too quickly these days.

My current audiobook:

 

This is a re-read, and so far it's as good as I remember. It's the story of a blind cat who is sure to capture your heart.