The Coffins of Little Hope by Timothy Schaffert

Described as quirky and charming, The Coffins of Little Hope takes place in small-town Nebraska.  Essie Myles is the local newspaper's octogenarian obituary writer.  Older people in town now contact her ahead of time to work on their obituaries.  She happens on the story of a local girl who was supposedly kidnapped by her mother's boyfriend.  But there is no evidence the girl ever existed.  Essie is also concerned about her grandson, the newspaper editor, and her great-granddaughter, who was abandoned by her mother.

Essie's voice sounds like my grandmother's - straightforward and unsentimental. She's hard to forget even after the book is done.

 NYTimes review. 

Memorial Day

We're watching The Longest Day about D-Day and WWII.  After that is Midway.  These are two of the best feel-good war movies ever made, but I would welcome a movie about another war, but there aren't that many.  Although there were many other war movies shown this weekend and I don't know what all of them were.  We've spent more time watching auto racing.

The Orange Curtain by John Shannon

John Shannon's fourth Jack Liffey novel.  Liffy, a former aerospace engineer, who looks for lost kids.  He is called into Orange County (CA) to search for a young Asian woman who has disappeared.  The girls parents, who are Vietnamese, are concerned.  Liffey encounters the local gangs, is taught the politics of the area by a remarkable woman, uncovers fraud in development of an airport as he follows Phoang Minh's tracks.

There is also Billy Gudger, a loser who lives with his mother, a palm reader, and believes he has a toadstone in his head.  Sometimes people laugh at him, and something happens.

This hard-boiled detective novel takes place in the L.A. metroplex.  If you like Elvis Cole in Robert Crais' books, you'll like Jack Liffey.

And now for something completely different . . .

Aunt Dimity & the Family Tree by Nancy Atherton

I usually think of Atherton's Aunt Dimity novels and M.C. Beaton's Hamish MacBeth series as very similar.  However, they are different in certain ways.

Lori Shepherd is assisting her father-in-law in setting up his new quarters, a local manor house that had been abandoned.  Since he is a widower, all of the local widows are very interested in him.  As Willis Sr. becomes embroiled in a scheme to cover a woman's holiday indiscretion, and a young couple are hired as live-in household staff, valuable objects are suddenly found rearranged in the house, and a valuable painting is stolen.  Lori, of course, begins sleuthing around, suspecting the unknown housekeeper & chauffeur.

Unlike Beaton's Hamish MacBeth, there is no real villain, and everything turns out happily in the end.  A gentle and entertaining read.

The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson

Not so different from John Hart, The Cold Dish is set in small town Wyoming - so small that the county sheriff's office has only 4 deputies.  When Cody Pritchard is found shot to death in the mountains, everyone thinks it must be a hunting accident.  However, Pritchard and three friends raped a Native American girl, were found guilty, but were given light sentences.  Just back from the juvenile detention center, the four boys are shunned in town.  Sheriff Walt Longmire finds his force stretched very thin over the large county as he tries to solve the murder before anyone else is killed.

Told from the Sheriff's point of view, the story unfolds slowly and takes some unexpected turns, but ultimately comes to a satisying ending.

Catching Up

John Hart.  King of Lies. 2006.  "Un-put-downable"  Work Pickens' father disappeared the same night that his mother died of a fall down the stairs.  Now 18 months later, his father's body has been found.  From the beginning, the local police target Work as the killer.

Told from Work's viewpoint, the reader knows that Work is not the killer, but you can't put it down as Work tries to keep himself out of prison, and protect his sister at the same time.  This is Hart's first novel.  I gave this book to someone else at the library before I had even had it checked in.

The Crossing Places (2009) is first of the Ruth Galloway mysteries by Elly Griffiths.  Ruth is a forensic anthropologist based at North Norfolk University in England.  She is called to examine some bones found in the saltmarsh near where she lives.  These bones are hundreds of years old, but she is then asked to help find a local girl who has been kidnapped.  This kidnapping is very similar to one of 10 years ago.  Ruth and DCI Harry Nelson try to solve the mystery of who has written letters to the police and who has kidnapped the two girls.  (see previous entry for The Janus Stone)

Death of a Chimney Sweep by M.C. Beaton

Thank heavens for Hamish Macbeth!  Reading M.C. Beaton's lovely and lively English - or rather, Scottish - cozy is a break for the mind.  Macbeth bumbles around several murders in the nearby village of Drim, ultimately running one villan into others, with dire results.  He also feels alternately attracted to - and relieved that he hasn't married - two women.  Take a break with Hamish!

FW: Fuzzy Nation: The Latest Power Ballad from John Scalzi

This looks interesting. I have never read H. Beam Piper, but sounds like I should have.

________________________________
From: Jeff VanderMeer
Posted on: Thursday, May 19, 2011 2:27 PM
Posted to: Omnivoracious
Conversation: Fuzzy Nation: The Latest Power Ballad from John Scalzi




I must admit that when I heard hugely popular SF author John Scalzia multiple Hugo Award finalist, was writing a novel entitled Fuzzy Nation; that riffed off of H. Beam Piper's iconic creation, I was a little, dare I say it...fuzzy...on the details. It'd been awhile since I'd read H. Beam Piper, but I did remember liking the stories.

So if you're thinking "Wait. What? Fuzzies ?", you may not be alone. Although Piper is known to core science fiction fans, his last Fuzzies book came out in 1964, the year of his death, with a posthumous collection published in 1984. Two additional Fuzzy books have been written, by Ardath Mayhar and William Turning, but Scalzi's is significant for being a reboot of the original franchise—taking as its source material the original book, Little Fuzzy.

The Fuzzy books were part of Piper's Terro-Human Future History series, which provides a detailed account of about six thousand years of human history, dating back to 1942, the year the first fissoon reactor was created (or, in Piper parlance, year 1 A.E., Atomic Era). In Piper's future, part of it now our past, a nuclear war lays waste to Earth in 1973. This catastrophic event leads to the creation of a Terran Federation and the invention of anti-gravity space technology. In exploring the stars, humankind eventually comes across the Fuzzies: first contact with an intelligent alien species.

What, exactly, are Fuzzies? Small furry bipeds on the planet Zarathustra that turn out to have their own civilization, and are hugely misunderstood by the humans who encounter them. As in the original novel, this reboot features prospector Jack Holloway. Holloway works as an independent contractor for the huge ZaraCorp mining corporation. The potential conflict between Holloway's maverick ways and ZaraCorp heats up because of the Fuzzies: the corporation's right to exploit the planet is based entirely on being able to prove to Earth authorities that no intelligent species live there.

Indie Choice Winners for 2010

From the Book Club Classics blog, here are the Indie Choice award winners.  From the list, I have read the following, with my rating:

Room by Emma Donoghue - A, can't put it down, can read in one sitting.
Thousand Rooms of Jacob de Zoet - B, very long historical novel.  Worth the effort.
A Visit from the Goon Squad - C, Pulitzer prize winner, but too experimental for me.
At Home by Bill Bryson - A, background of domestic practice from 18th & 19th centuries.  Well written, and interesting.
The Tiger by John Vaullant - B, non-fiction.  True story of the Siberian tiger in the forest and mining area of northwest Russia.  Very well written and a fascinating story.
Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukerjee. A, History of the treatment of cancer, with amazing insights and personal accounts which give it the meaning and depth it needs.  Really could not put down, read it straight thru in a weekend.

If you've read any others from this list, feel free to comment.

What I Read Last Weekend

Bossypants by Tina Fey

Like her television personality, Fey is sarcastic and very funny.  She takes shots at herself, her family, her co-workers, and the TV industry.


The Last Child by John Hart

Set in Rowan County, NC, Johnny Merriman cannot accept the death of his twin sister and disappearance of his father.  Trapped in an abusive relationship, Johnny & his mother are barely getting by.  When another girl disappears, the town is angry and frightened.  Johnny and his friend Jake continue to look for Johnny's sister, visiting homes, spying on registered sex offenders.

 Gritty and compelling, you will not guess the ending of this intricately plotted novel.  It reminds me of Child 44 by Tom Smith with a similar feel.

Still Alice by Lisa Genova

The first book by Genova, a neuroscientist.  Alice Howland is a professor of psychology, specializing in cognition, in her early 50s when she is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease.  Told entirely from Alice's point of view, you experience Alice's thoughts and emotions as her disease progresses.  Bring your kleenex.

I don't always read three books in a weekend (from Thursday night to Sunday afternoon).  I didn't have much on my agenda, and spent a lot of time reading.  We also saw THOR this weekend.  It is very well done by Kenneth Branagh and Stan Lee, even if you aren't familiar with the comic book series -- and it's 3-D.

The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths (2011)

Ruth Galloway is like a cross between Mo Hader's Flea Marley and Kathy Reichs' Temperance Brennan.  This is the second of Griffiths' mysteries with Forensic Anthropologist Ruth Galloway.   The first is The Crossing Places (2010). The next is to be The House at Sea's End.

The plot begins when the headless skeleton of a young child is found buried under the door sill of an old mansion that is being torn down.  The intricate plotting keeps you guessing until the end, while Ruth is put into danger, and two different men are determined to save her.  Ruth reminds me of Flea Marley (Mo Hader) in her outlook on life.  Of course, Marley is also English.  The book is set in and around Norwich, England.

Buried Prey by John Sandford

This is the latest in Sandford's Lucas Davenport Prey series.  Buried Prey takes us back to Davenport's first serial killer case, when he began as a detective.  The bodies of two girls who went missing in 1985 are found at a construction site.  Davenport recognizes them right away, and vows to find their killer this time . . .

LEFT neglected by Lisa Genova

Wow! Just finished this moving book.  Sarah Nickerson's life is turned upside down when she is in an auto accident and suffers a serious head injury.  She loses track of everything on her left and to her left.  All the usual post-trauma things happen - Mom comes to take care of kids, job is left behind, money becomes a problem - but Genova gives it to us through Sarah. We are seeing and feeling what she sees and feels.  I know, this is the definition of first person, but it seemed so real to me I was dreaming about Sarah's convalescence and recovery.

Now, I'll have to read her first book, Still Alice, about a woman with early-onset Alzheimers - although I'm not sure I want to know.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Henrietta Lacks was an African-American woman who died of an virulent, invasive cervical cancer when she was 31 years old.  She left a husband and five children, the last just a few months old.  During her treatment at Johns Hopkins, a charity hospital in Baltimore, a biopsy was taken of her cervix.  These cells were cultured, became the basis of the HeLa line of cells and were used worldwide for scientific research.  Neither Henrietta nor her family knew anything about them.

Skloot spent 10 years working on this book.  She worked with the Lacks family, especially Henrietta's daughter Deborah, to tell their story in addition to the scientific story.  A well-written, compelling story hard to put down once started. (2010)

Skloot established the Henrietta Lacks Foundation to provide financial assistance to individuals who had been unwitting subjects of experimental research.