I’m rereading books from my long ago compiled favorite books list to see if they should make my Top 100. This is a slow moving project, but one that this list maker enjoys. So, I first read this book when it came out in the 1990s and I remember being blown away by how good it was. I saw the movie they made with Billy Bob Thornton and was less than impressed, but I’m going to give that another try while the book is fresh.
Two brothers and one of their best friends happen upon a plane crash with a dead pilot and $4.4 million inside. They agree to a simple plan. One of them will take the money home and keep it for six months and if no one comes forward claiming it then they’ll divide up the money and go their separate ways. Obviously if that had happened there would be no book. What did happen was one bad decision after another that left the narrator, one of the brothers, hurtling toward the point of no return. He had a wife with a baby on the way and while he threatened to burn the money to keep the other two in check, it became obvious to everyone that he would never do that.
“Greed is what’ll get us caught,’ she said.
What’s so great about this book is that the moral questions are timeless. There is a depth to these characters because they are not criminal masterminds, they are just normalish people in small town Ohio. And parts will make you uncomfortable. Quite a few parts probably. As I reread this, I realized that three of the most disturbing parts didn’t even register in my memory, although I have no idea how I could have forgotten them.
The money, by giving us a chance to dream, had also allowed us to begin despising our present lives.
Will their plan work? It’s simple after all. As a reader you need to know what happens to the money and Smith escalates, shocks, and has you questioning what you would do at every turn. I don’t think that many thrillers will make it on my Top 100 list, but this one hits differently
“What we’ve done is horrible,” Sarah said. “But that doesn’t mean we’re evil, and it doesn’t mean we weren’t right to do it. We had to save ourselves.”
I finally finished my second book for this challenge. I really need to pick up the pace. Since I sort book donations at the library and frequent bookstores I decided to start this challenge with countries that cross my path organically, we’ll see how far that gets me. The fiction book showed up in my quarterly TBR box and the memoir came through the library donations.
A memoir by Kyoto Mori telling of her trip back to Japan after living in the US since college. This took me a while to finish. I had a hard time getting into it, but the last half was good. The first half was a lot of looking back at her childhood in Japan before her mother committed suicide and her father remarried. The second half interspersed those memories with what was happening on her trip more smoothly and I found myself picking up the pace as I finished.
I liked getting to know the traditions and stories. Her father’s family was in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped. Her grandparent’s lived in the country in poverty. Even the way her family interacts with her and each other was an interesting observation.
Her relationship with her father was a recurring theme and I totally got it. Reading some of the other reviews that was a complaint by many, but I thought it made sense. If your father was the big reason that you left, going back would color all of your interactions with family.
The book is a collection of stories with a central location, the Nakagyo Kokoro Clinic for the Soul in Kyoto. The clinic can only be found when a person is struggling with life and the doctor only ever prescribes one thing, a cat!
Such a charming story with each chapter the name of the prescribed cat with a picture. Cat lovers will like the sweetness of a cat being able to cure all ills. A fun magical fiction book for Japan.
***
That being said here are four books I’ve read and liked in the last few years that were set in Japan.
My goal is to read a fiction and nonfiction book set in and written by someone who was born in that country. As recommendations have trickled in I realized that it’s the ‘born in that country’ part that is going to make some books not work. I’m excluding the immigrant experience. It wasn’t my intent, I just didn’t really think it through in those terms. I’m not going to change the rules at this point. Maybe I’ll do a spin off challenge for that.
I read 12 books on January, a little bit of everything. Five nonfiction is a pretty good start to the year.
Five Star Books
On Freedom by Timothy Snyder. Nonfiction. This is such an important read. “In dehumanizing others, we make ourselves less free.”
These are not the most profound thoughts of On Freedom, but they are the most relevant to today. If you have an interest in the fascism we are seeing today read On Tyranny. If you want a more nuanced discussion about how free we really are as a nation, read his latest On Freedom.
I can’t recommend both of these books enough. On Tyranny will get you started. At just over 100 pages it packs a punch with little time commitment. I loved the graphic novel adaptation. On Freedom is longer and takes more time to absorb, but is so worth it. I almost gave up on On Freedom because it felt a little too textbooky, but once it got past that it was gold.
The Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick. Fiction. This was my book blub read this month and we all really liked it. Four women form a book group to read The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, thus giving themselves the name the Bettys. This is the early 1960s so women’s role were different and although each of them were married, they each were constructed by things out of their control. Can a woman ‘have it all’?
It focused on the bonds between the women, and ALL women. It explored what these friendships mean through these book group meetings with the fun cocktails, even if sometimes the book didn’t get read by everyone. Hey, it happens! There’s plenty of drama to keep you turning the pages making this a fast, satisfying read.
I loved that it was a good mix of women I did and don’t know. And a range of ages too. The essays were written by different people so there was a mix of writing styles too, some choosing a more biographical approach and other leaning into their personal connection with person. Let’s lift each other up. Our country needs it now more than ever.
4 1/2 Stars
The Art and Life of Hilma af Klint by Ylva Hillstrom and Karin Eklund. Nonfiction. A 64 page biography about someone who I didn’t really know anything about. And now I know about her and have seen her art, but I also know what was going on in the world in the late 1800s/early 1900s with spiritualism, homemade ouiji boards, thoughts on communicating with spirits, theosophy, alchemy…. It was so much more than I thought it would be.
Hilma af Klint really thought that the spirits were showing her the secrets of the universe. So she painted it. But no one wanted to see them until decades after her death. Now they hang in the most prestigious museums in the world.
4 Stars
The Onion Came First by Elinor Wilder. Paranormal romance. STEM Meets Supernatural is right on the cover. Annelie is a neurodivergent numbers gal from Wall Street. Reed is an alpha wolf shifter. They both become neighbors in the Claw Ridge Mountains. I loved how Annelie found a place and people who felt like home. Could you love a wolf? One that did math with rocks that it brought to your porch? Somehow Reed made that work🔥
I love this book and it’s not just because my friend wrote it, her first novel. Not only did it feel like a love story between Reed and Annelie, it also felt like a love story to and for neurodivergents and the people who love them.
The Soulmate Equation by Christina Lauren. Romance. The duo Christina Lauren has become a favorite of mine in the last few years. I’m a little later to the party so there’s a huge backlist, yay for me!
In the Soulmate Equation two people who barely tolerate each other are matched up as the perfect couple based on their DNA. She’s a single mother barely making ends meet and he is the creator of the matchmaking science. I thought this one was funny and sweet, a perfect escape from the news.
Sandwich by Catherine Newman. Fiction. I finally got around to the book most of bookish friends of a certain age have already read. It’s definitely for the woman who can understand what hormones, or lack thereof, can do to person and for the men who love them! You’ll feel seen even if Rocky is a bit much.
I like people who can be a bit much. I usually find them fascinating and Rocky was that for sure. The book takes place over a weeklong vacation with her husband, two grown kids, one girlfriend, and her two elderly parents. It’s a vacation they always take and the familiarity brings memories, both bittersweet and painful. I can see not liking this one if Rocky is too loud, too liberal, or too narcissistic for you. But for me, I found an underlying truth to this stage of life and Rocky made me feel a little less like a hot mess myself.
The Kiss Countdown by Etta Easton. Romance. This was a sweet debut with likable characters. The main characters agree to pretend to be dating even if the pretend doesn’t seem so fake.
Vincent is prepping to fly to the moon, yes, a real astronaut, and Amerie is trying to start her own business. Was it the most believable story? No.the engagement and her moving in with him only days after meeting were both pretty crazy. BUT I was still invested and enjoyed their journey.
The Midnight Lock by Jeffery Deaver. Lincoln Rhyme series #15. Thriller. No lock is going to stop the Locksmith 🔓. He likes to break into women’s apartments and watch them while they sleep, leaving clues all over that he’d been there. Lincoln Rhyme, Amelia Sacks and crew are back and ready to catch the bad guys! I love the team, the science, the twists and turns, NYC. It all works! It’s best to start at the beginning with The Bone Collector.
3 1/2 Stars
The Dream of Water by Kyoka Mori. Memoir. This took me a while to finish. I had a hard time getting into it, but the last half was good. The first half was a lot of looking back at her childhood in Japan before her mother committed suicide and her father remarried. The second half interspersed those memories with what was happening on her trip more smoothly and I found myself picking up the pace as I finished.
I liked getting to know the traditions and stories. Her father’s family was in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped. Her grandparent’s lived in the country in poverty. Even the way her family interacts with her and each other was an interesting observation.
Her relationship with her father was a recurring theme and I totally got it. Reading some of the other reviews that was a complaint by many, but I thought it made sense. If your father was the big reason that you left, going back would color all of your interactions with family.
I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf by Grant Snider. Comics. I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf by Grant Snider is a perfect gift for that capacious reader or writer in your life. It’s for readers, writers, poets, and those who want to understand them better. So, do YOU judge a person’ bookshelf? I judge only if they don’t have one!
Before I add books to my Top 100 I do a reread, or in this case a re-listen last year, to make sure they still belong on the list. As I read the review I originally posted in 2015 I still agree with everything I said. but the most compelling part is what I didn’t say. I didn’t spoil Hanna’s big secret. But Hanna’s big secret is the thing that turns the story into something worth reading, contemplating, and discussing. I think the emphasis on the relationship between a 15 year old boy and a 30 year old woman is obviously worth debating, but it isn’t what makes this story stick.
So much story in 200 pages. It’s translated from German so it may not feel the most poetic, but it packs a punch. I’m drawn to books that can say much with few words. I recommend the audio book and the movie.
Unabridged audio read by Campbell Scott. 4 hours, 30 minutes
Hailed for its coiled eroticism and the moral claims it makes upon the reader, this mesmerizing novel is a story of love and secrets, horror and compassion, unfolding against the haunted landscape of postwar Germany. When he falls ill on his way home from school, fifteen-year-old Michael Berg is rescued by Hanna, a woman twice his age. In time she becomes his lover–then she inexplicably disappears. When Michael next sees her, he is a young law student, and she is on trial for a hideous crime. As he watches her refuse to defend her innocence, Michael gradually realizes that Hanna may be guarding a secret she considers more shameful than murder.
I watched the movie made from this book in 2009 when it came out because I love Kate Winslet and I ended up being very moved by it. And it was with those images in my mind that I listened to the book expertly narrated by Campbell Scott. He became the young and then the adult Michael for me. Between the movie and Campbell’s narration there was a warmth and richness to this story that I don’t know if I would have found in reading the book alone. At just over 200 pages it tackled a lot and much of it had to be personally considered by the reader. What I’m saying is that I can vouch for the audio, but I don’t know it I would have loved it as much if I had read the book alone.
The first part is the love? story between the 15 year old Michael and the 30 something old Hanna. I didn’t ever truly figure out the why of it on her end, but it’s an easier sell for a 15-year-old boy to be captivated by a woman who teaches him all about sex . I found it realistic especially since as he started to spend more time with his peers he began to question Hanna’s place among them.
Flash forward a few years and Michael is at university studying law and his class is studying a trial of women accused of Nazi crimes and he sees Hanna for the first time since he was 15. She was a guard for one of the concentration camps and now must face her day in court. Michael is riveted and doesn’t miss a day.
I loved this for how much it manages to pack into such a short book. There was the strange physical relationship between the two, but then it moved into things more thought-provoking, horrifying and sad. It’s a great book for discussion and those who are interested in post-war Germany. Not a happy book, but one that left me satisfied and enriched.
A slow reading month with only eight books, but given the craziness of the month it’s a win! October had two birthdays (mine and Gage’s), one anniversary (our 27th wedding anniversary), and a wedding trip/vacay to Colorado where the three of us and my mom watched my cousin’s daughter (and one of my flower girls) get married. Oh, and we also added a 2 pound furball to the house, making this a 3 cat house, and one of the other cats, Razzi, had to have surgery. I’m honestly looking forward to a more low key November!
My friend wrote a book! This novella is a set up for the series and I’m so proud of her! Not a Free Ion is a novella that sets up the Claw Ridge Mountains community that is home to wolf shifter packs. It’s a love story with a shifter who lost his sense of smell and a neurodivergent woman who has always loved him. They finally get there second chance when the stakes are high.
I’m not usually into wolf shifters or novellas BUT this was a fun introduction to the first book, where I’ve had the privilege to read a few early chapters. If you do like shifter stories, go ahead and show some love to my friend by reading this one. The opening rescue chapters will have you hooked from page one.
This was my favorite book of the month by one of my favorite authors. A widowed matriarch who is dying, a granddaughter once cast away now invited back with the promise of a sizeable inheritance for her daughter, and an absent son/father who still has a role in the story.
I loved watching Emma come into her own as she went back to the place she was raised and where her one and only love still lived with his new family. I liked hearing Genevieve’s voice as she told her story and the purified air way she had at looking at the world. I also loved that the mystery of the missing, presumed dead son was just a small part of the story and that when the truth finally became known it was almost a surprise I wasn’t sure was going to happen.
I really liked this age gap, social disparity romance. I loved watching kind hearted, somewhat clueless Alexis of a medicine dynasty fall in love with Daniel and the small town he lived in. I also fell in love with Daniel, the man of many hats, and the close-knit small town that needed and embraced Alexis.
This did address abuse both emotional and physical, which I appreciated. Too many girls/women can’t see the emotional abuse after they’ve accepted it as fact. Any story that can save girls from those relationships is one that should be shared widely.
Simons is a Charleston blue blood who always feels out of place. When she starts questioning her engagement to the perfect man according to her family she must make a choice.
I loved the Charleston setting and all of the ins and outs of the elites that live there. The story was part family ties and part dating horror stories and it moved along at a good pace. The grandma’s story of being brave was a nice through line.
The book is a collection of stories with a central location, the Nakagyo Kokoro Clinic for the Soul in Kyoto. The clinic can only be found when a person is struggling with life and the doctor only ever prescribes one thing, a cat!
Such a charming story with each chapter the name of the prescribed cat with a picture. Cat lovers will like the sweetness of a cat being able to cure all ills.
Zany scenes told with wit and humor are a Katherine Center gift. Her latest, the Lover Haters, has that along with a perfect specimen of a man and a woman dealing with body issues. Oh, and a large Great Dane who is involved in much of the story.
This was fun and I liked it. Not my favorite of hers, I like my men with at least as many flaws as I have, but still good.
Gage and I read the second Percy Jackson together. It’s slow going with school starting, but we did it! And he’s willing to continue so that’s the best thing
I still like how these books make mythology fun and are educating as well as entertaining. I’m looking forward to the next one just as much as he is!
So, this is my first Danielle Steel book in decades and, wow, it was not what I was expecting! I am not a big believer in trigger warnings and am sure I would have ignored them if there’d been any, but this book was just one big trigger for me.
My trigger warnings for you includes sick children and lots of child ER visits. I found no joy in this book from beginning to end, so if you like those types of books, have at it 😆
I don’t often post about books I don’t really like, but given how much it bothered me I thought I’d warn you.
I’ve finished my first country and while it took a little longer than I anticipated I feel like I’m off to a great start. My nonfiction book was written by an Arab born and raised in Israel and the novel’s main storyline was the prejudice against migrants with many chapters coming from her perspective. So, I liked that both books helped me see Israel from the eyes of someone not in the majority.
My goal is to read a fiction and nonfiction book set in and written by someone who was born in that country. As recommendations have trickled in I realized that it’s the ‘born in that country’ part that is going to make some books not work. I’m excluding the immigrant experience. It wasn’t my intent, I just didn’t really think it through in those terms. I’m not going to change the rules at this point. Maybe I’ll do a spin off challenge for that.
That being said here are three books I’ve read and liked in the last few years that were set in Israel, but not written by someone born there.
Too Far From Home by Naomi Shmuel – a children’s book about a girl who was born in Israel to two immigrant parents. A good book about prejudice and belonging. 4 stars
Dawn by Elie Wiesel – This is the second in the Night trilogy and a profound look at the evil of war. 5 stars
How I found, chose this book-It chose me. I ran across this book while I was cleaning up our spring book sale and the cover spoke to me.
I finally finished my fiction read from Israel and it was a gritty, moral look at the prejudice one can have against refugees in any country. It’s dense and slow moving, but it does pack a punch.
Dr. Etian Green hits a black migrant on his drive home from a long shift at an Israeli hospital. Even a doctor couldn’t save the man and so begins the moral crisis for this husband, father, and healer. When he is blackmailed by the man’s widow Etian’s whole life begins to spiral.
It felt like a quiet book because there wasn’t a lot of dialogue. What I got instead was a front row seat to the inner minds of Etian, his wife, and the beautiful widow. Fascinating. Etian goes from dislike of the refugees to understanding their plight in his country.
The writing was beautiful. The story was thoughtful and somewhat suspenseful. But I had zero problem putting this down until about 3/4 of the way through, when it picked up and I stayed up late to finish it. So, it’s a good book, but not one you’ll breeze through. And it’s the better for it.
And that cover? Gorgeous.
A few examples of the writing…
“However much he wanted to feel compassion for them, he couldn’t help recoiling from them. Not only from their smell and bodily fluids but also from their faces-alien, staring, filled with undying gratitude. He didn’t speak their language, and they didn’t speak his, so they communicated with waving hands and facial expressions.” p. 54
“A thin man reached out for a handshake, and Eitan shook his head, thinking that somewhere along the way, his empathy button had stopped functioning. He should have felt something. Kindness. Compassion. The responsibility of one human being for another. Not only toward this man standing here and shaking his hand emotionally while he himself was only waiting for him to stop. He hadn’t felt anything for the man on the ground with his head split open either. Or perhaps he had felt something but not the right something. Not what he should have felt.” p.75
“But Eitan knew he had never been more awake. And, appalled, he realized that at that moment, at that specific moment, he was prepared to set the whole house on fire.” p.208
“It would be his fault. Because he hadn’t taken good enough care of his family, and families are fragile things.” p.227
For the first time in 2 1/2 years, Gage’s mouth is metal free! He was very excited until went back 3 days later to pick up his retainer and they told him he had to wear it 22 hours a day for the first week, lol. He’s almost to freedom!
Jason and I went to an Octoberfest last night and had fun even if neither of us drinks beer. We’re doing alphabet dating and I had F. So we went to a Festival in Cuyahoga Falls on Front Street and the first thing we did was hit up the ice cream parlor for a Flight of ice cream. The weather was perfect, the band was good, the Italian restaurant was great, and we even came home with some art.
This week the Friends of the Solon Library had our annual meeting and we brought in an animal shelter and their resident cartoonist. It was a fun night learning about how she’s made a living with her art, she pens the syndicated Flo & Co, and also lends her talent to Rescue Village. Of course I bought the book that benefits the shelter.
What I Finished This Week
Before I Do by Sophie Cousens was another lovely British romance by Cousens. What would happen if there were some bad omens around your wedding weekend, with the final one being the man who you thought of as your soul mate showing up? The story was told by jumping around different times of Audrey’s life where we get to know her and men in her life better. This had all of the things I like about her books, even if it wasn’t a favorite.
I’ve read 93 books this year.
What I’m currently reading
Waking Lionsby Ayelet Gundar-Goshen is my fiction pick for Israel and I really like it, but it’s not something I’m racing through. An Isreali doctor hits man with his car and watches him die. The wife of the man tracks him down a has a proposal for her to keep quiet about it. I am really hoping to finish this today.
What We Watched
We made Gage watch two 80s movies this week and he complained. Until he watched them. First watched War Games with Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy. Thumbs up from all. Then we watched Coming to America with Eddie Murphy and I hadn’t realized it was rated R until we saw 2 naked ladies in the first five minutes. I was not happy (this was Jason’s pick), but the rest was just swearing, which Gage assures me is no different than what he hears at school. Insert any unhappy emoji here. We all laughed a lot so I guess that’s good.
Plans for the weekend
It’s book sale week! So, today I’ll be checking my lists and getting everything organized. I should really go to the library, BUT I will be there pretty much all day every day for the next week starting tomorrow and a few hours every morning the week after that, so I’m trying to rest up.
On September 11 I participated in one of the Day of Service events. The Cleveland State University arena was packed with volunteers who packed meals to be distributed by the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. I was part of the clean up crew and by the time I got there at 11am they had already packed 290,000 meals! It was amazingly organized and I hope to participate again.
I also had tickets to see The Notebook musical at Playhouse Square that night at 7:30, so I decided to spend the time in between just exploring downtown Cleveland. I found an outdoor music performance while I ate and went to the library to charge my phone. I read in a church park and did some list making. I mostly walked. I met Jason for drinks and dinner before the show. It was a great day.
I listened to Lethal Prey by John Sandford This is #35 in the Lucas Davenport series (I’ve read them all) and #19 of the Virgil Flowers series (I’ve not read all of these). I like both of these detectives separately, but together they are perfection if you like police/FBI procedurals. The bad guy in this one was a cold, cold woman who made me look around and wonder what seemingly normal people I know are just offing people who get in their way.
I also listened to Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas. This is the first in the Throne of Glass series and I will probably continue with the series. It’s about an assassin forced to compete in a series of tests against the worst of the worst where there will be only one winner and many will die. She’s the only female, and a teen at that. This fantasy series is addicting like the author’s A Court of Thorns and Roses series, but so far there’s been no hot fairy sex. And I okay with that!
What I’m currently reading
Waking Lionsby Ayelet Gundar-Goshen is my fiction pick for Israel and I really like it, but it’s not something I’m racing through. An Isreali doctor hits man with his car and watches him die. The wife of the man tracks him down a has a proposal for her to keep quiet about it.
I’ve read 92 books this year so far.
What we watched
For family movie night we watched I Am Legend. I’d seen this post apocalyptic movie before but had blocked out most of it. There were tears, hiding behind pillows and stress. That was all from me. My two guys loved it.
What I made
A cousin sent me a recipe for Stuffed Pepper Soup and I made it for the first time. I loved it and it was so easy to make. Don’t know what’s taken me so long.
Plans for the weekend
I’ve got an online reading club meet up at 1:30 and may have to go in to the library to facilitate a donation, but other that that it’s laundry! What about you?
It’s been a hot minute since I’ve done one of these. But as fall weather rolls in, so does my desire to jump back on here and gab about books, movies, and maybe Gage too. I miss it.
Challenge: This week I started a new challenge I’m calling Reading the World. The post is here and I’m looking for recommendations for books from other countries. Here are recommendations I need today…Fiction books written by and set in Pakistan, Poland, Sierra Leone, Vietnam. And nonfiction books by people from and set in the countries of Afghanistan, Canada, Columbia, Japan, South Korea, Nigeria, Trinidad&Tobago, and Egypt.
I started the challenge with Israel because I had both a nonfiction and fiction book. When I finish I’ll move on to Sweden because I have both books ready to go.
Finished this week: Someone to Watch Over Me by Lisa Kleypas. I love her historical romances, but this first of the Bow Street Runners series was not a favorite. I love her so much that I’ll still pick up the second one.
I’m listening to Lethal Prey by John Sandford, the 35th book in the Lucas Davenport series. This one also has Virgil Flowers and I love them together. The murderer in this one is pretty cold. Makes me look around at some normal looking people with suspicion.
Movies: Jason and I watch Sinners this week. What a weird and compelling movie. I both loved the original storytelling and didn’t care for the twist, lol. And for family movie night we watched Escape Room on Netflix. We like escape rooms, just not ones this deadly. We all liked the movie though.
TV: We’re working our way through The Middle. I think we’re on season 5 and we all love it, Gage especially. Jason and I watched the first episode of the Great Bristish Bake Off. We’re in a pool that Jason won last season so he’s under some pressure to do well this time too.
Puzzles: Today I’m hosting a puzzle swap at my house. I’ve been having an informal Little Free Puzzle Library on my porch since January and needed to clean out the 70+ puzzles that have been acquired. This is the 1000piece+ table.
This weekend: So far it’s been fairly quiet. I see lots of laundry in my future today and most likely a family game. What about you?
Stacy's Books 