Kate’s 2¢: “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” by R. A. Dick

“The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” by R. A. Dick

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

   This was one of seven books on a cartridge sent to me by NLS.

   Elizabeth Jasicki did a wonderful job narrating this delightful story for us. Thank you.

   I enjoyed this 1945 story of Mrs. Muir’s life, perseverance, and dedication to her ideals.  Apparently, the tv/movie did not follow the book, so I recommend reading the original book.  

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Josephine Aimee Campbell Rowley Leslie (8 June 1898 – 28 April 1979) was an Irish writer, usually under the name R. A. Dick, taking the initials from her sea captain father.

Biography[edit]

Josephine A. C. Rowley was born in Wexford, Ireland, the daughter of Robert Abercromby Dick Rowley and Josephine Rosling Rowley. Her father died the same year she was born.[1] Her widowed mother, who was born in Surrey, raised her and her older brother, Edward, in England, specifically in Sunninghill,[2] Ealing[3][4] and Eastbourne.[5] She attended Princess Helena College.[6]

In 1927, Rowley married civil servant Melville Eric Leslie.[7][8] They had a son and a daughter. Melville Leslie was a colonial administrator in Nyasaland (Malawi) from the 1920s until 1947.[9] Josephine Leslie died in 1979, at the age of 80.

Literary career[edit]

Leslie most famously wrote the 1945 novel The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, which was made into a 1947 film and adapted for a 1960s TV series.[10] She also wrote the novels Unpainted Portrait (1954), Duet for Two Hands (1960), and The Devil and Mrs. Devine (1975)[11] and a play, Witch Errant (1954).[12]

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

The ghost and Mrs. Muir DB127891

Author: Dick, R. A.

Reading Time: 5 hours, 40 minutes

Production: National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled, Library of Congress

Read by: Jasicki, Elizabeth

Subjects: Occult and Horror Fiction, Humor and Humorous Fiction, Mystery and Detective Stories

“Burdened by debt after her husband’s death, Lucy Muir insists on moving into the very cheap Gull Cottage in the quaint seaside village of Whitecliff, despite multiple warnings that the house is haunted. Upon discovering the rumors to be true, the young widow ends up forming a special companionship with the ghost of handsome former sea captain Daniel Gregg. Through the struggles of supporting her children, seeking out romance from the wrong places, and working to publish the captain’s story as a book, Blood and Swash, Lucy finds in her secret relationship with Captain Gregg a comfort and blossoming love she never could have predicted.”– From publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook.

Ashland, OR : Blackstone Publishing, 2018.

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Kate’s 2¢: “The between: a novel” by Tananarive Due  

“The between: a novel” by Tananarive Due  

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

   L.J. Ganser is one of my favorite narrators and he didn’t disappoint my listening ears with this story. I enjoyed the story and I’m sure, other readers caught on to the fact that Hilton did actually drown as his grandmother saved him.  

a few take-aways:

–that the child had her own electronic devices at age 13 was a strategy

–You can’t take care of anyone else, if you’re not taking care of yourself.

–We’re always closest to death when we’re asleep.

–Even a spirit looks after his child.

–Solve your problems that are real, before you can solve your dreams.

–A fool maybe crazy for ranting, but you’re a bigger fool for listening.

–Had dreams finally taken him hostage?

–Dreams are where we face our mortality.

–Where ever the spirit rests, that is reality.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedea    A

 www.tananarivedue.com

Tananarive Priscilla Due (/təˈnænəriːv ˈdjuː/ tə-NAN-ə-reev DEW) (born January 5, 1966) is an American author and educator. Due won the American Book Award for her novel The Living Blood (2001), and the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel, the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel, and the World Fantasy Award for her novel The Reformatory (2023).[1][2] She is also known as a film historian with expertise in Black horror. Due teaches a course at UCLA called “The Sunken Place: Racism, Survival and the Black Horror Aesthetic”, which focuses on the Jordan Peele film Get Out.[3]

Early life and education[edit]

Due was born in Tallahassee, Florida, the oldest of three daughters of civil rights activist Patricia Stephens Due and civil rights lawyer John D. Due Jr.[4] Her mother named her after the French name for Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar.[5]

Due earned a B.S. in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and an M.A. in English literature, with an emphasis on Nigerian literature, from the University of Leeds.[4] At Northwestern, she lived in the Communications Residential College.[6]

Career[edit]

Due was working as a journalist and columnist for the Miami Herald when she wrote her first novel, The Between, in 1995.[6] This, like many of her subsequent books, was part of the supernatural genre.[7] Due also wrote The Black Rose, a historical novel about Madam C. J. Walker (based in part on research conducted by Alex Haley before his death) and Freedom in the Family, a nonfiction work about the civil rights struggle. She contributed to the humor novel Naked Came the Manatee, a mystery/thriller parody to which various Miami-area authors each contributed chapters. Due also authored the African Immortals novel series and the Tennyson Hardwick novels.

Due is a member of the affiliate faculty in the creative writing MFA program at Antioch University Los Angeles[8] and is also an endowed Cosby chair in the humanities at Spelman College in Atlanta.[9]

She developed a course at UCLA called “The Sunken Place: Racism, Survival and the Black Horror Aesthetic” after the release of the 2017 film Get Out.[3] The first course went viral and included a visit from Jordan Peele.[3]

Due was featured in the 2019 documentary film Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror, produced by Shudder.[3]

Her novel The Reformatory was published by Saga Press in 2023.[10][11]

Personal life[edit]

Due is the daughter of civil rights activists Patricia Stephens Due and civil rights attorney John D Due Jr. . She has two sisters Johnita and Lydia.

Due is married to author Steven Barnes, whom she met in 1997 at a Clark Atlanta University panel on “The African-American Fantastic Imagination: Explorations in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror”.[12] The couple lives in the Los Angeles, California area with their son, Jason.[13]

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

The between: a novel DB43640

Author: Due, Tananarive

Reading Time: 8 hours, 42 minutes

Production: National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled, Library of Congress

Read by: L.J. Ganser

Subjects: Occult and Horror Fiction, Psychological Fiction

As a child, Hilton James was rescued from drowning by his grandmother, who perished to save him. Now a family man of almost forty, he begins to think his borrowed time is running out. Haunted by dreams of death and threatened by a psychotic who stalks his family, Hilton finds his grip on reality slipping. Strong language and descriptions of sex.

New York : HarperCollins Publishers, c1995.

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Kate’s 2¢: “Birnam Wood” by Eleanor Catton

“Birnam Wood” by Eleanor Catton

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

   Maarleveld Saskia did a great job of narrating this book. Her voice and the author’s words kept me interested in the narrative and the characters. From the beginning, you could see how these various factions were going to collide.

   I was extremely disappointed with the ending. It did not tie loose ends together, reconcile the main characters, or satisfy this reader.  Perhaps, this is a set-up for a sequel.

   A few take-aways:

–A deep desire to form kind of excessive rugid practicality in compensation for his bookishness

–devising circuatis home-made solutions to problems that could be solved much more easily.

–To do a thing with effort was more respectably than to have it done with ease.

–There comes a point to where we all have to make a choice between what is right and what is easyThe wrong thing to do is often clearer…wrong is easier to see than right.

—

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eleanor Catton MNZM (born 1985) is a New Zealand novelist and screenwriter. Born in Canada, Catton moved to New Zealand as a child and grew up in Christchurch. She completed a master’s degree in creative writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters. Her award-winning debut novel, The Rehearsal, written as her Master’s thesis, was published in 2008, and has been adapted into a 2016 film of the same name. Her second novel, The Luminaries, won the 2013 Booker Prize, making Catton the youngest author ever to win the prize (at age 28) and only the second New Zealander. It was subsequently adapted into a television miniseries, with Catton as screenwriter. In 2023, she was named on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list.

Early life[edit]

Catton was born in Canada in 1985,[2] where her father was a graduate student completing his doctorate at the University of Western Ontario on a Commonwealth scholarship.[3] Her mother Judith is a New Zealander from Canterbury, while her father, philosopher Philip Catton, comes from Washington State in the US.[4] Her family returned to New Zealand when she was six years old, and Catton grew up in Christchurch. Her mother was a children’s librarian at the time, and the family had no TV; Catton was an avid reader and writer from an early age.[5]

When she was aged 13 the family spent a year living in Leeds while her father was on a sabbatical at the university, and Catton attended local comprehensive Lawnswood School which she referred to as “amazing” and “gloriously rough”.[6][3][5] Back in Christchurch she attended Burnside High School, studied English at the University of Canterbury, and completed a Master’s degree in Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters, Victoria University of Wellington.[7] She is related to historian Bruce Catton.[4]

Catton’s third novel, Birnam Wood, was published in February 2023. The title is taken from Macbeth, and Catton has said the novel draws inspiration from the play.[25] It is a contemporary thriller about a group of young climate activists who call themselves Birnam Wood.[26]

The novel was shortlisted for the 2023 Giller Prize.[27][28] The New York Times named it one of the 100 Notable Books of

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

Birnam Wood DB115924

Author: Catton, Eleanor

Reading Time: 12 hours, 52 minutes

Production: National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled, Library of Congress

Read by: Saskia Maarleveld

Subjects: Psychological Fiction, Suspense Fiction

“Birnam Wood is on the move…. A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass on New Zealand’s South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike and leaving a sizable farm abandoned. The disaster presents an opportunity for Birnam Wood, an undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic guerrilla gardening collective that plants crops wherever no one will notice. For years, the group has struggled to break even. To occupy the farm at Thorndike would mean a shot at solvency at last. But the enigmatic American billionaire Robert Lemoine also has an interest in the place: He has snatched it up to build his end-times bunker, or so he tells Birnam’s founder, Mira, when he catches her on the property. He’s intrigued by Mira and by Birnam Wood; although they’re poles apart politically, it seems Lemoine and the group might have enemies in common. But can Birnam trust him? And, as their ideals and ideologies are tested, can they trust one another? A gripping psychological thriller from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood is Shakespearean in its drama, Austenian in its wit, and, like both in?uences, fascinated by what makes us who we are. A brilliantly constructed study of intentions, actions, and consequences, it is a mesmerizing, un?inching consideration of the human impulse to ensure our own survival.” — Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook.

[United States] : Audible Studios, 2023.

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Kate’s 2¢: “Between” by Angie Abdou

“Between” by Angie Abdou

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

   Meredith Orlow did a good job of narrating this story. I did not, however, like this story. It had too many legal and physical abuse and immorality. Not to mention the ending was not satisfactory or satisfying.

   A few take-aways:

–work is work.  Parenting is work. That’s two works.

–A home did not have space for two adult women

–A closet of her own.

Featured snippet from the web

Abdou was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and her formative years were spent in this prairie province. She pursued her education with determination, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Regina, followed by a Master of Arts in English Literature from the University of Western Ontario.

Angie Abdou: Canadian Author | Bio & Top Books to Read

creativebookpublishing.ca

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Angela “Angie” Abdou (born 11 May 1969)[1] is a Canadian writer of fiction and nonfiction.

Early life and education[edit]

Abdou was born 11 May 1969, in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan,[1] where she spent her early childhood.[2] Justin Abdou is her only sibling. She received a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from the University of Regina (Saskatchewan) in 1991,[3] a Master of Arts in English from the University of Western Ontario in 1992, and a PhD in English in the Field of Creative Writing and Canadian Literature from the University of Calgary in 2009. She currently lives in Fernie, British Columbia, Canada with her children Oliver and Katherine and is Professor of Creative Writing at Athabasca University (Canada’s only open university).

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

Between DB87792

Author: Abdou, Angie

Reading Time: 10 hours, 25 minutes

Production: National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled, Library of Congress

Read by: Meredith Orlow

Subject: Psychological Fiction

Vero and Shane are finding adulthood difficult to cope with, so they hire live-in help for their sons–a Filipino woman named Ligaya. Vero struggles with her role as a mother and with justifying Ligaya’s presence, while Ligaya struggles with the burden of a secret she left behind at home. Some violence, strong language, and explicit descriptions of sex. Commercial audiobook. 2014.

Prince Frederick, Md. : Recorded Books, ℗2015.

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