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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “The accidental tourist” by Anne Tylert
Kate’s 2¢: “The accidental tourist” by Anne Tylert
“The accidental tourist” by Anne Tylert
You might say that the dog, Edward, is the main character in this story. He brings it all together. I even like the ending of this story.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Anne Tyler (born October 25, 1941) is an American novelist, short story writer, and literary critic. She has published twenty-four novels, including Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (1982), The Accidental Tourist (1985), and Breathing Lessons (1988). All three were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and Breathing Lessons won the prize in 1989. She has also won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, the Ambassador Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2012 she was awarded The Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence.[1] Tyler’s twentieth novel, A Spool of Blue Thread, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2015, and Redhead By the Side of the Road was longlisted for the same award in 2020. She is recognized for her fully developed characters, her “brilliantly imagined and absolutely accurate detail”,[2] her “rigorous and artful style”, and her “astute and open language.”[3]
Tyler has been compared to John Updike, Jane Austen, and Eudora Welty, among others.
Early life and education[edit]
Early childhood[edit]
The oldest of four children, she was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her father, Lloyd Parry Tyler, was an industrial chemist and her mother, Phyllis Mahon Tyler, a social worker. Both her parents were Quakers who were very active with social causes in the Midwest and the South.[4] Her family lived in a succession of Quaker communities in the South until they settled in 1948 in a Quaker commune in Celo, in the mountains of North Carolina near Burnsville.[5][6] The Celo Community settlement was populated largely by conscientious objectors and members of the liberal Hicksite branch of the Society of Friends.[7] Tyler lived there from age seven through eleven and helped her parents and others care for livestock and organic farming. While she did not attend formal public school in Celo, lessons were taught in art, carpentry, and cooking in homes and in other subjects in a tiny school house. Her early informal training was supplemented by correspondence school.[4][5][6][8]
Her first memory of her own creative story-telling was of crawling under the bed covers at age three and “telling myself stories in order to get to sleep at night.”[5] Her first book at age seven was a collection of drawings and stories about “lucky girls … who got to go west in covered wagons.”[5] Her favorite book as a child was The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton. Tyler acknowledges that this book, which she read many times during this period of limited access to books, had a profound influence on her, showing “how the years flowed by, people altered, and nothing could ever stay the same.”[9] This early perception of changes over time is a theme that reappears in many of her novels decades later, just as The Little House itself appears in her novel Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. Tyler also describes reading Little Women 22 times as a child.[4] When the Tyler family left Celo after four years to move to Raleigh, North Carolina, eleven-year-old Tyler had never attended public school and never used a telephone.[5] This unorthodox upbringing enabled her to view “the normal world with a certain amount of distance and surprise.”[10]
Raleigh, North Carolina[edit]
Tyler felt herself to be an outsider in the public schools she attended in Raleigh, a feeling that has followed her most of her life.[5] She believes that this sense of being an outsider has contributed to her becoming a writer: “I believe that any kind of setting-apart situation will do [to become a writer]. In my case, it was emerging from the commune … and trying to fit into the outside world.”[5] Despite her lack of public schooling prior to age eleven, Anne entered school academically well ahead of most of her classmates in Raleigh. With access now to libraries, she discovered Eudora Welty, Gabriel García Márquez, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and many others.[4] Eudora Welty remains one of her favorite writers, and The Wide Net and Other Stories is one of her favorite books; she has called Welty “my crowning influence.”[6] She credits Welty with showing her that books could be about the everyday details of life, not just about major events.[5] During her years at Needham B. Broughton High School in Raleigh, she was inspired and encouraged by a remarkable English teacher, Phyllis Peacock.[4][11] “Mrs. Peacock” had previously taught the writer Reynolds Price, under whom Tyler would later study at Duke University. Peacock would also later teach the writer Armistead Maupin. Seven years after high school, Tyler would dedicate her first published novel to “Mrs. Peacock, for everything you’ve done.”[11]
Duke and Columbia Universities[edit]
When Tyler graduated from high school at age sixteen, she wanted to attend Swarthmore College, a school founded in 1860 by the Hicksite branch of the Society of Friends.[12] However, she had won a full AB Duke scholarship[13] to Duke University, and her parents pressured her to go to Duke because they needed to save money for the education of her three younger brothers.[4][14] At Duke, Tyler enrolled in Reynolds Price’s first creative writing class, which also included a future poet, Fred Chappell. Price was most impressed with the sixteen-year-old Tyler, describing her as “frighteningly mature for 16,” “wide-eyed,” and “an outsider.”[5] Years later Price would describe Tyler as “one of the best novelists alive in the world, … who was almost as good a writer at 16 as she is now.”[5][8] Tyler took an additional creative writing course with Price and also studied under William Blackburn, who also had taught William Styron, Josephine Humphreys, and James Applewhite at Duke, as well as Price and Chappell.[8]
As a college student, Tyler had not yet determined she wanted to become a writer. She loved painting and the visual arts. She also was involved in the drama society in high school and at Duke, where she acted in a number of plays, playing Laura in The Glass Menagerie and Mrs. Gibbs in Our Town.[5][8][15] She majored in Russian Literature at Duke—not English—and graduated in 1961, at age nineteen, having been inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. With her Russian Literature background she received a fellowship to graduate school in Slavic Studies at Columbia University.[8]
Living in New York City was quite an adjustment for her. There she became somewhat addicted to riding trains and subways: “While I rode I often felt like I was … an enormous eye taking things in, turning them over and sorting them out … writing was the only way” [to express her observations].[5] Tyler left Columbia graduate school after a year, having completed course work but not her master’s thesis. She returned to Duke, where she got a job in the library as a Russian bibliographer.[4] It was there that she met Taghi Modarressi, a resident in child psychiatry in Duke Medical School and a writer himself, and they were married a year later (1963).[4]
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
The accidental tourist
Tyler Anne Reading time: 10 hours, 51 minutes.
Read by Bob Askey.
Bestsellers
Psychological Fiction
Macon Leary leads a quiet, routine life until his young son is killed in a fast-food shop holdup and his wife of twenty years suddenly decides to leave him. Macon returns to his family’s home and settles into a dull, soothing life with his brothers and sister–until he meets a dog trainer named Muriel Pritchett, who is as different from his wife as anyone could be. Some strong language. Bestseller 1985.
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “Hanging Falls: a Timber Creek K9 mystery” by Margaret Mizushima
Kate’s 2¢: “Hanging Falls: a Timber Creek K9 mystery” by Margaret Mizushima
Kate’s 2¢: “Hanging Falls: a Timber Creek K9 mystery” by Margaret Mizushima
This story kept me engaged with the characters and I liked the narrative arc. Of course, my heart went out to the dog when he was dognapped.
From her website:
Margaret Mizushima is the author of the award-winning and internationally published Timber Creek K-9 Mysteries. Active within the writing community, Margaret serves as past president for the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Mystery Writers of America, was elected the 2019 Writer of the Year by Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, and is also a member of Northern Colorado Writers, Sisters in Crime, and Women Writing the West. She and her husband recently moved from their home in Colorado to the Pacific Northwest. She can be found on Facebook/AuthorMargaretMizushima, Twitter @margmizu, Instagram at margmizu, and her website at www.MargaretMizushima.com
More About Margaret:
I was born in Kansas and grew up on cattle ranches in Texas and Colorado. My childhood summers were spent either on horseback herding cows or nestled in the crook of a tree reading a library book. When I was in high school, I volunteered to work with a child who had cerebral palsy, teaching lessons that were designed by the school speech/language therapist. I developed an intense interest in this very intelligent boy whose motor skills wouldn’t allow him to talk. So I pursued a degree in Speech Pathology, which I received from Colorado State University after completing my undergraduate degree at the University of Northern Colorado. Eventually I married a veterinarian, and we have two daughters. I worked as a speech therapist in an acute care hospital before establishing my own rehabilitation agency.
After I sold my company, I decided to study the art and craft of fiction writing. What a wondrous world this opened up for me. Whereas before, I’d been driven by the science of speech, language, and communication disorders, I could now focus on artistic creativity with language. I could also use my years of experience working with people to create characters that readers seemed to enjoy. Since I’m an avid crime fiction reader and crime documentary watcher, mystery writing seemed like the way to go.
My husband helped me develop the idea for the Timber Creek K-9 Mysteries, and the premise for the first in the series, Killing Trail, grew from a conversation he had with one of his clients. The primary characters, Deputy Mattie Cobb, Robo, and Cole Walker, DVM, came strictly from my imagination, and I hope you enjoy their adventures as much as I do.
Currently, my husband and I live with three dogs near a small town in Colorado. I balance writing with assisting him with our veterinary clinic and Angus cattle herd. My fiction has won contest awards, and you can find my short story “Hay Hook” in the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers 2014 anthology, Crossing Colfax. In addition to reading, I enjoy yoga and hiking in the Colorado high country. I would love to hear from you, so please feel free to write to me. My email address is on the Contacts page.
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
Hanging Falls: a Timber Creek K-9 mystery DB107430
Mizushima, Margaret Reading time: 10 hours, 12 minutes.
Nancy Wu
Mystery and Detective Stories
Officer Mattie Cobb and her K-9 partner Robo are on a scouting mission to pinpoint trail damage when they find a body floating at the edge of a lake. Robo scents another human, leading to a forest dweller becoming the prime suspect. But the victim’s identity leads to an odd religious cult. Mattie and Robo must find the killers. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2020.
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “10 minutes 38 seconds in this strange world” by Elif Shafak
Kate’s 2¢: “10 minutes 38 seconds in this strange world” by Elif Shafak
“10 minutes 38 seconds in this strange world” by Elif Shafak
They say that when you die, your life flashes before your eyes. This story takes the last of Tequila Leila’s life to introduce her back story and introduces her five friends minute by minute until she is heart and brain dead. Her five, very unique friends come to her rescue to bury her in the ocean.
I enjoyed this story, especially because it was read by Gabriella Cavallero. The five friends have a special blend of humor as they tackle the issue of Lela.
From the WEB:
Elif Shafak is a Turkish-British novelist, essayist, public speaker, political scientist and activist1. She was born in Strasbourg, France, in 1971123 and spent her teenage years in Madrid, Spain3. She writes in Turkish and English and has published 19 books, 12 of which are novels145. Her novels include The Bastard of Istanbul, The Forty Rules of Love, Three Daughters of Eve and 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World1. Her work has been translated into more than 20 languages3 and 55 languages5. She has been married to Eyüp Can since 20052 and is the most widely read woman writer in Turkey3. She has won several awards, including being shortlisted for the Costa Award, RSL Ondaatje Prize and Women’s Prize for Fiction for her latest novel The Island of Missing Trees.
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
10 minutes 38 seconds in this strange world DB101936
Shafak, Elif. Reading time: 11 hours, 58 minutes.
Read by Gabriella Cavallero.
Psychological Fiction
Prostitute Tequila Leila has been murdered, but her brain continues working for another ten minutes and thirty-eight seconds. She ruminates on her past–growing up in a polygamous family in the provinces, running away to Istanbul, and her time in the sex trade. Some violence, some strong language, and some descriptions of sex. 2019.
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “About Grace: A Novel” by Anthony Doerr(read by George Newbern)
Kate’s 2¢: “About Grace: A Novel” by Anthony Doerr(read by George Newbern)
“About Grace: A Novel” by Anthony Doerr(read by George Newbern)
When is a dream just a dream and when is it a portent of the future? David eventually learns how to deal with his visions and find the family and forgiveness he thought was gone forever.
I enjoyed the rich prose of this story read by George Newbern.
Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia
www.anthonydoerr.com
Anthony Doerr (born October 27, 1973) is an American author of novels and short stories. He gained widespread recognition for his 2014 novel All the Light We Cannot See, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Early life and education[edit]
Raised in Cleveland, Ohio,[1] Doerr attended the nearby University School, graduating in 1991. He then majored in history at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, graduating in 1995. He earned an MFA from Bowling Green State University.[2
Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia
George Newbern is an American actor, best known for his roles as Charlie in the ABC show Scandal and Bryan MacKenzie in Father of the Bride (1991) and its sequels Father of the Bride Part II and Father of the Bride Part 3 (ish), as well as Danny (The Yeti) in Friends and his recurring role as Julia’s son Payne in Designing Women. He is also known for providing the voice of Superman in many pieces of DC Comics media, and Sephiroth in the Final Fantasy series and the Kingdom Hearts series.
Early life[edit]
Having grown up in Little Rock, Arkansas, Newbern is the son of Betty, a Spanish teacher and David Newbern, a radiologist. George has two brothers (Gordon and John) and one sister (Murry).[1]
FROM nls/bard/loc:
About Grace: a novel DB111012
Doerr, Anthony; Newbern, George
. Reading time: 12 hours, 58 minutes.
Read by George Newbern.
Family
Psychological Fiction
“The first novel by Anthony Doerr, the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning author of Cloud Cuckoo Land, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning #1 New York Times bestseller All the Light We Cannot See, one of the most beautiful, wise, and compelling debuts of recent times. David Winkler begins life in Anchorage, Alaska, a quiet boy drawn to the volatility of weather and obsessed with snow. Sometimes he sees things before they happen–a man carrying a hatbox will be hit by a bus; Winkler will fall in love with a woman in a supermarket. When David dreams that his infant daughter will drown in a flood as he tries to save her, he comes undone. He travels thousands of miles, fleeing family, home, and the future itself, to deny the dream. On a Caribbean island, destitute, alone, and unsure if his child has survived or his wife can forgive him, David is sheltered by a couple with a daughter of their own. Ultimately it is she who will pull him back into the world, to search for the people he left behind. Doerr’s characters are full of grief and longing, but also replete with grace. His compassion for human frailty is extraordinarily moving. In luminous prose, he writes about the power and beauty of nature and about the tiny miracles that transform our lives. About Grace is heartbreaking, radiant, and astonishingly accomplished.” — Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook.
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “Trusting Calvin: how a dog helped heal a Holocaust survivor’s heart”
Kate’s 2¢: “Trusting Calvin: how a dog helped heal a Holocaust survivor’s heart”
by Sharon Peters
“Trusting Calvin: how a dog helped heal a Holocaust survivor’s heart”
by Sharon Peters
This story spent a lot of time recreating the Holocaust experience that explained how the fear of dogs was instilled in Max and how he became blinded.
I enjoyed reading how Max and Calvin trained together, how they inter-acted with his wife, and the moment Max knew he could trust Calvin. The trainer, Charlie Mondello (sp?), was on the team of Guiding Eyes for the Blind in Yorktown Heights, NY that trained my first guide dog and me in 1989, two years before Max and Calvin trained.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/310172.Sharon_PetersActions for this site
Max Edelman was just 17 when the Nazis took him from his Jewish ghetto in Poland to the first of five work camps, where his only hope of survival was to keep quiet and raise an emotional shield. After witnessing a German Shepherd kill a fellow prisoner, he developed a lifelong fear of dogs. Later beaten into blindness by two bored guards, Max survived, buried the past, and moved on to a new life in America, becoming an X-ray technician. But when he retired, he needed help. He needed a guide dog. After a month of training, he received Calvin, a handsome, devoted chocolate Labrador retriever. Calvin guided Max safely through life, but he sensed the distance and reserve of Max’s emotional shield. Calvin grew listless and lost weight. Trainers intervened—but to no avail. A few days before Calvin’s inevitable reassignment, Max went for an afternoon walk. A car cut into the crosswalk, and Calvin leapt forward, saving Max’s life. Max’s emotional shield dissolved. Calvin sensed the change and immediately improved, guiding Max to greater openness, trust, and engagement with the world. Here is the remarkable, touching story of a man who survived history and the dog that unlocked his heart.
Although Sharon Peters has been widely published, I wasn’t able to find any biographical information on her without having to ‘pay for view’.
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
Trusting Calvin: how a dog helped heal a Holocaust survivor’s heart DB77282
Peters, Sharon L Reading time: 6 hours, 33 minutes.
Kurt Elftmann A production of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress.
Biography of Persons with Disabilities
Disability
Animals and Wildlife
Biography of Holocaust survivor Max Edelman. Describes Max being blinded by two Nazi guards and witnessing a German Shepherd kill another prisoner. Discusses Max’s difficulty bonding with Calvin–the Labrador guide dog he received after retiring in America–because of his fear of canines, and Calvin saving Max’s life. Violence. 2012.
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “When she’s gone: a thriller: by Jane Palmer
Kate’s 2¢: “When she’s gone: a thriller: by Jane Palmer
“When she’s gone: a thriller: by Jane Palmer
I enjoyed this story read by Marie Garnett. Ara Zuyev’s back story becomes very important in how the rebellious teenager is located and retrieved.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jane Palmer (b. 1946) is an author and illustrator of speculative fiction from the United Kingdom. In addition to novels, she writes short stories and children’s picture books.
Career[edit]
The Moosevan series, depicting an eponymous alien with the ability to shape-shift visiting Earth, represented Palmer’s entry into speculative fiction. The series included The Planet Dweller (1985), Moving Moosevan (1990), Duckbill Soup (2011) and Brassica Park (2018), and satirizes clichés in speculative fiction.[1] The protagonist of the first two Moosevan books, a woman experiencing menopause, was described by scholar Mary Talbot as atypical for science fiction, and an example of how feminist science fiction writers sought to explore marginalized subjects.[2]
Palmer’s second novel was The Watcher (1986), republished in 2008 as The Kybion. It featured an android and some young girls from Earth seeking to protect the fictional planet of Ojal from a threat from Earth.[1][3] The story is partially told from the point of view of an alien. The Ojalie, or beings of Ojal, are depicted as hermaphrodites, a device Palmer uses to explore how contemporary women combined the role of a mother with a career.[4] They are also depicted as “parodic in their narcissism”, and have been discussed as an example of grotesque female characters in feminist fiction.[5] A commentary in the Australian Science Fiction Review discussed The Watcher as an example of speculative fiction published by The Women’s Press, which aimed to publish feminist work. The review described the plot arc of The Watcher as “adolescent rite-of-passage stuff”, which did “little to advance the feminist cause”.[3]
Palmer’s other books included The Drune (1999), described by the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction as “even lighter in tone than The Watcher; The Aton Bird (2008); Nightingale (2008); and Hunder (2010).[1] In 2013, she also released a collection of stories for adults, Short SF Stories, Tales for Technophobe, and she has written and illustrated children’s picture books.[1]
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
When she’s gone: a thriller DB112848
Palmer, Jane, (Novelist). Reading time: 8 hours, 32 minutes.
Read by Marie Garnett.
Suspense Fiction
Mystery and Detective Stories
“A woman as mysterious as she is tenacious, Ara Zuyev will remind readers of NCIS’s Ziva David. She’s a secret to nearly everyone, and even those who know anything about her have barely scratched the surface. A bodyguard for a powerful billionaire, she is the last line of defense for the family’s inner circle. But when her charge, sixteen-year-old Samantha Harper, is kidnapped, Ara immediately comes under suspicion. Assertive and authoritative, Luke Patrick is the best the FBI has to offer. Nothing about Ara’s story is adding up, and when Ara attempts to take control of the investigation, Luke is convinced she knows far more than she’s saying. Time is short, and though neither trusts the other, Ara and Luke must work together to bring Samantha home alive. She needs his investigative team. He needs her inside knowledge of the family. But what initially looks like a simple kidnapping for ransom quickly spirals into something far more sinister in Jane Palmer’s explosive series debut perfe
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “The codebreaker’s secret” by Sara Ackerman
Kate’s 2¢: “The codebreaker’s secret” by Sara Ackerman
“The codebreaker’s secret” by Sara Ackerman
I was thoroughly engrossed in this story; by how the author integrated her characters into the historic, true events; how she brought it all together in the end with the relationship of the characters, and the descriptions of the environment.
Well, of course, I also like happy endings.
While this story is fiction, I thank the real military men and women for their service.
www.goodreads.com/author/show/16914230.Sara_Ackerman
Sara writes books about love and life, and all of their messy and beautiful imperfections. Born and raised in Hawaii, she studied journalism and later earned graduate degrees in psychology and Chinese medicine. She is the USA Today bestselling author of The Lieutenant’s Nurse and Island of Sweet Pies and Soldiers, with several more in the works.
Sara Ackerman (Author of Radar Girls) – Goodreads
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
The codebreaker’s secret DB109798
Ackerman, Sara. Reading time: 9 hours, 17 minutes.
Read by Jennifer Robideau.
Historical Fiction
Spy Stories
War Stories
“1943. As war in the Pacific rages on, Isabel Cooper and her codebreaker colleagues huddle in “the dungeon” at Station HYPO in Pearl Harbor, deciphering secrets plucked from the airwaves in a race to bring down the enemy. Isabel has only one wish: to avenge her brother’s death. But she soon finds life has other plans when she meets his best friend, a hotshot pilot with secrets of his own. 1965. Fledgling journalist Lu Freitas comes home to Hawai’i to cover the grand opening of the glamorous Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, Rockefeller’s newest and grandest project. When a high-profile guest goes missing, Lu forms an unlikely alliance with an intimidating veteran photographer to unravel the mystery. The two make a shocking discovery that stirs up memories and uncovers an explosive secret from the war days. A secret that only a codebreaker can crack.” — Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook.
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “Razzmatazz” by Christopher Moore
Kate’s 2¢: “Razzmatazz” by Christopher Moore
“Razzmatazz” by Christopher Moore
While I did not enjoy this book, Johnny Helle, who narrated the story, had the perfect ‘ganster’ voice to go with the theme.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Christopher Moore Biography
Christopher Moore is the author of fifteen novels, including the international bestsellers, Lamb, A Dirty Job, You Suck and Secondhand Souls (2015).
Chris was born in Toledo, Ohio and grew up in Mansfield, Ohio. His father was a highway patrolman and his mother sold major appliances at a department store. He attended Ohio State University and Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara. He moved to California when he was 19 years old and lived on the Central Coast until 2003, when he moved to Hawaii.
Before publishing his first novel, Practical Demonkeeping in 1992, he worked as a roofer, a grocery clerk, a hotel night auditor, and insurance broker, a waiter, a photographer, and a rock and roll DJ. Chris has drawn on all of these work experiences to create the characters in his books. When he’s not writing, Chris enjoys ocean kayaking, scuba diving, photography, and painting with acrylics and oils. He lives in San Francisco
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
Razzmatazz DB108916
Moore, Christopher Reading time: 10 hours, 3 minutes.
Johnny Heller
Historical Fiction
Humor
Mystery and Detective Stories
Fantasy Fiction
Bestsellers
Historical Mystery Fiction
“San Francisco, 1947. Bartender Sammy “Two Toes” Tiffin and the rest of the Cookie’s Coffee Irregulars–a ragtag bunch of working mugs last seen in Noir–are on the hustle: they’re trying to open a driving school; shanghai an abusive Swedish stevedore; get Mable, the local madam, and her girls to a Christmas party at the State Hospital without alerting the overzealous head of the S. F. P. D. vice squad; all while Sammy’s girlfriend, Stilton (a. k. a. the Cheese), and her “Wendy the Welder” gal pals are using their wartime shipbuilding skills on a secret project that might be attracting the attention of some government Men in Black. And, oh yeah, someone is murdering the city’s drag kings and club owner Jimmy Vasco is sure she’s next on the list and wants Sammy to find the killer. Meanwhile, Eddie “Moo Shoes” Shu has been summoned by his Uncle Ho to help save his opium den from Squid Kid Tang, a vicious gangster who is determined to retrieve a priceless relic: an ancient statue of the powerful Rain Dragon that Ho stole from one of the fighting tongs forty years earlier. And if Eddie blows it, he just might call down the wrath of that powerful magical creature on all of Fog City.” — Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. Bestseller. 2022.
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “The Bookseller’s Secret” by Michelle Gable
Kate’s 2¢: “The Bookseller’s Secret” by Michelle Gable
“The Bookseller’s Secret” by Michelle Gable
I agree with what the bookseller did. It forced the researcher/writer, who is obsessed with Nancy, to find her own voice.
Michelle Gable is an American author based in San Diego. She has published two novels, A Paris Apartment in 2014 and I’ll See You in Paris in 2016, the former of which has appeared on The New York Times Best Seller List. See more
Gable grew up in Del Mar, California, a beach city near San Diego. She developed an early interest in writing when her parents gave her a book entitled, Someday You’ll Write. She attended Torrey Pines High School.
From NLS/BARD/LOCC:
The bookseller’s secret: a novel DB112477
Gable, Michelle. Reading time: 10 hours, 31 minutes.
Read by Eleanor Caudill.
Historical Fiction
Mystery and Detective Stories
“In 1942, London, Nancy Mitford is worried about more than air raids and German spies. Still recovering from a devastating loss, the once sparkling Bright Young Thing is estranged from her husband, her allowance has been cut, and she’s given up her writing career. On top of this, her five beautiful but infamous sisters continue making headlines with their controversial politics. Eager for distraction and desperate for income, Nancy jumps at the chance to manage the Heywood Hill bookshop while the owner is away at war. Between the shop’s brisk business and the literary salons she hosts for her eccentric friends, Nancy’s life seems on the upswing. But when a mysterious French officer insists that she has a story to tell, Nancy must decide if picking up the pen again and revealing all is worth the price she might be forced to pay. Eighty years later, Heywood Hill is abuzz with the hunt for a lost wartime manuscript written by Nancy Mitford. For one woman desperately in need of a change, the search will reveal not only a new side to Nancy, but an even more surprising link between the past and present….” — Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook.
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “Swing, Swing Together” by Peter Lovesey
Kate’s 2¢: “Swing, Swing Together” by Peter Lovesey
“Swing, Swing Together” by Peter Lovesey
Excellent narrative arc. Although murder is no laughing matter, the author’s droll sense of British humor is brought to life by David Thorpe’s reading of this story.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Peter (Harmer) Lovesey (born 1936), also known by his pen name Peter Lear, is a British writer of historical and contemporary detective novels and short stories. His best-known series characters are Sergeant Cribb, a Victorian-era police detective based in London, and Peter Diamond, a modern-day police detective in Bath.
Early life[edit]
Lovesey was born in Middlesex, England, and attended Hampton Grammar School.[1] He went to Reading University in 1955 but since he did not have the requisite Latin qualification, he chose a degree in Fine Art which included History and English as elective subjects.[1] Two of his English tutors, John Wain (1925–94) and Frank Kermode (1919–2010), thought well enough of Lovesey’s essays to get him into the English course after all.[1]
He graduated from Reading with an honours degree in 1958; he then did three years of National Service in the Royal Air Force. Signing up for the third year – National Service was ordinarily for two years – enabled him to train, and obtain better pay, as an Education Officer. When he left the Air Force it also gave him an edge in starting his teaching career. He married Jacqueline (Jax) Lewis, whom he had met at Reading, in 1959.[1]
Teaching and writing career[edit]
Lovesey’s career in education lasted fourteen years. He started as a Lecturer in English at Thurrock Technical College in Essex, 1961; he then became Head of the General Education Department at London’s Hammersmith College for Further Education (now West London College). He quit teaching to become a full-time writer in 1975.[1]
Lovesey has written that he entered into writing detective fiction by way of his interest in British sports history. His first detective novel, Wobble to Death (1970), was set within a historically accurate depiction of a 19th century foot race.[2] Lovesey has also authored non-fiction works on the history of British athletics. His first novel was followed by seven others in the Sergeant Cribb series set in Victorian England with the stories often placed in sport or entertainment events such as boxing, rowing, and music hall. After the Cribb series concluded, Lovesey continued with standalone and series mysteries, mostly set in various historical periods. From 1991, he switched to contemporary crime fiction with the Peter Diamond series set in modern-day Bath and consisting of twenty titles as of 2022.
Peter Lovesey lives near Chichester. His son Phil Lovesey also writes crime novels. His son was born in 1963 and worked as an English teacher at Wolverhampton Grammar School until the end of the autumn 2012.[3] His daughter, Kathy Lovesey, was born in 1960, and now lives with her family in Greenwich, Connecticut.
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
Swing, swing together DB113525
Lovesey, Peter. Reading time: 7 hours, 21 minutes.
Read by David Thorpe.
Historical Fiction
Mystery and Detective Stories
“The seventh Sergeant Cribb Investigation set in the seedy underbelly of Victorian London. London, 1889: An elementary school teacher in training takes a midnight swim in the Thames and witnesses a body being dumped. Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackerey investigate and uncover strange parallels with the enormously popular Victorian mystery Three Men in a Boat.” — Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook.
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