"Joe Country" by Mick Herron

Still enjoying the Slow Horses book series, if enjoying blogging about them a bit less (as evidenced by the fact that I finished this one long enough ago that I'm already halfway through the next one). This is the one where Louisa takes PTO and decides to use it to find Min's son who has gone missing. 

Next season is coming out in less than a month. I found out this evening that it will be based on this book and the next!

"New York In Stride: An Insider's Walking Guide" by Jessie Kanelos Weiner & Jacob Lehman

I've just taken an amazing walking tour of New York City . . . in book form! 

We bought this NYC guidebook a while back (I see the publication date was February 2020, so we must have bought it since then; did we buy it for our pandemic-thwarted plans for a grand NYC birthday celebration for Sam that year? Or, we did go back to NYC in 2023, so maybe we bought this book for that trip?). I don't think I'd ever gotten around to reading it before (although I did read--and love!--its sister book about Paris), and at first I thought Sam must have read it (or at least skimmed it), because I remember walking to several of its entries (many of them book-related! Corner Bookstore, Three Lives & Co, The Strand, etc); but digging further into my external memory banks, I see that we went to those shops in 2015 and 2017, so it couldn't have been because they were suggested in this book.

I'm still working on getting rid of belongings that we don't need or love. I came across New York in Stride and Paris in Stride hidden in a basket in our bedroom. My first thought was to get rid of them. While it's relatively likely that we'll end up in NYC again someday, I'm not sure we'll ever make it to Paris again; and if we do, will these books be hopelessly out of date by then? But while I have proof that I've read the Paris one, I had no memory or proof of reading the NYC one, so I figured I ought to do that before getting rid of it. Now that I've read it . . . I'm not sure I can let go of it. It's just too cute, and it was a lot of fun to read. And if I'm going to keep it, I might as well keep the Paris one that matches so well! 

The completist hodophile in me is super tempted to plan a two week trip to NYC just so that I can go on every single walking tour in this book. My realist side says that I saved myself a small fortune by going on this trip in my imagination for the low price of $16.26. (Funny that it didn't cross my mind once while reading NYC that they should have included distances, whereas that was my main complaint about the Paris book. Pretty sure the difference is that I was reading the Paris book before an actual trip to Paris.)

OMG they've done London too. (Hang on while I Add To Cart.) Too bad that it's two years too late for me. Will I ever go back to London? Well, if I do, I'll be ready.

"Hunger & Thirst" by Claire Fuller

WOW. I mean, just            . . . WOW. 

This book GRABBED me and would not let me go. I just HAD to know what happened. It was like critical mass on steroids. Last night, I was about fifty pages from the end and very tempted to stay up late and finish it, but I decided 1) I should get a good night's sleep instead, and 2) I would appreciate having some left to read today. But then this morning I woke up far earlier than I wanted to. On any other weekend morning, I would have drifted back to sleep for another hour or two. But not this morning. This morning, all I could do was lie there and ask myself questions. What about the Underwood had scared John, and made Joy vomit? Where was the baby? What had actually happened?? Sleep was not an option. It wasn't long before I crept out of bed to finish the book.

Now, here I am, book finished, and I only know the answer to one of those questions . . .

Sam had asked me yesterday to give him an idea of what the book was about, but I didn't get very far before he shouted, "WAIT! Don't give me spoilers!!" So I don't know how much I can tell you. But I'll give it a shot. The bulk of the story takes place in England in 1987, although it's being relayed in retrospect from the current day. The main character, Ursula, had spent most of her childhood bouncing from foster home to foster home, but by the age of sixteen she had gained some independence: a room in a halfway house and a job delivering mail at an art school. And maybe she was finally forging the connections she had always hungered for. She had met a friend named Sue, who was charismatic and unpredictable; Sue had a big, messy, chaotic family who welcomed Ursula as if she finally belonged somewhere; and a coworker, Vince, invited Ursula to live in a squat on Barrow Road. So what if the house was a bit creepy? It was rent-free!

I wish I could tell you more, but I don't see how I can--other than saying that the story was compelling and suspenseful and, really, basically a horror book (but also really well written). I think it would be a great book club book--I wish I could discuss it with people who have already read it! 

"London Rules" by Mick Herron

Still enjoying my nightly MI-5 bedtime stories, and still don't have a lot to say about them. They're just pure fun, not much thinking involved. London Rules is the one with the politician and the paint can, and the one with The Watering Hole document. 

London Rules is the last Slough House book that has been made into a TV series so far. Initially I wasn't sure if I would keep reading, or if I would wait for the next season to come out before I read the next book. When I finished London Rules last night, I made my decision immediately: I'm going to keep reading. I'm not ready to give up my bedtime treat. Plus, how much is a literary amnesiac actually going to remember by the time the next season comes around?

“Whistler” by Ann Patchett

I loved this book, really really loved it. And yet I finished it two weeks ago and still haven’t blogged about it. Why do I do this??

The short answer is, I can’t to it justice. I can’t say anything about it. It’s just too perfect. 

I am definitely a fan of Ann Patchett's writing, and have been ever since I read Run (more than sixteen years ago!), although interestingly I did not mark that one as a Must Read. In the past I have tended to prefer Patchett's nonfiction over her fiction. (Although Commonwealth was right up there . . . and also Tom Lake was super good . . . ) Now I think I may have changed my mind. I guess it's possible that I'm affected by recency bias, but I think Whistler might be my favorite of all Ann Patchett's books, and I think I know why. Somehow it manages to seem just like her non-fiction, except that it's not. Like, it seems like it must be autobiographical, but it's not. I think it's because the people and the plot are made up, but the feelings are real. 

The main character in this book is Daphne Fuller, happily married New Yorker who is about my age but whose husband is closer to my parents' age. One day the couple makes a serendipitous stop at The Met (art gallery, not opera house) where they run into Daphne's stepfather, who was much beloved during the year or so that he was a part of her childhood, but who she hasn't seen for decades. It's a beautiful story about the love in friendship (and, as you'll see in reviews everywhere online, "Don't worry, it's not about a horse." Although there is a brief story told about the very horse pictured on the cover.)

There is only one thing wrong with this book. Again with the shiny shiny cover! Maybe it will age well? And I guess it matches a lot of Patchett's other hardbacks. But to me there is something so luxurious about those matte covers, and something so . . . opposite-of-luxurious about this shiny one. 

"Spook Street" by Mick Herron

I'm still treating myself to a bit of reading from the Slow Horses series every night before bed, and I'm still enjoying it. It's still nothing impressive or worthy, but it's still fun. I still think the books are maybe not as well put-together as the TV show, and I still wonder if I might have had a little trouble following the plot if I wasn't already familiar with it. 

Spook Street is the one that starts with the bombing of Westacres and takes us to Les Arbres in France by way of an attempted hit on David Cartwright. I don't really know what else to say about the book, but there's probably no need to carry on. Short and sweet is all this one needs.

“Never Anyone But You” by Rupert Thomson

I hate it when this happens. I don't even remember when I finished reading this book--two weeks ago? Three? And here I am only now getting around to blogging about it. 

I remember that I really enjoyed reading this book; it's very well written, and a compelling narrative. I remember it wasn't one of my favorites of all time, but it also wasn't one of those I found it hard to get into. I also remember being impressed that it's basically a true story, albeit one I had previously been completely unfamiliar with. 

The book is an intimate portrait of Suzanne Malherbe (later Marcel Moore) and Lucie Schwob (later Claude Cahun), but it is also a broader chronicle of life in Europe, spanning the time from before the first world war until after the second. 

Lucie and Suzanne first meet as teenagers, and they immediately feel a powerful connection. From that moment on, their love--facilitated by the fact that they end up as stepsisters--is strong and enduring, even if not perfect or reliably happy. Both artistic in their own way, they spend the interwar years in the exhilarating bohemian circles of Paris. By the beginning of the Second World War, they are living a more tranquil and private life on the Isle of Jersey, but hostilities soon encroach as the Nazis occupy the island. 

The history-driven plot is never the point of the book, though. Its true weight lies in the relationship between Lucie and Suzanne.

"Real Tigers" by Mick Herron

My bedtime treat continues. Last night I reached the end of Real Tigers, so tonight I get to start Spook Street.

Real Tigers is the one where a "tiger team" is purportedly sent to probe for weaknesses in security at MI5, and they kidnap Catherine Standish to try to gain access to the "grey books," which are full of info on all the conspiracy theories. There is, of course, layer upon layer of deceit. There are people who think they are in charge and know the game plan, but what they don't realize is that the people they think they're in charge of have a different plan, though what they don't realize is that they people they are in charge of have a plan of their own, and so on and so forth, in a "spies all the way down" kind of way.

It's just such fun! Even if I continue to find that watching the TV show was more entertaining than reading the source material (which almost feels like sacrilege to admit), I still look forward to reading a bit from these books every night.

"My Name is Lucy Barton" by Elizabeth Strout

It seems almost unbelievable to me that I had not read a book by Elizabeth Strout before now. (Oh, to you, too?) Strout is quite a celebrated author--she even won a Pulitzer!--but she had barely even been on my radar until Sam gave me this book for my birthday last fall. (You remember, when he was looking for authors that wrote books similar to Ann Patchett's?) 

Whereas the characters in Hello Beautiful didn't really hit the mark for me, Lucy Barton and her cohort were SO REAL. Like, how was this not a memoir? How did this story not actually happen to the author? 

I say "story," but this book is definitely not plot-driven. It centers on a period in the main character's life when she experiences an extended illness and her estranged mother comes to sit with her in her hospital room. There's no drama associated with this visit--they spend most of their time having quiet conversations--but there is an underlying tension, echoes of Lucy's childhood of poverty and neglect. 

I believe I have stumbled into a hidden series. The end of this book included an excerpt from Strout's Anything is Possible, where I discovered that the main character from that book is Lucy's cousin. Sounds like Lucy is also in Tell Me Everything and Lucy by the Sea. The William in Oh William! is surely Lucy's first husband. And he grew up on a farm in Maine, which makes me certain that Olive Kitteridge is a family friend. Do I want to get sucked into this universe? I'm sure there are worse things I could be sucked into. 

"Half-Blood Blues" by Esi Edugyan

I credit this book with getting me out of my reading slump. I also partially blame it for getting me into my reading slump in the first place. 

I can't even tell you how long ago it was that I started reading this book, although it's entirely possible that it was almost two months ago. In fact, I am SURE it was almost two months ago, because this is the first book I picked up after our February trip. 

I already explained in my previous post that there were extenuating circumstances as I was attempting to read this book (in short, not enough time spent reading, and specifically not enough time per book) which definitely did not help my initial reading experience. I remember that I liked this book immediately, but I also remember that it took me a while to get into it. I think maybe it wasn't just my time that was too chopped up, but also the story itself. I don't think I'm atypical when I say I find a good stopping point (like the end of a chapter) between reading sessions. This book starts in Paris in 1940 (and then Part I ends, so I stopped reading for the day). The next time I picked up the book, it was Berlin in 1992 and it took me a minute to reorient myself. Then during my next session it was Berlin in 1939. Whiplash! Under normal circumstances I don't think this would have bothered me a bit--I like it when books jump around. But while I wouldn't necessarily describe recent circumstances as "abnormal," neither would I describe them as ideal. I probably would have done better with something shorter, lighter, and more straightforward. 

It's a good thing that I found my stride in Berlin in 1939. This is where the main character, Sid Griffiths, begins debating with the other members of the Hot-Time Swingers whether it's time to leave Germany and head to Paris--partly for their own safety, but mainly for the chance to record with Louis Armstrong, a possibility that opened up thanks to the band's young trumpet prodigy, Hieronymus Falk. The choice is complicated by escalating danger and shifting loyalties within the group, forcing them to weigh musical ambition against survival. 

Remember when I said I liked this book immediately? There was something else I also noted immediately (literally in the first paragraph): it is written in such a heavy vernacular, one that is so strong and so American-sounding, that I wondered how it could possibly be adapted for another country's language. It must have been very difficult to translate this book from English to the 9 other languages it has been published in. 

“Slow Horses” by Mick Herron

I have just begun to poke my head up out of a reading slump, the likes of which I had never seen before. 

I never entirely quit reading, but I did temporarily seem to lose my love for it. This was partly due to my choice of reading material: I undertook too many books at once, and not enough of them were fun. (I am currently reading a HUGE cookbook--not by Melissa Clark, for once!; two works of non-fiction, which is not my favorite genre in the best of times, and it doesn't help that these two are a bit chunky and a bit dense and don't take kindly to divided attentions; and I also had some literary fiction going, which I'll be blogging about next.) It was also due to misplaced priorities: instead of spending our evenings reading as usual, we got sucked into watching The Night Manager (both the 2014 season and the new one that just came out--which, by the way, had an ending that I still haven't come to terms with). 

In the meantime--during the aforementioned slump--I have been enjoying the books from Mick Herron's Slow Horses series, reading a little bit from them at bedtime every night. It's been like a little treat at the end of my day more than anything else. 

I actually finished the first book several weeks ago, the second book a few days ago, and am now well into the third one, which is evidence that my reading slump was occurring in conjunction with a blogging slump. Even now, I feel I can't be bothered to give these books the full treatment. But I kind of think that's okay. It's like they don't really need the full treatment. It's not as if they're especially profound or thought-provoking. These books have good, fast-paced plots with interesting characters, and I've certainly been having fun with them, but it's been a completely superficial relationship. 

The concept behind Slow Horses is that there is a branch of MI5 (Britain's equivalent to the FBI) where agents are sent if they've screwed up badly, but not badly enough to be fired. These disgraced agents are headquartered in Slough House (which is where their nickname of "slow horses" is derived from), where they are meant to be exiled to bureaucratic oblivion, endlessly reviewing reams of boring and useless data. The basic formula for each book is that the Slow Horses uncover a real threat and prove themselves to be useful after all. In the first book, it's a far right protest group who kidnap a college student and threaten a livestream of chopping off his head; in the second, they dig up an entire village of Russian sleeper agents in the English countryside (this one was actually quite a bit different from the TV show). 

We've watched all 5 seasons of Slow Horses, based on the first 5 books; there are 8 books in the box set that we bought, so you have future installments to look forward to. Pretty sure none of my blog posts about them will be very worthy.

“Hello Beautiful” by Ann Napolitano

Sam gave me this book for my birthday last year. AI suggested it to him as a substitute for Ann Patchett, whose next book doesn’t come out until June of this year. 

I think this book, as well as many of those by Ann Patchett, could be described as a “family novel,” with similar themes (love, loss, secrets). And the authors share a first name. But I don’t think the similarities extend much beyond that (though I do understand and appreciate the impulse behind the gift). 

In my opinion, Patchett’s novels are tightly plotted, and her characters are so real-seeming. In contrast, Hello Beautiful struck me as one of those novels where the author claims that the characters “write themselves” and she’s just along for the ride, letting them do whatever they want and waiting to see how it turns out. The characters (for the most part) were described in interesting, unusual detail, but somehow the sum of the parts was greater than the whole, and they didn’t add up to real people. Not to mention that William and Alice were basically colorless, blank slates, with nothing to them other than their height. 

Another thing about the book that bothered me was its timeline. It was so strictly tied to specific dates, with each chapter title noting the months and years it would cover, but I couldn’t figure out why those dates were chosen. The oldest Padavano sister was in college in the early 80s, and yet the vibe and perspectives seemed more to me like the 50s. Then, as 2001 approached and Julia was living in Manhattan, I started to think… oh no, this is another 9/11 book (which at least made sense of the timeline). But it wasn’t, at all—the terrorist attacks weren’t even mentioned in passing. The author started writing this book in 2020, and it was published in 2023, yet the story ends in 2008. Why did the author root the story in this time period? It can’t even be because of her own lived experience; if I’ve done my calculations right, the author is probably 7 years younger than the Padavano twins, and 9 years older than Cecilia’s daughter Izzy.

For most of the book, I felt like I was reading background—what was jotted down in preparation for writing a book—rather than reading the book itself. And I felt as if I were kept at arms’ length rather than being drawn in. Like with Charlie’s death, which was unexpected, but which felt stupid rather than being an emotional shock. It felt weird for the lack of feeling it inspired in me.

And yet by halfway through, I realized I was enjoying the book. Despite the chaos, despite the feeling of randomly drifting along. And the last few chapters even brought tears to my eyes. (Not enough that they overflowed, though.)

I also jotted down a line I really liked, from page 349. It was more about preparing for an expected death, but I hope that in my life I have time to apply it to retirement: “They were dismantling their habits and routines, and it was like pulling up floorboards and finding joy underneath.”