Month: April 2025

Bring the House Down by Charlotte Runcie

A well-written, insightful, and humorous story of a couple of reviewers (colleagues) attending three weeks of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Alex — the handsome, 30 something son of a famous actress who can’t keep the girls away — gives a one woman show a seriously scathing one star review… and then sleeps with the actress before the review is printed. With some pretty intense malice, she turns around and makes his life a living hell with a me-too style assault that happens to catapult her show into something extraordinary and incredibly popular. Sharing the trip apartment, his colleague Sophie is the only one who is kind to him during his ordeal, but she has insecurities (so many) and troubles of her own.

I appreciated the fact that the book did not proceed in any obvious way. Instead, we’re given insight into the many different perspectives on who Alex really is (including his own), we get to peep into a panoply of lives that are (quite) different from our own (or at least mine), and (multiple!) people actually grow and learn from their experiences. I found it ultimately uplifting, though some of the raw honesty in the middle was a little off-putting and at times cringeworthy (oddly enough, it was Sophie whom I found cringeworthy, not Alex).

Worth a read (and probably less cringeworthy for the younger set).

Thank you to Doubleday and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on July 8th, 2025.

Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (Non-fiction)

Always an engaging storyteller, Gladwell expands on the Tipping Point theme with an array of anecdotes, research, and social trends to show the impact of tipping points in many important constituents of our society. Ranging from localized bank robbery surges to medical mysteries to social epidemics to group proportions to — my favorite — why Harvard cares so much about arcane sports teams (like girl’s rugby), Gladwell works to understand the evolution of social problems and various bits of social engineering that have or could be applied to nudge things in the right direction. He includes several thought provoking ethical questions regarding these issues — no answers, but I always appreciate the ethical angle.

Some of the book sections that I particularly enjoyed: superspreaders — people who spread germs, pollution, bad behavior — spread orders of magnitude more than “regular” people. Group proportions — the “magic” 1/3 which is the fraction of a group that converts token outsiders into fully fledged members, with both good and bad consequences (think white flight and a truly shocking — to me — story of how Harvard developed its complex admissions process). Small area variation — how monocultures in small areas can lead to radically different behavior when compared to neighbor communities. Think vaccination rates, tonsillectomies, or suicide. The Overstory — how a story can get embedded into a culture without anyone being aware of the shifts. My favorite story here — a connection between the legalization of gay marriage and a long running sitcom starring an openly gay man.

In the last chapter — Conclusion — Gladwell applies the tipping point components developed in the book to the opioid crisis — quoting frequently from the Purdue Pharma (makers of Oxycontin) / Sackler family trial. I don’t completely agree with his conclusions, but was pretty shocked by some of the marketing and sales practices the pharmaceutical company used and how beyond effective (in terms of profit) they were.

Overall this was a thought provoking book, and I enjoyed reading it — with the exception of the first chapter about the LA bank robbery surge which for some reason both bored and upset me. If you feel yourself losing interest as well — just skip the first chapter! I quite enjoyed everything after.

The Harvey Girls by Juliette Fay (Historical Fiction)

A warm story of duty, love, friendship, family, and survival set in the 1920s along the Santa Fe Railway lines in the chain of Fred Harvey restaurants. You may have seen the Judy Garland movie by the same name, but if you haven’t, the Harvey restaurants employed young, single, women — paid them good wages (especially for women at that time), held them to high standards of conduct, and offered passengers on the railway a clean, efficient, high quality and safe place to stop for refreshments on what were often very long train journeys.

Charlotte grew up in Boston with wealth and opportunity, but for her the job at Harvey house offered a place of safety where she could hide from a very big mistake; Billie is the eldest of nine, who sets off for the Harvey house at 15 — her six foot tall frame lending credibility to the fiction that she meets the minimum age requirement — to help earn desperately needed money for the family during the slightly less “Great” depression of 1926. With straightforward prose we follow these two dissimilar but each fiercely loyal and tough women, as they interact with an array of engaging, intelligent, and highly ethical characters — taking care of each other in what can only be described as tough times. Sometimes it’s hard to remember what the world was like before social safety nets, penicillin, and women’s rights. There are plenty of historical references that bring the story to life, and quite a bit about how the Harvey houses were run (which I found fascinating). Also, many beautiful descriptions of scenery and quite a bit about Native Americans, with individual characters depicting their status in the area, their way of supporting themselves, and their (quite understandable) attitudes towards tourists.

As an aside, the El Tovar Hotel featured in this story (the Harvey house near the Grand Canyon) is one of only two of the original 84 Harvey houses still in operation today. An easy and compelling read.

Thank you to Gallery Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on August 12th, 2025.

The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths (Mystery / Speculative Fiction)

The first book in a brand new series from Elly Griffiths — one of my favorite mystery writers.
This book combines a mystery with speculative fiction (time travel). Ali Dawson’s cold cases are so cold they are frozen (thus jokes the team). Their secret? They can use time-travel to find out what actually happened. Now, to please a Tory Justice Minister whose grandfather was rumored (though never accused or brought to trial) of killing an artist’s model, Ali heads back to 1850 to see what she can find out. However, before she can return, a body turns up in the current day that is very much related to the case …

Griffiths is a great writer and brings all her powers of description and persuasion to the story, bringing the 1850s to life in exactly the way it would appear to someone born in our time. I liked the way Ali prepared for her “trip” — not just learning what to wear, eat, and say, but how to change the way she actually thought. A well-articulated differentiation between modern day and Victorian feminism ensued. I liked the cast of characters including Jones, the designer wearing communist physicist who is the time travel whiz (that’s the beauty of novels — characters don’t have to be internally consistent!). I’m sure they will be appearing in future books as there were some definite hints of stories left untold. Plenty of fun references — like using A Wrinkle in Time’s tesseract model (without actually stating such), and referencing the (real) match girls strike at the Bryant & May match factory (that’s how Christopher Fowler named his history obsessed, aged, detectives!). Lots of good history.

Really enjoyed this book — it won’t be available in the US until July 8th — I couldn’t wait and bought it on my (conveniently timed) trip to England. No regrets!

The Killing Stones by Ann Cleeves (Mystery — Jimmy Perez / Shetland)

I generally “read” most of Ann Cleeve’s work by watching the excellent BBC adaptations. This — the most recent of the “Shetland” series, and the first I’ve actually read — is so far from where the TV series has ended up that it was a bit of a shock for me!

The story takes place some time after Perez has left Shetland and is now living in Orkney with his partner and their child (with another on the way). It all starts when an old friend goes missing on Westray and found bludgeoned to death with one of the old Story Stones found in an archeological dig.

It’s a solid murder mystery full of island characters and relatable description of the incredible scenery (and weather) there. Not usually a fan of scenic descriptions, I could feel these descriptions and enjoyed them a lot. My only complaint is that the reader seems to be kept in the dark about the detective’s thinking so that the apprehension of the murderer is a bit of a surprise. Nonetheless, enjoyed it a lot.

Thank you to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on September 30th, 2025.