Tag: writing

Go Gentle by Maria Semple (Literary Fiction)

An absolute pleasure to read from start to finish!

Adora Hazzard — one-time comedy writer turned staff philosopher for precocious (and wealthy) twins on the Upper West Side. Lover of the Stoics. Instigator of a modern day coven (not what you think but even better!). And … an unwitting participant in the convoluted slip ’n slide of an art heist / Interpol / spy ring adventure. It’s funny how I can ignore the “plot” almost completely in favor of the deep dive into Adora’s character— her development of a personal life philosophy (with well-educated underpinnings), her eventual reckoning with poor past decisions, and her somewhat herky jerky reaction to the possibility of … love.

I give the writing an A+++. Fast paced, witty, infused with exceptional banter and a razor sharp clarity of thought applied to complex topics. Full of intriguing characters (in addition to Adora) — all memorable in their own way based not on who they are but on what they think, say, and make happen. I LOVED the injection of philosophy from the ancients to the current times — all made accessible and applicable to everyday life. I’ve read a lot of philosophy (admittedly a few decades ago) but I enjoyed thinking some new (to me) thoughts and puzzling out how what I learned might apply to my life. I’m a sucker for questions of moral rectitude and applied ethics and those were plentifully supplied. I also loved the various relationship reflections, shifts, and the way Semple depicted discussions on volatile topics with a subtle recognition of when ideology or a simple lack of thought snuck in and how the relationship changed (suffered?) as a result.

In summary — loved this book! Made me laugh, made me think, made me reflect, and it was fun to read. Can’t ask for much more than that! Some people took a real dislike to Adora, applying some pretty interesting judgements to her character (we have, as a culture, become so over-the-top judgmental IMHO). I think I could take up a whole book club discussion on the whys of that one. For my part, I’m a big fan.

Just a few quotes that don’t give too much away — there are great ones on every page:

“Inside her apartment, Matt (shoes-on, doing the couch luge) was gunning people down with an intensity I reckoned he never applied to learning her love language. A statement bong dominated the coffee table. Meanwhile, out in the hallway, bag handles had begun to cut off circulation to his beloved’s ringless fingers.”

“An unimpeachably intentional, highly curated, feminist old folks’ home? Nah, not much of a ring. A tragic, estrogen-free trio trying to put our best face on the realization society is done with us and we’re destined to die alone? No, and bite your tongue.”

“I adored learning about the personal lives of the philosophers and tracking the progression of collective thought throughout history. How every breakthrough idea had been a

Profits, Prophets, Coaches, and Kings by Jared Diamond (popular science / history)

I never read the very popular Guns, Germs, and Steel, so perhaps my expectations for this book were too high, but I did find it disappointing. The subject was ostensibly “When do leaders matter” — is there something uniquely capable about them or are they just in the right place at the right time and someone else would have accomplished the same thing had they not been there. To expand on this “query” Diamond elaborates (at length and in a rambling, unclear, and far too repetitive manner) on the “research” methods used to investigate the question: biography, the “Hamlet test,” and natural experiments (finding experimental situations “in the wild” rather than planned in laboratory).

The book is segmented into four categories: Political, business, sports, and religious leaders. I did enjoy many of the “stories” — mini biographies of “great” figures in each category, and some high level, but interesting analysis of why some religions succeeded while others did not (surprisingly Islam was not mentioned which is a bit of an oversight? Perhaps intentional?). However, I found the depth of investigation to be shallow to the point where I felt some recaps came straight from wikipedia without checking for factual inaccuracies (of which I found several), and conclusions drawn in a sloppy fashion without adequate coverage of contributing factors or even breadth of contributing research.

The writing is (IMHO) simply bad. The narrative rambles, repeats, inserts some personal stories that were strangely ineffective at bonding us to the writer. A large number of pages are devoted to explaining various research techniques but I did not find the writing to have the clarity I look for when explaining potentially complex or unfamiliar subjects. I’m already familiar with these techniques but I wouldn’t have understood them from his verbose and incoherent descriptions. I was also a bit disturbed in some places by his content — asking his readers “do they feel strongly enough about an individual leader’s negative impact that they would sacrifice their own life in order to assassinate him or her?” He was referring to Hitler but too many people today are taking that question seriously and considering “evil” targets that have done little more than disagree with their ideology. Do we want to suggest to people that assassination is a noble endeavor as that question suggests? Similarly, he lumped Margaret Thatcher and Mao Zedong together into a category of leaders with a “mixed legacy.” Mao killed 40 – 80 million of his own people. Does Margaret Thatcher really fall into the same category? Small points but troubling nonetheless.

The book is really a set of vignettes loosely aligned with leadership and impact. I found it entertaining at times, though more difficult to read than it should have been. I didn’t find the main question to be an important one, nor do I think he actually came to any real conclusion, never mind one based on real data extracted from solid research methods. I would categorize this in the popular science / history category along with Mary Roach, Malcolm Gladwell and their ilk, though less entertaining.

Thank you to Mariner Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book was published on September 1st, 2026.

The American Way of Killing by Malcolm Gladwell (Non fiction)

Gladwell’s latest tackles the highly emotional topic of Violence in America — and he tackles it with a shocking amount of anger and aggression aimed at Americans — all 350 million of us. Gladwell’s general approach to his subjects is to (in his words) find interesting anecdotes and interesting research and pair them up. The set of vignettes in this collection do this but in a hostile and often misleading way. Hostile in that he’s clearly angry at Americans (again — all of us) literally and repeatedly calling us stupid, dishonest, “morally reckless,” and pedantic at various points in the narratives. Misleading in that none of his “stories” are comprehensive — some offer partial (but never tested at scale) solutions, many describe efforts and explain why they are a waste of time, a few contradict each other, and several leave out critical aspects of the data that could change the conclusions. I am glad I read this book and I did learn some new and relevant information, but I strongly recommend reading the book critically and doing your own supplemental research to get a fuller picture.

The bits I found interesting: Americans (according to Gladwell) think they are over policed, but in fact we are largely under-policed. A comparison of police forces in L.A. and Berlin (equal populations with L.A. a larger physical area) surprised me. 8,500 police in L.A. vs 18,000 in Berlin. This section included a good description of how a larger police force could prevent more crime and improve community engagement based on interviews with those who had run large police forces (e.g. Boston, L.A.). A dive into a program to teach young men (the victims and perpetrators of the largest segment of gun violence) how to maintain emotional control based on the “realization” that much of gun violence was based on “an exaggerated sense of moral injury leading them to take the law into their on hands.” A few dips into how gun fatality statistics are influenced on the one hand by the amazing abilities of surgeons to save victims who would have died in the past, and on the other hand by the location of trauma centers which are often not close enough to the areas that need them the most. While not productive in any sense, I did learn something from the details of the assault weapons ban — pages and pages of specific weapons banned, an even longer list of those not banned, followed by his point that most homicides were committed with handguns anyway.

The pointless or frustrating bits: Long diatribes about our “absurd” focus on the second amendment and the pedantic nature of the Supreme Court, betraying incomprehension for what the Constitution is and how the Supreme Court is supposed to make decisions (Gladwell is a British-Canadian who has lived in the U.S. since the mid eighties without applying for citizenship so maybe he missed the memo?). Conflating homicides and suicides into single gun violence statistics which give misleading ideas about where the biggest problems are. Some sideways mentions of racism without any cohesive theme — almost as though just throwing it in there.

I’ve read most, if not all, of Gladwell’s books and have enjoyed them. They are called “pop sociology” and I enjoy the surprising tidbits. However, with such a critical topic under discussion, the light-weight nature of the anecdotes coupled with the needlessly hostile tone really didn’t work for me. Read it — but spend some time thinking about what you read and maybe do a little extra research before drawing any conclusions.

There are so many good sources of relevant information out there. Here are a few statistics that I found (and found easily): There is an oft referenced meme on gun friendly states having the highest amount of gun deaths. Using the CDC data at https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/state-stats/deaths/homicide.html, what I found is that by removing the suicides and only looking at homicides, many of the “red” states known to be very gun friendly (Montana, Wyoming, Alaska) jumped down to the middle of the list because almost all (80-90%) of their gun deaths were suicides. In fact, California (very blue!) and Montana (pretty red!) have the exact same number of homicide gun deaths per capita. I also looked up what percentage of firearms in the U.S. were used to cause injury or fatality — according to https://publichealth.jhu.edu/center-for-gun-violence-solutions/data/annual-gun-violence-data, this is 0.003% of all firearms. Lastly, I asked one of the AI engines to give me information on guns used in self-defense and it gave me pointers to several different surveys run by a variety of organizations resulting in a large range (70,000 – 2,500,000) of reported self-defense events, mostly guns used as a deterrant, i.e. without firing a shot. For me this helps to frame why so many people want guns and how few (and concentrated) the use of guns for violence is.

I should mention that I am by no means a “gun nut,” and I’m extremely worried about the level of overall violence in our country — not just inner city gun homicides, but the tendency towards violence with any kind of weapon, the acceptance of politically motivated violence, the excusing of violence committed by the mentally ill, and the violence committed by people who just seem to enjoy it. Some level of gun control is of course required, but it is in no way sufficient. We have a big problem with people and culture — some of Gladwell’s stories point in the right direction, but not nearly enough.

Thank you to Little, Brown and Company and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on September 29th, 2027.

Monk of Mokha by Dave Eggars (Narrative Non-fiction)

An entertaining and educational book about one man’s successful effort to revitalize Yemen’s quality coffee production. It stars a somewhat unlikely hero — Mokhtar Alkhanshali — an American of Yemeni descent growing up in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district who is initially depicted as a bit of a screw up but manages to accomplish what would be impossible for most.

This is a work of “narrative non-fiction” — it reads like a novel but is a “true story” (not based on a true story). It’s part education and part high adventure, giving every type of brain something to hook into. I learned an astonishing amount about the history of coffee production, the means of assessing “quality” coffee, the convoluted “seed to Starbucks” process, and a great deal about starting and funding a complex business. I also learned more than I ever knew existed about Yemen — its history, current political climate, and US immigrant community. All of this learning was encapsulated in an intriguing (i.e. not at all dry) narrative that was full of compelling characters, the ideal level of concept-supporting detail, and literal high adventure (Try to escape the country during a civil war! Crossing the Red Sea on a tiny boat! Getting out of Dodge while drowning in an ocean of bureaucracy!).

I particularly found the way he did business to be interesting — while not an admirable student, Mokhtar thrived in an entrepreneurial setting, supported by his social abilities and connections. He was fast thinking, able to engage with a wide variety of people, and had a ready made set of connections in Yemen without which I don’t think he could have gotten very far — they certainly had to bail him out many times. Plenty of implicit commentary on what life is like in a low trust society. Also plenty of implicit commentary on the role of women in Mokhtar’s community both within the U.S. and Yemen — there were no women in the story! The exceptions were those in supporting roles (someone’s wife, someone’s admin, and one group of stellar coffee workers located by a business partner’s mother — they were the only workers who didn’t steal!). I did appreciate that the political commentary (which I will not comment on) appeared to be impartial and not agenda based.

A note on process the author used to write this book (according to an SF Gate article). Apparently the work is based on extensive (hundreds of hours) interviews with Mokhtar, but additionally Eggars traveled to the various regions personally to retrace the route, went through his own Q-grading coffee course, and verified events through interviews with several of the key players.

Not my usual reading material — I had a lot of questions, particularly about people, and nobody to ask — but lots of well-documented information that I’m glad to now know.

Fair Ones by Lydia Millet (Literary Fiction)

A slow paced (but exquisitely written and perversely engaging) novel rich in insightful discourse and doubly rich in character depth. At the core is a trio of best friends: Mara, Jen, and Claire — single New Yorkers operating at various edges of the wealthy. Claire — a high school guidance counselor and beauty queen; Mara a tutor for prep school students; and Jen the brainy former journalist and culture editor. It’s billed as a double novel — part one is Mara’s story, launched immediately after Claire’s sudden and violent death; part two is Jen’s story, taken up a year later and continuing with the evolving relationships, secrets, and healing.

I loved this book for the very real and thoroughly explored lives in relation to the catastrophic experience and the mad swirl of collateral damage resulting. New friendships, new discoveries, new reactions, new regrets, new hopes. The plot progresses, sometimes in very surprising (but utterly believable) ways. Social commentary throughout in characters’ thoughts, reactions, and evolving sense of self. Plenty of existential considerations as well as political discussions and a sense of societal duty (rather than entitlement). I found so many great quotes. I liked the fact that each character worked hard at understanding what made a “good person” and how they could best achieve that label, while also having the awareness of the layers of hypocrisy that lurk just below the surface. I also liked how well the author painted people from the different perspectives of the other characters through the kind of dialog / discussions we all have.

Quintessentially a New York story, and yet, typical for stories about New Yorkers, the characters are all NY transplants and so we travel from a Jain community in California, to the woods in Maine, to elite boarding schools, to high priced, drug infused Wall Street lofts in discovery of backstories. We consider white collar crime, dementia without financial resources, and the search for meaningful occupation. And we are surprised with a creeping, surreptitious solution to a mystery we didn’t know existed. We “join” in the discussion of a wide variety of topics from multiple perspectives on everything from climate change to the pros and cons of capitalism, to the real meaning of Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree (that was a hoot). Millet’s books have a kind of dream like quality for me because I feel like I am occupying so many different heads at once. I loved this book.

Quotes:
“We had our daily routines, inside millions of others, and along the edges of those routines there was always the prospect of the story taking new turns. Because the city contained multitudes. So if the story changed, we’d figured, maybe we’d be excited all over again. Even the pandemic hadn’t driven us away. We’d survived.”

“In more neutral terms, she explained, they were both aware that pleasure and so-called ‘being in love’ are based on neurological novelty. And that the brain can’t be trusted not to take a relationship for granted. If they hung out together for too long a stretch, the dopamine surges would flare out.”

“If I tried to join in, throwing out a quick word of agreement or question, they’d gaze at me anthropologically. Like they were tolerating my naive opinion the way you’d tolerate a well-meaning foreigner who doesn’t speak the language.”

“Still, if you took away words, music lasted for centuries, I thought. A distillation of sadness that never aged. Unlike the person who’d felt it.”

“‘Economically underprivileged,’ was what the school called them, but Claire said poor kids; economically underprivileged was a privileged euphemism.”

“Although, she’d added, they outsourced their misery. Norway, for instance, claimed to be leading on carbon-neutrality but got most of its money from exporting a s***load of fossil fuels. Plus they went around slaughtering whales. Like the Japanese.”

“I never wanted kids. Even back when being gay meant you probably couldn’t have them. For the middle and upper classes, it’s a way of replacing anxiety about society with a fixation on the domestic. So you don’t have to strain your compassion by worrying about anything beyond the home front. Because you’ve already met your daily quota struggling to raise your young You can give up your ideals and your unresolved tension over the existential crisis of the ongoing death of the planet. And be praised for it. Since breeding’s sanctioned as the highest form of love.”

“There’s no such thing as a gift horse, Mara. Richard’s a regular horse. And the deal with horses is, you have to take care of them. You have to feed them. Muck out their stalls, Clean the first and shit from their hooves with a rasp. And ride them on a regular basis.”

“I don’t have a heart at peace, with my ex-wife. With that woman, I have a heart at war.”

“Plus Richard bloviated more if another professional was present. Especially Eli, who he saw as highly intelligent and yet, as a forensic pathologist, not fully conversant with current readings of late-stage capitalism. Richard would shift into enthusiastic lecture mode while Eli, likely exhausted from eight hours poking around in gnarly corpses, nodded politely and endured. I had to break into the lectures to save him.”

“So what did I do, again? With all that was given to me? And the answer would be, I ate. Mara claims social boredom makes me act out. But I don’t act out enough. If I did, I wouldn’t get so bored.”

Thank you to W. W. Norton & Company and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on October 6th, 2026.

Trust by Hernan Diaz (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2023)

I did not love this book. It won the Pulitzer — which used to be a guaranteed winner for my taste but that hasn’t been true for the last few years. Much of it was well-written in terms of actual literary sentences, but I found the structure unnecessarily tedious. Four distinct sections — each written by a different (fictional) author but purporting to describe the life of the same (very, very) wealthy man and his wife during the late 1800s / early 1900s. Part 1: a novel about a rich man who had no real passions except for the complexity of the stock market, for which his particular brain was well-suited. Some background on the woman who was to be his wife, completing after her death. I’m trying not to give away any real spoilers here — suffice it to say that the language of this section is precise, clean, somewhat poetic, and with some intriguing bits (I like thinking about how other people’s brains work), but with rather two-dimensional characters that I don’t find in the least believable or (obviously) relatable. Part 2 is the partially completed, partially outlined autobiography written by the “real” man serving as the ill-disguised subject of part 1. This was painful to read because it was (intentionally) poorly written and was basically a diatribe claiming that the man attained his riches by ensuring a good and healthy economy for all. We’re now at 50% of the book and feeling a bit weighed down by slog! Part 3 is the best. Reminiscent in style (to me) of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn — it’s the story of a young woman raised by an anarchist father who somehow gets the job of helping the rich man write his autobiography. This part is full of insight into behavior, relationships, imagination, self-preservation, and literature. Part 4 is the short excerpt from the only one of the rich man’s wife’s extensive diaries to have survived. It’s got a real twist to it and I’ll leave it at that.

It’s interesting to read about how different people perceive the same thing, and it’s always interesting to think about how literature can shape the way we think about something, even though it’s “fiction.” It was also interesting to think about why I “trusted” certain sections more than others. In truth, all of the fictional authors were unreliable — an outside author trying to make money on a best seller; a man trying to show how attaining his wealth was really about helping others; a woman writing her own memoir painting her task to embellish the biography with pure imagination in the best light; and the diary excerpt of a woman who may have been mentally ill, may have been suffering from a variety of physical ailments, or may just be an egoist in her own right — and yet we automatically believe some more than others. Is our choice of what to believe from our own biases or from the skill of the writer? That’s worth a discussion — but as the “truth” is never determined, we’re left with the same kind of confusion we (should) bring to any story, news item, piece of gossip, etc.

I think if part 2 had been left out, or at least greatly diminished, it might have been an enjoyable read, but not Pulitzer worthy. On the other hand, the latest Pulitzer Fiction award was given to a book that comprises a single sentence across 304 pages so I think experimental style may have surpassed character development and beautiful language as the key criterion. Also, some kind of social justice / anti-capitalism push as the Pulitzer page describes this book as a “A riveting novel set in a bygone America that explores family, wealth and ambition through linked narratives rendered in different literary styles, a complex examination of love and power in a country where capitalism is king.” Honestly not how I would have described it.

Madeline McKnight Signs Off by Evan Brooke (Literary Fiction)

Madeline McKnight — fierce, determined, a “Wizard of Wall Street”, and … not possessed of too many friends. Fighting against the inevitable resulting from a stage 4 melanoma diagnosis, she is determined to survive it until her museum honoring Hetty Green (1834 – 1916) is opened. She wants people to care about Hetty, and to recognize her brilliance. She sees herself — her accomplishments and her lack of recognition — in Hetty. Hetty was called “the Witch of Wall Street” in her time — Madeline’s epithet rhymes and starts with B. She invites (cajoles, bribes) Bri Davis — struggling nursing student drowning in debt and easily bribable — to help her get to the finish line. The catch? Bri’s mother was Madeline’s best friend until an emotional explosion drove them apart many years ago. Bri’s attitude toward Madeline is ambivalent at best.

Alternating chapters between Madeleine and Bri’s perspectives, the narrative is surprisingly witty, thoughtful, and illuminating. While I shed some tears when the obvious finally occurred, I left feeling more uplifted than down. Excellent writing — clear, humorous at times, and perfectly capturing the internal struggles one faces when considering the parts of one’s life already lived. Themes around money and wealth, atonement, loyalty conflicting with morality, and plenty of thoughtful coverage of how women are treated differently than men — not the heavy handed oppression storyline, but the small ways in which things are harder or more criticized or misunderstood or subject to some doozies of double standards. The latter was particularly interesting because Madeline was forced to acknowledge the complexity of individual human beings. She wanted to make Hetty an unsung hero but the reality of Hetty — known as the “richest woman in America in the Gilded Age” — was more complex. She was a self-made woman with astonishing financial prowess, yet she did nothing to help others, not even supporting women’s suffrage. This led to Madeline’s own soul searching and the recognition and acceptance of her own accomplishments and failures.

Completely engaging.

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on November 3rd, 2026.

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabakov (Literary Fiction)

After plowing through this book, reading some online explanations, and having a discussion with other literary fans, I can honestly say that I think this is a masterpiece of literature but not terribly fun to read. The book comprises an introduction, a 999 line poem, and a (very) lengthy, almost line-by-line commentary about the poem.

The poem is written by John Shade, while the introduction and commentary is written by the character Kinbote. Kinbote is the epitome of an unreliable narrator, but that’s OK because what narrative there is is buried in fits and starts within the commentary. While it may seem like “cheating,” I did read a couple of summaries that helped me frame the basic premise my structure craving brain required to make any headway. I won’t include anything here in case you are a firm non-peeker, but know that it can help. Suffice it to say that nothing is what it seems, and the hints to what might be reality are all included but told through the perspective of a madman and only dribbled out in disjoint segments. And yet, it is beautifully done. The writing is incredible (see some quotes below) and the vocabulary … I love words and have (I think) a pretty good vocabulary but the non-native speaker Nabokov blew me away. Just a few of the new (to me) words: Orbicle, Nacreous, Quiddity, Bimanist, stillicide, Ephebe, Pudibundity, Maculation, Architectonically, Trochee, Goetic, Contrapuntal, Perlustration, Selenographer, Versipel, Ament. Life is so much easier when you can look them up on your phone without getting out of the chair!

If you appreciate intricate, highly complex book structure, love beautiful language, and understand that the plot isn’t always the point, this is the book for you!

Quotes:

Alas, my peace of mind was soon to be shattered. The thick venom of envy began squirting at me as soon as academic suburbia realized that John Shade valued my society above that of all other people.

His misshapen body, that gray mop of abundant hair, the yellow nails of his pudgy fingers, the bags under his lusterless eyes, were only intelligible if regarded as the waste products eliminated from his intrinsic self by the same forces of perfection which purified and chiseled his verse. He was his own cancellation.

Nevertheless the urge to find out what he was doing with all the live, glamorous, palpitating, shimmering material I had lavished upon him, the itching desire to see him at work (even if the fruit of his work was denied me), proved to be utterly agonizing and uncontrollable and led me to indulge in an orgy of spying which no considerations of pride could stop.

I notice a whiff of Swift in some of my notes. I too am a desponder in my nature, an uneasy, peevish, and suspicious man, although I have my moments of volatility and fou rire.

And moreover [he said] we, whites, are not white at all, we are mauve at birth, then tea-rose, and later all kinds of repulsive colors.

All the seven deadly sins are peccadilloes but without three of them, Pride, Lust and Sloth, poetry might never have been born.

And let me add here how much I was honored a fortnight later to meet in Washington that limp-looking, absent-minded, shabbily dressed splendid American gentleman whose mind was a library and not a debating hall.

Resemblances are the shadows of differences. Different people see different similarities and similar differences.

The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout (Literary Fiction)

Writing: 5/5 Characters: 5/5 Plot: 4/5

I was instantly hooked by the epigraph: Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible. — Carl Jung

This was the beautifully written, deeply reflective story of Artie Dam — a high school history teacher who spends time considering free will, loneliness, and whether or not anybody can really know anybody else. He watches his own mind a lot — I like that concept. He has been married 34 years, has a grown son who has become more distant, and a deep love for his students who he fears, based on the last election, he is sending out into an unsafe world.

I love the way the author (who is one of my favorites) paints a scene from multiple points of views. We spend a lot of time in Artie’s head, but we also get snapshots of what each of the people in his life think about him simultaneously and why. The elucidation of how we perceive the people around us, how they perceive us, and how we manage to make a connection to them despite this variance is brilliant. I also loved the fluid way Artie reflects on his life — memories precipitated by small events and interactions and the larger social shifting in reaction to the big events — Covid, the 2024 election, and the (ever changing) perceptions of right and wrong.

Political angst is a big piece of the context for Artie and several other key characters. Semi-oblique references to orange hair, cancelled government contracts, ICE “Nazis”, and general loathing for certain personages (you know who they are!) are tossed out without too much discussion. I found this interesting not because I agree or disagree with the view, but because of how having these feelings — justified or not — deeply impacted the characters. I appreciated that the author did include other characters — presented as reasonable and good people — who held either opposing views (they voted for Trump!) or who were simply content to wait and see what actually happened, rather than get too intensely worked up about it. What I loved about this book was that in spite of the angst — both internally and externally induced — the novel was primarily about personal insight and the way that we can have a positive impact on others and work to achieve the contentment and connection that we want. I found this book ultimately uplifting.

Quotes:
“She was unaware — even after their thirty-four years of married life — of the deep pockets of sensitivity that Artie had. And why did she not know? Because she herself did not have those particular sensitivities — and like almost everyone else on this Earth her imagination could not take her fully to another place, even with her husband.”

“So blind we humans are — so blind. To each other and to ourselves, moving through life as though through shadows, putting out a hand in the dark and thinking we have touched someone. And maybe we have, as Artie did with Rhonda Lazarre that day. But mostly we travel through life unsighted, grasping only the smallest details of one another’s selves, including our own. Thinking all the while that we can see.”

“And then she leaned her head against his shoulder, and this is what stabbed Artie now, their innocence, and how badly he wanted — as that elderly woman had — to lean his head against a loving person, to be innocent and incorruptible.”

“And now he knew why. Because to say anything real was to say things that nobody wanted to know. Or if they wanted to know, they would not care in the right way. Or even understand. It was a private thing, to be alive. He understood this now.”

“As he walked slowly up to the bedroom, he thought that now, after all these years, he was finally becoming a grownup. What did he mean by that? That he was finally beginning to understand the multitudinous aspect of people. He was amazed by it, really, now that he thought about it. In his study of history, he had learned about the leaders, and the various groups involved, but he had some how missed this fact about every single person: that they held within themselves a vast, unknowable universe. And he understood that it could make a person lonely; people had to take and give to one another whatever they could. If it was not enough … Well, then it meant one just had to be a grownup.”

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on May 5th, 2026.

Six Little Words by Sally Page (Fiction — Audiobook)

Lighthearted and uplifting, this is a charming tale of a Norfolk (England) community group that comes together around an amateur competition designed to unlock a person’s creative spark. We alternate between the perspectives of Bardy, a retired English teacher suffering from writer’s block, and Kate, an equally frustrated once-painter, but the others in the group each have equally compelling narratives that slowly surface as the group coalesces into something much greater than originally intended.

This could have been simply another piece of uplifting women’s fiction (and nothing is wrong with that!), but I found a lot to love that went far beyond the expected bromides. Bardy experiences synesthesia and the description of how he saw people as intense and specific colors was fascinating. It was as though his subconscious experiences of people manifested as actual visual portrayals. I also found all the discussions about art — making it, recognizing it, expressing oneself through it (without considering external judgement) incredibly insightful and engaging — even though I have no artistic capabilities or experiences trying to produce it. The array of artistic endeavor was both amusing and absorbing — from oils to poetry to photography to fashion designs (on dogs!) to musical theatre. I was particularly interested in the way that any artistic expression is a window into someone — their interests, the way they see things, the way their brain works — I’m always curious about people and very aware of how differently people “work” from each other. I hadn’t really thought about artistic expression as a channel in that. I liked the reminder also that artistic expression is for the artist, regardless of the opinions and valuations of others. With so much commentary and criticism on all sides, it’s sometimes difficult to remember that you paint or play piano or pretend to take on acting roles because it’s fun and internally satisfying, not because you need the approval from others (unless you’re trying to make a living that way, of course!).

The book had a nice happy ending — full of (realistically IMHO) resolved situations with personal growth required for decent closure. The “Six Little Words” inspiring the title are exposed near the end — and they are perfect! Great for fans of Joanna Trollope. Thoroughly enjoyed it.