THE UNLIKELY PILGRIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY, RACHEL JOYCE

I found this odd little book difficult to get into, perhaps because I was ill, or perhaps because I couldn't get over the desire to slap some sense into Harold Fry.  He's a mousy Englishman whose major desire is for no one to notice him.  He feels he has failed everyone he has ever known, has nothing to offer the world, and that most likely everyone else either despises him or feels sorry for him.

Harold and his wife Maureen have been sleeping in separate bedrooms for years, and she only speaks to him to complain about something petty.  In fact, a rare funny moment in the book is when Harold has gone on his pilgrimage and she doesn't want to do household chores anymore.  It's no fun, she thinks, without being able to slam down the basket and complain endlessly about how much work she has to do.

Their life changes drastically the day Harold receives a note from a woman he had worked with years earlier.   She is in a hospice 500 miles north of his home and wanted to thank him for his friendship before she died.  He remembers that they were indeed friends, and that she had done a huge favor for him for which he never adequately thanked her.  On his way to post a letter back to her, he decides he must go to her, that as long as he is walking toward her, she will live.  And so he sets out - without cell phone, enough money, decent walking shoes, anything.

As he walks, he remembers and he thinks.  We learn why he is who he is.  He learns about people he meets along the way, and to appreciate nature.  He becomes aware of plants and buys a guidebook to learn about them.  He watches the sky change and he walks in rain or dry.

Meanwhile, at home Maureen is so lonely without him she doesn't know what to do.  Finally she becomes friends with a widower across the street who is a great help to her.  He manages to take her out of her malaise a bit.

The whole story has wonderful messages, and the characters he meets are the kind of ordinary folks you might meet anywhere.  There's even a dog he calls Dog who travels part of the way with him and gives him the love he needs so desperately.  I still had the occasional desire to slap Harold silly, but for the most part I admired his dogged dedication to his quest.  I felt sad for him, Maureen, Queenie who is dying and many of the people who helped him.  It isn't an easy book to read, and yet I'm very glad I did read it.

Source:  Random House
Recommended reading

Reading and Editing but Blogging, Not So Much

I really have been reading, although the past three days it's been slow.  I have a chemo headache that just won't let me enjoy reading at the moment.  I'll be glad when I feel better; this is the pits.

Meanwhile, I've been reading a very long book that I promised to critique for a new writer in NJ. It's fitting for me to do this since it is set where I went to prep school back in the Middle Ages.  My thoughts on it will only be for her, but if she does get it published, I'll share.

I'm also reading about Harold Fry's walking adventure.  Have you read this one?  It's downstairs, I'm upstairs, and I'm much too lazy to walk down and get the correct title.  It's about a shy, sheltered man who has led a life strictly confined to home and job.  Then he receives a letter from an old friend who is dying of cancer in a place about 500 miles north of Harold's home.  He decides to walk the 500 miles to see her, figuring as long as he walks, she lives.  A very strange book, but then I'm in a very strange situation at the moment so I guess it suits me.

At least I've been able to watch the Olympics without guilt.  That's about all I've had the strength and energy to do, but the games have been great.  I'm getting a kick out of the fact that William, Kate, and Harry have been attending so many events and thoroughly enjoying themselves.  And I must say having, supposedly, Queen Elizabeth II and Bond, James Bond parachute into the opening ceremonies was a touch of genius.  Otherwise the ceremony left me cold but that was super.

I'll be back just as soon as I get rid of this blankety-blank headache.

STONE KISS by Faye Kellerman

This was my first Faye Kellerman mystery although I have read Jonathan Kellerman forever.  Unfortunately this might be my last of hers.  This is a good story with some good characters but it sort of left me cold.


It's one of the Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus series, and Peter and Rina are the really well-drawn characters.  I did care what happened to them as I was reading, but with some of the others I just couldn't care less.


One of the best things about this novel is that it gave me a peek into a culture I know almost nothing about, Chasidic (I've always spelled it Hasidic) Jews.  Decker's half brother is a rabbi whose brother-in-law is Hasidic.  When the brother-in-law's teenage daughter goes missing, the rabbi calls Decker  in California in a panic, practically begging him to come to New York to help.  Decker's wife thinks they should go and by the way they could also see her grown sons while they are visiting.


In New York Decker is out of his element but he runs into an evil man with a good side (sort of like the prostitute with a heart of gold you know) who helps him.  The problem is that you never know whether this guy is truly helpful or is preparing to kill Decker.  The story is set partly in the city and partly in a fictional upstate NY town with a corrupt police chief.  Decker is in danger no matter where he is but keeps putting off a planned flight to Florida to visit his parents and brother because he just can't quit on the case, even when the Hasidic family lets him know he needs to leave.


There are some passages which stretched my tolerance for fortuitous appearances past its limit, and I thought too many characters were actually ordered from stock.  Nonetheless I can see why Faye Kellerman's novels are very popular and have countless fans.  It just wasn't my cup of tea.


Source:  swap with friend.  Recommended only for people who know and like this author.

Update on My Eventful Summer

This has been a busy, busy week but today I get to stay home and rest.  I have everything done, ready for my treatment to begin.  This coming Monday I see my oncologist and will learn when we start.  I'm very ready to get started; the sooner we start, the sooner we finish.


The verdict is that I will have chemo followed by radiation and I'm still hoping that I will be finished by the end of this year.  I'm determined that 2013 will be a stellar year for me after this 2012 bummer.


Our big book sale is today and tomorrow but once again I'll miss it.  I have so many unread books already, including new advance copies I've promised to review, that the last thing I need is more.  It's a great cause since we're raising money for a new library building but I have other things on my mind right now.   Hopefully the sale will raise as much money as it usually does.  They begin with thousands and thousands of books, but the tents get so hot and crowded that you really have to be a trooper, or dedicated book reader, to take it.


It is supposed to be 88 degrees today and humid.  Wonderful day to sit in front of the fan and watch the Olympics.  I'm reduced to reading during commercial breaks!  :


Meanwhile, I thank all of you for your good wishes and prayers.  Your support keeps me uplifted and optimistic.

The Confession by John Grisham

It isn't often I have a chance to read John Grisham, but when I do, I really enjoy his books.  This one had me sitting on the edge of my seat since the clock was ticking as a crusading lawyer, a minister, and an ex-con tried desperately to keep Texas from executing an innocent man.


Both side of the  controversy are very well represented and the Texas propensity for executing criminals without too much public angst is featured prominently.  Given that the prisoner on death row is black and the town he comes from, as well as state officials, are predominantly run by white men, you also have a looming race riot.  The mother of the white victim has found her niche in life as she finds media attention and sympathy, until everyone tires of her turning on the waterworks constantly.  Donte Drumm, the one convicted of murdering her daughter, has been on death row for nine years so most people have had enough.  


Then an ex-con living in a halfway house in Kansas comes to talk to a Lutheran minister nearby and tells him that he is the actual killer.  His story sounds legitimate.  He also says he has a brain tumor and only a few months to live so he wants to confess and not let Texas execute the innocent man.  Too bad he is cooperative one minute and anything but cooperative the next.  The minister, a well-drawn character, is launched on a life-changing few days as the execution draws nearer and nearer.  He will never be the same.


There are repercussions for everyone involved in this case and although there are many characters, there is never any confusion about who is who, or who is on what side of the issue.  It's Grisham at his best in my opinion.  


Source:  gift.  Recommended reading.

The Glass Guardian by Linda Gillard

I'm rather late to the party with this review.  I read it on my computer which is in the hottest room in the house so I've had to read it in small sessions.  Worth every drop of sweat though.  


What I love about Linda Gillard's writing is that she gently pulls me out of my comfort zone, and my reading world is broadened by the exposure.  Ordinarily I would never dream of reading a book where the hero is a ghost who died in WW I at the Battle of Loos in, I believe, 1915.  Thankfully since Gillard wrote it, I plunged right in quite happily and promptly fell in love with Hector the ghost.


Another thing I like about this writer is that she doesn't shy from a challenge.  The heroine of this tale has come to her late aunt's house on Isle of Skye to recover from her grief over the deaths of her partner and her beloved aunt.  She spent much time in that house as a child; at that time Hector appeared to her frequently and was her protector.  Now that she has returned as an adult, and is again in need of Hector, he appears again.  Now how do you write a love story, including sex, between a human and a ghost?  Look no further than The Glass Guardian to learn from a master how to write such scenes beautifully and believably, well close enough anyhow.


There is a bit of a mystery in that she finds evidence that her aunt, a composer, didn't actually compose one of her most famous pieces.  A Canadian scholar wants to come to Skye to research her works; should she allow him to come?


This is a gem of a book in which the house and garden are perfect settings for a unique story about a woman who learns about true love and what makes life worthwhile.


Source:  a gift.  Highly recommended reading.  

Criminal by Karin Slaughter

I've been reading Karin Slaughter's books and enjoying them forever it seems.  Her newest, Criminal, is one that I found a little difficult to get into, but once I was caught up in the story I couldn't put it down.  The characters are so well depicted that I simply had to find out both their background and what was going to happen in the present day.  The story is set in Atlanta.


The background story is covered in sections from 1975 when women cops were a new phenomenon, and as such suffered endless rude comments and downright sexual assault from the men on the force.  Male cops routinely took credit for what women did with no fear of reprisals for any of their mistreatment of females.  Policewoman Amanda Wagner not only has the usual harrassment to put up with but also suffers from the fact that her father is a suspended VIP cop and member of the KKK.  She has to prove herself even more than the other women on the force.


The other major character is Will Trent, agent for the GBI, who grew up as an orphan, knowing that his father had killed his mother and other women in a particularly brutal fashion.  He finds out that his father has been released from prison, and now other young women are dying.  His angst over his background and current situation, as well as his budding romance with a doctor gets a little old but he is a sympathetic character and you just hope he will come out of it.   


Slaughter's books are definitely not for the squeamish.  There were a few passages that even made me squirm, although I'm usually able to read this kind of thing okay.  Having subscribed to her newsletter for some time now, I can imagine her glee at knowing she affects people's sensibilities so well.  She's quite a character, and that comes through in her writing.  Despite the subject matter, I laughed more than once.


Source:  Amazon Vine.  Recommended reading.