Fiction Review: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

When Book Cougars, one of my favorite podcasts, announced a February read-along of the novel, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk (translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones), I thought it was a very odd--and sort of creepy--title! Then I found out that this little novel from Poland was short-listed for the International Booker Prize, long-listed for the National Book Award for Translated Fiction, and won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature. Impressive! This quirky, funny, thoughtful novel deserved all those accolades, and I am glad to have read it.

An older Polish woman named Janina (though she dislikes her name and anyone who calls her by it) lives in a remote rural area near the Czech border. She is an ex-civil engineer who used to build bridges and now teaches English to children and studies astrology. While her home is in a lovely area during the short summer, the winters there are fierce and lengthy, when Janina helps to caretake for the people who own summer homes there. One night, Janina's neighbor, Oddball (she often nicknames people rather than remembering their names), comes to her door to ask for her assistance; their other neighbor, Big Foot, is dead. As the only three people in the area during the winter, the two of them go to Big Foot's small cabin and find he has choked to death on a deer bone, with evidence of the deer he poached in the kitchen. Janina, a staunch vegetarian, is certain that the animals took revenge on the man who had killed so many of their brethren, though the police don't seem impressed by her theory once they arrive. Shortly afterward, another suspicious death occurs in the same area, and this time, the police determine that it was murder. As Janina consults the stars and spends time with her friends--including Dizzy, her former student who engages Janina in helping him translate William Blake's works--other deaths occur, and she continues to hound the police about her theory that the animals are taking revenge on the hunters in the area.

I know this sounds like an odd plot description ... and it is an odd sort of book but in a good way. It is unexpectedly funny--often in a way that had me reading passages aloud to my husband, like this one, with Janina musing about her quiet neighbor, Oddball:

"With age, many men come down with testosterone autism, the symptoms of which are a gradual decline in social intelligence and capacity for interpersonal communications, as well as a reduced ability to formulate thoughts. The Person beset by this Ailment becomes taciturn and appears to be lost in contemplation. He develops an interest in various Tools and machinery, and he's drawn to the Second World War and the biographies of famous people, mainly politicians and villains. His capacity to read novels almost entirely vanishes; testosterone autism disturbs the character's psychological understanding. I think Oddball was suffering from this Ailment."

We both laughed over this, since I often complain my husband barely speaks to me (though he does still love to read novels). The entire novel is peppered with passages that either made me laugh out loud or were insightful thoughts that made me nod my head in agreement, like:

"Once we have reached a certain age, it is hard to be reconciled to the fact that people are always going to be impatient with us."

In fact, the incredible cleverness and humor in this book make its translation seem even more amazing. I think it must be hard to translate humor and wordplay into a different language, but this translator has done a magnificent job, including passages from Blake that Janina and Dizzy translate  (the title itself is a line from Blake). Aside from the pure pleasure of reading the narrative and being privy to Janina's thoughts, it's an interesting and intriguing plot, a murder mystery set in a small community. Who is killing off the local hunters? Could Janina actually be right? The novel does make you stop and wonder. My book is filled with tabbed pages with quotes that I want to write down, and I thoroughly enjoyed both the mystery and spending time with quirky Janina and her friends.

274 pages, Riverhead Books

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Listen to a sample of the audio book, narrated by Beata Poizniak in a lovely Polish accent, here and/or download it from Audible.

You can purchase Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead from an independent bookstore, either locally or online, here:

Or you can order Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Fiction Review: Recursion

I absolutely loved the novel Dark Matter by Blake Crouch when I read it in 2017, so I was excited to hear about his latest novel, Recursion. Crouch is also the author of novels that formed the basis for two of our favorite TV shows, Wayward Pines and Good Behavior, so he has become a favorite author for both my husband and I. Recursion continues Crouch's trend of super twisty, mind-bending sci fi novels with great characters.

At the start of the novel, the narrative moves back and forth between two different characters in two different times. In 2018, Barry, an NYPD detective, is called to the scene of a potential suicide. A woman is standing on the edge of a tall building, ready to jump, when Barry arrives. She tells him that she has FMS or False Memory Syndrome, a recently discovered medical condition where a person has memories of a completely different life, in addition to their memories of their current life. She describes the agony of remembering a husband who no longer knows who she is and a son who is no longer there, while Barry tries to talk her off the ledge.

Back in 2007, Helena, a neuroscientist, has devoted her life's work to the study of memories, specifically how to preserve memories for dementia patients so they can "replay" them after their disease progresses. Her inspiration is her mother, who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Struggling to continuously find research funding in her position at Stanford, Helena is shocked one day by a proposal she simply can't refuse. A super-wealthy high-tech entrepreneur (kind of an Elon Musk type guy) offers her unlimited funds to bring her dreams of building a "memory chair" to fruition. Of course, she agrees. The narrative moves back and forth between Barry's story and Helena's, until the two people (and timelines) meet, with scientific advances creating unforeseen changes in the very fabric of reality. Can Barry and Helena actually stop the destructive forces that have been set in motion?

I love sci fi plots that have to do with time travel, alternate timelines, or any sort of manipulation of time, and this novel has that and much more. It's a rich, twisty exploration of memory, time, and reality that just twisted my brain up in knots (in a good way). Recursion is also a fast-paced thriller, with the main characters racing against time to try to literally save the world, so it is filled with tension and suspense, all wrapped around a completely original and thought-provoking story with in-depth characters I came to care about. My husband and I both thoroughly enjoyed the wild ride this unique novel took us on, and we can't wait to see what Crouch comes up with next!

326 pages, Crown

Listen to a sampleof the audio book, with two narrators voicing Barry and Helena, here and/or download it from Audible.

You can purchase Recursion from an independent bookstore, either locally or online, here:

Or you can order Recursion from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

TV Tuesday: Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector

My husband and I were thrilled to see that NBC was bringing one of our favorite book series to the small screen this winter: the series of mysteries/thrillers by Jeffrey Deaver, starring paraplegic criminologist Lincoln Rhyme. The new series is called Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector, referring to the main character and the title of the first book in the series. Featuring a great cast and suspenseful mysteries, we are thoroughly enjoying this new show so far.

In the beginning of the first episode, we see how Lincoln Rhyme, played by Russell Hornsby, came to be in his current state, confined to his home. While tracking a serial killer dubbed The Bone Collector, the killer gets the best of Lincoln, and the detective ends up falling from a height flat on his back and unable to move, as the killer taunts him and sneaks away. The show then flashes forward three years to the present. Lincoln is confined to his home, able to move only his head and a few fingers, aided by a lot of expensive electronic systems and a nurse. When a series of murders in the city appears to indicate the return of The Bone Collector, Lincoln's old boss Michael Selitto, played by Michael Imperioli, consults with Lincoln. Lincoln chooses a young NYPD officer, Amelia Sachs (played by Arielle Kebbel), to wear a body cam and investigate the crime scenes with him watching from home. With that, the partnership between Lincoln and Amelia is born. In each episode, the two investigate a difficult case, along with a forensics team and Detective Selitto, but all the while the threat of The Bone Collector (who seems to have gone back underground) is in the background.

So far, the show is an excellent recreation of the outstanding novels. The characters are slightly different than as described in the books (my husband says they didn't make Lincoln nearly cranky and mean enough), but the essence of the stories is here: a brilliant but paralyzed forensic criminologist paired with a young female police officer solving unsolvable crimes. Each episode presents a new case that grabs the team's attention, while the tension around The Bone Collector slowly builds. The audience can see who the Bone Collector is and what he's doing, so that adds to the suspense. When the killer makes it clear that he knows who Amelia is and targets her family, as he did years ago with Lincoln's, the stakes are even higher. The weekly mystery plots are twisty and compelling, the cast is outstanding, and the suspense keeps growing. We've watched the first three episodes so far and can't wait to see more--Lincoln Rhyme has quickly become one of our favorite TV shows that we wait for each week!

Lincoln Rhyme airs Fridays at 8 pm Eastern time on NBC. We watch it On Demand, and for now, all three episodes are also available for free on the NBC website. It is also available on Amazon for $1.99 an episode or $19.99 for the full first season.

It's Monday 2/3! What Are You Reading?

Happy February! This is a fun month--short but with lots of little celebrations built in, including Valentine's Day and Mardi Gras (our favorite). Hope that everyone in the U.S. enjoyed Groundhog Day and the Superbowl last night. The best ad was definitely the one that combined the two "holidays," featuring Bill Murray reprising his Groundhog Day role, though I also loved the Mountain Dew ad with Bryan Cranston as Jack in The Shining (hmmm...just noticed those were both based on movies). Oh, and the game was good, too! Very exciting. We had a couple of friends over last night to enjoy the festivities with us, so it was extra fun.

That was the very nice end to a very bad week! Stress and pain both escalated. It's a long story, but the person I hired to format my book said she could do it in three hours, ended up spending three weeks on it, and then quit last week abruptly without finishing it. It was extremely upsetting, and I am now back to square one on the book formatting--I had hoped to publish in early Janiuary. At the same time, my hip and back pain from Lyme disease (I am certain now that's what it is) got much, much worse. My low back muscles started spasming Wednesday, with intense pain--it felt like childbirth, only in my back! I guess with all the hip pain on one side, I was favoring that side and moving funny, sitting weird, etc. until my back decided it was tired of carrying all the weight. Muscle relaxants, massage therapy, loads of anti-inflammatories, and lots of heat helped, and by yesterday, I was feeling up to having our friends over. But I ended up not getting much done last week because the pain just totally wiped me out. I have huge respect for those who live with chronic pain all the time. I'm feeling quite a bit better today, so here's to a new week and a fresh start!

As always, books provide a welcome distraction! Here's what we've all been reading this past week:

I finished a library book I borrowed for the Book Cougars podcast readalong: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk (translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones). Sounds like a really cheery title, right? Actually, it's a line from a William Blake poem, and the novel is quite funny! This book was originally published in Poland and has garnered a lot of recognition. It was short-listed for the International Booker Prize, long-listed for the National Book Award for Translated Literature, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature! It's about an older woman named Janina living in a remote rural area in Poland, near the Czech border. Her quiet life of caretaking for the summer residents and working on her astrology projects is disrupted when her neighbor dies suddenly, soon followed by another death, ruled a murder, nearby. Janina, a staunch vegetarian and animal lover, personally thinks the local animals are taking revenge on hunters, but the police don't put much credence in her theories. It's a bit quirky, but I enjoyed this unusual, amusing, and thoughtful novel.

Now, I am reading An Indigenous People's History of the United States for Young People, the YA version of the nonfiction book of the same name by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortis. This (the adult version) was the January choice for one of my book groups, but the meeting got postponed until March. I actually have both versions of the book here, from the library, so I am mostly reading the YA version but also dipping into the adult one sometimes, if I want more detail on a certain topic. A friend clued me in that the YA version includes maps, graphic, photos, and other visual information that really enhances the book; I don't know why they wouldn't include all that for adults, too! The maps are especially helpful. The book is just what its title suggests: a history of the U.S. from the perspective of Native Americans. As you might expect, it is absolutely horrifying but also quite enlightening. Did you know that it was actually the colonists, not Native Americans, who began the practice of scalping? Leaders of the new colonies offered cash for scalps (i.e. proof of killing an Indian), including those of children. Ugh. This is such an important book, but it is very heavy reading.

I started a new audio book, another very popular novel I've been meaning to read for ages, State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. Somehow, I missed it when it was published in 2011 and just found the audio files sort of hidden on my laptop and unlabelled--a pleasant surprise! It's the story of Dr. Marina Singh, a pharmaceuticals researcher from Minnesota who has been tasked with traveling to a remote area of Brazil. Another researcher at her company, Dr. Annick Swenson, has gone missing there and cut off all communication with the company, and the first guy sent to find her has now died. I am still early in the book--Marina has just arrived in Brazil--but it's already a very intriguing story with in-depth characters. I'm sure there will be plenty of interesting plot twists as Marina heads into the Amazon to search for her former mentor (I am sensing some Heart of Darkness themes here).

My husband, Ken, finished The Lying Game by Ruth Ware, a book I put in his Christmas stocking. He and I have both enjoyed other Ware novels, including The Woman in Cabin 10 and In a Dark, Dark Wood. This one is about four women who attended boarding school together, playing what they called The Lying Game, telling lies to their fellow students and even the staff at every turn. Now they are adults, and one of them texts the other three that she needs them. The four women converge on the seaside town where they went to school, as the secrets from their past threaten to emerge. He enjoyed reading it, and I'm looking forward to it as well (this is why my TBR shelves never get any less full, in spite of reading 45 TBR books last year!).

Now, Ken has moved onto another Christmas gift from me, Blue Moon by Lee Child. This is Ken's all-time favorite author and series, so he was excited to read this latest book (number 24!) about Jack Reacher, just released in October 2019. According to the blurb, this one involves an elderly couple who get into financial trouble, both Ukrainian and Albanian gangs, loan sharks, thugs, and assassins! Ken enjoys the writing and the suspense and action of these novels. He is loving this one so far, immersing himself in his favorite fictional world.

Our son, 25, had a tough choice last week. He had just gone on a shopping spree at Barnes & Noble with his Christmas gift card and had three new books to choose from, all of which he couldn't wait to read! He settled on The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams, book 1 in the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series. Sounds like this one features dark sorcery, an elf-like race, royals and servants, a deadly riddle, and plenty of swords--all right up his alley! I can't remember, but I don't think he's read this author before. This first book is almost 700 pages, so that should keep him busy.


Last week's blog posts:

Fiction Review: Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center - I enjoyed this unique novel on audio about a female firefighter.

Fiction Review: A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman - Another audio hit - warm and funny

What Are You Reading Monday is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date, so head over and check out her blog and join the Monday fun! You can also participate in a kid/teen/YA version hosted by Unleashing Readers.

You can follow me on Twitter at @SueBookByBook or on Facebook on my blog's page.   

What are you and your family reading this week?

Fiction Review: A Man Called Ove

For years, everyone I know--including my mother--has been saying, "You have to read A Man Called Ove!" I finally had the chance this month to listen to the popular and acclaimed Swedish novel by Fredrik Backman on audio. Everyone was right! I started laughing from the first moments of this warm, funny, poignant novel and loved every moment of it.

Ove is a fifty-nine year old man in Sweden with a reputation as a curmudgeon. Recently forced to retire early (and reluctantly) from the job he loved, he still likes to feel useful. Each morning, he makes the rounds of his planned townhouse community, checking to see that no one had parked where they shouldn't, that recyclables and trash are each in their respective bins, and that the neighborhood is generally following the rules; as you might expect, his efforts are not always appreciated. One morning, Ove's life is upended when new neighbors move in next to him, knocking over his mailbox while trying (unsuccessfully) to back up their rental trailer. This does not go over well. The woman, whom Ove christens The Pregnant One, seems to be foreign; the man, known in Ove's mind as The Lanky One, is clearly useless if he can't even back up a trailer; and their two little girls are chatty and annoying. Despite Ove's scathing comments to them about the trailer in his flower bed, the woman, Parvaneh, sees something in Ove worth working to get to know. Through a series of emergencies, crises, and other situations that require Ove's assistance, he gradually gets closer to not only the new family but some of his other neighbors as well. This new family softens Ove ... a bit. There is more to Ove than meets the eye.

As I said, this audio book had me laughing right from the start of chapter 1, but there is so much emotional depth to it, in addition to its humor. Both the reader and Parvaneh gradually get to know Ove, and in each chapter, there is both action in the present and Ove's musings about his past that help to explain much of his behavior and demeanor now. I was a tiny bit irritated that Ove kept getting depicted as an "old man" when he's only 59, but that was a very small complaint in an otherwise wonderful book. It was especially engaging on audio, read by actor J.K. Simmons, with both the laughs and the touching moments continuing throughout the novel. I thoroughly enjoyed this hilarious and heartwarming story of a stubborn and cranky man who finds a new purpose in life.

337 pages, Washington Square Press
Simon & Schuster Audio

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Listen to a sampleof the audio book, read by actor J.K. Simmons, and/or download it from Audible. The sample is from the start of the novel, a scene with Ove in an Apple Store looking at iPads - hilarious!

You can purchase A Man Called Ove from an independent bookstore, either locally or online, here:

Or you can order A Man Called Ove from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

And the popularity of the novel means that it is a hot one for movie adaptation!

Here is a trailer for the Swedish movie (with subtitle), a multi-award winner (a few spoilers from early in the novel if you haven't yet read the book):


And if you prefer an American movie without subtitles, Tom Hanks has signed on to produce and star in the Hollywood version!

Fiction Review: Things You Save in a Fire

All last year, I kept hearing rave reviews of the novel Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center, so I chose it for my First Audio Book of the New Year. That was an excellent decision because this unique story about a female firefighter is engrossing, suspenseful, and poignant.

Twenty-something Cassie is one of San Antonio's few female firefighters and a trained paramedic. She loves the thrill of the job and the adrenaline rush, being able to help people and make a difference in their lives, and how all-consuming her career is. She fills her limited spare time with teaching self-defense, volunteering, and helping her dad build an addition on his house. And she does not date, ever. After a violent and embarrassing incident the night she's given a special award for valor, Cassie is in danger of losing the job that defines her. Instead, she bargains with her captain and makes a deal. Her estranged mother recently called, begging Cassie to come to Boston to help her through a medical problem for a year. Cassie was completely against the idea, still hurt by her mother's leaving her and her dad when Cassie was just 16, but now it seems like a solution that will allow Cassie to keep doing what she loves.

So, she moves to a small town north of Boston and joins a very traditional firehouse that has never even seen a female firefighter. They insist on calling her a "lady," curtail swearing and joking in her presence, and generally underestimate her. The only thing that makes the job halfway tolerable is the new rookie who started at the same time, mostly known by all as simply The Rookie. He is kind and friendly toward her and also very handsome. Cassie finds herself attracted to him, but she doesn't date ... and she certainly doesn't date firefighters. That would make her colleagues think even less of her. There are plenty of surprises in store for Cassie, though, in her new life and new job, things that will test her resolve and shatter her carefully controlled life.

I was fascinated to learn all the details of a female firefighter's life, and Cassie is a likable--if damaged--character. When the handsome rookie was first mentioned, I admit I kind of groaned to myself because I don't normally read romances, but this novel does not fit neatly into a single genre. It deals with some very serious and challenging issues, life and death situations, and focuses mainly on how a person overcomes trauma. It's about the long, twisted road to healing and is filled with emotional complexity. The audio book was especially engaging, and I was always eager to pop in my earbuds and listen to a few more minutes of Cassie's compelling story. This original novel has it all: excitement, suspense, family drama, overcoming adversity, and yes, romance, too.

320 pages, St. Martin's Press
Macmillan Audio

Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in return for an honest review. My review is my own opinion and is not influenced by my relationship with the publisher or author.

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Listen to a sample of the excellent audio book, narrated by Therese Plummer, here and/or download it from Audible.

You can purchase Things You Save in a Fire from an independent bookstore, either locally or online, here:

Or you can order Things You Save in a Fire from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

It's Monday 1/27! What Are You Reading?

Wow, it's hard to believe it's already the end of January - there was so much I planned to do this month that I haven't gotten to yet!

Last week was a very stressful, difficult week but with a nice ending. I won't go into all the details - just more worrying and stress over our son's health and our financial situation (medical expenses just keep growing!). But we took some steps in a positive direction last week, so we are all trying to be optimistic. It was just an exhausting week with a lot of running around.

Making matters worse, I've had this weird, mysterious hip pain coming and going for the past month or two. I couldn't really figure out what was causing it or why it kept getting worse, in spite of heat, stretching, anti-inflammatories, etc. Then one of my son's nurses said something to me last week that made the lightbulb go off! I am now fairly certain the hip pain is due to my Lyme disease recurring. It tends to go dormant for a few years at a time and then flare back up unexpectedly. The last time was fall 2018, so I thought I was good for a while. It usually makes my knees hurt, so it never even occurred to me that it would cause hip pain in me ... but joint pain is joint pain! I started treating it again last week after my eureka moment, and I do think it's getting better, though I am still experiencing some excruciating pain at times (like last night). Going to keep pushing forward with treatment and crossing my fingers that this does the trick - really, no other explanation makes sense, so I am hopeful! And I have gained so much respect for those living with chronic pain all the time--it's been completely wiping me out.

As I said, we ended the week on a high note, with family visiting from out of state. Our two young cousins drove down for a visit (they are my first cousins but are my sons' ages). They were mostly here to hang out with my sons (which was, in itself, great, especially for our son who's been so isolated lately due to illness), but we got all of us together for dinner here at our house Saturday night. We had a big Mexican taco dinner, with seven of us (my father-in-law, too) around the kitchen table, catching up, laughing, and joking. We even played a new game after dinner that my son gave me for Christmas. I love to play games but rarely have anyone to play with now, so that was a lot of fun--and more laughs--too.

And, of course, we always have our books for happiness and comfort. Here's what we've all been reading this past week:

I finished reading Recursion by Blake Crouch, a sci fi novel I have been dying to read! I really loved the author's novel, Dark Matter, and got this newer novel for my husband's birthday last fall ... so I had to wait for him to read it first! I can't say too much about the plot without spoiling it, but the narrative starts out moving back and forth between two characters: Barry, an NYPD detective, in 2018, and Helena, a neuroscientist hoping to discover a way to help her mother and others with Alzheimer's preserve some of their memories, in 2007. The premise deals with memory, time, and perception in that super-twisty, mind-blowing way that Crouch demonstrated in Dark Matter, too. I love this kind of thought-provoking stuff! As expected, I was completely immersed in the original and compelling story and thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Both Dark Matter and Recursion are listed as movies in development, which makes me very, very happy!

Next, I picked up a library book I borrowed for the Book Cougars podcast readalong: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk (translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones). Sounds like a really cheery title, right? Actually, it is quite funny! This novel was originally published in Poland and has garnered a lot of recognition. It was short-listed for the International Booker Prize, long-listed for the National Book Award for Translated Literature, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature! It's about an older woman named Janina living in a remote rural area in Poland, near the Czech border. Her quiet life of caretaking for the summer residents and working on her astrology projects is disrupted when her neighbor dies suddenly, soon followed by another death, ruled a murder, nearby. Janina, a staunch vegetarian and animal lover, personally thinks the local animals are taking revenge on hunters, but the police don't put much credence in her theories. I'm enjoying this unusual, amusing, and thoughtful novel so far.

On audio, I finished listening to A Man Called Ove, my first-ever Fredrik Backman! I've heard such great things about this novel, its author, and all the other novels Backman has written since. The novel begins by describing the daily routines of Ove, a grumpy, solitary man living in Sweden who's recently been forced into an early retirement that he never wanted. Ove is very practical and wants to be useful, but he is also set in his ways and quite judgemental about those who approach life differently than he does. As the story progresses, the reader/listener discovers Ove is dealing with some serious challenges. Quite against his will, he begins to get to know some of his neighbors, and his cold heart begins to crack open. I started laughing from the very first minutes of listening and also appreciated the emotional depth and warmth. It's a wonderful, moving novel--just like everyone's been telling me for years!

My husband, Ken, picked out a lightweight paperback that I put in his Christmas stocking for his travel-filled week: The Lying Game by Ruth Ware. He and I have both enjoyed other Ware novels, including The Woman in Cabin 10I and In a Dark, Dark Wood. This one is about four women who attended boarding school together, playing what they called The Lying Game, telling lies to their fellow students and even the staff at every turn. Now they are adults, and one of them texts the other three that she needs them. The four women converge on the seaside town where they went to school, as the secrets from their past threaten to emerge. He's enjoying it so far, and I'm looking forward to reading it as well (this is why my TBR shelves never get any less full, in spite of reading 45 TBR books last year!).

Our son, 25, just last night finished The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski, part of The Witcher series. It's a prequel explaining how the main character got his Witcher start. You have probably heard all the hype recently about the new Netflix TV show (and apparently, a best-selling video game, too) based on this book series, and even though he hadn't read the books yet (usually a requirement in our house), my son jumped into the Netflix show the first day it was released and is enjoying season 1. So, when he received The Last Wish as a Christmas gift, he quickly set his other book aside to read it. He loved this novel and says that having watched the TV show didn't ruin the book for him, since the action in this book takes place before the TV series. He was hoping to move onto book 1, though the local bookstore was sold out! He got some other books by favorite authors with his gift card, so now he's trying to choose his next book ... don't you love doing that??

Last week's blog posts - I finally wrapped up 2019! -

Favorite Movies Watched in 2019 - my top picks & full list from 2019

Fiction Review: Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday - a clever, engrossing, unique pair of interconnected stories

Memoir Review: Running on Red Dog Road: And Other Perils of an Appalachian Childhood by Drema Hall Berkheimer - an enjoyable, warm, and funny childhood memoir

2020 Reading Challenges - I finally signed up! Some great ones lined up for this year.

What Are You Reading Monday is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date, so head over and check out her blog and join the Monday fun! You can also participate in a kid/teen/YA version hosted by Unleashing Readers.

You can follow me on Twitter at @SueBookByBook or on Facebook on my blog's page.   

What are you and your family reading this week?

2020 Reading Challenges

By now, you know my motto ... Better Late Than Never! And, hey, it's not yet the end of January, so there's still plenty of time to sign up for my 2020 reading challenges.

I love participating in reading challenges every year!


First, you can see how I did on my 2019 reading challenges. I was mostly successful in most of them, except for the Monthly Keywords Challenge, which I totally failed! I guess it didn't fit my way of reading.

And, here are my new 2020 Reading Challenges! Many of my old favorites are back, but some are with different hosts and some are brand-new to me.

If you are unfamiliar with reading challenges, they are just fun goals or games you set for yourself. No pressure - most allow you to set your own individual goals. Some focus on reading objectives you may have, like reading from your own shelves, reading diverse books, or reading more nonfiction or classics. Others are just plain fun, like Monthly Motif, Popsugar Challenge (with 50 different fun categories), or Bookish Bingo, a monthly reading bingo (those last two don't even require signing up - just join in whenever you want). See all of those mentioned--and more--on my 2020 Reading Challenges page. Most reading challenges do not require that you have a blog, so you can sign up in different ways and participate via social media.

So, join the fun! I can't wait to see how I am doing on my reading challenges so far!

Memoir Review: Running on Red Dog Road

I'd never heard of the memoir my book group chose for January, Running on Red Dog Road: And Other Perils of an Appalachian Childhood by Drema Hall Berkheimer, but it sounded intriguing to me. I ended up enjoying it very much, and it was a great book to kick off my new year: light, warm, funny, and nostalgic.

The author goes all the way back to when she was just four years old, starting her memoir with some of her earliest memories. It was during WWII, and her mother and aunt were Rosie the Riveters, working up in Buffalo, New York, while Drema and her sister lived with their grandparents in a cozy little house with a Victory Garden in rural West Virginia. You learn everything you need to know about Grandma on the first page, when she admonishes Drema to say "Japanese," even if everyone else is saying "Japs," while she's making a little apron to cover the Venus de Milo lamp her mother sent home from NY! Grandpa is similarly a kind and loving man, still working in the mines in spite of black lung disease in order to earn his pension and preaching on the weekends. The memoir describes an idyllic childhood in this caring family, as Drema and her best friend, Sissy, run and play and secretly "sin" (playing gin rummy on sleepovers at Sissy's house). There are some serious and sad events in her life, as well, touched (as are all lives) by death and challenges like alcoholism. Mostly, though, the author focuses on the highlights of her childhood, which include snake handlers, gypsies, and moonshiners!

The tone of this memoir is mostly lightness and fun, with a great sense of humor. It's just a pleasure to read. While everyone in our book group enjoyed reading it, some were disappointed that there wasn't more depth to the book--more digging into the hard stuff--but I think she set out to write from the perspective of her child self, who lives a happy and carefree childhood. And she does this quite successfully, capturing the lightness and fun of being a child during a simpler time. All of us enjoyed the nostalgia of the memoir, and we spent much of our book group discussion reminiscing about our own childhoods and families. It's that kind of memoir, that makes you smile and say, "Oh, I remember that!" It is also a love letter to her grandparents and her family, and the memoir opens with a modern scene of her grandmother, 100 years old, at a birthday celebration with five generations of women in the family present. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this delightful childhood memoir, smiling all the way through and often laughing out loud.

208 pages, Zondervan

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Listen to a sampleof the audio book here and/or download it from Audible. The narrator has a lovely Appalachian voice - the sample is from the beginning of the book, the prologue at her grandma's 100th birthday and the start of the childhood memoir. Try it - you'll be hooked!

You can purchase Running on Red Dog Road from an independent bookstore, either locally or online, here:

Or you can order Running on Red Dog Road from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Fiction Review: Asymmetry

The debut novel Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday has been on my radar (and my TBR list) since its 2018 release, when it landed on many Best of the Year lists, including the New York Times. My son gave it to me for Christmas, and I immediately dove into it in early January. This unique set of clever, immersive, interconnected stories more than lived up to my expectations. I not only enjoyed reading it but still find myself thinking about it a couple of weeks later.

Asymmetry is a novel told as a pair of seemingly unrelated stories that are finally linked together in the third part. Part 1, Folly, is about a romance between young twenty-something assistant editor Alice and the much older, renowned author Ezra Blazer. The story follows their unconventional, secret relationship from their meeting in a New York City park through clandestine encounters in Ezra's nice apartment to summer weekends spent at Ezra's house on Long Island, where Ezra finally introduces Alice to a friend of his. Their love grows, though it also seems limited by the restrictions they have placed on it. In Part 2, Madness, the story of an entirely different New Yorker is told. Amar is an Iraqi-American man who holds dual passports, having been born on the plane over Cape Cod as his parents were emigrating to America. He is entirely American, though his older brother chose to return to Iraq as an adult. Amar is on his way to visit his brother in Kurdistan during the end-of-year holidays of 2008 when he is detained at Heathrow, unable to meet the friend he had planned to connect with in London and stuck in a detention room at the airport for the weekend. Though his story takes place entirely within Heathrow airport, Amar uses his time there to think back on his childhood, college years, and past visits to see family in Iraq. Part 3 shows the connection between the first two parts of the novel, in an unexpected and clever way that pulls the whole story together.

Halliday pulled me into each story immediately, with her vibrant characters, realistic dialogue, and intriguing plotlines. I guessed the connection between the two disparate parts of the novel before it was revealed, but that in no way spoiled it for me (just made it more fun). The stories are also connected by the city of New York, which plays a large role in Alice's story and a role in Amar's as well. While these are quiet stories, without a lot of action, the author has vividly created these worlds and these people, such that I was immersed in them from the very first pages. I always love novels with two separate stories that gradually come together, but this one is done in a unique way. The author's writing is brilliant; she made me laugh out loud, nod my head in recognition, and mark passages, like the one where she describes the late-night waiting room of an ER so perfectly (and hilariously) that I read it aloud to my husband. She also includes many literary allusions and quotes, adding another layer of depth to the novel. The Iraq war provides a backdrop for both stories: a distant current event in the news for Alice and a very real, central event for Amar, as he visits his family both before and after the ravages of war. I loved every moment of this engrossing and thoughtful novel and can't wait to read her second novel.

271 pages, Simon & Schuster

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Listen to a sampleof the audio book, with multiple narrators, here and/or download it from Audible.

You can purchase Asymmetry from an independent bookstore, either locally or online, here:

Or you can order Asymmetry from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Favorite Movies Watched in 2019

And....drumroll! Time for my annual recap of all the movies I watched last year, plus my picks for favorites. Note that not all of these movies were released in 2019; these are just the ones I watched last year.

I reviewed just 16 movies last year, compared to 22 in 2018 (though I didn't have time to review every movie I saw). We are definitely watching fewer movies as the TV options continue to expand and improve. You can see the full list and genres below, with my favorites marked with *, but I only review movies that I like, so all of the movies listed below are worth watching. I didn't see any documentaries (second year in a row!). It was tough to categorize many of the movies, so some of my choices are sort of random. More and more, movies are blurring the genre lines: funny mysteries, dramas with plenty of humor, musical comedy dramas, etc. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood alone could have gone into three different categories! I saw a lot more movies in theaters the past two years, so more of these are recent releases than usual for me. Thank you, recliner theaters!

You can see my full list of movie reviews, covering several years at the Movie Reviews tab.

And now, for my top picks - do I have to choose? Some of these are very tough choices:

 Best Action/Suspense/Thriller

Widows 

Classic action thriller and dark, gripping drama

Best Drama
Lion

Everything I saw in this category was great but Lion blew me away.

Best Comedy
Knives Out

So many great funny movies! This humorous whodunit took the prize.

Best Sci Fi/Fantasy

 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Best Musical Drama

Yesterday 

Music, warm drama, comedy - this uplifting movie had it all and we both loved it!

Best Movie Overall
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

I created this category for this movie because it is SO good, combining drama, humor, and suspense with a hefty dose of nostalgia and a very clever twist.

What were your favorite movies watched in 2019?

All Movies Reviewed in 2019:
My favorites are marked with *, but I only review movies I enjoy, so all of these are worth a try:
 Action/Suspense/Thriller
Fracture
Secret in Their Eyes
* Shaft 
* Widows

Drama
* The Art of Racing in the Rain
* El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie 
* Lion
* Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Comedy
* Edge of Seventeen
* Like Father
Murder Mystery
* Knives Out

* Smart People 

Sci Fi/Fantasy
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindewald
* Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
 
Musical Drama
* Yesterday