Remembering When

A few years ago I became obsessed with this show. A woman hits her head and wakes up with no memory of who she is. As she puts the pieces back together, she realizes she wasn't a very nice person.

A similar plot emerges in the book What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty. Alice hits her head at the gym. Even though she knows who she is when she wakes up, she has forgotten the last ten years of her life. Alice is amazed at how fit she looks, but she is more shocked to realize she hasn't become a very nice person. 

Moriarty tells the story through Alice, her sister Elisabeth, and their adopted grandmother Frannie. While Alice is mourning the loss of her memories, Elisabeth is dealing with infertility. Frannie, meanwhile, is wondering if she's ready to let go of her fiancee that died years before. Humorous and touching, this story highlights all that can change in the span of ten years. And more importantly, all that can change in the blink of an eye.

Alors

As evidenced in a movie I recently watched, everyone romanticizes an era from the past. For some it's the Belle Époque. For some it's the Roaring Twenties. For me, I've always been fascinated by the era captured in Simon Mawer's book Trapeze.  

As the book opens, a plane is flying over rural France. A young woman waits her turn to parachute into the darkness. Her real name is Marian Sutro. Having learned French from her mother and British English from her father, she has been tapped for a special mission involving an old family friend living in Paris. Having shed the security of her identity as Marian at the border, she must juggle aliases, relay messages, and otherwise pass through the streets of heavily check-pointed Paris undetected. 

Will she succeed? Will she survive? It's not only Marian, but the reader, who anxiously asks these questions.  Regardless of whether Marian in the end is successful, Trapeze, in effortlessly capturing the suspense and suspicion of the time, accomplishes its mission.

Grip, Stance, Sight

A letter from a stranger. A key to a safety deposit box. Goons in the parking garage. Julia Heaberlin has taken these elements typically found in Christie or Doyle and successfully set them in Cowtown in her novel Playing Dead. 

Tommie McCloud grew up on a ranch in Ponder. Her daddy taught her to ride and shoot and her mama taught her to play the piano. But soon after her father's death, she receives a letter that calls into question the family she's always taken for granted. 

Tommie's search for the truth is a suspenseful, Dr. Pepper-fueled read. Those of us from here will delight in the local references. Those of us who aren't may just want to come see what all the fuss is about.

Where'd You Go?

A case of the blue meanies has interrupted these posts of late. Perhaps you've turned to other blogs in the meantime, but I hope you'll check back because a book called Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple has inspired me to start posting again.

Bee Branch, a Seattle eighth grader convinces her parents to take her on a cruise to Antarctica to celebrate her straight As. She is flummoxed, however, when her mother goes missing the day before the trip. When her mother doesn't return, her father, a Microsoft workaholic, decides to send Bee to boarding school a semester early. While at school, Bee receives an envelope filled with emails, magazine articles, and other documents leading up to her mother's disappearance. She immediately sits down at her PC (mocked by her Apple loving classmates) and begins writing her book. The book we've been reading.

I second Jonathan Franzen when he says on the front cover, "I tore through this book with heedless pleasure." A feeling I sort of vaguely remembered but welcomed anyway.

Tricky Treats

The magic of time-stamping allows me to post this a week late. 

Dorrie and the Blue Witch by Patricia Coombs

"That was a good book," my daughter said after reading it at the breakfast table. Perhaps it was the line "her stockings never match." Perhaps it was the sky blue and mustard yellow splashes of color in the black and white illustrations. Perhaps it was the story -  Dorrie and her cat Gink are left alone in the house. A Blue Witch knocks on the door. Dorrie must use her wits (and Cook's magic ingredients) to protect herself from the unexpected visitor.  Dorrie saves the day and can safely go to bed. 

Halloween Night by Marjorie Dennis Murray and illustrations by Brandon Dorman

This eerily lit book is a spooky version of "The Night Before Christmas." Zombies, little green creepies, mummies, and yes, even harpies, turn the tables on a band of trick or treaters. Having rid themselves of the pesky door bell ringers, the creepy creatures can enjoy their feast of grubs and bugs in peace. 

Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson and pictures by Axel Scheffler

In this rhyming tale of friendship and cooperation, a witch offers various animals a ride on her broom. When the witch gets into trouble, her new friends rally together to save her. The expressions (ranging from terror to exhilaration) on the animals' faces are priceless.  

The Right One

Many times a love story can end badly. But then there are the stories in this book. 

All There Is by Dave Isay is a collection of love stories from StoryCorps. Although I enjoyed reading the narratives, I found the ones I had heard first on the radio most touching. However, for those times when you don't have access to audio, this book brings together voices that are clear enough to hear anyway.

Good Bird

Jana Laird arrives in Hamara Nagar, India to claim her inheritance- a property known as the Jolly Grant House. The local bagpiper is only the first of the neighbors to offer assistance as they work to make the house inhabitable. Just as Jana, her ayah Mary, and her parrot are feeling comfortable in their new locale, they receive word the government may be building a dam that will flood the town. To prevent obliteration, the residents must prove their town's merit. Along with the newspaper editor, the antiques dealer, and tailor, Jana believes their future might just rest on fortune telling. 

Set in 1960, the novel Jana Bibi's Excellent Fortunes looks back through characters who lived with the corruption of local bureaucrats, the colonization and leave-taking of the British, and the Golden Age of Indian cinema.  From elevenses at the Why Not? Tea Shop to the gossip at Royal Tailors to palm reads in the parlor, Betsy Woodman has created a novel rich in scene and character.