Carol's Comments November 2023

 

Carol’s Comments November 2023

 

Hello Everyone! Welcome to another issue of Carol’s Comments. When reviewing books for this blog, I normally choose quirky literary fiction or books with eclectic themes. So, it really surprised me that two wildly popular bestsellers and a long forgotten but beloved contemporary classic novel entertained and captivated me over the past five months.

 

After watching an insightful and utterly charming interview with first-time author Bonnie Garmus on CBS Sunday Morning where she discussed her extremely popular debut novel, Lessons in Chemistry and then reading positive reviews about the book in The New York Times, I quickly checked out a copy at the River Park Branch Library.

Set in California in the early 1950s through the early 1960s, Lessons in Chemistry focuses on Elizabeth Zott, a brilliant and fiercely independent woman chemist who works at the Hastings Research Institute as a laboratory assistant surrounded by chauvinist men who doubt her intelligence and scientific skills- except one- Calvin Evans, the brilliant and reclusive Nobel Prize winning chemist who soon falls in love with her and includes her in scientific research on abiogenesis-  i.e. the origin of life.

When tragedy sudden strikes, Elizabeth discovers she is pregnant. When her supervisor Dr. Robert Donatti, Director of Chemistry at Hastings learns that Elizabeth is an unwed mother, he immediately fires her.

Desperate for a steady income after attempting to re-create her and Calvin’s research at home while raising her daughter Madeline alone with her goofy and very perceptive dog Six Thirty, Elizabeth accidently meets Walter Pine, the program director at the local TV station KCTV. Pine is so impressed by her scientific viewpoint to cooking that he immediately asks her to host the new afternoon cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth reluctantly and skeptically accepts his offer. The program becomes extremely popular mainly due to Elizabeth’s unorthodox approach toward cooking. She emphasizes to mostly women viewers that “Cooking is Chemistry.”

On October 13, AppleTV+ released an exceptional series based on Garmus’ novel starring Brie Larson as Elizabeth Zott. I would advise viewers to read the book first before watching the screen adaptation because the screenplay written by series creator Lee Eisenberg takes a more nonlinear approach to the storyline.

I highly recommend Lessons in Chemistry as the perfectly quirky and delightful reading treat for anyone who enjoys contemporary novels filled with unconventional characters and imaginative plots. It’s definitely an essential choice for book clubs. 

 

I’ve been extremely interested (and a bit obsessed) with the British royal family since the then-Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer in 1981. When Prince Harry published his memoir Spare in January, I hesitated reading it because I thought it might be too scandalous or sensational. However, after watching Anderson Cooper’s thought provoking and compassionate interview with Prince Harry on 60 Minutes and then reading two very positive reviews about the book in the New York Times and The New Yorker along with a spectacular article written by the memoir’s ghostwriter J.R. Moehringer in The New Yorker’s May 8^th issue, I quickly placed a hold on the book at the library.

Spare has three major parts. The first section focuses on Princess Diana’s untimely death in August 1997 when Harry was 12. It clearly describes the tremendous impact and trauma her death had on her son. For instance, Harry believed that his mother wasn’t really dead and that one day she would return to her sons.

Part 2 – the longest and most detailed section begins in 2007 when Harry, who joined the British Army in 2006, serves in Afghanistan as a pilot where he feels he has found a real purpose for his life. Unfortunately for security reasons, he must leave the service and the close companionship with his fellow soldiers to protect him from Taliban death threats. This leaves him desperately trying to cope with anxiety and PTSD. With support from fellow war veterans, he starts the Invictas Games when he turns 32.

Part 3 centers on his relationship with Meghan Markle who he met in 2016 and later married in May 2018. In this section, Harry honestly describes how his love for Meghan lead to the huge estrangement with his brother William and his father Charles along with the relentless battle with the British press and paparazzi to protect his family even after he relinquished his royal duties and left Great Britain to live in the United States.

Prince Harry’s memoir is a very honest, engrossing and at times, heartbreaking portrait of a young man haunted by his mother’s death who ultimately overcomes anxiety, PTSD, addiction and feelings of inadequacy as “The Spare” to live life on his own terms. The book also takes a realistic look into the British Royal family and its attitude toward Prince Harry and its own role with the British people, particularly the British press.

This memoir was so addictive and compelling I couldn’t stop reading. I highly recommend Spare to anyone interested in the British Royal family.

 

While browsing the Kindle app in early September, I noticed that Atria Paperbacks had recently reprinted The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende’s first novel originally published in 1982. I hadn’t read the book in over 40 years and wondered if the St Joseph County Public Library had purchased the new edition. When I checked the library’s online catalog, the library had bought seven copies. I immediately checked one out.

Set in 20^th century South America, Allende’s novel centers on the prominent Del Valle and the Trueba families. The women in the Del Valle family possess magical and intuitive powers that completely enchant the passionate and volatile Trueba family heir Estaban Trueba. Estaban first falls in love with the ethereal and mysterious older sister Rosa. Unfortunately, before young Estaban can make his fortune working in the faraway mines and marry her, Rosa suffers a strange accidental death shortly before their wedding day.

Undaunted by this tragedy, Estaban eventually becomes his family’s patriarch after he finally inherits his family’s estate Tres Marias. Despite his voracious pursuit of political power and violent temper, he becomes utterly captivated by Rosa’s younger sister Clara and marries her. Clara completely soothes and fascinates Estaban because she is a clairvoyant with a strange mystical connection to the spirit world.

When their daughter Blanca has a secret love affair with one of her father’s enemies, it produces Alba, Estaban’s beloved granddaughter. This strong-willed young woman will eventually lead her remaining family and her nation into a more compassionate and peaceful future.

The House of the Spirits reminded me of Laura Esquivel’s exceptional novel Like Water for Chocolate because both books use magical realism to tell the story of very unique families. However, Allende’s The House of the Spirits contains more dark, explicit and graphically violent scenes and elements whereas Like Water for Chocolate features more sensuality and playfulness in its plot and characters. Moreover, Esquivel’s use of magical realism made Like Water for Chocolate more pleasurable and entertaining to read. Despite Allende’s realistic and excessive use of graphic violence in her novel's narrative, I still recommend The House of the Spirits for adult readers who enjoy family sagas or South American fiction.

The books reviewed in this blog can be found at most local public libraries. My readers in St. Joseph County, Indiana can visit the St. Joseph County Public Library’s web site at sjcpl.org for additional information.

After considerable thought, I’ve decided to discontinue my blog on a regular basis and instead publish Carol’s Comments as an occasional special issue beginning in 2024. It’s been increasingly difficult finding inventive fiction and nonfiction books that would interest and intrigue my readers. Furthermore, now that DVD Netflix has ended on September 29^th, not all streaming services or Turner Classic Movies offer a wide assortment of foreign and independent films as well as older miniseries that DVD Netflix always carried.

I have posted 47 issues for 12 years on Carol’s Comments. I believe this was an incredible accomplishment mainly due to my loyal and devoted readers’ interest and support. I also want to thank again my friends Scott Sinnett who initially encouraged me to start this blog for the St. Joseph County Public Library in March 2011 and Steve Sigety who helped me create my own website on Blogger in March 2014 when Carol’s Comments needed a new home.

More importantly, my faithful readers’ devotion to Carol’s Comments helped me keep writing my blog especially during the pandemic when at times, was extremely challenging. Thanks for reading! Please stay tuned for my blog’s new format. See you all next time,

 

 

Carol's Comments June 2023

 

Carol’s Comments June 2023

Hello Everyone! Welcome to another issue of Carol’s Comments. Over the last eight months, I selected an eclectic assortment of fiction that explored many types of literary genres that normally don’t appeal to me.

 

I finally decided to read the bestselling novel Where the Crawdads Sing after watching an intriguing and thought-provoking interview with Delia Owens, the book’s author on CBS Sunday Morning last Fall. Owens’ debut novel centers on Kya, a young girl abandoned by her mother at age six to live almost entirely alone with a frequently absent and abusive father in the North Carolina marshland,

Part coming of age novel and part crime fiction, the book begins 1952 and alternates with a second storyline set in 1969 which focuses on the murder of Chase Andrews, a young man that Kya stands trial for killing. Reminiscent of The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, the novel’s narrative would be better if it concentrated more on Kya’s struggle to survive virtually alone in the North Carolina marshes for nearly twenty years rather than the very contrived murder trial subplot.

Despite its flaws and minor plot inconsistencies, Where the Crawdads Sing, a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick is a wonderful escapist read for anyone interested in Southern literature, coming of age or crime and mystery fiction.

 

I love historical fiction- especially those set in England between 1890-1945. After I saw a positive review in The New York Times Book Review about Joanna Quinn’s first novel, The Whalebone Theatre, I knew I needed to read it. I immediately placed a hold on it at the River Park Branch Library.

Quinn’s debut novel revolves around the aristocratic Seagrave family set between 1919-1945 primarily at Chilcombe, the family’s ancestral estate in Dorset, England. The book’s first section focusing on the time between 1919-1920 provides essential background information about the Seagrave family. For example, the oldest son and heir Jasper Seagrave’s wife Annabelle dies in childbirth when their daughter Cristabel is born in 1916. A few years later, Jasper re-marries Rosalind, a much younger woman who has a second daughter Florence, nicknamed Flossie.  Tragedy soon strikes again when Jasper dies in a freak riding accident in October 1920 when his eldest daughter Cristabel turns 4. Then after Jasper Seagrave’s death, his younger unambitious brother Willoughby inherits the family fortune. He quickly marries Rosalind and they soon have a son Digby. Cristabel is thrilled and treats her cousin Digby like a brother.

The novel’s second section set between 1928-1938 drags a bit because it primarily centers on twelve-year-old Cristabel’s discovery of the beached whale and transforming its skeleton into the Whalebone Theatre.

The last and best section of Quinn’s novel takes place between 1939-1945. Now young adults, headstrong Cristabel and her cousin Digby both become British secret agents on separate missions in Nazi occupied France. Once the plot shifts to World War II and its profound effect on the entire Seagrave family in England and France, the storyline became so compelling I couldn’t stop reading.

The Whalebone Theatre is very captivating and realistic because not all the principal characters survive World War II. Those that do are irrevocably changed by their wartime experiences. They ultimately transform themselves by creating different and more fulfilling life.

Although many reviewers, especially in The New York Times compared Quinn’s novel to Brideshead Revisited, I think the book resembles Downton Abbey mixed with a smidgen of E.M. Forster’s Howard’s End.

After finishing The Whalebone Theatre, I achieved a personal reading milestone. According to the SJCPL database, I read 100 books in 8 years! Wow!

 A Read with Jenna Book Cub selection and New York Times 2022 100 Notable Books winner,The Whalebone Theatre is definitely a contemporary fiction essential and will surely become a classic. I highly recommend it to everyone especially readers who love historical fiction.

 

Over the past three years, I realized that Kate Morton, one of my favorite authors, hadn’t written a book since The Clockmaker’s Daughter published in 2019.  Then in April while browsing through the New York Times Book Review, I spotted an interview with Morton where she revealed that she had recently published Homecoming, a new novel she had written in Australia during the pandemic. I quickly checked out a copy at the library.

Morton’s long-awaited new bestselling novel features two storylines. The first, set in 1959 Southern Australia, focuses on the Turner Family murders. The second plot centers on 40-year-old London journalist Jess Turner-Bridges who returns to Sydney, Australia in 2018 when her beloved grandmother Nora becomes seriously ill. While staying at her grandmother’s home Darling House, she soon discovers that her family has a direct link to the Turner Family Tragedy that happened almost 60 years ago,

Jess learns detailed information about the Turner Family Tragedy when she finds a book in her grandmother’s library entitled As If They Were Sleeping by American journalist Daniel Miller who was visiting Southern Australia during the murder investigation in 1959.

The 1959 narrative is the better one because the plot is more riveting and the characters are more fully developed especially when it intertwines with the 2018 storyline.

Homecoming’s plot is very uncharacteristic from Morton’s previous novels mainly because the book has a modern day setting and is a contemporary crime drama rather than historical fiction. I really had trouble sympathizing with any of the characters-especially the ones in 2018 - particularly Jess and her grandmother Nora. Furthermore, while reading Morton’s novel, I thought that the plot had too much repetition especially about the 1959 Turner Family murders. The book would have been more succinct and enjoyable for the reader if the novel had been edited better by cutting about 150-200 pages from the narrative.

Despite its plot flaws and rather long length, I still recommend Homecoming mainly because it revealed a different angle to Kate Morton’s storytelling skills.

The books reviewed in this blog can be found at most local public libraries. My readers in St. Joseph County, Indiana can visit the St Joseph County Public Library’s web site at sjcpl.org for additional information. Thanks for reading! See you all next time.