The Mad, Mad, Murders of Marigold Way by Raymond Benson -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Welcome back to Book Beginnings on Fridays, where participants share the opening sentence (or so) of the book they are reading this week. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Friends, this is a little tale about some murders.

-- from The Mad, Mad, Murders of Marigold Way by Raymond Benson (2022, Beaufort Books).

This new dramedy mystery comes out next week, on October 4, and is available for pre-order now. Not only is the book brand new, the story is set in a Chicago suburb during the covid pandemic, so feels like it takes place right this minute.

I scored an ARC from the LibraryThing early reviewer program. It looks like a perfect book to read during the October spooky season. Not too scary but just enough to put me in the mood for Halloween!

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginning post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings. Thanks!

  

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets -- Thumb-Linky widget will appear right here!
This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
If this widget does not appear, click here to display it.

THE FRIDAY 56

Freda at Freda's Voice hosts another teaser event on Fridays. Participants share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of the book they are reading -- or from 56% of the way through the audiobook or ebook. Please visit Freda's Voice for details and to leave a link to your post.

MY FRIDAY 56

From The Mad, Mad, Murders of Marigold Way:

As the truck approached, it slowed down. It crept past the empty Wilkins house, and then slowly moved on in front of Scott's home towards Temple Avenue. 

FROM THE PUBLISHER’S DESCRIPTION

For Scott Hatcher, a former television writer turned struggling novelist with a failing marriage to boot, social-distancing and mask-wearing feel like fitting additions to his already surreal life. When his wife Marie and neighbor John Bergman disappear in the middle of the raging COVID-19 pandemic, Scott is naturally mystified and disturbed, but he is also about to learn that his picturesque neighborhood hides more than just the mundane routines of suburban life.

When a fire claims the empty house for sale next door, the entire community is shocked when the charred remains of Marie and John are found inside. Stranger still, stockpiles of valuable Personal Protection Equipment, clearly stolen, were destroyed in the blaze alongside them. As the neighborhood reels from the loss, Scott and Bergman's earthy and enticing widow, Rachel, not only find themselves under investigation for the crime, but also inexorably drawn to one another. As tensions reach a fever pitch, the tale—which is at once familiar and ordinary, yet bizarre and eerie—shows that, just like life in 2020's uncertain times, dread and danger lurk below the hidden underside of everyday suburbia.

New Books of Poetry and Historical Fiction -- MAILBOX MONDAY

MAILBOX MONDAY

What new books came into your house lately?

I'm excited about these two new books, out recently. Although the books are completely different, I love both covers and how gorgeous they look together!

A Story Interrupted by Connie Soper (2022, Airlie Press)

This is Soper's first book of poetry. From the description and flipping through it, it looks like these are sort of poems I am drawn to. They are poems about actual places and experiences, not abstract ideas. I like something I can latch onto and relate to when I read a poem. I don't like to feel like the whole thing is going over my head. 

From the publisher's description:

Connie Soper’s first book of poetry invites readers to wander the trails of Oregon’s lush and fertile forests, and to celebrate its beaches, coastal cliffs, and headlands. She explores her native terrain with a reverence for the wild and untamed, as well as smaller moments spent in solitude. A Story Interrupted opens its map of place, memory, and inheritances—a map both familiar and uncharted. These poems offer glimpses, as well, of more distant traveled lands, always rooted in a keenly observed sense of place and belonging. These poems recall tender moments and conjure memories that connect us with our past, even if that past is sometimes difficult to acknowledge. Here, open-endedness is not melancholy but joy, each poem a small celebration.

Water Fire Steam by Mitzi Zilka (2022)

This new historical fiction novel is based on real life events and sounds excellent. The story sounds terrific and like it has broader themes that give it appeal beyond the exciting plot.

From the publisher's description:

The year is 1884. Rolla Alan Jones, an ambitious dreamer fresh out of an East Coast engineering school, is commissioned to design and build the first water system in Spokane Falls, Washington, a booming town of twenty-thousand. He is everyone's golden boy for five years until the city burns down on August 4, 1889. The once-celebrated engineer is scapegoated for the catastrophe alleging his system yielded inadequate water pressure. Asked to resign, betrayed by his friends, shunned by the community, and abandoned by his pregnant wife and three-year-old son, Rolla must find the strength to reinvent himself or return to New York as an abject failure. Based on a true story, Water Fire Steam is a story of forgiveness and redemption for anyone who has ever had to claw their way back from an unwarranted accusation.

 

YOUR MAILBOX MONDAY BOOKS

Join other book lovers on Mailbox Monday to share the books that came into your house lately. Visit the Mailbox Monday website to find links to all the participants' posts and read more about Books that Caught Our Eye.

Serena of Savvy Verse & Wit, Martha of Reviews by Martha's Bookshelf, and Velvet of VVB32 Reads graciously host Mailbox Monday. Velvet wants to hand off hosting duties so they are looking for a new helper. If you are interested, see the website for details.

Necropolis: Disease, Power, and Capitalism in the Cotton Kingdom by Kathryn Olivarius -- BOOK BEGINNING

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Welcome back to Book Beginnings on Fridays, where participants share the opening sentence (or so) of the book they are reading this week. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

One January morning in 1825, a white, seventeen-year-old boy from Newton, New Jersey, woke up with a case of “Mississippi Fever” – an insatiable urge to head west and south.

-- from Necropolis: Disease, Power, and Capitalism in the Cotton Kingdom by Kathryn Olivarius.

This nonfiction book explores the history and sociology of yellow fever in New Orleans in the 19th Century. It looks like a fascinating piece of American history. 

I admit I wouldn't have come across this book on my own. But I'm working on a sexual assault case here in Oregon with the author's mother, an attorney named Ann Olivarius, and Ann gave me a copy. I will definitely read it!

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginning post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings. Thanks!

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets -- Thumb-Linky widget will appear right here!
This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
If this widget does not appear, click here to display it.

 

THE FRIDAY 56

Freda at Freda's Voice hosts another teaser event on Fridays. Participants share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of the book they are reading -- or from 56% of the way through the audiobook or ebook. Please visit Freda's Voice for details and to leave a link to your post.

MY FRIDAY 56

From Necropolis:

Early on, Anglo-Americans were genuinely scared that yellow fever would throw a wrench in the wheels of American government. the disease killed so many migrants that it embarrassed American authority.

FROM THE PUBLISHER’S DESCRIPTION

Antebellum New Orleans sat at the heart of America's slave and cotton kingdoms. It was also where yellow fever epidemics killed as many as 150,000 people during the nineteenth century. With little understanding of mosquito-borne viruses--and meager public health infrastructure--a person's only protection against the scourge was to "get acclimated" by surviving the disease. About half of those who contracted yellow fever died.

. . . .

The question of good health--who has it, who doesn't, and why--is always in part political. Necropolis shows how powerful nineteenth-century white Orleanians--all allegedly immune--pushed this politics to the extreme. They constructed a society that capitalized mortal risk and equated perceived immunity with creditworthiness and reliability. Instead of trying to curb yellow fever through sanitation or quarantines, immune white Orleanians took advantage of the chaos disease caused. Immunological discrimination therefore became one more form of bias in a society premised on inequality, one more channel by which capital disciplined and divided the population.

Muse: Uncovering the Hidden Figures Behind Art History's Masterpieces by Ruth Millington -- BOOK REVIEW

 

BOOK REVIEW

Muse: Uncovering the Hidden Figures Behind Art History's Masterpieces by Ruth Millington (2022, Pegasus Books)

Ruth Millington is an art historian and author, specializing in modern and contemporary art. In Muse, she explores the stories of the people depicted in 30 famous portraits and the relationships they had with the artists who painted them. Millington challenges the idea that muses are young women who pose for old male artists. The muses in her book are women and men, young and old, and all play a more active role in inspiring and influencing the art they are a part of.

Millington writes in a breezy, journalistic style that makes her book approachable to readers who might be interested in but unfamiliar with the artists she examines. The only drawback to the book is that she describes a lot of works of art and there are no pictures or illustrations of them, other than one black and white sketch at the beginning of each chapter. This is understandable because the book would be enormous if it included pictures of all the art described. But be prepared to spend some time on google looking up the artwork as curiosity dictates, which it will.

The artists and the muses who inspired them featured in Millington's book are:

Diego Velázquez and Juan de Pareja

Pablo Picasso and Dora Maar

Gustav Klimpt and Emilie Flöge

David Hockney and Peter Schlesinger

Artemisia Gentileschi (herself)

Frida Kahlo (herself)

Sunil Gupta (himself)

Nilupa Yasmin (herself)

Marlene Dumas and Helena Dumas

Awol Erizki and Beyoncé

Fukase Masahisa and Fukase Sukezo

Alex Katz and Ada Katz

Francis Bacon and George Dyer

Sylvia Sleigh and Lawrence Alloway

Salvador Dalí and Gala Dalí

Pixy Liao and Moro

Marina Abramović and Ulay

Keith Haring and Grace Jones

Tim Walker and Tilda Swinton

Paula Rego and Lila Nunes

Sir John Everett Millais and Elizabeth Siddall

Sir Sidney Nolan and Sunday Reed

Augustus john and Lady Ottoline Morrell

Gabriele D'Annuzio and Marchesa Luisa Casati

Andrew Wyeth and Anna Christina Olson

Chris Ofili and Doreen Lawrence

Lucian Freud and Sue Tilley

Kim Leutwyler and Ollie Henderson

Kehinde Wiley and Souleo

Muse is a fascinating look at the stories behind some of art history's most significant and recognizable master works. Artists and art lovers will be enlightened and entertained by Millington's new book. 

Gathering Five Storms by Jim Geraghty -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Welcome back to Book Beginnings on Fridays, where participants share the opening sentence (or so) of the book they are reading this week. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

By every measure, the operation was a success, but it marked the first time Katrina Leonidivna had ever vomited on her target.

-- Gathering Five Storms by Jim Geraghty. Well, that's a sentence that gets your attention!

Gathering Five Storms is the third book in Jim Geraghty’s Dangerous Clique series. The first is Between Two Scorpions, the second is Hunting Four Horsemen.

All three are still sitting on my TBR shelf. But Hubby read the first two and liked them. They are fast-paced, wise-cracking thrillers set right this minute.

 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginning post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings. Thanks!

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets -- Thumb-Linky widget will appear right here!
This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
If this widget does not appear, click here to display it.

THE FRIDAY 56

Freda at Freda's Voice hosts another teaser event on Fridays. Participants share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of the book they are reading -- or from 56% of the way through the audiobook or ebook. Please visit Freda's Voice for details and to leave a link to your post.

MY FRIDAY 56

From Gathering Five Storms:

“We’re putting together a team at Langley and we’re looking to borrow someone with serious cyber and hacking skills, possibly long-term,” Raquel began. “We need someone smart, creative, adaptable – the kind of person who can handle any problem thrown their way without flinching.”

FROM THE PUBLISHER’S DESCRIPTION

Storms are brewing. Is it too much for the Dangerous Clique to survive?

Few within the US government know that the Dangerous Clique – a wisecracking, ragtag bunch of rogue CIA operatives operating outside the lines exists. But over the years, the team has made dangerous enemies – and now someone knows exactly who they are and is bringing the fight to them.

After a foiled strike on CIA headquarters and a threatening note that hints that those behind the attack have an axe to grind against the Clique, Katrina Leonidivna, her husband Alec Flanagan, and the rest of the team reexamine their old case files to determine who wants them dead. The chase leads them down memory lane and around the globe as the crew reminisces about the chaotic first days of their partnership.

Crybaby: Infertility, Illness, and other Things That Were Not the End of the World by Cheryl E. Klein -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

After a busy spring, my law partner and I coasted through summer. Now we are back at the grindstone! We have a sexual assault trial against a public school coming up at the end of the month and an appeal brief due in the Boy Scout bankruptcy on behalf of our sex abuse clients next month. I was hoping to spend more time with this blog in the fall, but looks like work calls instead! 

I still hope to find time to read at least. Even when I don't have time to post about books, I always have my nose stuck in one. 

And I always have time for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please join me to share the first sentence (or so) of the book that you are reading. Or share from a book that caught your fancy this week. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

I had hoped my three weeks at the MacDowell artist colony would be a happy ending to a harrowing two years.

-- Crybaby: Infertility, Illness, and other Things That Were Not the End of the World by Cheryl E. Klein (2022, Brown Paper Press).

Cheryl E. Klein is a "failed perfectionist and successful hypochondriac" who had a hard time accepting that the world would not end when she was unable to have a baby. Her new memoir follows her through a series of disasters that bring her to consider the adventure of open adoption. 

Crybaby launches September 20 and is available for pre-order. Read more about it on the Brown Paper Press website. 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the linky box below. Use the #bookbeginnings hashtag if you share on social media. 

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets -- Thumb-Linky widget will appear right here!
This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
If this widget does not appear, click here to display it.

THE FRIDAY 56

Another fun Friday event is The Friday 56. Share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your book, or 56% of the way through your e-book or audiobook, on this weekly event hosted by Freda at Freda's Voice.

MY FRIDAY 56

From Crybaby:

I didn't technically believe in fate, but maybe, once events were set in motion, there was a way to sniff out your own most likely future. Maybe life was threaded with motifs, and twins were one of mine. 

Friends of the Library -- MAILBOX HOLIDAY MONDAY

 

MAILBOX MONDAY

Thanks to a client meeting south of Portland, I had a chance to swing by two of my new favorite Friends shops. I don't get out to the exurbs often and when I do, I like to hit the library shops. I came home with a nice little book haul. 

See any in this batch of new-to-me books that catches your fancy? (Links here so you can read more about them. See gobbledygook section here.)

• The Way We Lived Then: Recollections of a Well-Known Name Dropper by Dominick Dunne. I love coffee table books and books about mid-century American "society," so this looks like fun!

• Returning to Earth by Jim Harrison is a favorite book of mine but I couldn't remember if I had a copy. I do, so I'll give this one away. Happens!

• Lark Rise to Candleford is Flora Thompson's lightly fictionalized memoir describing English life in a hamlet, a village, and a country town in the 1880s. I read about this trilogy in Foxed Quarterly and it sounds delightful! While I’d love to get my hands on a fancy Slightly Foxed edition, I’ll settle for good over perfect for now.

• Darkness, Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane. I've read a couple of books in his Patrick Kenzie/Angela Gennaro series and liked them, so want to read more.

• Devil's Breath by G. M. Malliet is another book in her Max Tudor series. I read the first book in the series and want to get back to it. 

• The Pope's Daughter: A Novel of Lucrezia Borgia by Dario Fo sounds terrific and I love the Europa edition!

• Middlemarch by George Eliot is one I recently reread, but I couldn't resist the Signet Classic edition from the 10¢ box.

• The Golden Calf by Helene Tursten is a Swedish mystery I picked up because I'm gathering Soho Crime editions. I love the books' color block spines and the stories' (usually) foreign locations. 

• Death at the Alma Mater by G. H. Malliet is from her St. Just series, which I haven't tried, but it looks so good I wanted to read start.

• The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West. I was drawn to the striking Modern Library cover. 

• Set This House on Fire by William Styron. I like Styron's books but have never heard of this one.  

• Not in the Flesh by Ruth Rendell is from her Inspector Wexford series which I've started and want to keep reading. It turns out I also have a copy of this one already. That's the good thing about Friends of the Library shops. I don't feel guilty about spending $1 on a duplicate copy I can pass on to a friend, especially knowing the dollar went to the library. 

YOUR MAILBOX MONDAY BOOKS

What books came into your house recently?

Join other book lovers on Mailbox Monday to share the books that came into your house lately. Visit the Mailbox Monday website to find links to all the participants' posts and read more about Books that Caught Our Eye.

Serena of Savvy Verse & Wit and Martha of Reviews by Martha's Bookshelf graciously host Mailbox Monday. They are looking for a helper. If you are interested, see the website for details. 

Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

September is here! It's a long holiday weekend, back to school vibes are thrumming, hints of fall are sort of in the air (although not in the temperatures). The first week of September always feels like a seasonal pivot, even if it is still summer on the calendar and on the thermometer. 

So, are you reading your last summer book? Will you switch genres or moods as we head into autumn? Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, or just a book that caught your fancy. That's what Book Beginnings on Fridays is all about. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

We were fractious and overpaid.

-- Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris. 

What do you think? That's a short opening sentence and give me no idea where the story will go. But I love the word fractious!

According to the cover, Then We Came to the End was a National Bestseller and a National Book Award Finalist when it came out in 2007. I know nothing about it, including how it came to be on my TBR shelf! I mean, I must have known at some time how it got there, but I can no longer remember. I assume I came across it at one of my book haunts, like a Friends of the Library shop or a neighborhood Little Free Library. 

It's a novel about the demise of a Chicago advertising agency. It looks funny and interesting. I just started it today and look forward to reading it over Labor Day weekend. 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Leave a link to your Book Beginning post in the box below. If you share on SM, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings.

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets -- Thumb-Linky widget will appear right here!
This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
If this widget does not appear, click here to display it.

THE FRIDAY 56

Another weekly teaser event is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda's Voice where you can find details and add a link to your post. The idea is to share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of the book you are featuring. You can also find a teaser from 56% of the way through your ebook or audiobook.

MY FRIDAY 56

From Then We Came to the End:

His weekends were long dark shadows of mystery. In all likelihood, he spent his days off in the office, cultivating his master plan. 

I'm hooked! I love a funny book, even if it is dark humor, like I suspect this is going to be.