No One is Talking About This

 by Patricia Lockwood

This book is one of the books on the Booker Prize Longlist this year.  It is about a woman who is addicted to Internet Social Media.  She is seen to be a guru and is invited to speak around the world.  The book portrays all the nonsense with mis-information in social media, the striving to get attention by controversial or even ridiculous posts. The woman ignores her husband.  At one point she agrees to have her phone locked in a mini-safe so she can't go online but she doesn't even last a day and begs her husband to unlock the safe.

About this point I was ready to give up on the book.... it is too much like real life right now and we don't need more crap on the Internet.

She is on a speaking tour when she gets a message from her mother that something is wrong with her pregnant sister's foetus.  She rushes home.  It turns out the baby has Elephant man disease.  There is discussion about aborting the fetus but is is a late stage pregnancy and the laws of the country would have dire consequences for the parents and doctors if this was done.  While doctor's understand why the parents may wish to do this they are eager to find out what happens with the baby if it survives.

The baby survives and the internet addict forgets about the internet.  She and all the family are in love with and engrossed in this beautiful, blind, deaf, deformed child.  They are excited to see her beautiful blue unseeing eyes grow bigger when they cuddle her or play music to her.  At one point it is proposed to sew her eyes shut... don't know why.  But when it comes time to do it the doctor says he can't won't do it... wouldn't do it if it was his child.  The main character has been taking numerous pictures and videos of the baby throughout its short life on her phone.

The child's days are numbered, they all know this but they spend as much time as they can with her until she eventually stops breathing.  

As the book ends the author has been speaking at a conference.  While she is speaking, she has really been thinking about her niece.... She is invited for a drink.  Then it says someone "lifts" her phone from her pocket.... and she feels lighter.... Not sure what this ending is supposed to mean.

This was a difficult book but the author really did a great job of switching from the internet addiction and the need for attention in the cyber-universe to the preciousness of an individual life.

She did a brilliant job.  I am glad I stuck with the book.

Thursday Murder Club

 by Richard Osman

This book is about a group of seniors in a Seniors Home who as a hobby practice trying to solve previously unsolved crimes.   One of the group is a former police officer who kept copies of some case files.  Other members of the group include a psychiatrist.

The group is merrily pursuing their various activities at the home but are intrigued when an actual murder occurs, the developer who built their seniors complex, and has expansion plans, is murdered, as is theman who was his second in command.  

The group had made contact with a police officer previously.  She had come to give them a presentation as a public service.  The group wants to be involved in solving the crime.  As they are not police officers they do not have to do everything by the book.  They manage to get their friend the police officer assigned to the team working the murder cases.

In several ways the group seems to be ahead of the police, but they also try to find out what the police know that they don't know.  They manage to find one of the people the police feel may be responsible before the police do.  Eventually they share their info with the police and the cases are solved.

The characters in this book are all characters, many of the people in the home have "back stories" which add to the colour of the story.

It was an entertaining read.  I am looking forward to the next book in the series which is being released next month.

Island Queen

 by Vanessa Riley

This is a fictional account of a real woman, Dorothy Kirwan Thomas.  Dolly as she liked to be called began her life as a slave, she was raped by her half-brother (son of her slave owner father).  The story tells of her life and loves, the many children she bore by several men including a prince of England.  He documents how she worked to become an entrepreneur, hiring out housekeepers, to raise money to free herself and her family members from slavery.  She succeeded at that and became a very wealthy and powerful woman in the caribbean.  Men seem to have been smitten by her.  She was lucky, she had many white men who were willing to work with her or for her to help her achieve her goals.  She faced a lot of hurdles trying to be a black business-woman.

She faced many hardships, her first lover kept the daughter she had by him, convincing her it was better to take the girl back to England to the family of him and his wife.  She never forgave him for this.  The book describes the history of slavery, the battles between England and France over some of the islands and a rebellion by the slaves on one island.  Her daughter and the daughter's husband were involved int his and Dolly had to get her to another island and change her name to save her from being tried or killed (her husband died in the fighting). Dolly eventually married one man, Mr. Thomas and they had several children together.  She loved him but couldn't really admit it and she always did what she wanted even if he advised against it.

The book then goes on to document her life building stores, and hotels, a plantation which got destroyed in the slave uprising.  She admitted that the girls she hired out as housekeepers often ended up having sex with her employers and eventually she had someone buy slaves for her to help her build her hotels and work on her plantation.  She justified this by saying she treated them better than the white "mastas" would have.  She was a very determined and complicated person.

The book was well researched and interesting.  I do feel that the book could have been shorter, a few of the details of the family lives and adventures could have been skipped.