The Personal Librarian

 by Marie Bendict and Victoria Christopher Murray

This book is the fictional story of a real person Belle de Costa Greene who gets the job as the personal librarian for J.P.Morgan who is trying to build a library of early books to rival the Medici library that was developed in Florence.

Belle has a secret, she is really of negro ancestry but her mother has chosen to make a life for them where they are pretending to be white.  Belle's parents separate when the family moves from Washington to New York.  The father is the first black graduate of Harvard and is actively working for black civil rights.  He cannot agree with what his wife is doing.

Belle had been a librarian at Princeton.  She is recommended to Morgan by a young relative.  As time goes on Belle studies Greek and Latin and ancient art and literature and becomes not just a librarian to Morgan but also a confident and even a buyer for him, travelling the world to attend auctions and bid on items for the library.

All the while she is terrified her background will be revealed.  She keeps telling people her skin colour comes from a Porugese grandmother.

She becomes the toast of New York for her succes and eventually has an affair with a married man, an art historian and art dealer.  When she becomes pregnant he arranges for her to get an abortion in London but he is not there for her.  She is distraught at his treatment and eventually they carriy on a correspondence over the decades.  His wife is okay with their affair.  However, she finds that rumours are swirling around her and she has to lie to Morgan that she is not having an affair.  He seems to want  her for himself (not as a lover).   She feels he is treating her as his property, a slave, but she stays working for him.  When Morgan dies she receives a big bequest which helps her family's stability.  She has been supporting her mother, siblings and ultimately their spouses for years.

I found the book, especially the first half , really slow and uninteresting.  It was about her early years as the librarian which is okay but then had lots about balls and operas, etc.  I think most of that could have been shortented.  At times she was so stressed she started to drink too much and could have done something to damage her reputation but she managed to keep her secret over the years.  I don't know how or when the truth actually came out.

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

 by Shehan Karunatilaka

This book won the Booker Prize this year.  I can certainly understand why it was selected.

It was a very creative, powerful, commentary on the conflict in Sri Lanka.

The main character Maali is killed. He is a photographer, a gambler, and a closet queen.   He can't remember how or why he died.He finds himself in a nether region where he is told he has seven days to do what?  Not sure? But his main goal becomes contacting two close friends to get them to display photos he has taken which he hopes will rock Sri Lanka.

Mention is made of going into the light.  What is the light... he gets different answers: heaven, rebirth, oblvion.

Maali was not a very principled person in life.  He gambled a lot, took photos for anyone in the Sri Lankan conflict who would pay him, the government, ngo's or the "terrorists".  He even took photos of things he knew were not true, for example some rural people are massacred and dressed in uniforms of one of the rebel fighters.

He is having a homo sexual relationship with a young man who asks him to be faithful and he says he is, but that is a lie. There is a young woman, a friend he lives with, along with the young man, who seems interested in him but he won't tell her he is gay.  He promises his lover to go away to a place where they can live safely, but he never follows through with that.

As Maali travels in the netherworld he finds he can fly on the wind and get to places he has been before including his family home, his own home, etc.  He meets ghouls and other ghosts and ghosts who claim to be there to guide and assist him.  Can he trust them?

As the days pass he comes to remember that he was killed by some thugs and his body dismembered with his head thrown into a river/pond (like others have been disposed of) and his body bagged and disposed of elesewhere.  

His friends and family report him missing and seek the help of two police officers who agree to look for him once some money crosses their palms. Eventually he is able to put ideas into his friends heads so that they can find the photos he has stashed away.  

At one point his girl friend is arrested by officials and is taken to a building where she is going to be tortured.  Through his intersessions he is able to get her out before she is hurt.

But the government officials take the photos from them.  Eventually he is able to tell them where he has the negatives for the photos and the friends make copies of the photos and put them on display.  Some photos he didn't plan to have displayed (of gay lovers) also end up on the walls.  People come to see the photos including goverment officials who take some of them away.  The pictures obviously do not have the desired effect he expected.

At one point in the book a person decides to take a bomb to the government building where people are tortured.  Maali doesn't want the bomb to be set off as innocent people as well as the bad guys will be killed but the explosion occurs.  It is around this time that Maali learns that the father of his lover, a goverment official, is the one who had him killed becasue he didn't want his son in a homosexual relationship.

As the seventh moon approaches Maali is given a choice to drink from one of several cups.  One would take him to the light, one would take him wherever he was needed, I can't remember what the options were.  He chooses to be where needed and becomes a greeter to the dead where he helps someone.  He is then offered another drink and decides to stay as a helper.

This book was very diffiult to read at times because of the violence but it was amazing the world of the dead that was created and how the author developed the story as Maali regained his memory of his death.  In the end he seems to have transitioned from a very unprinciped, unethical, totally self-centred waste of space to someone who truly cared about others and wanted to help them.

 

A World of Curiousities

 by Louise Penny

I always look forward with anticipation to the Louise Penny books.  She is my favourite mystery writer.  However, while this book was very good I found the premise of the story a bit far fetched and the ongoing focus on criminals and revenge on Inspector Gamache less satisfying than a good old murder investigation.

She certainly knows how to develop a plot and build suspense.  The story starts in the past, early in the careers of Gamache and Beauvoir his assistant.  A woman's body is found at the edge of a lake.  It is later determined that the woman was a prostitute and drug addict and was pimping her kids to people including the local police.  The conclusion is that the children killed their mother.  The oldest child, a girl, is sent to prison, her brother is put in care.

Gamache and his wife continue to support the girl including helping her get an engineering degree while in prision (is this possible??).  Gamache didn't and still does not like her younger brother.

The book then jumps to the present when the niece of Myrna, the former psychologist and now owner of the Three Pines used book store, and the girl who was imprisoned for killing her mother are at a graduation ceremony.

The celebrations continue to Three Pines and the brother shows up much to Gamache's disgust.  He and his wife are hosting the boy's sister at their house as they have in the past but Gamache won't invite the brother to stay with them.  Later the boy gets his sister to let him into the house and he moves things around so that Gamache will know he has been there.  He also takes photos in the house.

While this is going on Myrna decides she needs more space in her apartment above the bookstore.  It is discovered that there should be more space and then her boyfriend receives an old letter in the mail indicating a bricked in wall.  They eventually break through the wall to find a modified reproduction of a famous painting (with alterations that appear modern, not 100 years old, an old book of spells.

Then things get really elaborate and complicated.  We find out that a dangerous serial killer that Gamache had imprisioned has escaped from prison, by paying off prison officials.  This killer has someone take his place in prison (how??).  The killer has produced this modified painting, broken into Myrna's place while she was away and inserted it through the ceiling of the bookstore).  He has also arranged for the boyfriend to receive the strange letter about the bricked wall.

To me all this preparation, the letter, the painting, the breakin etc are too hard to believe.  Supposedly the prisoner worked on it while in prison and imbedded some code into it as well.

In the end we find out the prisoner is the father of the girl who was imprisoned for killing her mother. Gamache, his wife and Beauvoir are almost killed when the criminal and the girl's brother hold them hostage in their home.  Gamache ultimately kills the serial killer who has been involved with two more recent killings, along with the boy.  The boy and girl go to prison for the killings and kidnappings.  The boy hates Gamacher for ruining his family, taking his sister away from him, and ruining his life (being in care) and also for rejecting him while helping his sister over the years.

It was an action packed read but as I said I wish she would stop the plots that are so personal against Gamache and go back to some good old crime solving.

A Killer in King's Cove

 by Iona Whishaw

This book is by a Canadian author.  It is set in Nelson BC just after the second world war.  

A young British woman who worked as a spy during the war has moved to Canada to try to get away from her memories of the war.  Locals are curious about her.  A local young man is pestering her for attention.  There is an American couple that is also a curiosity to the locals.

She has a very grumpy neighbour.  One day she discovers she has no water.  As she is going to go to investigate her grumpy neighbour comes to tell her has no water either and blames it on her.  They go to investigage theit water source and find a body stuffed in a wooden channel.

The police are summoned, no one knows who the dead person is, he isn't a local.  They young woman is arrested temporarily.  The police officer is attracted to the young woman and has trouble believing she could have committed the crime

The police are surprised when a British official arrives and the police find out that both the dead man and the young woman were working as spies and are sworn to secrecy.  The British official tries to force the young woman to return to Britain to work for the government but she refuses.

Eventually it comes out that there was no connection between the two Brits are not connected.  The young man was actually coming to find his birth father.  He had recently discovered he was adoopted and that his mother had put him up for adoption.

We find out that the man's father attacked him, not knowing he was his son and the young suitor disposed of the body.

The book has a curious cast of characters including one "mad" woman who goes around the area with a gun shooting at things.  It was an okay read. 

Estates Large and Small

 by Ray Robertson

I bought this book because it was getting good reviews, because it was about a bookseller, but I didn't know what the book was really about.  If I had I probably wouldn't have bought it.  However, I am glad I did buy it.

The book takes place in covid times.  It is about Phil Cooper who has reluctantly had to close his used book business.  He is drowning his sorrows taking drugs and listening to the Grateful Dead.  He is sorry he as lost his business but especially misses his contact with customers.

He has all his book inventory in his house and is getting an online website set up with the assistane of his nephew and a young woman techie who is in a wheelchair.

The title reflects what Phil does, he goes to peeople's homes to evaluate the book collections of the deceased.  However, one day when he goes to check out a collection he is startled to learn that the woman he meets is actually the owner of the book collection he is evaluating.  She has stage 4 cancer.  He agrees to wait until she is gone to buy the books from her.  The woman invites him to visit her and they strike up a friendship and eventually become lovers.

In addition to the man's lover we also meet a favourite customer of his who comes to visit him along with his dog.  The man's mother is in a care home because she has dementia.

Phil had been trying to learn about the history of Philosophy.  As his friendship with Caroline develops he suggests they study the history of philosophy together so they meet regularly with wine and marijunan spicing their discussions to talk about the Philosophers and their key philosophical thoughts.  I think they continue doing it because they are trying to figure out the meaning of life, what makes a good life, from the philosophers.

Phil's customer's dog dies and one day Caroline tells Phil she doesn't want to suffer to the end.  She wants to die after a good day. 

 Kant - A single moment is no different from eternity (Pg.254)

She also tells him she wants him to be with her when she takes the medicine.  Phil isn't sure he can deal with this.  But he is there with her/for her when she decides to end her life.

This book appealed to me as a book lover, the author really captured the addiction to books of the bibliophile.  It was tough to read with the talk of impending death.  It was about loss, loss of life, loss of your business, loss of your memories, loss of a beloved pet.  But it is also about the vital importance of human connection.

It was very painful to read, I cried at the end, but while I want to give it away because I don't know if I will ever want to read it again, I feel it is brilliantly, beautifully written so I won't give it away for now,

The Librarian Spy

 by Madeline Martin

This book takes place during the second world war and involves two stories, one about an American Librarian who is hired and sent to Lisbon to pick up newspapers and microfilm them and send them to the U.S.  The goverment officials scan these papers for tips about what is going on in France and other parts of Europe.  

The other story is about a woman in Paris whose husband disappears.  She finds out he was working for the resistance and he never told her.  She eventually joins the resistance and ends up giving a Jewish woman her ID.  She then works to give the woman a safe place to live and works to get her out of France,.

The woman is working on publishing resistance papers.  She puts a coded message in the papers asking someone to help get the Jewish woman and her son out of France.

The American girl sees the message and works in Portugal to get the woman and son to Portugal.

Maybe it is my chemo brain fog but I found the book a bit difficult to follow, especially the work of the American in Lisbon.

It was an okay story, they do manage to get the woman out of France and eventually get her reunited with her husband who had managed to get to the U.S.  The book does a good job of explaining the danger the resistance people faced.

Trust

 by Hernan Diaz

This is actually four books in one.  It took me a while to figure out exactly what was going on.

The first story is a fiction book about a reclusive New York business man who gets rich by manipulating the stock market.  He brags about how successful he has been and how he has saved the American economy especially during the time of the crash.  His wife enjoys music and contributes to charities.   Her father had mental problems and disappeared from a facility in Switzerland.  In the end the woman has mental issues and ends up in the same institution where she dies.

The second book starts with a man bragging about how his ancestors were early arrivals in America.  They were dirt poor but managed to gain a fortune.  He brags about how he has built on this, taking advantage of the stock market, saving the American economy etc.  Again no humility here either.  At points there are a few notes made of things to talk about later.   Curious...

The third book is about a young woman who applies for a job at the second man's firm.  She is very poor, her father is a typesetter with communist leanings.  There are many candidates for the job but when as part of the interview process she is asked to write about her life she writes an entirely fictional account.  She is hired but then finds out she whill not be a secretary or stenographer, rather she will write a book to counter the lies the owner of the company feels were in the first book.  He and all of New York society know the first book was written about him and his wife.  The girl learns that the man's wife was involved in society and charities in New York and a very generous philanthropist.  The man creates a foundation for her charitable endeavours.  His wife died of cancer and was in Switzerland at a hospital for treatment when she died.  The man pays the girl handsomely.  She never tells her father what he real job is she knows he will be outraged that she is working for a rich man helping him write a memoir to justify his behaviour.  However, she comes back and tells the housekeeper that she has permission to see it.  The room is very stark and empty.  Not at all the fitting with the description the man gave of his wife and her interests.  Curiouser and curiouser. The book is never completed as the man dies suddenly.  The one thing the man had told her that she cannot see is the wife's bedroom.

The young girl is shocked and dismayed that a reporter, who had apparently been courting her has actually stolen some of her notes when she wasn't home.  She gets a ransom note saying that if she doesn't turn over more info her father will be outed as a communist.  But she gives the young courier a bribe and he tells her the name of the man who sent him -- her boyfriend.  She suspends contact with him.

Part four of the book occurs as the Rich man's home has been turned into a museum.  The young girl, a seventy year old woman now finds she can now face going back.  She has done research in the museum and finds out it was the man's wife who actually had the financial and mathematical acumen and not him.

A fascinsting read with lots of twists and turns.  Plus a critique? commentary? on whether well can really benefit/save an economy or are the rich deluding themselves when they say that. Especially these days as the rich are getting richer because of the pandemic and with the large inflation the rest of us are fallling farther and farther behind.