I was through the first third of this book when I heard that the author had passed away at 89 years old. I’m sort of late to the party when it comes to McCarthy’s writing, and I think I’ll probably end up reading his books in almost the reverse order of their release. I was sorry to hear that one of my favorite authors was gone.

Just like his other books that I have read, this one is full of beautiful prose and really well-written (and often funny) dialog between characters. The two brothers in this story have a great relationship and the way they speak reflects that. In addition the descriptions of nature in the quiet moments of travel are outstanding. Small details remind me of when I did more hiking out on my own – the rustles of wind through reeds near the river described here sent chills down my spine.

This book is also pretty dark and takes a good unflinching look at the dark sides of men. The brutality isn’t quite as much as other books of his that I’ve read, but it certainly isn’t light reading by any account. But there are some light moments and signs of goodness here, although they are few.

It is always emotionally draining to read these books, but worth it for the beauty and deeper thoughts on humanity. Once again I’ll wait a while before I read some more of his work.

Next I am reading Flawless by Elise Hu.

Giving my impressions on a book is a little more difficult when I’m reading a translated version. Some of it comes from culture differences, or perhaps from the different expectations from readers.

This book felt like you were peeking inside the mind of a Japanese worker. The main character of this novel wants a job that is as easy as possible, and the story doesn’t get much deeper than that.

Why are they working? What is their goal here? To have an easy life? Why not quit outright and have a really easy life? What’s the point of it all?

This book addresses none of the issues above, and instead spends an inordinate amount of time with idle thoughts about lots of extraneous information and detail that don’t really contribute to any sort of tension or resolution. It was hard for me to understand if this is representative of a culture or instead just a vapid person.

This was translated into English by a Brit, so I could pick up some new British English words (stockists, bedsit, etc.) so I got a little benefit out of the book. But for me it just wasn’t consequential enough of a story to recommend it to anyone.

Next I am reading The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy.

We really enjoyed the meals we ate during our short visit to Sri Lanka just before the pandemic broke out. Besides the iconic Ministry of Crab we also went to some places that focused on traditional foods, and I got this cookbook as a way to explore some of the spice blends and see the patterns of ingredients for Sri Lankan dishes.

The book is written by a restaurant owner in Australia with a Sri Lankan background, and they are clear on what they consider “traditional” and what things are their own sort of spin on a dish.

A couple of small gripes – the ingredients are given in grams/ounces, so it makes it a little hard to go shop for 165 g of white onion. How much does a white onion weigh? Or the say to roll some dough into a size that is about half of a rock melon. Now I have to go research rock melons and their average sizes.

There are also quite a few special ingredients (“just go to your local Sri Lankan market”) and some special tools you need (especially for the hoppers). While these steps might be practical in Australia it is different here in Japan. Stuff like this just adds extra work to make the recipes.

But there are a lot of delicious looking recipes here and I’m looking forward to making some of the curries, the kottu roti, and maybe if I can figure out a way to do the egg hoppers I’ll try them out too.

Let the coconut milk flow!

An eye-opening look at what happens when a white sociologist goes “undercover” by medically tinting his skin darker, undergoing UV tanning treatments, and then traveling around the Deep South of the USA in the mid 1950’s.

First of all, he gets the medal for bravery – there is racism everywhere. Naked, clear and aggressive – it is hard to imagine that this was what black people had to put up with in those days. Unfortunately it feels sometimes like even now the USA hasn’t come very far since then.

A lot of the events that happen in this book were hard to believe (in a good way). The sudden hatred and degrading comments out of nowhere, the dangers of walking alone through a white neighborhood, and not being allowed to use facilities because of the color of his skin. Luckily the author doesn’t get aggressive back, and calmly logs all of these things to report later.

But one criticism I had was that a lot of the events that happen in this book were hard to believe (in a bad way). The timing of things was always perfect – one right after another. The racists described show up at just the right time in his story, and do their evil deeds right when he needs to illustrate his points. I know these bad things happened – but it is hard to believe that they all happen in neat and orderly way that happens to fit nicely into his narrative. In the same way, the black people in this book are uniformly kind and seem to be 100% good people – full of kinship and good values. Things in this book just felt a little too black and white, if you’ll forgive the expression.

Regardless it was an interesting book to read, especially the afterwords and seeing the fallout from the publishing of the book. I wasn’t quite sure about the author’s methods, but he certainly was fighting the good fight here.

Next I am reading two books at the same time, Lanka Food by O Tama Carey, and There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura.

This is the second book in the Slow Horses series, and while not quite as interesting as the first book it was still quite enjoyable.

There is still a brisk pace, with witty comments. It is written in the same unique style, shifting characters within the same chapter and trying to intentionally mislead you with various mini-cliffhangers.

Also again we have the cutthroat interagency rivalry and most of the same characters that were introduced in the first book.

But some things are different – there are some actors outside of British government at work here, there is a surprising death, and a few references to the current political climate.

Sometimes the dialogue comes off a bit clunky, and the story strays occasionally too far into the realm of unbelievability, but it was fun to read. These are great books for a long airplane ride and I look forward to making my way through the series.

The next book I am reading is Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin.

This was one of the best I’ve read so far this year. Earlier I had asked some AI Chat bots what books I should read based on A Gentleman in Moscow, and finally one of them recommended this book, which managed to do many of the same things well.

The book is centered around an older character that is getting used to life on his own after his wife’s death, and the story is sort of a love story but also about remaining flexible, polite, and positive. There is a bright beam of kindness throughout this book, even in the face of racism, classism, and violence. The small town setting in rural England was similar to other books I’ve read recently, but everything here felt more real and quite a bit more entertaining.

Getting into this character’s head provides us with his very gentlemanly point of view, but also shows us the merits and limitations of his lifestyle and the code he lives by. He has thoughts and opinions on just about everything around him, but seeing where he decides to voice those thoughts and where he decides that something is just not for him without commenting was interesting to read. There is a lot here that shows how to live in a more welcoming and positive way, without being preachy.

And these comments and thoughts are surprisingly deep and full of wisdom. I’d enjoy reading this one again just to reflect on what the Major thinks about this and that. The author really found a voice here and it was a pleasure to read.

If I had to criticize anything, I’d say the ending felt a bit more dramatic than it really needed to be, with some turns that I was not expecting. But really I enjoyed almost everything about this book and hope to find more characters like this one out there.

Next I am reading Dead Lions by Mick Herron.

I just wrote this review a minute ago, and thanks to problems between WordPress and Jetpack it was lost. Tools that were once free are being updated to focus on trying to extract money from the users, making them increasingly frustrating to use, and so it is tough to sum up the all the words I just wrote just wrote. Ugh.

This book was quite a sad tale of an English man who started out with a pretty good life and somehow ended up watching things from the sidelines for the remainder. He receives a letter from someone who did him a kindness years ago, and sets out across England to visit – on foot.

Most of the book was interesting for me because it featured a solo journey, and despite being fiction I liked the adventure of it. But near the end that aspect of the story changes a bit and so I was much more into the first part of the book than the last.

I guess the goal of the book is to give humans a little more humanity, and certainly we can use all the help we can get these days. However there is a lot of sadness and regret in this story, and the final (sort of) redemption at the end doesn’t really balance it all out for me.

There are two other books featuring characters from this novel, and I just can’t see how they wouldn’t be as sad or sadder than this tale – people taking a passive view of their life and failing to communicate with those around them. I don’t think being English is really an excuse for this kind of behavior – but maybe that’s because I’m an American.

I’m hoping for a happier take on things with my next book along a similar vein, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson.

This was a fun, modern mystery novel written in a very tricky, clever way. Mystery/detective novels seem like a unique genre to me – they have rules that shouldn’t be broken, they should be fair with information and they should give you a story that you haven’t heard before.

This book completely demolishes the “Fourth Wall” and the protagonist of the story speaks directly to you, explaining the decisions that he has made in telling this story and I thought it was a creative approach to the genre.

I might say that the story was overly complex – but these days I think it would be hard to tell a compelling mystery simply. Despite the complexity I never felt like the writer was being unfair, just that some pretty far out situations had to happen to make the story work, both in the present and in the past.

So, a well-written, creative story that reads perfectly on an e-book. I’d recommend this one to anybody interested in classical murder mysteries – they’ve come a long way!

Next I am reading The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. Why are so many book titles these days including character names, I wonder…

Recently I read a book that profiled Rachel Carson and gave a short biography about both her personal and professional life. Rather than read Silent Spring, I chose this book since I thought a broad view of the ocean connected nicely with some other books I have read recently.

The more you read the more you see connections and things fitting together, which I have found to be an unexpected benefit.

The Sea Around Us is extremely well-written and beautifully describes the ocean from various perspectives. It is not merely about the fish swimming around inside it but it contains the history of it, the tides, the waves, the currents and the mysterious depths. There is a ton of research in this book, and it is broadly educational in a way that my school textbooks weren’t. The writer has a way of describing what is important not with statistics (although they are included occasionally) but instead with the heart and the imagination.

While it is a pleasure to read the fact remains that this book was published back in 1951 – meaning that the science and the discoveries contained within are roughly 70 years out of date. Whenever I read that “scientists still don’t know…” it meant that by know they probably have a much better idea. Off I’d go to the internet and find out what the state of research is. This happened so often that it became a bit burdensome.

The book is also somewhat North American-centric, and although the oceans make up most of the earth it seems that the writer is focused on an American reader. The condition of the world’s oceans are of interest to everyone on the planet – it would have been nice to have a more worldly view.

These negative points were the only things preventing a full enjoyment of the book – it is a little hard to recommend it to someone as it is fairly long and in-depth. There is probably a more up-to-date work out there more worthy of a reader’s time. However the excellent writing and unique tone made the read worthwhile for me.

Next I am reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shafer.

You know the idea that when you step out of the environment you’ve always lived in and look back you can see things you haven’t noticed before? One of the effects on me when leaving the USA to live overseas was the ability to observe things that I was oblivious to while living there.

This novel takes that premise to the next extreme, following an alien’s visit to Earth to observe (and interfere) with local life. By being an outsider the narrator can comment on things that we humans may take for granted.

The story is Britishly clever, and throughout there are nuggets of learned wisdom and plenty of advice – some given explicitly (and ever-so-slightly preachy) and some offered indirectly (which may be easier to swallow for some).

My criticism for this was only in the startlingly quick conversion of the alien narrator – he seemed to see the humanity of humans in a remarkably short time. But realism is not the goal here, and if you can set that aside you’ll find the book enjoyable and a well-needed poke at humanity.

Next I am reading The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson.

I recently read an article that said that Ace Atkins was handing over his Spenser writing duties and concentrating on his own series rather than extending Robert B. Parker’s series. I had tried reading his version of the Spenser books a long time ago – so I thought I should see what it was like now.

The good news: it was good to be back in Spenser’s world. The same characters inhabit this Boston, old ones from Parker’s days and new ones created by Atkins. This story was paced well, had plenty of interesting locations (especially bars and restaurants), and of course Spenser’s smart-ass sense of humor.

I still think that Parker’s “less is more” approach to dialogue is better, especially between Spenser and Hawk. Atkins’ jokes sometimes land awkwardly for me and overall the dialogue just isn’t as fluid and snappy as before. In addition this book has an odd sort of side story involving Hawk, that seems to be trying to open up a new series or book just for him. It was not placed subtly and felt like a potential money grab to me.

In the end I enjoyed the read, and it had me going back to read Finding Rachel Wallace, one of my favorites from Parker. It just felt more authentic and intelligent – but I can’t pin down exactly what the difference is.

Next I am reading The Humans by Matt Haig.

I heard good things about this book as a post-apocalyptic novel, but what I got was more of a horror tale with a syrupy dollop of romance at the core.

I haven’t really read many “horror” books, so maybe the choppy writing style is part of the genre. For me it was distracting and trying to lead to often artificial mini-cliffhangers that mimic the jump scares that you see in movies.

The story elements were a little schlocky – I was willing to suspend disbelief when it comes to some really out-there stuff (zombies? aliens?) but this book had stuff I just couldn’t bring myself to buy. Trapped in a nearly abandoned mansion with a hunky guy in a snowstorm and your priority is planting seeds for a future food crop in two weeks? Amnesia causing you to forget the first chapter of the book? These were tough to swallow.

But it was also a book with a unique story that I don’t run into very often, and I liked that there are lots of mysteries in here that aren’t necessarily solved. There is an inherent promise for more answers in the rest of the series, but I think those answers probably aren’t worth the reading time for me.

Next I am reading Bye, Bye Baby by Ace Atkins – his last book writing for the Spenser series.

I tend to like books about people in isolation, so naturally I wanted to read this non-fiction work about a fisherman from Mexico in 2012 getting stranded on his boat and drifting all the way across the Pacific Ocean to the Marshall Islands .

The story certainly draws your imagination – especially as it started with two fishermen and ended with one. The story is amazing, and the author had access to everyone involved on both ends of the journey.

The writer details all the information before, during and after the journey, and the bravado and machismo of the fisherman and the people he works with really shine through. If anything this was the greatest skill of the writer – to allow us to feel that and see how it influenced the final result – a living castaway after more than a year adrift.

For me the writing style was pretty flat – it was written in a documentary style and I understand that decision, but I felt like more effort could have been made to bring the story to life. Maybe because it was written in the 3rd person, I always felt a distance between myself and the story. Some writers like Jon Krakauer can really bring out the danger and make you feel like you’re there. Unfortunately this felt like a dry re-telling sometimes.

Next I am reading Voices in the Snow by Darcy Coates.

It was my first time reading this author, and I was pleased to find a pretty cerebral work that looked at tough problems (man’s mistreatment of the Earth and climate change) in a introspective and productive way.

The format of the book itself is unique. On one hand it tells a story instead of preaching about a problem, and lets the reader see the effects of unchecked climate change (which are fictional at the time but feel like they may not be far off) through the eyes of fictional voices from the future. Some of these voices are fully developed characters, while others are representative of a larger group. Sometimes this is hard to follow, but in the end I think the effect and the risk was worth taking in pushing along such a wide-reaching narrative.

I enjoyed the book and found a lot in here that I wasn’t expecting. How some characters knew the routine of hospice care, or the profile of the city of Zurich, and incidentally the Swiss people. It was an ambitious novel in unexpected ways – and while I would have cut some of the fat out it was in the end pretty satisfying to me.

Some readers may look at this as a book that proposes concrete solutions to our problems – solutions that run towards the violent or extremely radical at the very least. While I can’t comment on the technical feasibility of the scientific or economic solutions (I’m not smart enough to know if they are even realistic or not) I can say that it was good to read a story about people proposing solutions and finding the will to (sometimes) painfully implement them. Some of the solutions in this book are pretty unbelievable – not technically but socially – and if you can get by that I think you’ll enjoy the story.

This was another long book – I’ve had a run of long books lately. Next I am reading 438 Days by Jonathan Franklin.

This book had a lot of potential and got me pretty excited about the story in the beginning. Unfortunately it couldn’t follow through for me and it felt to me like it had turned into a romance/fantasy novel for teenagers.

A woman prays to a dark god and receives a gift and a curse. Part of this gift/curse is the stopping of her aging process, and she lives for 300+ years. The mechanics of this gift/curse are explained clearly, and I appreciated that the author gave us the rules of the game early on and was careful not to break them.

The author also hints at an enormous scale – the main character talks about all the time she spent in various (exotic) places, hanging out with Hemingway, etc. However these places and people are only name drops and I think a big opportunity was missed here. This was a long book but most of it was spent in just two eras, and the book feels like an empty shell because of it.

Another thing that bothered me was that the 300+ year old character didn’t really have much more wisdom than anyone else – all of the time and the ability to float invisibly through time but not much in the way of mental development.

So that together with a long romantic interlude involving someone else with a gift/curse made this book a disappointment for me.

Next I am reading The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson.