Paging All Bookworms! discussion

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Read any good books lately? We want to know about them.
How about real stinkers? We want to know about those too!


Enter your reading list and/or reviews here. Did you like it? Hate it? Feel lukewarm?

Share your thoughts with us.

Happy reading!

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The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann
4 ★

What happened to the British explorer Percy Fawcett and his quest for the Lost City of Z? That is the question that author David Grann heads into the Amazon to answer. Fawcett, his son, and his son’s friend disappeared on an expedition in 1925 and many have died or disappeared looking for him. David Grann hopes to be the first to come back with answers.

This is truly an interesting and intriguing book. There is so much information about the Amazon and the expeditions that occurred before Grann’s time. Fawcett was an amazing explorer and did so much in the Amazon. He was strict with is fellow explorers, but was peaceful when it came to making friends with the Indians. It’s sad that he disappeared in the jungle that he loved so much. There are many theories of what happened to him, but nothing has ever been confirmed.
The author’s research is very detailed and thorough. He describes the Amazon’s inhabitants, animals and foliage vividly. The reader is able to completely imagine what these explorers endured. The vastness of the Amazon is amazing. This book has piqued my interest and I plan on reading more about this amazing jungle that is still not fully explored.

Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen – 4****
What a delight to listen to this again. Having done so previously, and also having watched the PBS miniseries, I have an even greater appreciation for Austen's send-up of gothic novels. It's just a charming story and so well told! And, of course, we have a romantic HEA ending! What's not to like?
My full review HERE

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Girl, Woman, Other – Bernardine Evaristo – 4****
Evaristo’s collection of short stories earned her the 2019 Booker Prize, the first black woman to be so honored. As the title implies, the stories all focus on women and girls from childhood to old age and are primarily set in current-day Britain. The book features wide variety of unforgettable characters that fairly leap off the page, and the stories are loosely interconnected. I can hardly wait for my F2F book club discussion!
My full review HERE

Odd Thomas (Odd Thomas #1) by Dean Koontz
4 ★

Odd Thomas (yes, that’s his real name) is a short-order cook in the small town of Pico Mundo. Odd has a rather unique talent: he can see the dead. They can’t talk to him, but he is still able to figure out what they need or want. When a strange man shows up in town surrounded by dark evil shades, Odd’s whole world changes and he must do all he can to stop the evil that is coming.

My daughter picked this book for me to read and I’m glad she did. It’s an interesting and enjoyable book. Odd is a unique character, but very likable. Many people know who he is, but only a few know what he can do. The love of his life, Stormy, is a free spirit that keeps Odd sane and motivated. This story is full of great characters and suspenseful moments.
Dean Koontz has done something that not many authors can do: he gave me the chills while reading. I don’t scare easily reading books, but this one had me a bit on edge. His descriptions of the evil shades and the stranger that arrived in town are bone chilling. It was the perfect description of what we cannot see when a terrible tragedy comes to town. That feeling of foreboding and fear that one gets and does not understand.
There are also some great one-liners that give the story a small bit of humor. Odd has a different outlook on life than many and he speaks his mind and has no fear of being completely honest. There is a surprise at the end that made me unhappy, but I will continue the series. I’m very curious to see what happens next in Pico Mundo.

Jack Maggs – Peter Carey – 3***
I had heard that this was inspired by Dickens’ Great Expectations . I can see similarities, though the focus here is not on Pip but on Magwitch. I did get quite caught up in Jack Maggs’s story and wondered a few times how Carey was going to wrap this up. The plot is definitely convoluted in places, with many twists and turns, and I did not really appreciate the Tobias Oates subplot. Carey’s writing is very atmospheric, and the city of London is explored in some detail, especially the impoverished slums and criminal underbelly.
My full review HERE

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies – Deesha Philyaw – 4****
In this wonderful collection of short stories, Philyaw explores the modern African-American woman and her hopes, dreams, relationships, and actions both in and away from church. The stories feature all ages, from children to great-grandmothers. Philyaw does a marvelous job of bringing these many characters to life. I could see a few of these stories expanded to novel length, but I find them satisfying in and of themselves.
My full review HERE

Having taken a road trip to visit my brother just after New Year's, I am off to a late start this year: my first two books after the 15th.

Celia Correas Zapata, Isabel Allende: Vida y espíritus [1998] 255 pages [in Spanish]

Called a "literary biography" of the author Isabel Allende, this is not in any way a critical work, but a series of interviews with the author by a close personal friend, with some linking text. It is very disorganized, and much is repeated in the two autobiographical works I have read, but there are some interesting insights into her early novels.

Isabel Allende, City of the Beasts [2002] 406 pages [YA, Eng. tr.]

I am currently reading a number of Allende's novels; I hadn't intended to read any of the Young Adult books, but the description of them in her autobiography La suma de las dias seemed interesting so when I found this translation for ten cents at a used book store I decided to pick it up. Despite the length it only took a few hours to read. According to her autobiography it was written in collaboration with her three grandchildren, Alejandro, Andrea and Nicole; the hero is named Alexander and there are references to the other two. There are two sequels, I'm not sure if they all feature Alexander or if there is one for each grandchild.

The blurb calls it "magical realism" but it struck me more as an actual fantasy novel, though with some realistic description. It is set in the Upper Orinoco-Amazon region on the border of Venezuela and Brazil. The plot concerns an attempt by a millionaire with the support of corrupt military officials to exterminate a native population to exploit the resources of their land -- not unfortunately an unrealistic premise. There is much spiritualism as one would expect from Allende. Fifteen-year-old Alexander and his thirteen-year-old friend Nadia, together with a supporting cast of an eccentric grandmother, a guide (Nadia's father), a shaman, an Indian tribe and an anthropologist for comic relief, save the native population, as well as a population of yeti-like creatures. Not great literature, but an entertaining read for younger readers -- I might consider it more for middle-grades than Young Adult; there is no real romance between the two main characters.

Resistance Women – Jennifer Chiaverini – 3.5***
This is a work of historical fiction concentrating on the women who worked in Germany as part of the resistance movement to thwart Hitler’s ambitions. I was engaged and interested from beginning to end. The novel spans the time from June 1929 to the year following the end of the war, 1946. I had to wonder at times, whether Chiaverini was lifting certain phrases and descriptions of the political climate that led to the rise of Nazism from current-day news reporting and commentary. It was chillingly familiar.
My full review HERE

“O” Is For Outlaw – Sue Grafton – 4****
Book # 15 in the popular Alphabet series starring private investigator (and former cop) Kinsey Millhone. I love that the series is set in a time before computers and cell phones, when investigators (whether police or private detectives) needed to be both inventive and persistent in tracking down all the leads and possibilities.
My full review HERE

The Girl With no Shadow – Joanne Harris – 3***
In this follow-up to Chocolat Vianne Rouche and her daughter Anouk are living in the Montmartre section of Paris with new identities – Yanne Charbonneau and Annie – and a second daughter, Rosette. This was an interesting sequel but I missed the humor and romance of the original. It’s a much darker tale and the three narrators makes it a bit confusing. It held my attention, but I’m not sure I’ll bother with book three in the trilogy.
My full review HERE

Isabel Allende, La isla bajo el mar [2009] 511 pages [in Spanish]

A historical novel set in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, this book tells the story of a slave named Zarité from childhood up until she is forty. The first half of the novel is set in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, against the background of the slave revolts which led to the founding of the Republic of Haiti; the second half moves to Louisiana and is less interesting and less believable. Zarité is a domestic slave and concubine of the master -- like most slave novels, the field slaves are never in the foreground. There are some other clichés of slave novels, like the weak but well-intentioned master and the cruel overseer. Not the best novel I have read on the subject, but it isn't the worst either and the history of Haiti was worth the read.

Mexican Gothic – Silvia Moreno-Garcia – 3***
This is not the kind of book I normally read, but I was fascinated by the story and gripped by the tension. The atmosphere is dark and chilling. It reminded me a bit of The Ruins by Scott Smith, and/or Stephen King’s The Shining . But it entirely Moreno-Garcia’s own story. I did wonder why she incorporated an English family with their English-style mansion; perhaps she felt her readers wouldn’t identify with malevolence in an adobe hacienda.
My full review HERE

Breaking Point (Lucy Kincaid #13) by Allison Brennan
4 ★

JT Caruso’s little sister, Bella, has gone deep undercover to save a young girl from a dangerous prostitution ring. He has decided to take matters into his own hands and asks FBI Special Agent Lucy Kincaid to help get her out.

Bella Caruso reminds me a lot of Lucy. She has gone through a very similar ordeal as Lucy did and her mindset to save other young women is just as strong as Lucy’s. She’s also extremely stubborn. She knows she’s in too deep and knows that she should get out, but continues to hold out hope that she will find that one girl she is looking for. Bella is determined, loyal and honest (at least with the girls), just a great character.
There are some pretty rough characters in this book. Ruthless and sadistic characters. The subject matter is just as heartbreaking as the other books in this series, but this book gives the reader a more detailed experience with Bella.
Boy, Lucy has her work cut out for her with her new boss. This women is bound and determined to keep Lucy in her place and obedient. She has a lot to learn. They may have come to a mutual understanding toward the end, but I see more conflict in the future.

Gene H. Bell-Villada, Borges and His Fiction: A Guide to His Mind and Art [rev. ed., 1999] 325 pages

A guide to the stories of Jorge Luis Borges, which goes through them book by book and story by story, explaining the references and putting the stories in the context of his life and events. It gave me a better appreciation of some of the stories I hadn't enjoyed so much, particularly all the gaucho stories. Although the revised edition was written after Borges' death and claims to be based on all his works, there is no mention of his last collection, La memoria de Shakespeare.

Ordeal By Innocence – Agatha Christie – 3***
I really enjoy Agatha Christie’s mysteries; there’s a good reason she’s often called “the Queen of Crime.” But this one didn’t really capture my attention. Of course, I was listening to the audio and the many characters were sometimes hard to differentiate. It also seemed somewhat melodramatic and “overacted” … but perhaps that is the fault of the narrator and not Christie’s writing.
My full review HERE

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When Life Gives You Lululemons – Lauren Weiberger – 3***
Book three in the Devil Wears Prada trilogy focuses on Emily, the first assistant to Amanda Priestly in the original book. This is not quite so snarky as the original, which I found to be great fun to read, but it’s very entertaining. The suburbs take a beating with Weisberger making fun of the “moms who lunch” (or, more often, fast and do Pilates). A fun, fast beach read of a novel.
My full review HERE

The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides – 3.5***
Eugenides’ debut work focuses on one family in a Detroit suburb. The five Lisbon sisters chafe against their mother’s strict rules and attract the attention of the neighborbood boys. Eugenides can write characters that fairly jump off the page, they are so real and so passionate about their feelings. But this book is somewhat different. There is an ethereal quality to this novel. We never really know what happens inside the Lisbon home, we have only the memories of men who, some twenty years later, cannot let go of the events of that year. What they remember most clearly is how they felt – their hopes, dreams, passions, fears. And although they witnessed the girls’ final acts, they are haunted by what they did not – and never will – know.
My full review HERE

The Other Daughter by Lisa Gardner, 5 ★

A young girl is abandoned at a hospital and adopted by a family who recently lost their own daughter. All is good for 20 years until a reporter shows up and secrets start to emerge.

This is a crazy twisty story. It was intriguing and suspenseful. The characters are extremely likeable, even some of the bad guys and the ending it truly a shocking one.
Melanie Stokes knows that she is adopted, but has never felt like it. Her parents have always treated her like a blood member of the family. She is shocked and appalled by the information the reporter gives her. There is no way that her loving family can be connected to a serial child killer. The path the story stakes after this has many turns in it. It was fun trying to figure out the mystery and a complete shock when it is revealed.
It’s hard to write a review for this book without giving things away. There are so many elements. This book had me so riveted that I read it while I did house work and cooked dinner. It’s a truly fabulous story. This is the first book I have read by this author and I highly recommend it. I look forward to reading more by Lisa Gardner.


Day Shift (Midnight, Texas #2) by Charlaine Harris, 4 ★

Olivia Charity and Manfred Bernardo find themselves at the same hotel in Dallas, Texas. The couple Olivia is with ends up dead the next day and then Manfred’s client dies during his reading. His client’s son accuses him of stealing from his mother and when Manfred returns to Midnight he asks Olivia for her help to clear his name. Meanwhile, the other residents of Midnight are dealing with other issues in the small quiet town.

The reader gets to know Olivia a bit better in this book. We get a glimpse into her past, but just a small one. There are still a lot of questions. We also get to know Joe and Chuy better. We all know that every resident of Midnight, Texas has a secret and we find out theirs. It’s quite interesting. This revelation also leaves a lot of questions out there. “The Rev”, Emilio Sheehan, has a special guest throughout the book which in turn lets the reader know what his secret is. Now we just have the Reeds and Bobo to learn about.
Diederik is a young boy who gets dropped off with The Rev by his father. The gang sees the boy grow quickly and Fiji helps buy him clothes. They all know that something big is coming to Midnight. As a fan of the Sookie Stackhouse series I was thrilled to find out who his dad was. Also, the old motel has opened back up and is being filled with elderly residents. They were all pulled out of a rundown building and relocated. Something is also not right there. I’m hoping we learn more in the next book.
For fans of Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse series, there are 2 favorites that make an appearance in Midnight, Texas. It was quite fun seeing them both again and getting to see what they were up to.


A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses #1) by Sarah J. Maas, 5 ★

Feyre hunts to keep her family fed and alive during the long winter. During one of her hunts she kills a large wolf who wants the same deer she wants. Within a few days she learns that the wolf was a Fae and she has broken the treaty by killing him. As retribution she is brought to their land, Prythian, and held by Tamlin, the High Fae of the Spring Court. Her hatred of him slowly turns to trust, respect and love, but there are secrets being kept that sends her back home to her family. Feeling like there is unfinished business she returns to Prythian to find Tamlin’s castle empty and him gone. As the Spring Court’s secrets get revealed, Feyre makes a decision to save the land and Tamlin on her own.

I found this story to be a bit slow at first, but it soon got very interesting. Feyre, Tamlin and his friend, Lucien, are great characters who the reader grows to love. Even though no one should talk to a High Fae with disrespect, Feyre can’t help herself and the banter between the three is great.
I was not impressed with Feyre’s family, especially Nesta, but the reader does learn why she is the way she is toward the end of the book.
When Rhysand appears I feared that Feyre would prefer him over Tamlin. There was just something about him that was appealing. Thankfully that changes and we see what he truly is. He changes a bit by the end of the book and I look forward to seeing what he does in the next book.
In most books I have read, the Fae Queen always seems to be horrible. They are cruel, demanding and insufferable. This book follows that description, plus some. High Fae Amarantha is wretched. The things she makes the other Fae, and Feyre, do is despicable. I found her to be lonely and deeply hurt by her past. Although I think she would have been this way regardless, I did feel bad for the things she endured.
As with Sarah J. Maas’ series Throne of Glass, I was completely drawn into this series and moved right onto book 2.

The Yellow Wallpaper and Selected Writings – Charlotte Perkins Gilman – 4****
The title short story is Gilman’s classic story of a woman driven mad by her husband’s controlling “remedy” for her post-partum depression. . First published in 1892, Gilman’s story ignited some controversy, and she has been hailed as a feminist. She certainly is that. Frankly, I was not a great fan of this story and dreaded reading the rest of the collection as a result, but I’m glad I persisted. The stories celebrate the advantages of living a full life, identifying one’s strengths and nurturing those talents, and following one’s dreams. While the focus is on women – how they are repressed, how they overcome, how they succeed – more than one man benefits from adapting to a change in traditional roles.
My full review HERE

Cockroaches – Jo Nesbø – 3***
Book two in the popular Norwegian mystery series, has Inspector Harry Hole traveling to Bangkok to investigate the murder of Norway’s Ambassador to Thailand. Nesbø crafts a complicated plot with many twists and turns and enough suspects, and side plots, to distract the most dedicated detective – and reader. His descriptions definitely evoked the sights, sounds, smells and flavors of Bangkok for me. I did find myself cringing quite a bit at the more violent scenes. So, if you are bothered by such graphic depictions this is probably not the series for you.
My full review HERE

Abdulrazak Gurnah, Desertion [2005] 262 pages [Kindle, Open Library]

The first book I have read by this year's Nobel Prize winner in Literature, Abdulrazak Gurnah, who was born in Zanzibar but moved to England at age 18. All his fiction is set in East Africa and he is described as a Tanzanian author. Although his first language is Swahili, he writes in English. Desertion is a study of the personal relationships between the British and the African population, as exemplified in three interconnected stories of "desertion", set against the history of colonialism, independence and revolution. (The title could also refer to the British abandonment of the colony, or to a few other things as well.) I would recommend this book and I am looking forward to reading some of his other books as they come in on hold (I was between twenty and thirty in the queue for most of them.) Note: it is impossible to summarize this book without SPOILERS.
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The first part of the novel begins in a small Moslem village south of Mombasa in what would later become Kenya, in 1899 when it was still a British colony. A British "orientalist", Martin Pearce, abandoned and robbed by his guides, has managed to reach the village and is rescued by Hasanili, a shopkeeper. Pearce falls in love with Hasanili's sister, Rehana, and they live together for a while in Mombasa, and have a daughter named Asmah. Pearce then deserts her and returns to England.

In the second part of the novel, we are in an island off the African coast, presumably Zanzibar, in the mid-1950's, just before independence. We are introduced to a family of five, the parents who are both teachers, a daughter Farida, and two sons, Amin and Rahid. The main story here turns on the relationship between Amin and a woman named Jamila, who turns out to be Asmah's daughter. Amin in obedience to his parents breaks off his relationship, the second "desertion" of the novel.

The third part takes place in England, where Rahid (like Gurnah) has gone to study and remains as a professor. He marries an English woman named Grace, who later leaves him. In the final pages, he meets a granddaughter of Martin Pearce by his English wife and we learn more of the details of the first part.

¡Hola Papi! – John Paul Brammer – 3***
This collection of essays serves as a memoir and self-help guide to pressing questions about growing up, surviving break ups, finding love, and all the issues young people – both gay and straight – have to navigate in the process of becoming adults. The beginning of each chapter poses a question asking for advice. And by way of answering such queries, he recounts his experiences in a small Oklahoma town, his horrible middle-school years, his confusing teenage years in the closet, his awakening in college, and his eventual move to New York.
My full review HERE

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Jumbo: This Being the True Story Of the Greatest Elephant In the World – Paul Chambers – 3***
This is a “biography” of the African elephant who gave the world a new word for large, gigantic, stupendous, huge, magnificent: Jumbo. Chambers details how the young calf was captured by nomadic Hamran traders, subsequently became the darling of Victorian England, and eventually was a star attraction of P T Barnum’s circus in America. I found it fascinating to learn how the giant elephant was trained and appreciated learning more about the various personalities surrounding Jumbo. But there were times when the story dragged even for me, an admitted fanatic when it comes to elephants.
My full review HERE

Isabel Allende, El Cuaderno de Maya [2011] 442 pages [in Spanish]

This first-person novel begins with a nineteen-year-old American girl, Maya Vidal, on her way to Chile with a backpack and a blank notebook, which becomes this book. She tells us that she is hiding from unspecified but powerful "enemies". This is the major mystery of the novel, and we do not find out who the enemies are or why they are persuing her until near the end of the book. The notebook entries alternate between her current experiences on an island in Chilote at the "end of the world" and her memories of her life up to the beginning of the book. At the beginning, both are somewhat normal, although not boring, but as time goes on they both become more complicated and intense. While this is at the simplest level a "crime thriller", not a genre I usually read, the descriptions of drug addiction and the criminal underworld in Las Vegas, and a mystery centered in the history of Chile, give it a more serious literary feel. Despite the intensity of some of the descriptions in Las Vegas -- it would be hard to read if we didn't know that she survives her experiences, since she is writing the story in Chilote -- and of the experiences of the Chilean characters during the Pinochet years, there is also much humor (an eccentric abuela who resembles Isabel Allende) and hope. Definitely a good read.

Shadow of Night – Deborah Harkness – 3***
Book two in the All Souls Trilogy picks up where book one left off. Diana and Matthew find themselves in 16th-century England, in search of the elusive Ashmole manuscript and a tutor for Diana so she can learn her craft. I didn’t feel the same passion between the central characters that I found so enjoyable in book one. The full story hasn’t yet finished and I’ll probably read book three in the trilogy, but I’m in no hurry to do so.
My full review HERE

James wrote: " Isabel Allende,
El Cuaderno de Maya
[2011] 442 pages [in Spanish]

This first-person novel begins with a nineteen-year-old American girl, Maya Vidal, on her way to Chile with a backpack and a ..."

I liked this book pretty much, also. It was a departure in that Allende usually wrote historical fiction and this was more contemporary. But her storytelling is top notch.

Abdulrazak Gurnah, The Last Gift [2014] 279 pages [Kindle, Overdrive]

Only the second novel I've read by Gurnah, but this is one of his most recent. It opens with the illness of Abbas, an immigrant in Exeter, England, a former sailor who now works as an electrical engineer in a factory. We then meet his wife, Maryam, a foundling who lived with various foster families before running away with Abbas and works as custodial staff in a hospital. They are an older couple who have been married for decades and have two adult children, Hanna (also called Anna) and Jamal. We find out at the beginning that Abbas has "secrets", that he has never told Maryam or the children where exactly he came from (other than a vague "East Africa") or anything about his life before they met.

The novel is in the third person, but from the internal perspectives of the characters; the psychology is described very well and we see how all the characters interpret their lives very differently and misunderstand each other. In the course of the novel we meet other characters who exemplify nearly every imaginable situation of immigration, but it is all done very naturally and never has the feel of a contrived or didactic book like some others I have read about immigrants.

At the end, the dying Abbas reveals the secrets of his life in Africa and as a sailor and many of the "loose ends" are cleared up. There is no question that Gurnah, unlike some other recent choices, deserved the Nobel Prize.

Longbourn – Jo Baker – 3.5***
I really enjoyed this follow-up version to Austen’s classic Pride and Prejudice . Yes, the major events from P&P are all present, but Baker gives us a rich background to the Longbourn and Netherfield servants that are mostly invisible in Austen’s classic. Regency England had many rules and restrictions that governed proper behavior, whether for the ladies and gentlemen of the upper class, or the servants, farmers and tradespeople in the towns. And this adds an additional layer of suspense in the slow-burn romance between Sarah and her paramour.
My full review HERE

A Children’s Bible – Lydia Millet – 4****
I’m not a great fan of post-apocalyptic stories but this one grabbed me. Evie’s narration is often times emotionless, almost a “just the facts, M’am” recitation. But nevertheless, the tension builds, as the children fend for themselves in a world devastated by a major hurricane and plagued by lawlessness. I think it would be a good candidate for a book group discussion, with the symbolism, allegory, and inherent warnings about global warming and consumer excess.
My full review HERE

Vendetta (Sisterhood #3) by Fern Michaels
5 ★

Myra Rutledge, founder of the Sisterhood, finally has her chance to get revenge against the young man who hit and killed her pregnant daughter. The gentleman had diplomatic immunity and was taken back to China. The sisterhood takes some pretty risky steps to get Myra’s revenge.

This mission sure was a tough one. The girls had to go to China and get this horrible man back to the USA. It was a fun ride, though. This group of women keep me laughing and in awe by their skills throughout the book. Martin has some fantastic abilities and connections. The things he is able to do to help the mission are unbelievable. It makes me wonder if people in rea life have the same connections once they leave MI6. Book 4 in the series is on my list for next month and I can’t wait.

Alejo Carpentier, El reino de este mundo [1949] 121 pages [in Spanish]

Carpentier's second novel (I had originally said his first, but there was an earlier one from 1933 which he essentially rejected later as a "failure"; in any case, this began his serious "canon"), El reino de este mundo was the origin of the style he described as "real-maravilloso", the real marvelous, which was the precursor of the "magical realism" of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and much of later Latin American and other literature. It is also (not by design) the second novel I have read this year about the revolution which created the nation of Haiti.

The protagonist is a slave named Ti Noel, who at the beginning of the novel is accompanying his master on a trip to buy horses. He becomes friends with another slave, Makandal -- a historic figure who is described at second hand in the other novel I mentioned, Isabel Allende's La isla baja el mar. (Allende's novel is probably influenced by Carpentier's; both are set in the country around Ciudad del Cabo and have the same structure of a slave who is taken to Santiago de Cuba at the beginning of the Revolution, although they differ entirely in the later parts, where Carpentier's protagonist returns to Haiti and Allende's goes on to Louisiana. Carpentier's novel is much more serious as literature, and is both more magical and more realistic, while Allende is probably the more entertaining storyteller.) Makandal, with his supernatural powers derived from African religion, is the center of the marvelous in the novel and occupies several chapters. His (literal) flight at the time of his execution became the basis of legend in Haiti.

The novel then skips ahead to the insurrection lead by Boukman. Carpentier, while obviously sympathetic to the rebellion, does not idealize it in the way Allende does; he also breaks off the description before the rise of Toussaint. Ti Noel is taken to Cuba. After a considerable time, he manages to return to Haiti under the reign of King Henri Christophe.

The novel also contains episodes concerning Pauline Bonaparte and the family of Henri Christophe. The book is very concentrated and has an elliptical style. This is one of the most important works for an understanding of contemporary Latin American literature.

Nice Work – Celia Imrie – 3***
Book two in the Nice series. Love the double entendre of the title as this book is set near Nice, Cannes and Marseille in a charming small French town full of colorful characters and a tight group of expats who are trying to make a new life on the Cote d’Azur. This is a fun, enjoyable read with a bit of intrigue and a likeable cast of recurring characters. Some of the family drama from book one spills over into this tale.
My full review HERE

Night Shift (Midnight, Texas #3) by Charlaine Harris
4 ★

There is something evil under the crossroads in Midnight, Texas. Fiji can hear it and many can feel it. It calls people to it to commit suicide. Lemuel’s quest to translate an old text may answer the many questions the residents of Midnight have. Also, a new person in town to run the Gas N’ Go may also have answers.

The reader learns a lot about the residents of Midnight in the book. We learn most everyone’s back story and you find out Olivia’s real name. Manfred has quite the surprise in this book as well.
Most of the story centers on Lemuel’s quest to translate the text and Fiji’s connection to the evil under the crossroads. The reader will see a big change in Fiji in this book. We meet her sister and the true extent of her powers. We also get to see another favorite character from the Sookie Stackhouse series. It’s a great ending to an interesting trilogy. There are no unanswered questions.

Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen – 4****
It's no wonder this is a classic. Austen is simply the master of dialogue. The way in which the characters interact brings them to life. From Mrs Bennet’s hysterics, to Lydia’s self-centered teen-aged giddiness, to Mr Collins’ simpering diatribes, to Jane’s cautious and measured observations, to Elizabeth’s outrage and clever responses to Darcy and Lady Catherine de Bourgh, the dialogue simply sparkles.
My full review HERE

Abandoned (Max Revere #5) by Allison Brennan
4 ★

Maxine Revere finally has a clue that may lead her to the trust about what happened to her mom. The clue sends her to a small coastal town where there are many secrets and dangerous people who may not want Max investigating.

This is an action packed informative story. The reader learns so much about Martha Revere and her life after leaving Max with her grandmother. I really liked that the author went back and forth between Max in the present day and Martha in the past. It helped break up the story and gave the reader more insight into Martha.
There are some awesome surprises in this story as well. The mystery comes together nicely and there is a bit of romance. Max may have found her “forever”.
Sean Rogan and Dillon Kincaid show up to help Max as to be expected. I would have been disappointed if they hadn’t. Dillon really helps Max out with her feelings about her mother and all the new information coming to light. He’s so good at what he does.
This book closed out the series nicely, but I would have liked to see more of Max.

Alejo Carpentier, Los pasos perdidos [1953] 148 pages

This is Carpentier's second or third novel, depending on whether one counts the early novel from 1933 which he essentially rejected as a "failure". This is a very symbolic book; the "marvelous" here is in the entire feeling of strangeness, rather than in any particular instances of unreal events. The book is in the first person; the narrator-protagonist, never named, originally from Latin America, is a musician, and music plays a large role in the symbolism. (Carpentier, in addition to being a novelist and journalist, and after 1959 occupying many cultural and diplomatic posts for the revolutionary Cuban government, was also a prominent musicologist; his best-known nonfiction book was Music in Cuba.) As the book opens, in New York City (although that isn't actually obvious until near the end of the novel, and all we are explicitly told is that it is a modern city whose language is not Spanish) we learn that his wife, Ruth, has been trapped for more than four years in a too-successful play which somewhat resembles Gone With the Wind, and that the protagonist himself is in a dead-end job misusing his musical talents on advertising-film music, the first two examples of "pasos perdidos" or "lost steps". We learn also that the couple are essentially separated although living in the same apartment because they have opposite schedules (time maladjustments will be one of the themes of the novel), and there is a passing mention of another woman he is seeing. Having just finished a film project, the protagonist now has three or four weeks of vacation, but finds that Ruth is unexpectedly leaving for a tour with the play.

He wanders around the city, undecided about how to spend his vacation. There are various memory-flashbacks, some giving us background about his life, and the longest of which, a visit to a museum in which he travels back in time from modern art through nineteenth-century, Renaissance, mediaeval and classical art and ultimately to the Stone Age, foreshadows the trajectory of the novel as a whole. He goes into a concert hall where an orchestra is preparing to play, but leaves as soon as he realizes that they are performing the Ninth Symphony, a work he particularly detests. (We find out why later.) On coming out of the concert hall, he meets someone he has not seen for many years, the curator of a museum of musical instruments, who has been looking for him to give him something. The curator questions him about his research on the origins of music; at first he lies, but then confesses that he has abandoned research and wasted his life. The curator then asks him to take a trip, at the expense of the University which owns the museum, to South America to look for certain primitive musical instruments. Uninterested, he slips out. We next find him at the apartment of his girlfriend, Mouche, who is apparently an intellectual, very influenced by late nineteenth and early twentieth century French avant-garde writers, but who earns her living from astrology. When he tells her about the offer, she becomes excited and begins packing, suggesting that he can fake the instruments or pretend he couldn't find them and they can have a free vacation at the beaches in Venezuela. Somewhat reluctantly, he returns to the curator and accepts the assignment, and the next chapter finds them on the airplane on their way. The remainder of the book is about his travels in South America. I'm not sure that in a novel this symbolic there is a problem with SPOILERS but if there is a concern you should stop reading here; in any case I won't give away the ending.

On arriving in "the city", presumably Caracas (where Carpentier was living when he wrote the book) though this is not named, they attend a nineteenth-century opera which in its staging and the whole feel of the theater seems to him as if he has returned to the nineteenth century. Mouche, on the other hand, dislikes it because it is the sort of thing criticized by her avant-garde writers, and insists on leaving. He becomes increasingly annoyed with her and realizes (although he had already suspected) that her intellectual pose is only superficial. They become caught up in an insurrection which is of unclear meaning and he is nearly killed. Eventually, they begin travelling toward the jungle; in a reversal of their original roles, he becomes progressively more enthusiastic about the journey while she complains and wants to return to the city. With every new place they arrive, the technology and society seems to retrogress, in stages he refers to as the Land of the Horse, the Land of the Dog, and eventually the Land of the Bird. At some point Mouche becomes ill with malaria and returns without him, and he takes up with Rosario, a part Indian woman who seems to him to be more authentic. At this point, I began to be very ambivalent about the book, because it seemed to be an example of the fifties literary cliché that the uneducated and primitive are more "authentic" than the more educated, which I have always disliked; in fact at the end, however, he takes a different turn. What Carpentier is really saying is that these communities are not "primitive" but very sophisticated adaptations to the environments in which they live, and I would agree with that; and the truth is that, between Stalinism and the "witch-hunts" in the West, the academic and "intellectual" currents in the fifties were often (and to some extent still are) rather superficial and trivialized, disconnected from the lives and concerns of the majority of the population. He is essentially criticizing the bourgeois way of life and its alienation, the lack of real freedom for most people to "choose their own steps."

I won't reveal how the book ends, but it certainly provides food for thought and is another book which makes clear the influence Carpentier had on later Latin American literature.

Devil in Winter – Lisa Kleypas – 3***
Book number three in the Wallflower series is a fun romp of a regency romance. The action moves forward at a steady pace, there are dastardly villains, innocent damsels, mysterious foreigners, handsome heroes, and a feisty heroine.
My full review HERE

Alejo Carpentier, El acoso [1956] 119 pages [in Spanish]

One of Carpentier's less well-known novels, and I can understand why: in addition to being (according to the Prologue of this edition) his only book not to have any "marvelous" aspect, it is simply very difficult to understand; what follows is my best guess as to what is happening. The novel is in stream-of-consciousness and is structured like a sonata. The setting is Havana in the late forties. It begins with the consciousness of a poor music student who is working as the cashier in a concert hall, and reading a biography of Beethoven which is quoted from time to time as he reads it, and we see from the outside the person who will be essentially the main character, a former architecture student and political activist, who is the one being "pursued" (the title is Spanish for "chase" or "pursuit"). These are the theme and countertheme. The action of this chapter takes place in the concert hall, during intermission, where a performance is about to be given of the Eroica as the second half of the program. The "pursued" rushes in and throws a large bill on the counter, grabs a ticket and hurries in without waiting for change, followed by two other men who run in without paying. The cashier cashes out, keeping the large bill -- the Eroica is the end of the night -- and rushes off to a local prostitute, Estrella, who refuses the bill as probably counterfeit and throws him out. He returns to the hall and offers to close up. We then without any notice get stream-of-consciousness of the main character -- it takes a while to realize that the person has changed, and we assume incorrectly that it follows the first section in time -- who is hiding in the tower of a house next door to the music student, from which he can hear the music student practicing and playing the Eroica on a cheap gramophone.

The second chapter, which takes up most of the book, is the "development" section, almost entirely in the consciousness of the main character, and goes back to the previous one or two days, although it takes a while to realize this, with flashbacks to the past several months, explaining in bits and pieces out of order how he got to the point at which he enters the concert hall. The chronology is so confused that at the beginning I had no idea what was going on, but by the end of the chapter I had it largely figured out, having had to occasionally go back and re-read former parts in the light of the later events, which were in some cases prior in time. We find out that the main character had been a member of an ultrleft terrorist group which degenerated into a criminal band. He is now on the run from both the police and his former comrades. He has also gotten religion very heavily, although largely expressed in formula prayers and quotations from the Mass.

A short third chapter is the "recapitulation" which repeats the events of the first chapter now largely through the consciousness of the major character. He rushes into the theater to hide. We then get the final event.

In addition to the difficulty of the structure, the language is also difficult: because of the main character's architecture background, he describes everything around him constantly in technical architectural terms which I didn't know even after looking up the English equivalents, and in other respects the vocabulary is very lush and "baroque" and the syntax is very complex (which was true of the two previous novels as well).

Despite being disguised as an adventure novel, the book deals with some very serious questions, as always with Carpentier: questions of guilt and repentance, as well as politics and music. I usually like books with a challenging style but in this case, while others may find that the theme resonates with them, for me it was not really worth the effort of decipherment.

Leonard and Hungry Paul – Rónán Hession – 4****
Two thirty-something single men are friends. They each live at home, they play board games, take satisfaction in their work, like to read, and are, in general, nice. Can quiet, gentle people change the world? Oh, I loved this book! I liked how Hession showed us these two men slowly and gently, revealing their strengths and flaws, as we got to know them. The ending is perfect. Happy and hopeful but not tied up in a nice, neat bow.
My full review HERE

The Recovery Agent (Gabriella Rose #1) by Janet Evanovich
4 ★

Recovery agent Gabriela Rose’ family home is in danger of being torn down, so Gabriella, intrigued by a family legend, heads to Peru in search of the Ring of Solomon. Gabrielle ends up having to team up with her ex-husband, Rafer, to find the treasure. They must work together to find the ring before a ruthless drug lord finds it first.

If you are fan of the Stephanie Plum series, you will enjoy this book. Gabriela Rose is very different than Stephanie, but the humor is there. Gabs, as Rafer calls her, is strong and determined. She is fearless and doesn’t let obstacles get in the way of her ultimate goal.
The one thing I like about starting a new series is the introduction of new characters. This book has a ton of characters and they are all well written. Gabriela and Rafer have an interesting relationship and there is still an attraction between them. The guides they use in Peru help them out throughout the book and they are a lively bunch. The descriptions of the Peruvian terrain are vivid and action is undeniable. There is also a lot of history about the Incas and the Ring of Solomon. I found all of the information interesting. The bad guy worships Supay and I ended up doing research myself to learn more.
I think this series is going to be another favorite of mine from this author and I look forward to the next book.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thoughts and opinions are my own.


Caraval (Caraval #1) by Stephanie Garber
5 ★

Scarlett Dragna and her sister, Donatella, are swept away to an isle to see Caraval, a performance that the audience can participate in. Scarlett has been dreaming of seeing Caraval her whole life, but when she arrives and Tella is kidnapped, she realizes that it’s not the fun adventure she was expecting.

Scarlett is told right from the beginning that Caraval is just a performance and to not believe everything she sees and hears. We, of course, as the reader are told the same thing. Throughout the whole story I remembered this and it makes for a fun read. You never know what the truth is and the Caraval performers are an elaborate bunch who twists words and actions. This story had me completely enthralled and I read it in 3 days. It was very hard to put down.
Scarlett and Tella’s father is a very violent man who takes their failures to the extreme. There is some abuse to the girls in the book. Caraval helps Scarlett face her fears and her father. It shows her how strong she really is. Julien, the mysterious sailor, helps her throughout Caraval. He’s a great character with a secret.
The chapters are broken up into days at Caraval. It’s a fabulous way to help the reader stay in the timeline. The ending is full of surprises and secrets are revealed. There were a few surprises I did not see coming. This book was so good that I had to make myself not grab book 2 right away (I have 2 other books to finish first), but I will definitely by picking it up as soon as possible.

Melissa wrote: "
The Recovery Agent (Gabriella Rose #1) by Janet Evanovich
4 ★

Recovery agent Gabriela Rose’ family home is in danger of being torn down, so Gabriella, intri..."

Melissa, I'm jealous that you got a copy of The Recovery Agent from NetGalley! I have my name in, but it still says "pending." I'm looking forward to reading it :)

The Whale Rider – Witi Ihimaera – 5***** and a ❤
What a wonderful story. Magical, mystical, and yet completely relatable. Eight-year-old Kahu wants nothing so much as to please her Grandfather and be loved by him. But he dismisses her as a “useless girl.” Still, her grandmother, father and uncle champion her cause, as she comes of age and proves that she has what it takes to become chief and lead her people.
My full review HERE

Leon Trotsky, My Life: An Attempt at an Autobiography [1929, tr. 1930] 602 pages

I may have read this some fifty years ago, when I was studying politics and the Russian Revolution and before I began keeping track accurately of my reading, but if so I didn't remember much of what I would have expected to have remembered. Of course, the earlier chapters about his childhood and pre-revolutionary adolescence are only of biographical interest, but from then on there is much of political and historical importance. The chapters on the 1905 and 1917 revolutions are naturally less clear than his books on those subjects, and there are occasional differences of detail, given that this book was written largely from memory under less than ideal research conditions during his exile in Turkey. Given the time and place it was written, there is a feeling throughout the book of its being essentially a defense against the charges of the Stalinists.

The most interesting chapters are on the disputes within the Social-Democratic parties between the two revolutions and the attitudes towards the First World War; the period of the Civil War (I hadn't fully realized how close the revolution came to being defeated on several occasions); and the period of Lenin's last illness and death, when the Stalinist conspiracy took power in the party and the state. While there is much that is inspiring in the book, at the end it was definitely depressing, despite Trotsky's attempt to remain optimistic about the temporary nature of the setback. Reading it in hindsight, after all of Stalin's betrayals, Trotsky's assassination, the Second World War, the failure of the parties of the Fourth International to ever gain major influence, let alone accomplish a revolution either in Russia or the West, and the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union and restoration of capitalism, it is obvious that the Stalinist Thermidor has been a long-lived catastrophe for the entire world. I finished this as the tanks of Putin's capitalist Russia were entering Kyiv (Kiev), to the hypocritical and basically empty condemnation of the Western imperialists.

This was the Pathfinder Press edition with an introduction by Joseph Hansen about the exile in Mexico and Trotsky's assassination, and a brief chronology of Trotsky's life after 1929.

Furious Hours – Casey Cep – 3.5*** rounded up
Subtitle: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee. This is a combination of a true crime exploration of the serial killer Reverend Willie Maxwell, and a mini biography of Harper Lee. I found the entire story fascinating, but then I am a fan of both Lee and true crime books. However, I think the author would have been less successful with this book without the Lee hook, and that somehow just didn’t sit right with me. So, three stars: I liked it; other true-crime or Lee fans will probably like it too.
My full review HERE

West Side Rising – Char Miller & Julian Castro – 4****
Subtitle: How San Antonio's 1921 Flood Devastated a City and Sparked a Latino Environmental Justice Movement. I grew up in San Antonio’s West Side and witnessed many a flood in our neighborhood. This book explores not only the results of the city’s founding in a flood plain, but the political decisions – motivated by class and racial prejudice – that ensured that the areas poorest citizens would continue to suffer for centuries despite contributing tax dollars to help the wealthy stay dry. And how, a group of those West Side residents, fueled by yet another flood, marshalled their collective political power to achieve major changes.
My full review HERE

Isabel Allende, El amante japonés [2015] 347 pages [in Spanish]

A combination of a romance and a historical novel, the book opens in the present day with Irina Bazili, a young immigrant from Moldavia, getting a job at Lark House, a home for older people in the San Francisco area. After a couple chapters on Irina and her work with the inhabitants of Lark House, she meets one of the more independent residents, Alma Belasco, in her eighties, from a locally prominent (i.e. rich) family of successful lawyers, and her grandson Seth. Alma hires Irina as a part-time personal assistant to help sort out her papers and photographs, for a book Seth intends to write on the history of the Belasco family. (Irina continues to work at Lark House, but gives up one of her other part-time jobs.) Seth soon becomes romantically interested in Irina, who is more equivocal about the relationship. It gradually becomes obvious, however, that the novel is not about Irina and Seth but about Alma, and the relationship they suspect she is having with a Japanese man, Ichimei Fukuda. We expect that the book will become a kind of detective novel with the relationship of Alma and Ichimei gradually discovered by Seth and Irina, but in fact we are plunged into a series of flashbacks to Alma's past, while Seth and Irina, and the frame story, make infrequent appearances, and their discoveries usually come after we have already learned the truth from the chapters set in the past.

In the first flashback chapter, we learn that the seven-year-old Polish-Jewish girl Alma Mendel has been sent to San Francisco to live with her aunt, Lillian Belasco, and her husband Isaac, the head of the Belasco family, to escape the growing threat of invasion from the Nazis (it is mentioned in passing later that her parents have died in the Treblinka death camp). At first Alma is naturally very upset and homesick, until she meets Ichimei, a boy her own age whose father Takao is the Belasco's gardener, and they become best friends. A few months later, however, Ichimei and his family are also sent to a concentration camp, Topaz, near Delta, Utah. The chapters set in Topaz and the Fukuda family's life in the aftermath of the concentration camp are the most interesting part of the novel. There follow a few chapters about Alma, who has lost contact with Ichimei, as she grows up and goes to college in Boston. On her return to San Francisco, she unexpectedly meets Ichimei again and they begin a secret love affair, which they know would be unacceptable to both their families. There is also another forbidden love between Ichimei's sister Megudi and an American who met her while a guard at Topaz.

So far the book is a very good historical novel with much information about the racism against Japanese Americans, with antisemitism as an occasional comparison point. However, about three-fifths of the way through it completely changes. In place of the theme of racism, we get a potpourri of other social issues, from third-world sex-trafficking and internet pornography to illegal abortions, euthanasia and AIDS. If this had been a novel about a political activist and had demonstrated how these issues are connected and stem from the same roots, I would have been fine with it, but it isn't; the various issues are inserted into the romance story in liberal fashion as completely separate questions. At the same time, the writing style degenerates; we get a long didactic passage of pop psychology which reads as if Allende has taken a chapter from a self-help book by someone like Brené Brown and pasted it in as a monologue by a minor character, a long, repetitive and boring description of Alma's character which should have been shown in action earlier, not narrated near the end, and much sentimentalism.

I won't reveal the endings of the various threads, but suffice it to say that what began as a four-star historical novel about Japanese Americans becomes a barely three-star romance novel; not a completely bad novel, actually, but not one that I would be likely to recommend.

I finished reading 2 books on 2/28:


A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses #2) by Sarah J. Maas
5 ★

Feyre survived Amarantha and now has gifts that she needs to learn to control. Along with that she may be the only one who can stop her new, and old, world from being destroyed in a war.

Book 2 in this series was just as well written as book 1. There are many new characters and the world building is fantastic. The story completely changed my opinion of Tamlin and turned my attention to Rhysand and his friends in the Night Court.
Rhysand’s friends are a fabulous group of people. Cassian, Azriel, Morrigan, and Amren all take in Fayre after her ordeal in the Spring Court without any questions or concerns. They never tip-toe around her and joke with her just as easily as they do with each other. Rhysand is strict with Feyre, but there is reason behind his madness. He does a good job helping Feyre overcome her fears and insecurities.
As the danger to the Night Court and the rest of the world increases, the story picks up pace and the reader is in for one heck of a ride. Feyre and Amren go on a mission that goes bad and the ending is intense and bitter sweet. I can’t wait to move on to book 3.



Dust to Dust (Kovac and Liska #2) by Tami Hoag
4 ★

Suicide or murder? That is the question when an internal affairs investigator is found hanging in his home. The case gets more interesting when Detectives Kovac and Liska find out the investigator was gay and looking into the death of another gay officer. Although Kovac and LIska are told to close the case as a suicide they continue to investigate and end up uncovering more than they bargained for.

There is so much going on throughout this book that it makes it very interesting and intense. Kovac and Liska are unrelenting detectives who will go above and beyond to close a case. Kovac has a wicked sense of humor and his comments had me laughing out loud many times.
The mystery of who did what is great and there are many twists throughout the book. I was surprised and saddened by some of the events. Some of the characters are truly devious and that makes trying to solve the case harder. The ending will leave you shocked, but there are no loose ends.
I read the first book in this series a few years ago, but it did not cause an issue. The previous book was mentioned a few times and that jogged my memory, but there was no continuation from it that through me off. I like series like that.

Jorge Luis Borges, Seven Nights [1977, tr. 1984] 121 pages

I thought I was done with Borges for the time being but then I found this in my garage while looking for something else.

This short book is a translation of seven lectures given by Borges in the summer of 1977; they were printed as a book in Spanish in 1980 and in translation in 1984. The seven lectures are on Dante's Divine Comedy, Nightmares, The Thousand and One Nights, Buddhism, Poetry, the Kabbalah, and Blindness. All are interesting, although perhaps more for what they tell as about Borges than for the subject matter.

The Duke and I – Julia Quinn – 3.5***
Book one in the Bridgertons series. This was everything a regency romance should be. There is a young marriageable lady in need of a husband, an aloof, dashingly handsome but rakish duke, and enough sexual tension and plot twists to keep things interesting and the pages turning.
My full review HERE

James wrote: "Isabel Allende,
El amante japonés
[2015] 347 pages [in Spanish]
I won't reveal the endings of the various threads, but suffice it to say that what began as a four-star historical novel about Japanese Americans becomes a barely three-star romance novel; not a completely bad novel, actually, but not one that I would be likely to recommend...."

Completely agree with your final assessment. Certainly not her best work.

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit – Jeanette Winterson – 3***
Winterson’s semi-autobiographical debut novel has a protagonist who is also named Jeanette. It is a glimpse at one teenager’s path out of childhood and into adulthood. Oh, the angst of teen years! The confusion and questions that adults don’t seem to want to answer (heck, they don’t want you to even ask), the emotional roller coaster of attraction vs guilt. First published in 1985, I can see why it became so popular. But I’m long past this stage of life and I’ve read many books treating coming-of-age, including those featuring LGBTQ characters. I thought it was fine for its genre, but not particularly memorable to me.
My full review HERE

Claude Lévi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques [1955, tr. 1973] 425 pages

Tristes Tropiques is the second book I have read by Lévi-Strauss, after his earlier Les structures élémentaires de la parenté; if that book established his reputation among academics, this popular book established it among the general public. I really don't understand why, because I was totally unimpressed by it. The first book was somewhat poorly organized, but it is a model of organization compared to this one. Essentially, this book is an account of his travels, as a framework for random "profound" observations on history and anthropology, confirming my general prejudice that the more profound the writing, the less meaning it has. It reminded me of another book I read recently, Wade Davis' Magdalena, and I suspect it was an influence on Davis' style, which I also disliked.

Lévi-Strauss begins with a first chapter, "Setting Out", basically saying that travel books about adventures in exotic places are trivial, deceitful and worthless; a great introduction to a travel book about adventures in exotic places. The chapter ends with a banquet in 1934 where he is about to "set out" for Brazil and his anthropological work. The second chapter, "On Board", finds him on a ship to the New World. The trip to Brazil? No, this is a 1941 trip to escape Vichy France and take a job at the New School in New York, via the French colony of Martinique. The third chapter is a description of his experiences in Martinique. The fourth chapter apparently begins in Brazil, but is largely composed of generalities, again discussing travel books, and ends with a short description of Lahore, in northern India (now Pakistan). This is Part One.

Part Two begins with a short chapter which is mostly a biography of the minor French intellectual Victor Margueritte. The next chapter, "The Making of an Anthropologist", is about his college days. Then we get a chapter called "Sunset", which is a lengthy description of a sunset seen from a ship. Part Three has three chapters about his shipboard adventures (now the trip to Brazil) and a long chapter describing the city of São Paulo as it was in 1934. Part Four is ostensibly a description of the cities and countryside of Brazil, but has long digressions to India-Pakistan.

Finally, well over a third of the way through the book, we get to his anthropological work, although still largely organized around his travels. Part Five is on the Caduveo, a tribe which has been largely influenced by the colonial or as he terms it "neo-Brazilian" culture; Part Six is on the Bororo; Part Seven on the Nambikwara, which is the most interesting section of the book; and Part Eight on the Tupi-Kawahib.

Part Nine, "The Return", consists of a chapter describing a play about Roman history which he began but never finished, and expressing his doubts about the nature and worth of anthropology, followed by a chapter which shifts without warning back to India-Pakistan, and ends with a final chapter outlining a superficial and entirely wrong theory about the relations between religions, in which he claims that the rise of "reactionary" Islam deprived the Christian West of the opportunity to merge with Buddhist India. (Of course in reality, early Mediaeval Christendom was reactionary and backward, India, despite Asoka, was Hindu and not Buddhist, and the advanced Islamic world, far from being a barrier, was a transmission belt for Indian science to the West.)

This was a very gloomy book, as one could guess from the title, meaning approximately "tropical sorrows"; partly of course because the cultures he describes were in the process of becoming extinct, but also because it was written in the mid-fifties when most thinking people in Europe and the US were gloomy, as opposed to the unthinking majority who were euphoric about post-war economic prosperity. The edition I read was the 1973 complete translation; there is apparently an older abridged translation which eliminates most of the digressions about India-Pakistan. I hope that his more academic books about anthropology are better, or I will abandon the project of reading him.