Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions (Kopp Sisters Series #3) by Amy Stewart

Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions (Kopp Sisters Series #3) by Amy Stewart

Narrated by Christina Moore

10 hours

Published January 2017 by Mariner Books

Publisher's Summary:

Deputy sheriff Constance Kopp stands up to the “morality” laws of 1916, defending the independent young women in her prison against dubious charges when no one else will. From the patriotic Edna Heustis, who left home to work in a munitions factory, to the sixteen-year-old runaway Minnie Davis, these and other publicly shamed women who were packed off to a state-run reformatory find an unlikely ally in Constance, who uses her authority — and occasionally exceeds it — to investigate and defend them at all costs. But it's Constance's sister Fleurette who forces her to reckon with her own ideas of how a young woman should and shouldn't behave. Set against the backdrop of World War I, and drawn from true characters and events, this novel is timeless in its themes of justice and equality, and is sure to delight fans of historical and detective fiction alike.

My Thoughts: 

I'm failing, lately, at getting reviews written. To the extent that I struggle to remember books by the time I finally write the reviews or to summon up what my immediate feelings were about the book. It's been a few weeks since I listened to this one and it's fading, I'm sorry to say. Which may say as much about my feelings about the book as it does about the length of time it took me to write this review. 

I love the idea of Constance Kopp, a woman firmly in a man's world but not afraid to stand up to them. I love it even more that the character of Constance Kopp is based on real woman of the same name. In fact, many of the characters in this series are based on the real people who Constance was in contact with, including her sisters, Norma and Fleurette and Sheriff Robert Heath. Here she's also included Edna Heustis, May Ward, and Freeman Bernstein. Amy Stewart takes these people and some of the facts of their lives, and weaves stories around them, in no small part in order to paint a picture of what life was like for women of the time. 

In this book, that's the primary purpose of the book. There is no crime to solve, no real suspense. The cases Stewart writes about are based on things that actually happened to women of the time to focus on the constraints put on women at the turn of the last century - social, economic, and legal. Women were being arrested on morals charges and charged with such things as "waywardness." Women found guilty (and I imagine most were) who  were under the age of 21 were sent to reformatories where they were held until they where of age but that was not the end of the state's control; once arrested, the women were, more or less, forced into the kinds of lives the "moral" folk believed they should live. When Edna Heustis is arrested on just such a charge, Constance steps in and takes the investigation of the charges into her own hands, angering the prosecutor and setting herself up to take on more cases. 

One of the things I enjoy about these books is the humor they are filled with. While sister Norma becomes thornier (and Constance begins to despair the idea of spending the rest of her days with Norma), she becomes funnier for the readers. Her responses to the many marriage proposals Constance receives (thanks to the press she receives), are hilarious. When Fleurette runs off with May Ward's vaudeville troupe without telling her sisters, Norma fears the worst and sets of trying to solve this case on her own. Constance's main concern is that Fleurette will end up being one of the young girls arrested on morals charges, but she is also frustrated by Norma's actions at every turn. 

Not my favorite of the Kopp sisters books, but there is still, even with the humor and a feeling of lightness, a lot to think about here. 

One Good Turn and When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson

One Good Turn (Jackson Brodie Series #2) by Kate Atkinson

Narrated by Steven Crossley

14 hours, 8 minutes

Published October 2006 by Little, Brown and Company

Publisher's Summary: On a beautiful summer day, crowds lined up outside a theater witness a sudden act of extreme road rage: a tap on a fender triggers a nearly homicidal attack. Jackson Brodie, ex-cop, ex-private detective, new millionaire, is among the bystanders.

The event thrusts Jackson into the orbit of the wife of an unscrupulous real estate tycoon, a washed-up comedian, a successful crime novelist, a mysterious Russian woman, and a female police detective. Each of them hiding a secret, each looking for love or money or redemption or escape, they all play a role in driving Jackson out of retirement and into the middle of several mysteries that intersect in one sinister scheme.

When Will There Be Good News? (Jackson Brodie Series #3) by Kate Atkinson

Narrated by Steven Crossley

12 hours

Published January 2008 by Doubleday Books

Publisher's Summary: On a hot summer day, Joanna Mason's family slowly wanders home along a country lane. A moment later, Joanna's life is changed forever...

On a dark night thirty years later, ex-detective Jackson Brodie finds himself on a train that is both crowded and late. Lost in his thoughts, he suddenly hears a shocking sound...

At the end of a long day, 16-year-old Reggie is looking forward to watching a little TV. Then a terrifying noise shatters her peaceful evening. Luckily, Reggie makes it a point to be prepared for an emergency...

My Thoughts: 

One Good Turn is loaded with intricately explored characters, not a single one of whom has much in the way of redeeming characteristics, not even our "hero," Jackson Brodie. It's been a several years since I read the first book in the series (Case Histories) but it was the intricacy of that novel that convinced me to read on in the series. 

That intricacy continues in this books with a seemingly random group of people, connected by one incident, who each have their own stories to tell. A set of Russian dolls, matryoshka dolls, is repeatedly referenced in the book, not so subtly hinting at readers that there are mysteries within mysteries in this novel. They don't, in the end, stack up quite so neatly but there are some deaths I cheered (he deserved it!), some guys that got away, and Jackson manages to survive another situation he didn't so much solve as go along on the ride for. 

I didn't like this one as much, without a single character to truly care about and without enjoying the ending as much. Nevertheless, I immediately launched into the next book in the series. 

When Will There Be Good News? repeats the formula (although I hesitate to use that word as there is nothing really formulaic about the books in the series) of having a large cast and a number of different stories going on at the same time. All of this while we watch Jackson struggle to survive his own life. 

Since the last book, Jackson has rashly married a woman he only knew for a couple of months after finding out that the detective, Louise, he met in the last novel and befriended was getting married. The two of them  both know they would have preferred being with each other and that their marriages were a bad idea and we watch both of the marriages fail. Which doesn't mean that they'll end up together because, really, they shouldn't. 

What worked better for me in this one were characters to care about. Reggie's a girl who has been done hard by life but managing to find a path in life on her own, thanks, in part, to Joanna Hunter who hires her as a nanny. When the train Jackson is riding on crashes just behind the house Reggie is staying at, Reggie saves Jackson's life and the two of them become entwined in trying to help both Reggie and to solve the disappearance of Joanna. Louise also becomes involved in this case, even as she worries about the survivors of a mass killing she worked on some years ago. 

A much more, for me, satisfying endings, even though Jackson had more than one rude awakening to deal with at the end of the book. 

I very much enjoyed Steven Crossley's reading of these books and was looking forward to picking up the fourth book in the series while I wait for one of the books on my wait list to become available. Unfortunately, my library doesn't carry the fourth book in audio. Is it in print on my bookshelves? Maybe. I'll have to go look. 

Life: It Goes On - May 12

Happy Sunday and happy Mother's Day to all of the moms, however that looks for you. I know this is a hard day for a lot of people - those who have lost their moms, those who have lost children, and those who are struggling to become moms - my heart goes out to you. Even though this is the fourth Mother's Day since my mom died, it's still strange not to be heading into Lincoln to celebrate her. I love the idea of taking Mother's Day to do absolutely nothing...anyone have the ability to actually do that? I'm trying to find pockets of time to do that or to focus on the kinds of things that need to be done that I actually enjoy doing (organizing, working outside). Last Week I: 

Listened To: I finished two of Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie books - One Good Turn and When Will There Be Good News?

Watched: We had not understood that the Northern Lights would be so visible near us on Friday night so missed the best chance to watch them. But last night we drove up east of north of us a ways to try to catch them. The strange thing? This picture is what my phone captured but it's not what I could see with my naked eye, which was more a gradation of lighter skies that moved a bit. Only with the phone on night mode were the colors visible. 

Read: Two For Tea by Amor Towles. 

Made: Mostly we ate light - pasta, salads - but one night The Big Guy made mashed potato with ham soup that we feasted on a couple of nights, even if it was warm enough to eat on the patio. 

Enjoyed: Several trips to the nursery and a lot of time working in my yard in the evenings and yesterday. AND I finally got the new cushions for the patio furniture I've been wanting. I've finally acknowledged that not all of the patio furniture we have really fits on our patio so we're shipping some off to Miss H for her patio and ditching three big pots. How is it that my patio still has so much stuff on it? 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: On moving some things out of the basement to the storage unit this week so that we can start organizing the things that need to stay down there. It makes Monica's closet look neat and tidy right now. 

Thinking About: Getting back to weekly menu planning so we can control our calories, eat food we enjoy, and not get stuck in a rut. 

Feeling: Worried. Tuesday evening our cat became lethargic and all but stopped eating. Took her to the vet on Wednesday; and $650 later, we still don't know what's made her sick. She's still hardly eating but has a little more energy. We are giving her all of the love and trying to find foods that will appeal to her and now we just wait to see if she'll recover. 

Looking forward to: I've hired a company to come to my house to detail the inside of my car tomorrow. I'm so happy not to have to do it myself and it is desperately in need of the attention. 

Question of the week: Were you in the part of the country that had a view of the northern lights? If so, did you get a chance to get out to see them? 

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell

Read by Genevieve Gaunt 

13 hours, 21 minutes

Published September 2022 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Publisher's Summary: 

Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to wonder at its treasures, observe its clandestine workings, and devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding to the ruler of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage, and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf. 

Having barely left girlhood behind, Lucrezia must now enter an unfamiliar court whose customs are opaque and where her arrival is not universally welcomed. Perhaps most mystifying of all is her new husband himself, Alfonso. Is he the playful sophisticate he appeared to be before their wedding, the aesthete happiest in the company of artists and musicians, or the ruthless politician before whom even his formidable sisters seem to tremble? 

As Lucrezia sits in constricting finery for a painting intended to preserve her image for centuries to come, one thing becomes worryingly clear. In the court’s eyes, she has one duty: to provide the heir who will shore up the future of the Ferranese dynasty. Until then, for all of her rank and nobility, the new duchess’s future hangs entirely in the balance.

My Thoughts: This is one of those books that you hear about and you immediately know that you want to read (especially if you read and really enjoyed O'Farrell's Hamlet). But then you don't get around to it for one reason or another, mostly because there are just so many books to get to every year. But I pick the books for my book club every year and I pick them for several reasons, not the least of which is that they might be a book I've been wanting to read and I can work it into that year's theme. And so I came to The Marriage Plot. 

• I'm sure this is an excellent read in print, but I can't recommend the audiobook enough. Genevieve Gaunt it terrific and it's so helpful to hear how things should be pronounced, the names in particular.
• O'Farrell has taken the portrait of a real woman, about whom very little is known beyond who her family was and who she married, and crafted a wonderful story around it. In the author's notes, O'Farrell explains how she took details about the family's life and wove them into the story in different ways. 
• The book jumps from a forward moving narrative of Lucrezia's life, from her birth until her arrival in the court of Ferrara, and a later point in time when Lucrezia has been moved by Alfonso to a remote fortress where she is certain he is going to kill her. This back and forth creates something of a mystery - is the man who Lucrezia became enamored of as a young girl when Alfonso was betrothed to her sister really the monster she now believes him to be or is this very young woman misreading this man who is doing nothing more than trying to hold his kingdom together. 
• Which brings me to this: you all know how bad I am at predicting what's going to happen in a mystery; so it will come as no surprise to find that I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out how Lucrezia was going to get out of trouble, if indeed Alfonso was the monster she believed him to be. So anything was going to come as something of a surprise to me. But what actually happened completely blindsided me. 
• As a child whose mother turned her early upbringing over to a cook because she had no idea how to deal with her and whose nurse turned out to be the only person who ever really understood her, it's not surprising that Lucrezia's story paints a stark contrast between the rich and those who care for them. News flash (not really): the rich don't come out looking too good in comparison to those who care for them. 
•  The Marriage Portrait is a wonderful story that kept my attention throughout and had me listening at times when I normally don't listen to audiobooks. But what really wow'd me about this book was O'Farrell's ability to draw the reader in with all of the senses. You could smell flowers, taste the food, feel the richness of the fabrics, hear the music that Alfonso so loved, see exactly what Lucretia's magnificent wedding dress looked like. I couldn't help but think how much Gretchen Rubin, author of Life In Five Senses, would enjoy it. 

This one's going on the top books of the year list. It was a hit with the book club and I highly recommend it. 

Life: It Goes On

Happy Sunday! It's turned out to be a beautiful day here after a cloudy start (well, I'm assuming it was cloudy in Omaha this morning since it was cloudy in KC, which is where we started the day). 

Thursday I hit up a nursery for the first time this year and today I got all of the flowers into the ground this afternoon. Most of what I bought on Thursday was tomato plants and herbs so, of course, I'm headed off to the store shortly to get more flowering plants because a girl can never have too many flowering plants and too much color! 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon.

Watched: Freaky Friday (the Jamie Lee Curtis/Lindsey Lohan version) with Miss H. She convinced 

The Big Guy that she had only ever seen it once and then the two of us proceeded to recite lines. 

Read: Tea For Two by Amor Towles. 

Made: Chicken parmesan and absolutely nothing else all week. I ate out 3 nights and ate popcorn one evening while I was getting my hair done. Maybe this week? 

Enjoyed: An excellent week! Tuesday a friend and I went to happy hour; Friday we grabbed our guys and headed off to a different place for dinner and a couple of bottles of wine. Also, a quick trip to KC to take a mattress to Miss H. While we were there, we ate dinner with two of her friends and their dad at a new-to-us taco place, Mission Taco Joint in South Plaza. We'll definitely be going back there. 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: My calendar looks much less busy this week so I'm hoping to finish up garden shopping and get things planted, grab some new cushions for the patio, take at least a couple of loads of things to Goodwill and another couple of loads to storage for Mini-him, and finish setting up my dad's place so we can just hang out when we visit there and not have work to do any more. 

Thinking About: What needs to be done to finish up the major project we started in the back yard last year. 

Feeling: Happy - just going to the greenhouse gave me such a dopamine rush and getting my hands in the dirt at long last felt so good. 

Looking forward to: Last week was filled with fun things but I'm looking forward to a quiet week this week so I can get things caught up a bit here. 

Question of the week: We're trying to get some weight off and I'm looking for your best suggestions for meals that taste delicious but are lower in calories. What ya got for me?

Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond

Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond

304 pages

Read by Dion Graham

5 hours, 40 minutes

Published March 2023 by Crown Publishing Group

Publisher's Summary: 

The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages? 

In this landmark book, acclaimed sociologist Matthew Desmond draws on history, research, and original reporting to show how affluent Americans knowingly and unknowingly keep poor people poor. Those of us who are financially secure exploit the poor, driving down their wages while forcing them to overpay for housing and access to cash and credit. We prioritize the subsidization of our wealth over the alleviation of poverty, designing a welfare state that gives the most to those who need the least. And we stockpile opportunity in exclusive communities, creating zones of concentrated riches alongside those of concentrated despair. Some lives are made small so that others may grow. 

Elegantly written and fiercely argued, this compassionate book gives us new ways of thinking about a morally urgent problem. It also helps us imagine solutions. Desmond builds a startlingly original and ambitious case for ending poverty. He calls on us all to become poverty abolitionists, engaged in a politics of collective belonging to usher in a new age of shared prosperity and, at last, true freedom.

My Thoughts (and those of others): 

“Provocative and compelling . . . [Desmond] packs in a sweeping array of examples and numbers to support his thesis and . . . the accumulation has the effect of shifting one’s brain ever so slightly to change the entire frame of reference.”—NPR 

 “[Poverty, by America is] a book that could alter the way you see the world. . . . It reads almost like a passionate speech, urging us to dig deeper, to forget what we think we know as we try to understand the inequities upon which America was built. . . . A surprisingly hopeful work.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“A powerful polemic, one that has expanded and deepened my understanding of American poverty. Desmond approaches the subject with a refreshing candidness and directs his ire toward all the right places.”—Roxane Gay

“This book is essential and instructive, hopeful and enraging.”—Ann Patchett

Yes, yes, yes, and yes. This book is every bit of all of those things. It's another book that makes me so angry while I'm reading it; so hopeful that maybe, just maybe, we can start making that changes needed to, at a minimum, reduce poverty; and, so disappointed in myself for not knowing more about this subject and doing more to help. 

Desmond doesn't just offer up an accounting of the failures of this country, its leaders, and its citizens. He offers solutions. Solutions that seem reasonable and doable, if only we could get our priorities straight and see how lifting everyone up with help all of us. 

But in me, Desmond is preaching to the choir. I'm open to listening to what he has to say and can see the logic in his thinking. Unfortunately, I doubt that the people who most need to read this book will ever pick it up. 

This book made me feel smarter, more informed. In fact, as I was listening to it, the issue of the minimum wage came up in a discussion and I was able to contribute an idea that I had learned from listening to this book. My only issue with this book - I wish I'd had it all in print so that I could have highlighted passages to save and refer back to later. There is so much here I want to make sure I don't forget.