Life: It Goes On - August 17

Happy Sunday! I'm finally getting to this, just before I go to bed. Made a quick trip to Kansas City (left here at 10 a.m. yesterday and got back at 11 a.m. this morning) and came home with a headache that has had me mostly just sitting all day. Am I getting too old to make a quick trip to K.C.?! Last Week I: 

Listened To: I finished Kim Michele Richardson's The Book Woman's Daughter and started Isabelle Allende's Ripper. Three hours in and I feel like we're mostly just getting to know characters. 

Watched: The main reason I went to K.C. was so that Miss H and I could go see Freakier Friday together. Freaky Friday is one of those movies the two of us have watched dozens of times and always quote so I'm glad we got to see the follow up together. Verdict: we both liked it and laughed a lot. Does it live up to the original? No, but almost nothing does. It tries a little too hard and tries to do a bit too much. But almost everyone from the original is in it and there are a lot of fun throwbacks in it, including the band playing the song from the Battle of the Bands in the first movie. And there are a couple of Easter eggs in it that we both loved. Two thumbs up from us. 

Read: I started Geraldine Brooks' Memorial Days, which I had forgotten was a memoir about her grief process after losing her husband. 

Made: Monster cookies and onion dip to take down to have with my girl. 

Enjoyed: Dinner with friends Friday night at one of our fave places and time with my girl with just the two of us. Big Guy had a "gig" with his old band so couldn't come. Sometimes it's fun to just have girl time!

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: I'm hosting book club Tuesday (yeah, it wasn't last week, it's this week) and we're going to be watching a movie based on a book. So I'm planning which movie to watch and what to serve. 

Thinking About: Family genealogy. I'm on a kick now to get all of my previously notes organized and put into a readable format. Then I'm looking forward to filling in the blanks. 

Feeling: Still tired, still a dull headache so I'm feeling ready to crawl into bed. 

Looking forward to: Seeing my friends on Tuesday and a four-day weekend next weekend that I have to take so I don't max out on earning PTO. 

Question of the week: Have you ever looked into your family history? If so, how far back have you been able to track your family? Thanks to my mom and BG's mom's side of the family, we already have most of the work done to track our family back to Europe on all sides; my job is to track it on his dad's side. 

The Art Forger by B. A. Shapiro

 

The Art Forger by B. A Shapiro 

Read by Xe Sands

10 hours

Published October 2012 by Algonquin Books

Publisher's Summary: 

On March 18, 1990, thirteen works of art today worth over $500 million were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It remains the largest unsolved art heist in history, and Claire Roth, a struggling young artist, is about to discover that there's more to this crime than meets the eye. 

Making a living reproducing famous artworks for a popular online retailer and desperate to improve her situation, Claire is lured into a Faustian bargain with Aiden Markel, a powerful gallery owner. She agrees to forge a painting-a Degas masterpiece stolen from the Gardner Museum-in exchange for a one-woman show in his renowned gallery. But when that very same long-missing Degas painting is delivered to Claire's studio, she begins to suspect that it may itself be a forgery. 

Her desperate search for the truth leads Claire into a labyrinth of deceit where secrets hidden since the late nineteenth century may be the only evidence that can now save her life.

My Thoughts:

Claire Roth is a woman who feels that she has been done wrong by the art world. She's not wrong, which we'll gradually learn. But she uses this as an excuse for agreeing to forge a copy of one of the pieces of art that was stolen, solely on the basis that the man who hires her insists that he will give the original back to the museum once the copy is sold to a shady character who doesn't deserve to have the original. In exchange for that, Claire will get to have her chance to finally become the artist she might have been if she had not been so blinded by her love of a man many years ago. 

So she agrees and almost immediately falls in love with Aiden. Despite the fact that he's clearly involved with criminals. Despite the fact that his love of the artwork he owns prevents him from being willing to part with any of it, even when he admits to having financial problems. But he's promised her that he's made sure that she can never be implicated, going so far as to say to her that the painting that he's brought her to copy is, in fact, a copy itself, thereby making her simply someone who is copying a copy. That's all she knows about the deal; the rest is secret. But that's since she's keeping a secret of her own that will come into play later. What could possibly go wrong in a relationship built on secrets? 

Here are the things that I had issues with in this book: 

1. Claire being so gullible a second time. 
2. The interspersed chapters that are letters from Isabella Stewart Gardner which never come to light for the characters in the book. They are merely a way to set up a revel late in the book. 
3. Claire volunteers at a youth prison, teaching art. The point of this storyline appears to be to show us that Claire is, deep down, a good person who is terrified of being locked up. It also explains why she becomes convinced that the painting Aiden has brought her is a forger itself. Seemed to me all of this could have been done in a way that didn't introduce yet another storyline into a story that already had enough going on. 

Here are the things that I enjoyed about the book: 

1. Xe Sands reading of the book. 
2. For some reason, the theft of the paintings from the Stewart Gardner museum has always fascinated me, so I enjoyed reading about the museum and the theft. 
3. Learning about the techniques that Claire and other artists use. 
4. I did like all of the twists and turns the book took and the way only Claire could have solved the mystery of where the original work was hidden. 

Would I read another of Shapiro's work, despite having issues with it? I would - it was a quick read that I found entertaining enough and it looks like I'd get a chance to learn more about the art world if I read more by her. 

 

Washington Black on Hulu

Based on the book by Eli Edugyan, Washington Black (my review here)has been adapted into a mini-series which began airing on Hulu on July 23rd. I loved this book when I read it six years ago so you can imagine how thrilled I was to find that it was being adapted, especially considering that Edugyan is a co-producer and actor Sterling K. Brown is an executive producer and acts in it. 

Reviews are mixed. Variety says it falls short of the book, but whoever writes for RogerEbert.com was very impressed. I'm only one episode in and I'm enjoying it so far. In this episode, we're introduced to Wash in his life in Nova Scotia, with flashbacks to him as a child living on a plantation in Barbados. I'm not sure the horror of the plantation is as great here as it was in the book; we'll see if that aspect picks up as the show continues. The acting, so far, is good and the costumes and sets are wonderful. 

Since I didn't let the Big Guy in on the first episode, I'm going to have to watch the rest of the series without him or watch the first episode again. I think I prefer the first, giving me the chance just to immerse myself in the story without interruptions. I'll give you an update once I'm finished watching so let you know my final thoughts. In the meantime, if you haven't already read the book, I highly recommend it. 

Life: It Goes On - August 10

Happy Sunday! It's been another busy week at Chez Shep! Overnight company for a couple of nights, evenings with friends, sibling dinner at our house last night, and a week of taking care of Mini-him and Miss C's cats while they were in Alaska have me worn out. There is plenty that needs to be done around here, but I think I'll opt for a day mostly filled with rest and reading. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: The Book Woman's Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson, a follow up to her The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. Not enjoying it as much as I did the first book; but I'm only about a third of the way through it, so we'll see if it picks up for me. 

Watched: Not much, except some pre-season pro football. 

Read: I haven't had much time for reading this past week so I'm still working on Paul Harding's Enon and Sarah Vowell's The Partly Cloudy Patriot.

Made: Homemade ice cream, bbq chicken, caprese salad, spinach/strawberry salad, homemade chocolate sauce for supper last night. 

Enjoyed: Time with my brother and sister-in-law when they stayed for a couple of nights; time with friends Thursday and Friday evenings; time with the Big Guy's siblings and their spouses. 

But most of all, this: 

Mini-him proposed to Miss C while they were in Alaska and we could not be happier! 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: On a quiet week this week, filled with genealogy research and reading. Unless BG finally decides it's time to work on the garage, which he's been hinting at being ready to do lately. Then I'll be all in for working on that for as long as his interest lasts. 

Thinking About: Leftover homemade ice cream. It might just be my lunch! 

Feeling: Tired, but happy. It was a busy week, but filled with so many good things. 

Looking forward to: Book club this week. We were meant to be either going to a book-based movie OR reading our non-fiction read for the year. But both of those have fallen through so we may just be chatting for a couple of hours, and that's ok. 

Question of the week: What's your go-to meal when you're having company? Does the time of year make a difference in what you're making? 

Life: It Goes On - August 3

Happy Sunday! I'm dragging today and not getting much done. May have something to do with having had more to drink the past couple of nights than I've had to drink in the past couple of months! 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: Marie Benedict's Carnegie's Maid, which I will probably finish today. Not sure what's up next since I have nothing on hold that's even close to being ready. 

Watched: I watched the first episode of Washington Black and My Oxford Year. 

Read: I finished My Friends by Fredrik Backman and started Sarah Vowell's The Partly Cloudy Patriot and Paul Harding's Enon. 

Made: A lot of salads including caprese, cinnamon rolls, some dips, and we grilled burgers and hot dogs. 

Enjoyed: My niece's two little guys - they are busy but well behaved and the oldest became buddies with the Big Guy who got talked into playing jai alai and football quite a bit. We all had so much fun that not a single one of us took a single picture. 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: This week will see me spending an hour or so a day talking care of Mini-him's and Miss C's cats while they are in Alaska, which will mean less will get done around here. I am hoping to get back to some genealogy research this week. 

Thinking About: What I'm going to do with all of the tomatoes we have coming ripe. We'll eat as many as we can but I'll end up with well more than we can eat fresh. 

Feeling: A little disappointed - we were meant to be having the Shep siblings and their spouses for dinner on Saturday as well, but the family patriarch wasn't feeling well so that had to get postponed. 

Looking forward to: I've been so focused on what needed to be done to get ready for this weekend that I haven't even looked to see what's coming up this week. 

Question of the week: It's been a gorgeous weekend here (except for some grey skies), with highs in the mid-70's. We've spent hours and hours that past two evenings on the patio and it's been so much fun and so relaxing. My brother and sister-in-law arrived Friday evening and were here about 24 hours, my brother-in-law has been here since late Friday, and my niece and her family arrived mid-day yesterday and spent the night. So much talking and laughter!