Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

Read by Marin Ireland and Micheal Urie

11 hours 16 minutes

Published May 2022 by HarperCollins

Publisher's Summary: 

After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.

Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors—until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.

Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova’s son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it’s too late. 

My Thoughts: 

Another in the line of stories featuring older women, this one's been on my TBR since it came out three years ago. I finally got around to requesting it from the library and requested it in print and audio, figuring I'd go with whichever became available first. 

And then Shelby Van Pelt came to town (well, not MY town, but Council Bluffs, which is right across the river) so I bought a copy of the book and had it signed. Three days later, the audiobook became available. I had thought I'd make it a read/listen combination, but I was enjoying the reading so much that I just "read" the whole book that way. You can never go wrong with Marin Ireland and Micheal Urie did a wonderful job. 

If you ever get the chance to hear Shelby Van Pelt speak, I highly recommend it. The story of how she came to be a writer and how she came to write this particular book is so interesting. She is funny, and warm, and signed books and took pictures for easily an hour after she was done with the scheduled speaking. 

As for the book, it was, for me, one of those "right book, right time" reads. I would have been happy if no one else appeared in the book except Tova and Marcellus (who is such a fun character); but, of course, it would be hard to craft a book entirely around only two characters, especially when one of them can't speak. Tova is lonely, despite having a tight circle of friends, since her husband died. Erik was their only child, and as she gets older, it's becoming more and more apparent to her that there is no one who will care for her when her home gets to be too much for her. But Tova is not as alone as she thinks she is and she'll soon find that there is a lot left for her to look forward to in her life. 

I don't want to give too much away, other than to tell you that there are characters who aren't even mentioned in the summary who come to be very important to Tova. And while the story line is sweet and bittersweet, it's the characters in this one that really make this a book worth reading. 

Life: It Goes On - April 13

Happy Sunday! It's starting to get really beautiful outside of my window, with the little bright green leaves on the lilac bushes and the brilliant pink buds on the crabapple tree. This is the one time of the year that I'm happy the Big Guy went against my wishes and came home with a crabapple tree 25 years ago. 

It follows very closely on the heels of the time I am most annoyed at him for the same reason. Early every spring, those little crabapples (which, to be fair, have provided a nice spot of color throughout the winter), just drop off that tree, fully ready to be squished and leave a streak of juice all over my driveway. Not at all the "they'll dry up before they fall off and blow away" scenario my husband was sold. 

Anyone else been mostly chained to their desk chairs getting their taxes done this week? Please tell me it's not just me who puts it off! It's really put a cloud over my head all week On the plus side, at least I got excused from jury duty so I didn't have to deal with that as well. I was terrified I was going to end up sequestered and not be able to get my taxes done! 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: A short book I won't even be reviewing until December and don't know why I listened to now. Other than it was available immediately. Also started Stephanie Wrobel's The Hitchcock Hotel, which the New York Times Book Review convinced me to listen to - so far, the jury is out. I should have expected some magical/fantasy elements (having read Haig's The Midnight Library) but, for some reason, I was taken by surprise and you know how I struggle with fantasy in a book.

Watched: NCAA basketball championships and a couple of episodes of Shrinking (if you have Apple TV and you haven't discovered this one yet, you really need to check it out). Then yesterday, when I was taking breaks from doing taxes, I watched a couple of musicals. One was Sara Bareilles' Waitress - absolutely loved it and hope it comes to Omaha soon so I can see it live. The other was a trip down memory land - Robert Stigwood's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, starring George Burns, The Bee Gees and Peter Frampton. It really is quite bad but I remember seeing it in the movie theater in 1978 and haven't seen it since. I had such a crush on Peter Frampton then! 

Read: Matt Haig's The Life Impossible, which is my book club's June selection. I'm a little over half way through it and still not sure how I feel about it. I'm also reading The Fairbanks Four: Murder, Injustice and the Birth of a Movement by Brian Patrick O'Donoghue. 

Made: BLTs (which I always regret when I don't have homegrown tomatoes to use), pizza, BLT salads (because we needed to use up the rest of the bacon we'd cooked), and chicken orzo soup. 

Enjoyed: Thursday four members of our book club drove across the Missouri River to Council Bluffs, Iowa, to see Shelby Van Pelt, author of Remarkably Bright Creatures, which is our July selection. She is really wonder to see in person, if you get the chance - humorous, open, and very comfortable in a very crowded room. My only regret is that we got no pictures. 

Also, we enjoyed our first evening on the patio on Friday night after we had dinner out. We didn't even have all of the furniture uncovered yet or the fire pit ready but it was too nice to be inside. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This Week I’m:  

Planning: Y'all, Easter snuck up on me so this week will be about getting food ready and figuring out how I get it to my dad's to celebrate with him. 

Thinking About: Taxes. Even with a tax software, they are so complicated! And why is there always one document that you need but don't recall getting in the mail? 

Feeling: In theory I have one week of 40 Bags in 40 Days left and I haven't even come close to getting through all of the areas I wanted to get through or to reaching 40 bags. I'm frustrated! 

Looking forward to: Book club on Tuesday.  

Question of the week: what are your go-to side dishes for Easter dinner? What do you have for dessert? 

Life: It Goes On - March 27

Happy Sunday! Once again it's a sunny Sunday morning, after a week where it was overcast and rainy. This girl was happy to have the rain since I know how necessary it is to make my lawn and gardens look great this spring and you know how much I'm looking forward to spending time outside. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: Marja Mill's The Mockingbird Next Door. I actually have a copy of the book on my living room bookshelves but somehow have never gotten around to it, despite being very anxious to read it. Now I'm glad I didn't because the reading of the audiobook is excellent. 

Watched: Basketball, so much basketball. We don't really watch much college basketball (other than "our" teams) but, come March, we love everything about the tournament. 

Read: Guys, I'm having so much trouble forcing myself to pick up a book. I'm still working my way through Booth, which is very good but I can only read on my phone because my Nook no longer supports Libby. On my phone, the book is over 900 pages and it makes it feel like I'm getting nowhere when I'm reading. I really need to work past this because I have so many books that I "need" to read. 

Made: Chicken al fredo pasta, tomato basil soup, reubens (yes, again). I think we are starting to work our way out of the "how do we cook while counting our calories" phase. We didn't resort one time this week to a salad because we couldn't think of anything else. 

Enjoyed: An evening with Isabel Wilkerson, virtually, through the Creighton University President's Series. She talked a lot about her latest book, Caste, which I read and learned so much from. She also talked about her book The Warmth of Other Suns and how much work it was to write and how hard it was to get the stories she wanted to include in that book. We were strictly prohibited from taking screenshots of the event so I can't even share a pic from it. 

This Week I’m:  

Planning: Continuing 40 Bags In 40 Days. I'm hoping to get The Big Guy on board this next couple of weeks. 

Thinking About: Miss H drove to Nashville this weekend by herself to go to a concert with, and stay with, some people she has only known through Twitter. As a mom, that made me so nervous. But also so impressed with her fearlessness. And when I see her as happy as she is in this pic she posted yesterday, it makes me happy, too. Even if today I have to worry again for eight hours as she makes her way home. 

Feeling: Thursday we had a fire in my office. I work on the fifth floor of a building that has very tall floors and a very open stairwell that scares the heck out of me. I managed to make it down the stairs (albeit slowly) without a panic attack (which I've had before in that stairwell); and then, even more astonishingly (for this very out of shape, middle-aged woman) back up again. Now, this might seem like no big deal for most of you, but it was for me. I'm proud of myself of accomplishing that relatively small task. But I'm also counting my blessings when I think of how supportive my coworkers were, making sure I was doing ok going down, encouraging me as I went back up. Sometimes it's the little things that matter most. 

Looking forward to: Finishing taxes this week. I'm ready for that task to be done!

Question of the week: Have you already finished your taxes this year? 

Life: It Goes On - March 6

Happy (late) Sunday! We made a 36-hour run to Kansas City this weekend to see Miss H. We mostly just hung out but worked in a trip to IKEA (and figured out how to get in the back way so we didn't have to go through the entire store to get to what we wanted to buy), got breakfast at a favorite place (McLain's Market), and tried a new place for burgers last night (Burg and Barrel). 

Our daughter's roommate has a little beagle who went crazy every time we walked into the house yesterday. We've been home a couple of hours and our cat is still trying to decide if she forgives us for leaving her. She's just now stopped hiding under a chair and come to sit next to me. Cats are so different from dogs!

Last Week I: 

 Listened To: I'm about two-thirds of the way through Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. He's writing is just so amazing but I'm still just blown away by the fact that this is the same guy who wrote The Remains of The Day. 

Watched: The Big Guy is lost without most sports now and can't seem to settle on anything to watch most evenings which means that I've been mostly tuning out the television. 

Read: I'm working on Karen Joy Fowler's Booth, which I'm really enjoying for the history, the story of the Booth family, and Fowler's writing. I've highlighted so many passages and sentences, like this one: "Maybe, with nothing but love in her heart, his darling mother has eaten Rosalie alive. This seems to be something parents do sometimes." It does, doesn't it? 

Made: Guys, I made chicken fettuccine al fredo to take to a friend and kept enough for BG and me to have for a meal. It was the most indulgent thing I've made since we started counting calories but by watching our portions, we made it work and that might have made it taste even better than usual. 

Enjoyed: Tuesday I joined a Zoom conversation with author Colson Whitehead. He is remarkably funny for being the person who wrote The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys. He spoke about his writing process, how he decides what to write about, his love of movies and music, and revealed that he has just sent the final draft of the sequel of Harlem Shuffle to his publisher. I can't wait to read it!

This Week I’m:  

Planning: My dad is having surgery this week so there are no plans for this week, other than to be with him as much as I can. 

Thinking About: 40 Bags In 40 Bags started on Wednesday and I'm still working on my plan of attack for this year, which also means I'm thinking about how to get BG on board. 

Feeling: Nerdy. I got a new label maker and now I want to label everything. 

Looking forward to: Seeing my brother and sister this week. 

Question of the week: We live right up the street from the high school our kids went to. The other night I noticed that the lights were on at the softball field and it was another notice that spring is almost here. What are some of your signals that spring is right around the corner? 

Life: It Goes On - February 20

Happy Sunday! Guys, February is almost over. As in, we're almost two months into 2022 already. But also, we've almost survived winter! Although we've had a pretty easy winter - not once have I had to drive on dangerous roads to get to work; not once have I heard that crunchy packing peanuts sound as I drive over super cold pack snow; not once have I had to walk out to my car , afraid that I'm going to slip on the ice and wipe out. To be honest, I might actually have enjoyed winter more if it had snowed more, if I would have looked out my windows more often and seen all of the brown covered in fluffy white stuff. I do see some of you out there glorying in all things winter. 

Last Week I: 

 Listened To: Eight Hundred Grapes by Laura Dave. Next up is China Achebe's Things Fall Apart, which is on my list of modern classics to read. 

Watched: Psshh, you already know the answer to this. 

Read: Jamie Ford's The Many Daughters of Afong Moy. I'm about 30% into it and the jury's still out. Each chapter is about what I presume to be a descendant of Afong Moy but nothing is tying them all together now and it's hard to get into a new person's story after you've just become invested in a different person's story. 

Made: Shrimp and roasted tomato pasta, vegetable beef soup, pot roast, and a lot of salads. We're starting to get the hang of this new way of eating but we're still working on a good way to balance our calories throughout the day. Still, we're learning that we can eat whatever we want, drink some wine, and still manage to lose weight which is a pretty good incentive to keep going. 

Enjoyed: Time with family and friends. Miss H came in for the weekend, Big Guy's brother and his wife were in Lincoln this weekend, as was my sister's husband - we got a chance to see all of them yesterday.

This Week I’m:  

Planning: The world's longest hunt for a new sofa continues. People keep giving BG ideas about new places to look (I'll deal with all of you later!). It has consumed entirely too much of my time and I've fallen behind around the house. It's time to get a sofa ordered and to get this place back into shape so that's what's on the agenda this week. 

Edwidge Danticat in conversation at 
Creighton University

Thinking About: I forgot to tell you last week that I'd virtually joined a book discussion with author Edwidge Danticat. I've been thinking a lot about how she writes about hope, despite her books dealing with some very heavy themes. I've picked up a couple of her books from the library that I'm hoping to get to soon. 

Feeling: Old. I've been battling some sciatic pain for the past couple of weeks and I'm not a fan. 

Looking forward to: Book club this week. I need to decide today where we'll meet. With Covid numbers down around here, we may be ready to meet in person again. 

Question of the week: You know how much I love the Olympics but after I watched the conclusion of the women's figure skating the other night, and the devastation and emotional toll it took on those young ladies, I'm having problems resolving my feelings about the games. Did you watch that event? What did you think about the way the cameras stayed with those poor girls afterward and how it affected them? 

Life: It Goes On - September 30

Welcome to rainy, dreary, cold Omaha. Seriously, it's only 51 degrees.

So sad I forgot to go back for
this set!

That didn't stop Miss H and me from going to Junkstock this morning and browsing in and out of the buildings for a couple of hours. It's gotten to be an enormous event; but I really miss the days when there was actually "junk" at Junkstock, when I could find things like architectural pieces, ceramic insulators, and the handles off outdoor water faucets. But I got to spend a couple of hours with my girl which is always a good time.

Last Week I:

Listened To: I finished Mohsin Hamid's Exit West and M. C. Beaton's A Highland Christmas and started Paula McLain's Love and Ruins. I am loving having access to the library's digital audiobooks but sometimes it's hard to find anything that's readily available.

We weren't allowed to take photos
in the event.

Watched: Ron Chernow speak on Monday. While I was racing home from work, changing clothes as fast as I could, and getting only two bites of dinner before it was time to learn to the event, I wondered if it was worth it. It was. Chernow is a fantastic speaker and I highly recommend making the effort to hear him speak if you get the chance. He spoke about working with Lin-Manuel Miranda to turn his book Alexander Hamilton into Miranda's smash Broadway hit, Hamilton, as well as about his most recent book, Grant. Super excited to know that both the Broadway show and the book Grant are being made into movies.

Read: I finished The Kennedy Debutante by Kerri Maher, read John Jay Osborn's Listen To The Marriage, and started Susan Orlean's The Library Book. I've been a reading machine as of late.

Made: It's been a pretty dull eating week, hasn't it, when you can't remember anything you made all week.

Enjoyed: Last Sunday Miss H had I spent the whole afternoon eating and shopping in the Old Market area of Omaha. Seems like we're getting into a Sunday Girls' Day habit that I'm loving. Also enjoyed the wedding, yesterday, of the son of some of our oldest friends.


This Week I’m: 

Planning: Some small projects around the house. We've got some things we want to get painted while the weather is still nice enough to get them outside (assuming this weekend was a fluke!) and I would love to get my office painted yet this fall.

Thinking About: Getting some voter registration events set up. A friend and I went through training this week to be official deputy voter registrars and I'm itching to get out and empower people. Of course, the next step is to sign up to drive them to the polls in November.

Feeling: Excited for and proud of Mini-him who accepted a new job this week. He's been with Apple for five years and we are really going to miss having our Apple expert (and that discount!) in house. But he will get a chance to travel all over the country, learn so many new things, work regular people hours, and do the things he does best.

Looking forward to: A trip to my sister's and brother-in-law's which will include a trip even further north to see their daughter and her fiancé. Making my list of things from here to take to them (runzas, my sis' fave popcorn) and things to bring back (cheese curds, cheese curds, cheese curds!).

Question of the week: We both grew up having popcorn for our Sunday evening meal so that's The Big Guy and I had tonight (along with some apples and some killer cheese). Do you have any meal like that during the week, a meal where you eat the same thing every week?

Life: It Goes On - September 16

Fall? Are you sure? Yesterday my outdoor thermometer reached 99 degrees. The actual temperature wasn't that high but in the sun, at least, that's what it felt like and that's all that matters to me. The cat doesn't even want to be outside and she loves to bask in the sun. It's making it hard to get too excited about decorating for fall and I'm not even thinking of pumpkin foods or soups yet.

Last Week I:

Listened To: I raced through Atul Gawande's Being Mortal. Loved. It. I'll likely pick up a physical copy of this book. I think it's truly a book every one should read.

Watched: Football and our full Sunday morning routine. I'm not sure why we watch the Sunday morning political shows - it just gets both of us all riled up.

Read: Tatjana Soli's The Removes and I, finally, started this month's book club selection, Killers of the Flower Moon, which I'm fascinated by.

Made: Taco pizza (I'll use a different crust when we do this again but it was delicious), apple crisp, caramel sauce, and strawberry shortcake.

Enjoyed: Two fun things this week: one evening The Big Guy and I went to hear Julia Alvarez (How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents), which was so inspiring and dinner out with friends last night to one of our favorite places in town. The restaurant wisely stuck the six of us off in a corner to ourselves so that we didn't have to worry about how long we stayed or how loudly we laughed.

This Week I’m: 

Planning: On building some wall shelves for Miss H's room and doing some painting in her room.

Thinking About: How I'd like to take a couple of days off to really do a purge and reorganization of all of the paper in my house. I like to think I have a handle on things; but some of the calls I get at work make me wonder if I've set my kids up to handle things if something happens to us. Which are the current life insurance policies, what are the passwords to get into online accounts, and do they have the right authorizations to talk to lenders or get medical records? You'd be surprised how hard it is to get some of this even with a will.


Feeling: The sun is shining and my hair doesn't have any grey today, so I'm feeling good!

Looking forward to: Book club this week, even if I sort of jacked everyone by changing the book last minute so I don't know if any of them will have even finished it!

Question of the week: I have really gotten into a bad habit of going to bed later and later this week. How do you make yourself go to bed at night in time to get a good night's sleep? I need all of the helpful hints!

Sandra Brannan Is Coming, Sandra Brannan Is Coming!

Sandra Brannan, author of "In The Belly of Jonah" is on a tour of the country that's had her all over the midwest but this weekend she's going to be in San Francisco.  If you've read this blog long enough to know that I live nowhere near San Francisco, right about now you're wondering why I'm shouting "Sandra Brannan is coming."  Because next weekend she's following up a trip to San Francisco with a trip to Omaha.  I love my city but even I have to agree that Omaha after San Francisco could be something of a let down.

So what could make that a slightly less jarring experience?  A huge crowd of mystery lovers and fans of the book coming out to support her might help.  So if you're in the Omaha area next Saturday, please be sure to check her out.  You can catch her at:

Saturday, October 23, 1 p.m.
Book Signing at The Bookworm
8702 Pacific St.
Omaha, NE 68114

Saturday, October 23, 5 p.m.
Book Signing at The Mystery Bookstore
1414 South 13th Street
Omaha, NE 68108

For more information on Sandra, including how Sandra will reward one teen blogger with a trip to the 2011 Book Blogger Convention or how to get Sandra to speak with your book club, check out her website.  Which leaves me wondering how to convince my daughter to start writing a blog--so I can tag along!