Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland

Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland
Published July 2020 by Simon and Schuster
Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary:
Atlantic City, 1934. Every summer, Esther and Joseph Adler rent their house out to vacationers escaping to “America’s Playground” and move into the small apartment above their bakery. Despite the cramped quarters, this is the apartment where they raised their two daughters, Fannie and Florence, and it always feels like home.

Now Florence has returned from college, determined to spend the summer training to swim the English Channel, and Fannie, pregnant again after recently losing a baby, is on bedrest for the duration of her pregnancy. After Joseph insists they take in a mysterious young woman whom he recently helped emigrate from Nazi Germany, the apartment is bursting at the seams.

Esther only wants to keep her daughters close and safe but some matters are beyond her control: there’s Fannie’s risky pregnancy—not to mention her always-scheming husband, Isaac—and the fact that the handsome heir of a hotel notorious for its anti-Semitic policies, seems to be in love with Florence.

When tragedy strikes, Esther makes the shocking decision to hide the truth—at least until Fannie’s baby is born—and pulls the family into an elaborate web of secret-keeping and lies, bringing long-buried tensions to the surface that reveal how quickly the act of protecting those we love can turn into betrayal.


My Thoughts:
To prove how important the cover of a book can be, when Netgalley asks potential reviewers why they're requested a particular book, one of the reasons is the cover. To be honest, between the title and the cover, I was going to request this book - doesn't it, after all, look like a perfect summer read? While the cover and title and absolutely perfect, they are also very misleading. This book is not a simple summer beach read.

If I'd paid at least as much attention to the description as I did to the cover, I would have known that. I would also have noticed that the Jewish faith was going to play a role in this book. But I didn't notice that. So early on Beanland not only stunned me with something incredibly she also surprised me with how much of a role faith was playing in the book. And, I'll be honest, I wasn't sure that was going to be a book I was interested in reading. I'd recently read two books in which the Jewish faith played a big role and I wasn't necessarily interested in reading another one so soon. But you all know how hard it is for me to put down a book, so I kept reading.

While faith continued to be a part of the story, it began to feel less intrusive and more cohesive to the story. And I began to care about these characters and to understand the family dynamic. By the end, I was really enjoying the book and happy about how things played out.

I did have a couple issues with the book as I was reading but some of those have faded away as I've thought about the book more. Isaac is always the guy you're going to dislike, even when you find out why he is the way he is; but in real life, not everyone grows and changes so his lack of growth is not only to be expected but more believable.

If you choose to read this book, I'd definitely recommend you read the afterward. Much of the story is based on Beanland's family history. I think she's written a lovely homage to her great-aunt Florence!

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
Read by Dylan Moore
Published March 2020 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Source: checked out the audiobook from my local library

Publisher's Summary:
Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star lodging on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. On the night she meets Jonathan Alkaitis, a hooded figure scrawls a message on the lobby's glass wall: "Why don't you swallow broken glass." High above Manhattan, a greater crime is committed: Alkaitis is running an international Ponzi scheme, moving imaginary sums of money through clients' accounts. When the financial empire collapses, it obliterates countless fortunes and devastates lives. Vincent, who had been posing as Jonathan's wife, walks away into the night. Years later, a victim of the fraud is hired to investigate a strange occurrence: a woman has seemingly vanished from the deck of a container ship between ports of call.


My Thoughts:
The Atlantic calls Mandel "philosophically profound." The New Yorker says "Mandel's gift is to weave realism out of extremity." And NPR says "Intricate, interlocking narratives are Mandel's signature..." If you've read Mandel, you know all of those things to be true. This book is no exception.

Mandel opens and closes The Glass Hotel with Vincent, chapters titled "Vincent In The Ocean." Beyond that, the focus of the story shifts and characters come and go only to all come together later when as Alkaitis' business falls apart. Throughout, Mandel looks at how chance affects our lives and the ways that people reinvent and transform themselves. Mandel is so good at reinventing characters that she has even brought back two characters from Station Eleven (Leon and Miranda), and even a building, who get chances at new lives in this book.

Ghosts appear to many of the characters: Vincent; her brother, Paul, and Jonathan. But apparitions are not the only ghosts Mandel plays with here. Both Jonathan and one of employees create alternate fantasies, ghost lives.

"What does it mean to be a ghost, let alone to be there or here? There are so many ways to haunt a person or a life."

If I'm honest, I sometimes feel that I'm not smart enough for Mandel's writing, that I don't alway "get" it. But that never stops me from being impressed by it. She always manages to work so many ideas into a few hundred pages. Here she explores shadow countries, the world the rest of us don't notice. Shortly after I read this book and before I wrote this review, George Floyd was killed and we were all forced to see a shadow world we've all found do easy to forget about even when we've previously been forced to confront it.

Mandel also forces us to think about morality, trust, and the frailty of life (hence the book's title). She makes us think about how easily our lives can be broken and how we would deal with that. As one character says, "We move through this life so lightly." Mandel makes us think more about the choices we make.

Life: It Goes On

Happy very, very hot Sunday!

Here's a little lesson for those of you who haven't been married long - NEVER let your husband know that you can do anything he typically does. If you do, be very wary if he tells you that you've done a better job at it than he does. Apparently, I'm going to trim the yews today in 90+ degree heat because I did such an outstanding job last year. I will have been married 38 years this fall. You'd think I'd have learned this lesson from watching my husband fumble his way through housekeeping chores in what was clearly an attempt to make me throw up my hands in despair and vow he'd never be allowed to do that chore again. Instead, I almost hurt myself, patting myself on the back last year for doing such a great job!

Last Week I:

Listened To: I finished The Jane Austen Society, a book I very much felt like I needed for the comfort of it after all that has been going on with the virus; then I started If Beale Street Could Talk because it's time up my diversity reading game a whole lot but I needed to ease into it. I did download  Stamped from the Beginning - The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi; it's more than 19 hours long so that's something I'll be listening to for a while, probably mixing it up with some other audiobooks.

Watched: So much news coverage until I couldn't take it any more and had to watch some Queer Eye.

Read: I finished Florence Adler Swims Forever and started Just Mercy. I'm meant to have joined a readalong but between the time I'm spending on the internet trying to keep up with the news and teach myself and reading things I think it's important to read, I'm going to have to bail on that.

Made: Guys, I don't remember. Chicken nachos one night with the chicken left over from a meal I can't remember. I really thought I'd do better with meals since I'm off work earlier and have no commute but this has been a week where I was just not feeling it.

Enjoyed: Peonies. I cut almost all of my blooms and brought them inside where we could enjoy them.


This Week I’m: 

Planning: On making a Goodwill run (finally!) and then really getting down to finishing the sorting and tossing around here. I have six more weeks working from home and I need to take full advantage of the extra time that affords me. 

Thinking About: My niece and her family. She is married to a black man and her children are black. I thought I understood but it has only just occurred to me this week how much more frightened she must be every time her children leave the house than I was when my children were their ages.

Feeling: Angry, ignorant, tired, shamed, guilty.

Looking forward to: I'm having a hard time with looking forward right now, what with so many things we were meant to have been doing this month having been cancelled.

Question of the week: Essential oils - have you used them and what was your experience with them? I keep going back on forth on whether or not I want to invest in good ones. On the one hand, if I can get chemicals out of my house, that would be great. On the other hand, I don't want to sink a bunch of money into something that only smells good but doesn't really accomplish much. 

Apeirogon by Colum McCann

Apeirogon by Colum McCann
Read by Colum McCann
Published February 2020 by Random House
Source: my audiobook copy from my local library

Publisher's Summary:
Bassam Aramin is Palestinian. Rami Elhanan is Israeli. They inhabit a world of intractable conflict that colors every aspect of their daily lives, from the roads they are allowed to take to the schools their daughters, Abir and Smadar, each attend. Theirs is a life in which children from both sides of the wall throw stones at one another. But their worlds shift irreparably when ten-year-old old Abir is killed by a rubber bullet meant to quell unruly crowds, and again when thirteen-year-old Smadar becomes the victim of suicide bombers.

When Bassam and Rami learn one another's stories and the loss that connects them, they become part of a much larger tale that ranges over centuries and continents. Apeirogon is a novel that balances on the knife edge of fiction and nonfiction. Bassam and Rami are real men and their actual words are a part of this narrative, one that builds through thousands of moments and images into one grand, unforgettable crescendo


My Thoughts:
I had no idea what this book was about when I downloaded it; it was Colum McCann and that was all I needed to know. And now I don't know how to tell you about this book other than to say that it is incredible. So I'm just going to share with you some of my notes:

• The Guardian says you don't so much read Apeirogon as feel it. I concur; as I was listening, I got angry, sad, frustrated, and hopeful. 
• This bookends the novel: "Beyond right and wrong, there is a field. Meet us there." It is perfect. 
• In a nod to the One Thousand and One Nights, there are 1001 chapters in this book. Many are simply a sentence which are astonishingly impactful. Many are, apparently, blank pages which, of course, I missed listening to the book. 
• Abdel Wael Zwaiter was the first Palestinian assassinated by Mossad as part of the retaliation for the killings of Israelis at the 1972 Munich Olympics. At the time of his death he was in the process of translating the One Thousand and One Nights into Italian. This is only one of the many recurrent images and themes in the book.
• Birds and music play recurring roles in the book. 
• One person who makes a recurring appearance in the book is then U. S. Senator John Kerrey. Aramin met with Kerrey with the sole intent of saying "You killed my daughter." Kerrey was not insulted; he didn't rush Aramin out of the office or respond with hollow words of sympathy. In fact, Kerrey was remarkably understanding.
• McCann makes use of a lot of repetition. This gives the book a poetic feel.
• While the book theoretically takes place over one day, McCann moves back and forth in time, telling both of the men's stories and the stories of their daughters' deaths. He also gives us background on the conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis. The fact that the mens' stories are not told in a straight line actually makes it easier to keep track of what's going on. 

If ever there were two men who should not have become friends, Bassam Aramin and Rami Elhanan are those men. Aramin was tortured after being imprisoned for throwing rocks; both men lost their young daughters to the conflict. And yet they first formed a friendship and then joined a group of other parents who had also lost children. They speak of their experience trying to help others find a way past their hatred, to find a way to live with the idea that there may not be a wrong side and a right side. But beyond those there is a field. Meet us there, they ask. 

Outer Order, Inner Calm by Gretchen Rubin

Outer Order, Inner Calm: Declutter and Organize to Make More Room for Happiness by Gretchen Rubin
Read by Gretchen Rubin
Published March 2019 by Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale
Source: audiobook checked out from my local library

Publisher's Summary:
Gretchen Rubin knows firsthand that creating order can make our lives happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative. But for most of us, a rigid, one-size-fits-all solution doesn't work. When we tailor our approach to suit our own particular challenges and habits, we can find inner calm.

With a sense of fun, and a clear idea of what’s realistic for most people, Rubin suggests dozens of manageable tips and tricks for creating a more serene, orderly environment, including:

• Never label anything “miscellaneous.”
• Ask yourself, “Do I need more than one?”
• Don’t aim for minimalism.
• Remember: If you can’t retrieve it, you won’t use it.
• Stay current with a child’s interests.
• Beware the urge to “procrasticlear.”

By getting rid of things we don’t use, don’t need, or don’t love, we free our minds (and our shelves) for what we truly value.


My Thoughts:
Let's be honest, you don't really need to read my review to know, if you read my Sunday posts regularly, that this was a book that was perfect for me. I'm forever talking about how much better I feel when I've decluttered a closet or made a drop off at my local Goodwill. Which might also beg the question, why did I even bother to read this book given that I'm already on board?

Well, to begin with, every book I read about decluttering brings me fresh ideas and the inspiration to dig back in to all of our "stuff." Different people bring different approaches - Marie Kondo believes that her method will work for everyone and has some very definite ideas about how things must be done. Rubin, on the other hand, believes that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for anything, including decluttering. Instead she offers a wide variety of ideas that can be tailored to the way that you live, learn, and are most productive.

The reason to work toward achieving outer order is essentially the same no matter what approach you use. According to Rubin:

"Outer order saves time, money, space, energy, and patience."

Further, she does offer this "golden rule" that is the one thing she says will help everyone.

"Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." 

Now that's a rule I think we can all strive for; at least we're not holding up our toilet plungers asking ourselves if they bring us joy.

To be honest, there was a lot here that was not new to me since I listen to Rubin's Happier podcast. Still, I'm seriously considering picking up this book in print. I recently confessed to my friends, who know me to be a person who loves to clear things out, that I have a hard time getting rid my kids thing. In this book, I may have found the push I need to, at the very least, vastly reduce what I've kept. But I feel like I need the book at hand to remind me to do that. On the other hand, Rubin does tell readers to ask themselves if they need more than one. And you know that I already have a half dozen organizing books sitting on my bookshelves collecting dust. The struggle is real people, which is why I'm always looking for new inspiration!