The Fire Next Time by James BaldwinMy

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
Read by Jesse L. Martin
Published 1963
Source: audiobook checked out from my local library

Publisher's Summary:
At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin's early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal and provocative document from the iconic author of If Beale Street Could Talk and Go Tell It on the Mountain. It consists of two "letters," written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism. Described by The New York Times Book Review as "sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition, testament, and chronicle...all presented in searing, brilliant prose," The Fire Next Time stands as a classic of literature.

My Thoughts: 

I've got to admit that, although I've been looking forward to reading this book for a long time, I probably did not give it my full attention. I've got audiobooks piled up and I listened to this one while I was working, which doesn't allow me to really listen in the way I should to important books. 

Even so, Baldwin gave me something that I have yet to hear in a book about race - the role of religion in race and race relations. I have, for as long as I've known about slavery, wondered how enslaved people maintained their religion and how African Americans continued to do so despite all that has happened to them. Baldwin turned to religion - first Christianity and the Nation of Islam - and turned away from them. Baldwin found neither the comfort nor the answers he needed in religion. His journey to that was so intimate and insightful. 

It is always tremendously said to hear these calls to end racial injustice from decades ago and know that persons of color are still facing the same issues today. But Baldwin is not necessarily asking for integration; in fact, he asks the question, " Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house?" And I can't help but think that black people today are still asking that question as well. 

One by One by Ruth Ware

One by One by Ruth Ware
Read by Imogene Church
Published September 2020 by Gallery/Scout Press
Source: audiobook checked out from my local library

Publisher's Summary:
Getting snowed in at a luxurious, rustic ski chalet high in the French Alps doesn’t sound like the worst problem in the world. Especially when there’s a breathtaking vista, a full-service chef and housekeeper, a cozy fire to keep you warm, and others to keep you company. Unless that company happens to be eight coworkers...each with something to gain, something to lose, and something to hide. 

When the cofounder of Snoop, a trendy London-based tech startup, organizes a weeklong trip for the team in the French Alps, it starts out as a corporate retreat like any other: PowerPoint presentations and strategy sessions broken up by mandatory bonding on the slopes. But as soon as one shareholder upends the agenda by pushing a lucrative but contentious buyout offer, tensions simmer and loyalties are tested. The storm brewing inside the chalet is no match for the one outside, however, and a devastating avalanche leaves the group cut off from all access to the outside world. Even worse, one Snooper hadn’t made it back from the slopes when the avalanche hit. As each hour passes without any sign of rescue, panic mounts, the chalet grows colder, and the group dwindles further...one by one.

My Thoughts: 

This is the fifth book by Ware that I've read and it's safe to say that I'm a fan. But I may have read too many of Ware's books in the past year (3) to fully appreciate her writing and to be unable to overlook the places where I feel like she's fallen back on things she's done before. We've seen Ware do the unassuming, dowdy young girl who has deep dark secrets; we've seen her do the chase scene between our heroine and the murder that goes on and on; we've seen her do a group of people trapped in an isolated location. 

Maureen Corrigan's review in The Washington Post raves about this one, particularly the ending. Kirkus Reviews calls the construction of this book "simply masterful." So maybe it's just me. After all, Corrigan has this to say about the ending: "The final section, where the last intended victim is locked in a ghastly battle of wits and endurance with the unmasked killer, has to be one of the most ingeniously extended plot climaxes in the suspense canon."

Ware uses dual narrators: Liz, the dowdy young girl who used to work for Snoop and who has been included in this trip because it turns out that she is very important to the company, and Erin, who works for the resort and who also has secrets she's hiding. Ware uses a little gimmick as she introduces each narrator which really started to annoy me and which only once gave any clue to what was happening in the story. 

I know all of this sounds like I didn't like this book at all, after telling you that I'm a fan. Actually, while this isn't my favorite Ware book, I did enjoy it and appreciated that way Ware middle part when the murders start, one person after another being killed in different ways, including one in a locked room. Ware has us looking at the each murder again and again, giving readers the clues they need to solve the mystery but throwing so many other things at us that it's hard to see the truth. And I really enjoyed the wrap up at the end, that part where the survivors come together; Ware still had a couple of surprises and moral dilemmas to throw at readers. 

If you're a fan of Ware's, and you haven't read three of her books in less than 12 months, I think you'll enjoy this one. 

Life: It Goes On - October 25

Happy Sunday! It is cold here (30 degrees) and grey and yesterday we had to pull out all of the annual plants so the the yard looks bleak. What's worse is that we have snow in the forecast for later today/tonight. Y'all, this is why I don't get too excited about autumn - it so often lasts such a short time and the prospect of an extra long winter is daunting. Especially this year. So I'm trying to think of projects I can do that will keep me busy and make our home more cozy and less cluttered. How you may ask, can my home still be cluttered when I am forever decluttering? I wish I knew the answer to that question!

Last Week I: 

 Listened To: I finished James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time and now I'm listening to Motherless Brooklyn. We saw the movie adaptation and really enjoyed it and, so far, I'm enjoying the book as well.

Watched: My brother-in-law arrived Friday afternoon and is using our house as a home base through Monday. He and The Big Guy have watched baseball, football, and hours and hours of Alaska: The Last Frontier and Gold Rush. Not what I would ever pick but I must admit that I did get a little caught up in those people's lives. 

Read: I'm highlighting the heck out of White Rage so it's taking me quite a while to get through. I've also started Finola Austin's Bronte's Mistress, which is a good break for me from all of the heavy stuff. 

Made: I threw together a Mexican soup the other night; I really need to at least write down what I used because we both really enjoyed it. One night I made spaghetti sauce to freeze and today I made enchiladas. At least this cold has me cooking again.

Enjoyed: Book club even if we had to do it by Zoom. We had actually moved it back two days because it was supposed to be 76 degrees on Thursday. Supposed to be. It's going to take some getting used to again but at least we got to see each other and catch up.

This Week I’m:  

Planning: I finished painting those chairs I was working on last week and will get the seats recovered this week. My office reorganization got sped up when my BIL arrived because the guest room was full of office stuff that needed to get moved. That meant that I didn't get as much of a chance to sort and toss as I went so after I finish up getting everything in place this week, I'll start going through stuff to try to create some breathing space in there.

Thinking About: Christmas. I know, I know - it's too soon. But I'm hearing that shipping is going to be really slow come December so I'm going to try to get Mini-me's and Ms. S's gifts ready and sent in the next couple of weeks. 

Feeling: Like taking a nap. These grey skies make me so tired!

Looking forward to: my 38th anniversary and my mom's birthday this week. 

Question of the week: Are you making any changes around your homes to make them pandemic winter ready?

After The Flood by Kassandra Montag

After The Flood by Kassandra Montag
Read by Hilary Huber
Published September 2019 by HarperCollins Publishers
Source: audiobook checked out from my local library as part of Omaha Reads

Publisher's Summary:

A little more than a century from now, the world has been utterly transformed. After years of slowly overtaking the continent, starting with the great coastal cities, rising floodwaters have left America an archipelago of mountaintop colonies surrounded by a deep expanse of open water. Civilization as it once was is gone. Bands of pirates roam the waters, in search of goods and women to breed. Some join together to create a new kind of society, while others sail alone, barely surviving. 

Stubbornly independent Myra and her precocious and feisty eight-year-old daughter, Pearl, fish from their small boat, the Bird, visiting small hamlets and towns on dry land only to trade for supplies and information. Just before Pearl’s birth, when the monstrous deluge overtook their home in Nebraska, Maya’s oldest daughter, Row, was stolen by her father. 

For eight years Myra has searched for the girl that she knows, in her bones and her heart, still lives. In a violent confrontation with a stranger, Myra discovers that Row was last seen in a far-off encampment of raiders on the coast of what used to be Greenland. Throwing aside her usual caution, she and Pearl embark on a perilous voyage into the icy northern seas to rescue the girl, now thirteen. 

On the journey, Myra and Pearl join forces with a larger ship, a band of Americans like them. In a desperate act of deceit and manipulation, Myra convinces the crew to sail north. Though she hides her true motivations, Myra finds herself bonding with her fellow seekers, men, women, and children who hope to build a safe haven together in this dangerous new world. 

But secrets, lust, and betrayals threaten to capsize their dream, and after their fortunes take a shocking—and bloody—turn, Myra can no longer ignore the question of whether saving Row is worth endangering Pearl and her fellow travelers.

My Thoughts:

Some years ago, I began picking all of the books for my book club. While I worked to make sure they were books that were discussion worthy and that I thought would appeal to the book club overall, I also only picked books that I wanted to read. Book club no longer became a place where I was pushed to read out of my comfort zone (even as I pushed the other members to do the same). 

Once a year, the Omaha Public Library (along with votes from the community) selects a book for Omaha Reads that the community will read together. They are always books written by Nebraska authors or set in Nebraska. They are not always books that were on my radar or that I would have picked up otherwise. The Omaha Reads books tend to be the only time my book club reads a book out of my comfort zone and After The Flood was no exception. It also proves that it's good to read out of your comfort zone sometimes. 

Yes, After The Flood is, like most other dystopian novels, a survival story. But it is also much more than that. It is the story of what a mother's love makes her capable of doing as well as a story of hope, trust, and secrets. While Myra is a complicated character, we are drawn to her out of pity (she has lost her mother, father, and grandfather to the floods - how could you not pity her?) but also because of her courage. She will do anything to protect the daughter she gave birth to on Bird (the boat her grandfather built in their attic) but is also willing to risk everything to save the daughter her husband kidnapped. 

But as I begin to see what Myra was capable of doing, I began to question just how much I should trust her. Was she a reliable narrator, when we know that she is lying to others? Myra is not the only one keeping secrets and all of them will come back to haunt the crew of the Sedna, the ship Myra and Pearl are saved by when the Bird sinks. 

While After The Flood is nowhere as unrelenting or a dark as Cormac McCarthy's The Road, Montag successfully builds mounting tension, fills the book with a level of violence that feels believable given the situation, and doesn't end her book happily-ever-after. But she leaves readers with hope. And, although Montag never explains what caused the world to flood, I can't help but believe it was caused by climate change, I need to be able to find hope in a future that oftentimes feels so hopeless. 

Dawson's Fall by Roxana Robinson

Dawson’s Fall by Roxana Robinson 

Paperback Published September 2020 by Picador 

Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review 

Publisher’s Summary: In Dawson’s Fall, a novel based on the lives of Roxana Robinson’s great-grandparents, we see America at its most fragile, fraught, and malleable. Set in 1889, in Charleston, South Carolina, Robinson’s tale weaves her family’s journal entries and letters with a novelist’s narrative grace, and spans the life of her tragic hero, Frank Dawson, as he attempts to navigate the country’s new political, social, and moral landscape.

Dawson, a man of fierce opinions, came to this country as a young Englishman to fight for the Confederacy in a war he understood as a conflict over states’ rights. 

He later became the editor of the Charleston News and Courier, finding a platform of real influence in the editorial column and emerging as a voice of the New South. With his wife and two children, he tried to lead a life that adhered to his staunch principles: equal rights, rule of law, and nonviolence, unswayed by the caprices of popular opinion. But he couldn’t control the political whims of his readers. As he wrangled diligently in his columns with questions of citizenship, equality, justice, and slavery, his newspaper rapidly lost readership, and he was plagued by financial worries. Nor could Dawson control the whims of the heart: his Swiss governess became embroiled in a tense affair with a drunkard doctor, which threatened to stain his family’s reputation. In the end, Dawson—a man in many ways representative of the country at this time—was felled by the very violence he vehemently opposed. 

My Thoughts: Back in 2009, I read Robinson’s novel Cost and remember being impressed with the way she handled the difficult subject of addiction. I’ve thought a lot about that book in the past couple of years and wonder how my impression of it might be different now, given what has happened in my family. I can’t help but think that I might have been more impressed with Robinson’s work. But you know how loathe I am to reread a book, given how many books I have yet to read for a first time. So when this book came to my attention, I decided this was my way to give Robinson another try. I’m glad I did. 

Robinson mixes newspaper articles of the time and diary entries from her great-grandmother’s journals into her novel to great a wonderful blend of fiction and fact. Those pieces from her family’s history served to both set the stage for her story but also to move the story along. There’s an element of thriller to the book, a feeling that you are watching a disaster unfold without being able to stop it. Dawson believes himself a true Southerner but some of his beliefs put him at odds with those who were born and raised Southern while others put him at odds with the very people who will ultimately judge him. I appreciated that where Robinson might have sugarcoated her family’s story, only glorifying her great-grandfather’s success, she gave readers fully realized characters. That feels like that was essential in the end, but a less honest historian might well have crafted a work around so avoid the ugly parts of her family history. 

The hardcover book came out in 2019. A lot has changed in our country since then that, surprisingly, make this book more timely than it might have seemed initially. Dawson is a man of his time and place, a man that fought for the South in the Civil War and now living in Charleston in the aftermath of that conflict. He’s a man of strong principles and a moral compass that frequently puts him at odds with his newspaper’s subscribers. Sometimes those same principles are at odds with Dawson’s own beliefs, particularly when it comes to blacks, and that’s where this book seems to echo some of today’s rhetoric. That tied the book into other nonfiction books I’m reading that deal with the South in the years after the Civil War and I very much enjoyed seeing what I’ve learned set into a novel.