Life: It Goes On - May 30

Happy Sunday! I hope that you're lucky enough to be enjoying a long weekend. I'm on day two of a four-day weekend and so far it's been a busy weekend, largely spent doing the things that should be done on Memorial Day weekend. It's not like it's warm enough to enjoy spending time outside anyway. I'm using my usual summertime Sunday post picture, since it's the summer kickoff weekend but the weather feels more like April. So over it!

Last Week I: 

 Listened To: I finished the first of the Hamish Macbeth books then skipped the second and third, which I've already read, and started the fourth. I'll finish that one then I'm finally back to books that have been on hold. 

Watched: We finally watched Knives Out and both enjoyed it thoroughly. 

Read: I'm bouncing between books; I can't seem to settle on anything. I was reading George Saunders' A Swim In A Pond In The Rain but I had to read that a chapter at a time. I'm still working on Anne Serba's Ethel Rosenberg. Now I've started Virginia Pye's River of Dust, which is certainly something I would normally race through. 

Made: Ham and cheese sliders, a new take on guacamole with roasted corn, pork loin with apricot glaze, taco salad, goulash. I actually spent some time cooking, for a change!

Enjoyed: A hug from one of my oldest friends yesterday. So grateful for vaccines!

This Week I’m:  

Planning: Getting back to that desk, which has gotten shoved into the back of my garage. I'm still not sure if it will end up being stained or painted. Because that's how I operate. 

Thinking About: We've been to three cemeteries this weekend, putting flowers on the graves of our families. It's so important to both BG and me to honor them and to think about all who have gone before us. 

Feeling: Sad. Yesterday we went to say our goodbyes to The Big Guy's aunt, who had been placed on hospice; we were grateful to go when we did because she passed shortly afterward. She was the last of that generation on both sides of his family. It's strange to think that we are now the oldest generation of that family. 

Looking forward to: Miss H will be coming through the door shortly, for the second of three weekends where she is basically using our house as a hotel. But we're always happy to get to spend time with her. 

Question of the week: How are you spending this weekend?

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Published May 2021 by Random House Publishing Group

Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley

Publisher's Summary:

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.

Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.

Or does he?

My Thoughts:

Andy Weir's written three books and I've read them all. That might seem odd until you think about how few science-fiction books I read. But Weir hooked me with his debut, The Martian, and he gave me more than enough in Artemis to keep me reading his work. 

Weir doesn't need to worry about what I think about this book; it's already a bestseller and is being made into a movie starring Ryan Gosling. But maybe he should because I'm not alone in feeling that this book had so much potential but just missed the mark so many times. 

Perhaps a different editor would have said "hey, this book is 100 pages too long," or "you've got this really sexist stuff in here that won't play well with a good part of your readers" or "there are a couple of gaping holes in this story." Weir's developed a bit of a formula now and part of that requires coming up with a lot of problems that his very clever lead character needs to solve. It seems to mean that some things that shouldn't need to become problems do just so that the lead character can solve them. If you've read or seen The Martian, you'll see the pattern. 

Don't get me wrong, I love the clever character who has to use all of his (or her) wits to survive. And I'm not opposed to reading a whole lot of science stuff to get there. And since I don't know a whole lot about science and this is largely speculative fiction, I don't really care if the science is even right (except that even I know that if you're going to move into zero g, you'd better have your seatbelt on; Ryland Grace doesn't seem to know that). And I enjoyed the back and forth between Ryland trying to survive and Ryland gradually remembering what happened that got him where he is. As much as I liked Ryland (and I did, even when I wanted to slap him for being stupid), he was not my favorite character. Rocky is by far and away my favorite character. Unlike any character I've ever seen in a book, Rocky is an insatiable learner, highly creative and intelligent, a great friend, and surprisingly emotionally sensitive. 

I'm crossing my fingers that when they wrote the screenplay, they winnowed out the parts that didn't make sense or that seemed over the top and left moviegoers with more than enough action and a terrific story. Because there really is a great story here and it did have me racing along, even as I shook my head. Weir has included some things that, literally, made me gasp in surprise and that's always a good thing, right? I Here's where I hope the movie hews to the book - the ending is surprising and unique and I'm afraid that Hollywood will do what Hollywood so often does and ruin the movie by changing the ending. 

In the end, I'm glad I read this one, even as frustrating as I so often found it. 

Leave Out The Tragic Part by Dave Kindred

Leave Out The Tragic Parts: A Grandfather's Search For A Boy Lost To Addiction by Dave Kindred

Published February 2021 by PublicAffairs

Source: originally received, via Netgalley, from the publisher then checked out from the library

Publisher's Summary:

Jared Kindred left his home and family at the age of eighteen, choosing to wander across America on freight train cars and live on the street. Addicted to alcohol most of his short life, and withholding the truth from many who loved him, he never found a way to survive. 

Through this ordeal, Dave Kindred's love for his grandson has never wavered. 

Leave Out the Tragic Parts is not merely a reflection on love and addiction and loss. It is a hard-won work of reportage, meticulously reconstructing the life Jared chose for himself—a life that rejected the comforts of civilization in favor of a chance to roam free. 

Kindred asks painful but important questions about the lies we tell to get along, and what binds families together or allows them to fracture. Jared's story ended in tragedy, but the act of telling it is an act of healing and redemption. This is an important book on how to love your family, from a great writer who has lived its lessons.

My Thoughts:

You might think that a person who's dealt with addiction in her family would shy away from books about addiction. But there is a comfort in knowing that you're not alone and that you aren't alone in not having known the "right" thing to do to save your loved one. Perhaps even, selfishly, there is a comfort in knowing that your loved one is one of the lucky ones. 

Even if you can't relate to what Dave Kindred and his family went through, this is a book well worth reading. Kindred, a highly respected sportswriter, knows how to tell a story. For Jared's story, it may be even more important that Kindred knows how to research a story. Putting together the story of the life of a "traveling kid" isn't easy; they criss-cross the country, hopping freight trains, traveling with a changing cast of characters, and drinking and using drugs heavily. Jared never entirely lost contact with his family, calling periodically and sometimes paying visits where he brought along some of his companions, which made tracking his life from the time he left home easier to do but not easier to understand. Understanding would never entirely come for Kindred, as it doesn't for most families of addicts. There are no easy answers to addiction, nor to the need of some to be entirely free of the bonds of traditional lifestyles. 

This is not, as you can well imagine, an easy read. One reviewer said that it does, mostly, leave out the tragic parts. I don't know that I'd agree with that and I don't know that a book needs to be grittier to make readers understand how hard the life of an addict can be for the addict and those who love them.Included are pieces written by some of Jared "Goblin's" friends that tell the story better than anyone else could. Kindred writes with honesty (Kindred is quick to admit his own shortcomings) but also with deep love and a respect for the reasons that the travelers choose to live the way they do. 

Life: It Goes On - May 23

Happy Sunday! I'm posting early because I've got a busy day ahead of me. I'm starting my first project of the year today - I'm refinishing a desk that we inherited from my great uncle. It's never much been my style and, over the years, our family has been hard on it. It needs to get moved from where it's been in my family room so it makes sense to get it cleaned up while we're moving it. That's my part of a larger project that involves doing some rewiring, moving the entertainment center and hanging the tv on a different wall. That job belongs to The Big Guy and Mini-him and I'm happy to leave them to it. 

Last Week I: 

 Listened To: I finished Jenny Offill's Weather and I'm still trying to figure out what I think of it. Since nothing else that I've had on hold has come in yet, I checked out the second book in M. C. Beaton's Hamish Macbeth series. 

Watched: Not a lot this week - I've been too busy actually seeing people at long last!

Read: I finally finished Ann-Marie MacDonald's Fall On Your Knees, which had been meant to be a book club choice but I've changed my mind about that. Not that it's not a good book. It's just that there are some things in it that I know would be very difficult for some of our members to read. 

Made: Tex-Mex turkey chili, grilled pork chops, Southwestern salads, and Bushman's bread. Can you tell that our weather has gone from wet and chilly this week to hot? 

Enjoyed: So much time with friends! Tuesday was our first in-person book club meeting at someone's home since October, Wednesday was a five hour happy hour with two of my besties, and Friday was an evening on the patio with friends. 

This Week I’m:  

Planning: See above. This is bound to be a project that takes much longer than I think it will.

Thinking About: What I still want to do in the laundry room to finish that revamp. That project sort of took a backseat to the family room revamp once Mini-him bought BG the new tv. 

Feeling: Proud of Miss H who today celebrates three years clean. She has come such a long way in those three years!

Looking forward to: A four-day weekend next weekend. 

Question of the week: Since I've scratched Fall On Your Knees from the book club line up, I'm in need of a new selection written by a Canadian author. Preferably one that is set in Canada and not too dark. Any recommendations?

Behold The Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

Behold The Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

Read by Prentice Onayemi

Published June 2017 by Random House Publishing Group

Source: audiobook checked out from my local library (I also own an ecopy)

Publisher's Summary:

Jende Jonga, a Cameroonian immigrant living in Harlem, has come to the United States to provide a better life for himself, his wife, Neni, and their six-year-old son. In the fall of 2007, Jende can hardly believe his luck when he lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. Clark demands punctuality, discretion, and loyalty—and Jende is eager to please. Clark’s wife, Cindy, even offers Neni temporary work at the Edwardses’ summer home in the Hamptons. With these opportunities, Jende and Neni can at last gain a foothold in America and imagine a brighter future. 

However, the world of great power and privilege conceals troubling secrets, and soon Jende and Neni notice cracks in their employers’ façades. 

When the financial world is rocked by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Jongas are desperate to keep Jende’s job—even as their marriage threatens to fall apart. As all four lives are dramatically upended, Jende and Neni are forced to make an impossible choice.

My Thoughts:

The Guardian says: "This is not a story of noble immigrants versus the evil banking class: Mbue is too skilful for that. The Edwardses are self-absorbed and selfish but slim bridges of genuine affection exist between them and the Jongas. On the other hand, the Jongas are not simple Africans who eschew materialism and can teach the Edwardses how to live a contented life. Both Jende and Neni rejoice in the consumerism of America and grasp at all that capitalism has to offer."

I agree 100%. In Behold The Dreamers, Mbue has created characters who are multi-dimensional. The Jongas are both naive and willing to do what it takes to get what they want. The Edwardses can be both generous and courteous and yet incredibly blind to real life. The Jongas are no less generous but Jende has a temper and Neni's morals might be called into question. All are, at heart, good people who are, as we all are, flawed. 

In this story about power, both the Jongas and the Edwardses are trapped in a powerful system, albeit one that stronger favors the Edwardses when it comes to the ability to survive. In Jende's interview with Clark, Clark barely registers the meeting while it means everything to Jende. Cindy thinks nothing of passing on their castoffs yet for Neni these are things that will make the Jonga's lives so much easier. Jende is powerless in the face of the immigration bureaucracy and at the mercy of those who claim to understand it. Yet, Clark is also trapped in a powerful system - he finds himself helpless in the face of his company's dealings. And Cindy, who is living a life of luxury, is also living a life filled with dread that "her people" will find out the truth about her past and the truth about her addiction. 

An NPR review of this book says that Mbue can be unsparing in her depiction of the elite who didn't see their existence threatened by the financial collapse. It was simply a terrible inconvenience. One of Cindy's friends complained that they might have to fly coach or let go of their help and actually have to cook for themselves. No worries that the rug would be completely pulled out from under that cook if she/he lost their job. Clark lands on his feet almost immediately but, as we all remember, so many others were devastated by the financial collapse of 2008. 

I've owned an ecopy of this book for some time but (as so many books on my Nook do), it has languished, unread. When one of the categories for my book club for 2021 was a book about immigrants, I knew it was time to pull this one out. I'm so happy that I did. Not only did I thoroughly enjoy this book, it's going to make a great book to discuss this month.