The Overbooked Bibliophile

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Thirty-two-year-old Travis Devine, is "The 6:20 Man", boarding the commuter train every morning into Manhattan, arriving early for a grueling day at his entry-level job as a financial analyst at Cowl and Comely, a prestigious investment firm, spending long hours crunching numbers six days a week. A decorated ex-Army Ranger who rose to the rank of Captain, he decided to quit, got his MBA, and joined the world of finance. Though he isn’t completely happy with his new life, he has reconciled with his new reality but his years as a “combat stud” were far more satisfying on a personal level.

My Rating: 4.5⭐ Loved it! How much? Paired it with audio over a seven hour road trip and stayed up till 2 a.m. to finish reading! I just could not put it down! UPDATED REVIEW: First and foremost, I wouldn’t have picked up this book if it hadn’t been for the amazing reviews written by some of my GR friends! Thank you for recommending such an amazing book! Nessa James, a former nurse and mother of two daughters who are away at college, is gifted with the power of sight – a gift passed down through generations in her family. She can hear the voices of the dead and can also see them. She is a kind-hearted woman who will do everything in her power to help those calling for her help from the other side. “There’s a dead girl down by the ocean who needs our help. She’s been calling to me, and she won’t be found unless I go look for her.”

My Rating: 4.5⭐ “Arsene Lupin, the man of a thousand disguises: in turn a chauffeur, a tenor, a bookmaker, a young boy; a teen, an old man, a commercial traveler, a Russian physician, a Spanish bullfighter….” Admittedly, the first time I heard of Arsene Lupin was when the character and his adventures were referenced in the Netflix show Lupin. This collection covers nine interrelated stories (though they are just as good as standalone) revolving around the “gentleman thief” and his exploits and is a perfect introduction for new readers like me. Originally written in 1907, by author Maurice Leblanc, these are straightforward mysteries/adventures with intriguing plots, loads of humor and a very interesting main character. 

My Rating: 3.5⭐ Nora, a documentary filmmaker and editor, marries her friend Paul, a contractor who had been temporarily renting the loft above her late husband Takeo’s ceramics studio in their home. Soon after, Paul and Nora, along with Leon, Paul’s eighteen-year-old son from his previous marriage, travel to Paul’s family campground, Hidden Lake, which has been closed down for years, to fix it up and eventually sell off the property. Paul, who had left his childhood home almost thirty years ago, does not seem to have too many happy memories of his childhood.

Overall Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ “I was unsettled. I was not right. This is a condition that many people experience after arriving in Alaska. Nothing here is fixed, nothing is any better. Where is there left to go, except out of your mind?” Nobody Gets Out Alive by Leigh Newman is a collection of eight compelling short stories mostly featuring strong female protagonists. Newman’s stories are powerful and versatile in theme, tone and scope. While some of the stories are set in Alaska, others have characters who have once lived in Alaska but still have ties to their hometowns despite having moved on. Though a few characters appear in more than one story, the stories themselves are standalone.

My Rating: 4.5⭐ “I feel invisible, is what I mean. But I mean it in the deepest way. It is very hard to explain. And I cannot explain it except to say—oh, I don’t know what to say! Truly, it is as if I do not exist, I guess is the closest thing I can say. I mean I do not exist in the world. It could be as simple as the fact that we had no mirrors in our house when I was growing up except for a very small one high above the bathroom sink. I really do not know what I mean, except to say that on some very fundamental level, I feel invisible in the world.”

My Rating: 2.5⭐ Becca and her husband Blake travel to a remote mansion in the Catskills for a murder mystery weekend. Blake's affair with a colleague has added to the problems in their marriage and they have been seeking counseling. Given Becca’s love for mysteries and fondness for books and tv shows in the genre, the “Roaring Twenties” getaway where they get to dress up for a three-day Gatsby-themed weekend, is a thoughtful peace offering on Blake’s part. The weekend starts with an embarrassing moment for Becca, having not been provided with all relevant information before the commencement of the evening. With a total of four couples one of whom are friends of Blake and Becca and a full cast of staff dressed for the occasion, notes and schedules and amusing names and roles assigned to each of the participants, this weekend has a lot to offer.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Metropolis Storage Warehouse. One hundred and twenty-three years old. Six stories high. Ninety feet wide. Four hundred and eighty feet long. Almost four hundred storage units of various sizes and shapes; some even have windows”. In May 2018, thirty-seven-year-old Zach  Davidson, owner of Metropolis Storage Warehouse in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is in the process of auctioning off the contents of twenty-two abandoned units in the storage facility before ownership changes hands. In January of the same year, an elevator accident resulted in legal trouble that cost Zach his ownership of the storage facility. In the process of the auction, Zach is surprised to find five of the units “staged” in arrangements one would not expect in a storage facility. 

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ "The Barton family had been outcasts, even in a town like Amgash, their extreme poverty and strangeness making this so. The oldest child, a man named Pete, lived alone there now, the middle child was two towns away, and the youngest, Lucy Barton, had fled many years ago, and had ended up living in New York City." Elizabeth Strout’s Anything Is Possible is a lovely collection of nine stories revolving around characters mentioned in her novel My Name is Lucy Barton. These interrelated stories are set in the small run-down town of Amgash, Illinois, Lucy Barton’s hometown. Though many of the characters have moved on from Amgash the events in their past have left an indelible mark on their lives and as they recall significant memories they are all taken back to their life in Amgash.

My Rating: 4.5⭐ “Gaia Plinia Amara, Liberta” In AD 75, Amara from The Wolf Den is now a freedwoman, no longer owned by Felix and forced to work in his brothel. She now lives in 'The House with the Golden Door' as a concubine to Rufus to whom Pliny has signed over his rights to her. But is she truly free of her past and all she has had to bear to get to this point? As she navigates her way through her new life she is haunted by the brutality, pain, loss and tragedy in her past. “Her past is the whirlpool Charybdis, pulling her down under the waves where she cannot breathe.”

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “They were three, or nothing.” On the third of September, 1986, Nina Beau, Étienne Beaulieu and Adrien Bobin are placed together in the same fifth grade class of École Pasteur in La Comelle, Burgundy. Nina, abandoned by her mother as a baby, father unknown is being raised by her loving grandfather, a postal worker. Étienne belongs to an affluent family and lives with his parents, younger sister Louise and has an elder brother who is away pursuing higher studies. Adrien is being raised by his mother who was once the mistress of Adrien’s father who is a fleeting presence in Adrien’s life, paying support to Josephine and meeting Adrien infrequently. “Étienne was the leader, Nina the heart, and Adrien followed with never a complaint.”

My Rating: 3.75⭐ Iris Duncan, an almost seventy-year-old widow lives alone in her posh Pacific Heights home. She is unable to take care of the property on her own and is in trouble with the HOA, a fact that she is constantly reminded of by her annoying neighbor in his pushy way. She also feels unsafe living alone and suspects that burglars enter her home frequently. A chance meeting with a clumsy waitress in a café leads to Iris offering Lydia and Seth McKay jobs as caretakers/house sitters to help her with the day-to-day work involved in the upkeep of her home as well as daily chores. She offers them room and board at her house and treats them, especially Lydia, like family, a feeling that is reciprocated, with Lydia taking care of her, cooking her meals and making sure she takes her medication on time.

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ My Name Is Lucy Barton begins with our narrator, Lucy Barton sharing details about how in New York City in the 1980s, an infection after routine surgery for removing her appendix leads to her being hospitalized for nine weeks. Her estranged mother, whom she hasn’t seen for years, travels to New York City from Amgash, Illinois and stays with her for five days, never leaving her bedside. Her mother’s presence triggers Lucy’s memories of her past, inspires her to reflect on her present and motivates her to contemplate her future. “This must be the way most of us maneuver through the world, half knowing, half not, visited by memories that can’t possibly be true.”

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Immensely imaginative with scenarios ranging from lightly humorous and satirical to surreal and downright bizarre, People From My Neighborhood: Stories by Hiromi Kawakami is a wonderful collection of thirty-six interlinked short stories/vignettes . The stories feature a cast of interesting characters, some recurring and some new, from the narrator’s neighborhood -her childhood friend Kanae and Kanae’s sister and others such as the neighborhood Grandma, a dog school principal, Uncle Red Shoes who opens a dancing school, the lady who owns Love, “the tiny drinking place”, the Kawamata family and many others.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ Two teenagers attempt to break into a senior citizen’s house to steal prescription medication only to be interrupted by the homeowner, Emmett Burr, who is armed and ready to take on the trespassers. When two teenagers go missing in Sandy Lake, Minnesota, Sheriff's Deputy Ben Packard (acting Sheriff on account of the previous Sheriff’s terminal illness), leads the investigation into their disappearance. The case is also personal on account of one of the teenagers being the daughter of his cousin. As the story progresses, we find out more about Ben's personal life and his family's connection to Sandy Lake including a personal loss from his childhood and the mystery surrounding the same. Secrets from Emmett's past are also gradually revealed. We also get to meet some of the residents of this small town as the police leave no stone unturned in tracing the whereabouts of the two missing teens.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ The narrative of Janice Hallett’s The Twyford Code is presented through a series of 200 audio files that have been recovered and deciphered from an iPhone 4 belonging to Steven Smith, an ex-con recently released from prison after being incarcerated for 11 years. The files have been transcribed using specialized software and though the end result isn't quite perfect, it renders the content not too difficult to understand.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ “I knew he was tricky and a liar, I just didn’t think he would play his tricks and try out his lies on me. Hadn’t I been faithful? Hadn’t I waited, and waited, and waited, despite the temptation–almost the compulsion–to do otherwise? And what did I amount to, once the official version gained ground? An edifying legend. A stick used to beat other women with. Why couldn’t they be as considerate, as trustworthy, as all-suffering as I had been?”

My Rating: 4.5⭐ “Picture yourself waiting at a station or a bus stop with a few people, and not knowing when the next train or bus will arrive. Within fifteen minutes you’ll start feeling restless and will look around at the other people, who are getting restless too, and will also look around or at their watch. Now imagine a building with a few hundred waiting people, not for fifteen minutes, but for year after year. Not waiting for a bus or a train, but for their life to begin again.”

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ “When you’re passionate about something, you become unscrupulous. When you love, you hurt. Even in the best of families there’s greed and deception, and even in the most profound love, you find hooks and grief.” Fifteen-year-old, Oscar Dreyer-Hoff goes missing, leaving a strange note for his parents. Subsequently, his backpack has been found on a boat dock a few hundred meters from the family’s apartment and the family boat is also discovered missing. Oscar’s family, are founders of an auction house but were embroiled in scandal after rumors of shill-bidding made waves which led to a fall in fortunes for the family and those associated. A few days later the body of his school teacher is found in the waste silo of the incineration plant in Copenhagen.

 

                             My Rating:                                  4.5⭐ For readers who are familiar with the Classics and/or enjoy the plethora of retellings revolving around the Trojan War, it should not surprise you that there is not much about the Trojan War itself in the retellings that will strike you as completely new. But the beauty of Jennifer Saint’s Elektra lies in how the author chooses to highlight the perspectives of the women from these stories as told from their different vantage points. In Elektra, the author focuses on the “tainted” bloodline of the cursed House of Atreus and three women whose “fates inextricably tied to this curse, and the fickle nature of men and gods”. Our narrators are not on the battlefield and they don’t share the same loyalties or motivations - but Cassandra, Clytemnestra and Elektra are three women whose lives and destinies are irrevocably impacted by the events preceding, during and after the fall of Troy.

My Rating: 3.5⭐ 24-year-old Heather Baxter marries widower Dr. Tom Baxter who is in his 40s and is the father of two children, 14-year-old Olivia and 12-year-old Owen, by his first wife. When Tom is invited to be a keynote speaker at an Orthopedics conference in Melbourne, Australia they make a family vacation out of it. Owen and Olivia are not too fond of Heather and often openly hostile in the face of her efforts to befriend them. On a day out, at the kids’ insistence on checking out the wildlife in the vicinity, the family finds themselves touring Dutch Island, which is a private island normally closed off for visitors. They are ferried across by members of the O’Neill family who ”own” and reside on the island. A car accident on the island triggers a series of events that has the family fighting for their own lives and desperately looking for a way off the island as their day trip turns into a survivalist’s nightmare.

My Rating: 4.5⭐ “My journey began long ago in that tiny village: a journey that I thought was about getting to know the Dutch people, but that I should now confess was really about getting to know myself.” Samir Karim, an Iraqi immigrant, receives his residence permit after a long wait of “nine years, nine months, one week, and three days” in the asylum seekers’ center (ASC) in The Netherlands. Samir is a university graduate, a qualified civil engineer, having escaped Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to avoid being conscripted into the army. He aspires to travel to Tarifa in the south of Spain but is required to maintain residence for at least five years before he can be issued a passport for onward travel.