Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A story that takes place over a 24-hour period Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, by Winifred Watson This is a fluffy, good-natured comedy set in 1920s London. Guinevere Pettigrew is a rather proper 40-year-old spinster who arrives at the home of Miss LaFosse, a glamorous but insecure starlet, to interview for a job. By the end of the day, Miss Pettigrew has consumed quite a lot of alcohol, gone clubbing in a borrowed dress, sorted out Miss LaFosse's love life for her, made friends, landed a job worthy of her talents, and found a boyfriend. And she's decided she doesn't have to be so proper after all. A couple of items have aged badly from a book written in 1938. In advising Miss LaFosse on her love life, Miss Pettigrew rules out one of the boyfriends because he looks a bit Jewish, and, "people should stick to their own kind." She decides another of Miss LaFosse's 3 boyfriends is Mr. Right because he grabs and shakes her in anger, and later he says he'll give her "physical correction" when needed. Curiously, he's the "nice guy" boyfriend that she'd originally written off as boring. Miss Pettigrew convinces Miss LaFosse that he's the right man - after he punches the "bad boy" boyfriend, at Miss Pettigrew's urging.
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Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book recommended by a bookseller. The Martian, by Andy Weir. This is "hard" science fiction, where the author set himself a difficult task. The main character is by himself, and in order for the story to make sense, he has to explain a lot of technology and occasionally biology. Weir manages to keep it both understandable and interesting. Much of the book's appeal comes down to the personality of the main character. Mark Watney is an astronaut left stranded after his colleagues mistakenly believe he's dead when they evacuate during a sandstorm. Mark keeps a cheerful, sometimes snarky log of his efforts to create oxygen, water, food, and a means to communicate with earth. He refuses to blame the colleagues who left him behind. Occasionally the book shifts away from Mark's log and shows us the other five astronauts grieving his "death," and the people on earth frantically trying to come up with a way to save him. We get glimpses of the astronauts' personal lives and the bond between all of them. But it's Mark's voice that carries the story. His warm, funny, never-say-die attitude had me rooting for him from the first page to the last. Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book about a writer. The Marlowe Papers, by Ros Barber. This is a novel-in-verse that brings to life my favorite literary conspiracy theory: that Christopher Marlowe faked his own death and wrote the works attributed to Shakespeare. The faked death part is surprisingly plausible: Marlowe was facing trial for heresy and treason, which would almost certainly have ended in being tortured to death. Marlowe had worked as a spy, and had powerful friends with the money and connections to smuggle him abroad. And the official version of Marlowe's death is so implausible that no fiction writer would attempt it: shortly before he would have had to turn himself in, he was at a dinner attended only by his friends, when he reportedly started a drunken fight that resulted in him being stabbed in the face. Of course, you don't have to believe that Marlowe wrote Shakespeare, or that his death was faked, in order to enjoy a well-written story. The tale is told from Marlowe's point of view in sonnets and blank verse, many addressed to the male lover he had to leave behind. We follow Kit from his early life as a cobbler's son, his time abroad as an agent, his rise to literary prominence as "the Muse's Darling," and his fall from grace and escape, trying to rebuild his life in exile. Barber provides copious end notes detailing the established facts and various theories about Marlowe's life. The end notes also help keep the characters straight, as there were a ridiculous number of men named Thomas in Marlowe's life. There's a lot in Shakespeare's plays and poetry that can be mined for parallels with Marlowe's life. For instance, Marlowe and a friend got dragged into a swordfight that resembled Romeo's fight with Tybalt (and Romeo's speech about exile being worse than death hits differently when attributed to an exiled Marlowe). And of course Shakespeare's works are filled with faked deaths, exiles and disguises, and even a character named Posthumous. The Marlowe Papers has an unlikely but funny scene where the "dead" Marlowe attends one of his own plays disguised as a woman. The great authors and performers of Elizabethan London come to life on the page - with one exception. William Shakespeare is mentioned as a dull creature who is hired to publish the "dead" Marlowe's works as his own. This is arranged through third parties, so Marlowe never sees him, and neither does the reader. To the rest of the world, Shakespeare is the star and Marlowe is invisible; only within the pages of the book is it the other way around. Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A nonfiction book about Indigenous people. Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann This is a history book that reads like a mystery/thriller. Thanks to the discovery of oil on their reservation, members of the Osage Nation of Oklahoma were the richest people on earth in the 1920s. But only in theory: the courts could force an Osage person to accept a white "guardian" to control their money. This led to predictable schemes of fraud, embezzlement, kickbacks from businesses to guardians who spent Osage money there, etc. And worse. The right to income from the oil wells (known as a "headright" could not be sold or given to anyone outside the Osage tribe. It could, however, be inherited. Much of the book follows a single family that was haunted by a series of murders and mysterious illnesses. The newly formed FBI sent a team to investigate, and found that evidence and reports had a way of disappearing. Eventually, however, the trail led back to a sociopath who used a variety of schemes to steal Osage oil money, including several who died after he took out life insurance on them, or came up with paperwork purporting to show that they owed him money. The final section of the book takes a step back to look at the bigger picture. The FBI presented this case as a success, multiple murders solved. But there were over a hundred of these suspicious deaths during the years when the Osage people were oil-rich, and most had no connection to the killer that the FBI put away. There were a lot of vultures who descended on the tribe, including a startling number of cases where a white person married an Osage spouse and killed them for the money - even after having children with them. The whole "guardian" system was blatantly designed to get oil profits out of Osage hands and into white ones. It's a textbook example of structural racism - which explains why some school districts in Oklahoma are trying so hard to ban this book. Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book that takes place in space Season One: Iris and the Crew Tear Through Space! by Cait Gordon Cait Gordon's space operas always have an optimistic vibe, sharing a Star Trek-like idealism about the future we could build, with characters from different worlds working together in harmony. This book has the feel of a TV series; it's not written in screenplay form, but each (longish) chapter is a fairly self-contained episode, most of them concentrating on one or two of the ensemble cast. A lot of science fiction leaves out disabled characters, or includes them only to give them a miracle cure or provide "inspiration" for other characters. My personal peeve is when "disabled " is the only thing we learn about a character, and the author forgets to give them a personality. Not Cait Gordon: these characters are bursting with personality. (My favorite, though, will always be Noola from her book Life in the 'Cosm). All the crew members of the SS SpoonZ are disabled, but they don't have a word or concept for disability; it's taken as given that everyone should get the accommodations they need. Captain Dustin Warq is deaf, and First Officer Davan has a trunk that can't form human-like speech; it's the norm for everyone to use sign language as well as speech, and sometimes telepathy as well. Communications Officer Eileen Iris has inconsistent vision, and has a smart cane and an overprotective guide bot named Clarence. Engineer Horatio Herbert has a portable holographic isolation room for when his anxiety requires it. And Security Chief Leanna Lartha has artificial legs with some really cool gadgets. One of her underlings, Marq "Beachfront" Bronwryck, has no physical disability, just a horribly superior attitude - until he connects with a parasite that causes him to experience whatever the people around him are feeling. The characters explore the galaxy, fend off space pirates, and try to work out their personal lives. The final 3 episodes are a 3-parter where the crew ventures in a dangerous rift in space, for a really good reason. Except I kind of agree with the captain about it not being such a good reason. But I have faith that they'll triumph in season 2. Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book with a neurodivergent main character The Girl Who Lived Twice, by David Lagercrantz This is the sixth book in the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series; Lisbeth's being on the autism spectrum was discussed in the third book, Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. Lagercrantz's book gets all the trigger warnings; there are scenes of extreme violence and cruelty, including toward a character that we care about. There are two plot threads: Lisbeth's deadly feud with her twin sister Camilla, and Mikael Blomkvist investigating the death of a homeless man who turns out to be connected with an ill-fated Mount Everest expedition 15 years earlier. There is mystery, angst, and a couple of well-timed twists. Blomkvist has yet another new girlfriend, a conservative (for Sweden) writer named Catrin. The first three books in the series very much grew out of Larsson's feminist vision, and all of Blomkvist's relationships were initiated by the women. So it's a bit odd when this relationship starts with Blomkvist kissing her in the middle of an argument. It felt out of character, and less believable than the scene where a screaming argument between Lisbeth and her girlfriend leads to sex. The book continues to tease the possibility of romance between Lisbeth and Blomkvist. A couple of logical flaws: I don't claim to know Swedish confidentiality laws, but I couldn't believe a medical examiner would give information about an exam to Blomkvist. Not only is he a journalist, but he claimed to want to show it to an "expert," but wouldn't tell her who the expert was. The finale has all the thrills and drama as Lisbeth and Camilla face each other at last. But it's not for the squeamish. Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book by a deaf or hard-of-hearing author Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back, edited by Sandra Alland, Khairani Barokka, and Daniel Sluman The editors put a lot of thought into accessibility for this volume. Most of the poems have a link to a video of the poem being spoken and/or signed. There are detailed descriptions of the photos and other images. And there are appendices for trauma-related content warnings. There's also a glossary of relevant terms, including the way "deaf" is used to refer to the physical trait, and "Deaf" to the distinctive culture. Even the title has layers of meaning: stairs and whispers are obstacles in the lives of mobility-impaired and hard-of-hearing people - and "stares and whispers" are a whole other issue when dealing with the non-disabled world. The poems, primarily from UK poets, address a wide variety of experiences of being disabled in a world that is rarely accommodating. "Dear Hearing World" by Raymond Antrobus uses run-on sentences that reflect the grammar of signing, to say that "Deaf voices / go missing like sound in space and I have left Earth to find them." Markie Burnhope's "On the Final Days Before Your Transformation" uses lycanthropy as a metaphor for illness. (Sarah Awa's novel Hunter's Moon does something similar.) Cathy Bryant's "Ms Bryant is Dangerously Delusional" is a found poem made from hostile statements by representatives of the "system:" She used falsehoods in an attempt to justify all the fabrications and exaggerations with which she embellishes her accusations. After all, she does claim to be 'creative writer'. There are poems about triumphs as well. Bryant's poem "To My Non-Disabled Lover" celebrates the partner who stands up for her: -and I'm left, no burden, instead queen to your passionate king, fierce as hell. One of Nuala Watt's poems is about encountering her own poems in braille. Another, "On Her Partial Blindness," is a sonnet responding to John Milton's "On His Blindness:" .....So my poems need to make a sense I'm neither banned nor blessed but breathing here. I want to have my state revealed so thousands at my bidding read as I eat, sleep, kiss, swear, get children dressed. I feel and write. I do not stand and wait. Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book recommended to you by a librarian. Starter Villain, by John Scalzi If I was ever going to buy a book for its cover, this would be the one. Fortunately, because it's John Scalzi, it also has a great story, an unexpected twist or two, and a lot of humor. The narrator, Charlie Fitzer, is down on his luck: laid off from his job in journalism, recently divorced, and struggling to get by in the unenviable job of substitute teacher. He dreams of buying the local pub, but can't convince the bank he's a good risk. Then Charlie's estranged Uncle Jake dies, and Charlie learns he's the heir to Jake's fortune. Suddenly Charlie is plunged into the world of supervillains, with a volcano lair, sentient cats with the excellent names of Hera and Persephone, and sentient dolphins hell-bent on unionizing. Charlie must fend off the Convocation, a collection of villains, all after his money or his life. A very satisfying story that kept me guessing. Also, Scalzi gives a shout out to his own cats, Sugar, Smudge, and Zeus. Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book set in a place that's on your bucket list to visit The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye, by David Lagercrantz The fifth book in the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series, this one picks up where The Girl in the Spider's Web left off. Lisbeth Salander is serving a brief prison sentence for her actions at the end of the previous book. (Prison isn't on my bucket list to visit, but most of the story takes place in Stockholm, which is.) The prison is dominated by a gang, and the warden seems like a pushover for a guy in his profession. There are two intersecting plots: Lisbeth is trying to rescue a Bangladeshi woman from both the prison gang and her Islamist family. And journalist Mikael Blomkvist is investigating an illicit study done on twins. The fact that Lisbeth is a twin is definitely relevant here. Aside from the aforementioned Islamist family, the main villains are once again women: Lisbeth's sister Camilla, the prison gang leader, and a love-to-hate doctor who uses her "authoritative" manner to get away with some really brazen horrors. Mikael Blomkvist continues to have amazing luck with women, with yet another new girlfriend. The author continues to tease the possibility of love (or at least renewed lust) between him & Lisbeth. There's one cheating-death escape that absolutely strains credulity - but it was so thoroughly earned by the characters that I was cheering. Here's where to find me:
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