Carl > Recent Status Updates

Matthew struggling. Lost his job as newspaper reporter. Failed startup. Marriage on the rocks. House mortgage (2009 crisis) underwater. Father with dementia. Definitely feeling a failure.

Goes to 7-11, meets some late teen, early twenties guys. Gets stoned with them. Comes up with idea to sell marijuana to his 40 ish friends.

Picking Worms
Lao girl goes with mother to pick worms (presumably for fishing). Mom is great at it, teenage daughter struggles. Girl has boy interested in her from school. White kid. He goes with her to pick worms on a lark. He's good; farmer likes him and puts him in charge (!?) Lao mother outraged, daughter as well. Boy invites girl to prom. He comes, knocks on door all dressed up, girl leaves him there.Payback

School Bus Driver: wife works in office while he drives bus. She's attractive and becomes mistress of her boss . . . school bus driver resigns himself to this . . . Name becomes symbol. He is "Jay" while his real name means Heart in Lao. She "fits" in new land; he doesn't.

Edge of the World
Unhappy mother . . . jigsaw puzzle of world solved by little girl . . . mother insists world is flat . . . girl says no, teacher said otherwise . . . puzzle swept to floor . . . mother leaves

Randy Travis: Lao immigrants. Mom develops crush on Randy Travis. Daughter writes RT letters for mom. Dad shrugs and goes along with it, even to the point of taking Mom to a concert of RT while also dressing as a cowboy to mimic RT. Mom's crush ends . . . she turns to casinos, slot machines . . . addiction . . . dies in parking lot

Dad, later, makes son Lao food years later, then sings a Randy Travis song well

How to pronounce Knife--More of an anecdote than a story. Lao girl is told by her father that the k is not silent. She argues with teacher, defending father and standing up her family in the new land.

Paris: Chicken rendering factory. Lao women doing grunt work, wishing they could work "out front" where the white women work. Nose jobs, hair curling, trying to fit in. Ends with her watching white woman humiliated

Not one of my favorites, but Dickens always gives some amazing, unforgettable characters and this book is no exception.

Starts attempting to keep his dignity. Life on the edge. Article accepted, a little money. Pawn something, a little money. Borrow from a friend, a little money. Scraping by. Description of how his mind works while hungry is excellent. Imagining angels in heaven discussing him.

Early foster history . . . eastern street kids packed off to the West to new homes. Children? Unpaid workers? Not clear. Orphan trains . . . get off in a town, have people look them over and select . . . not selected, then off to the next town.

17 year-old orphan train kid murders two in Wyoming. Not exactly cold, more casual about it all. National trial sensation.

Hung . . . at 17.

Similar tale of young man, killer, sentenced to life in prison for murder of fellow worker when he was 19. Killed in U-district as she tries to get him to sign up to be an Amway salesperson. To him, she's just a fool. In prison, he sees pattern of arrested, incarcerated foster kids. Investigates, forms groups, writes government leaders, does more to bring this relationship of crime/foster homes to the forefront.

Rowe, Seattle writer, uses stories of individual wards of the state to examine the failings of the system. Marianne, murderer at 16, sentenced to 20 years in prison at 19. Abused by father; mother drug addict and neglectful; adopted and then unadopted; kills and robs 21 year-old. She says he raped her, but what rape exactly means to her is not clear.

Dorothy and Fred having tough times. One child has died, followed by a miscarriage. Fred had an affair, broke it off, but they sleep separately. Dorothy heads off to the store to shop for dinner, meets a friend, rushes home to cook. ON the radio she hears of the escape of a monsterman, dangerous creature. She looks up--there he is. Instead of being a monster, he quickly becomes her lover. Odd but engaging.

40 women kept prisoner underground somewhere. They don't know why they are prisoners or where they are. Guards watch them constantly but don't interact. Main character is "the child." Her arrest is probably a mistake. The women share the experiences of adult life; she can share nothing as she has only known this life. Double victim.
Handmaid's Tale comes immediately to mind.

Saw the movie with Boris Karloff recently so decided to reread this. Needless to say, the book is much more interesting than the movie. Some odd plot holes (where is the monster for two years?) but is still excellent. Servant girl, innocent, after she is convicted "confesses" to the crime. Written wen MWS was 20 or so. Amazing.

Natural history sections are wonderful, very informative about a subject I never gave a thought. RWK, unfortunately, does not wear her virtue lightly. She is the paragon of virtue when it comes to respecting nature and the wild.

Father dies. He learns of family wealth which was substantial 15 years earlier. (Yearly expenditure of $110,000.) Fortune has declined since then, bad investments and his mother's outrageous allowance ($40,000 per year in 1910)

Life at Princeton. Infatuation with girl back in Minneapolis. He thinks he loves her, but comes to realize he has simply given her qualities that he'd like to love in a girl. She is creature of his imagination. Lots of drinking parties . . . and finally a car crash and a dead classmate. Amory fails exam at end of sophomore year making him ineligible for distinction as upperclassman.

Amory part of traveling comic troupe connected to Princeton. Descriptions of meetings with upper class girls who are faster than their parents know . . . reminds me in some ways of Downton Abbey as a peak into an entirely different world of wealth and privilege.

So far, this epitomizes the entitled, white male privilege critique. Amory is born rich, is a snob, expects things to fall his way, and they do. Alcoholic mother, but she plays such a small part in his upbringing it hardly matters.

Ambitious thriller. Crime is background to investigation of rural Virginia.

Charles poor student who becomes doctor through memorization, not comprehension. First wife, older, loses her money and then conveniently dies. He has been treating Emma's father for a broken leg (simple setting, luckily for him) and he falls in love with Emma. With first wife dead, marriage comes quickly.
Plot moves masterfully; descriptions wonderful; characterizations great.

Escaped serial killer bumping off various enemies. The criminologist he spoke with (Paige) is working with FBI Christopher to catch him. They go to possible victim's homes, someone shows up, not Adam the Killer. Formulaic, to put it mildly, as Paige then blames herself for not predicting the next victim. I'm guessing Adam will grab Paige at the end, and either she or Christopher will bump him off.

Irish kid Queens, Gibson, Rockaway Beach, visits to Manhattan. 1970's. Nasty older brother; depressed mother; okay father. Grandfather on one side murdered (bad debts).
Melancholy
I'm listening on Audible, read by the author . . . not crazy about his reading as it sometimes borders on parody of smart guy. Suspect I'd like the book more as a read . . .

Murder at BnB on inaugural night. Five suspects. Lacey Doyle, antique shop owner and amateur sleuth, is out to prove the police wrong. Enjoyable so far, if a bit predictable. The old male police detective is stubborn and not open to Lacey's help. The younger female detective is much more amenable. Lacey's boyfriend is oblivious to the ways in which he inflames her jealousy. Male = dumb, stubborn, wrong.

Finished first story. Excellent atmosphere. Strange family in the mountains, with strange son . . . is his grandfather his father? Where did he come from. He grows to an abnormal height abnormally fast, is brilliant, is dangerous. Head off to libraries to get magical incantations from forbidden books. Returns to hillside . . . who is he calling to? For what vile purpose.
Ending reminiscent of War of Worlds

Not sure why this is so famous. It's fine, but fine doesn't usually garner a Pulitzer. Plot: Bridge of San Luis Rey collapses after centuries of use. Five die. Question: Is there any meaning in these deaths? Only way to find out is to examine the lives. End result is a series of longish short stories that end, for each of the protagonists, with the collapse of the bridge.

Terrific book. Minute by minute account of shift of one nurse in an oncology department. One patient scheduled for dangerous drug infusion; another with perforated intestine that the oncology dept did not suspect. Third looks to be heading home. Fourth arrives for more treatment--reputation as a pain in the ass precedes her. Interplay of patients-doctors-nurses-interns-fellows All fascinating, well written

Debreczeni was a reporter before he was transported to the camps, and his ability to remember and report is incredible. A very hard read because it rings so true about something that seems unreal. It's a great book, but I'll be glad to be done with it.

Three major characters, post WWI, are now coming together as East Africa (sort of) rebuilds. Feels more like the characters are there to give the history rather than them being true characters. Old-fashioned novel in many ways . . . not much interior dialogue, psychology