A Higher Loyalty

Finished May 21
A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership by James Comey

I wanted to read this book to see what Comey felt behind the role he held, and this book met that expectation. Comey tracks his career journey from its beginnings, and goes into detail on some of the cases or situations that he dealt with. The details increase as we grow closer to the present, specifically regarding the Hillary Clinton email investigation, and Comey's dealings with Trump. Nothing actually surprised me, and I understood Comey's reasons for doing what he did.
Comey knows that nobody is perfect, including himself, and he does talk about a few actions that he is ashamed of, and details the struggles he had to make some decisions, including often asking for input from others or advice from people he trusted.
He outlines his ideas of what a good leader looks like, and what things a leader must keep in mind to remain a good leader. He talks about ethics, and his personal take on that and how it led him to the career he chose. He also talks about his lifelong goal of helping people, of righting wrongs and bringing those who betray others to justice. Through examples, he shows how he tries to give people chances to redeem themselves, to choose a different path, and how some choose it and others don't.
He talks about his wife, and the strong relationship they have, and how they've dealt with the struggles that life has brought them.
I enjoyed the book, and feel I understand the author better as well.

The Reverend Guppy's Aquarium

Finished May 15
The Reverend Guppy's Aquarium: From Joseph P Frisbie to Roy Jacuzzi, How Everyday Items Were Named for Extraordinary People by Philip Dodd

This book was inspired by the curiosity of the author as he tracked down the story of the origin of a wide variety of items to their namesakes. Some of these you may have been aware of, others are less well known. Included here are:
* The frisbee
* The saxophone and other musical instruments
* The jacuzzi
* The biro
* Mesmerism and the guillotine
* The leotard
* Oscars and Tonys
* The dahlia, the freesia, the bougainvillea, the fuchsia, and the magnolia
* The G-spot
* The sandwich
* The Mercedes
* The silhouette
* The foxtrot
* Mavericks
* and, of course, guppys
For some he finds dubious myths about origin, others are well documented. And the reader learns a number of other interesting things along the way.

Sun Dog

Finished May 13
Sun Dog by Deborah Kerbel, illustrated by Suzanne Del Rizzo

This picture book is about Juno, a young husky who lives with a family near the Arctic Circle. Juno finds the endless days of the summer make it hard to settle down to sleep, and one night, she leaves the house in search of playmates. She finds only that she feels lonely without her boy, and vulnerable to those creatures who look for food during this time. When she returns to her house and finds danger there as well, the big dog that Juno knows exists inside her comes alive as she raises an alarm.
This is a lovely story of the connection between Juno and her boy, but also of the high Arctic days, and the animals who call that part of the world their home.
The illustrator of this book uses polymer clay as one element of the illustrations and I loved the effect. She brings alive Juno's playfulness (I particularly liked the picture with the sock) and the beautiful environment Juno and her boy live in. The flowers look so real, I wanted to smell them!
A great book, especially for youngsters with their own special dog.

Sarah's Key

Finished May 13
Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

This read was for my upcoming book club meeting. It is a WWII story of a young girl, ten years old, who is awakened early one July morning in 1942 by pounding on her apartment door. She wakes her mother, and tells her. They family isn't that worried as Sarah's father has been sleeping in the cellar after rumours of police seizing men have become widespread. This morning, however the police order Sarah's mother to pack a bag and also tell Sarah they will be taking her. When Sarah enters her bedroom to get clothes, and wake her younger brother, only 4, he refuses to go.
The children had a deep cupboard they often played in and hid from their parents in fun. He goes in there and Sarah locks him in, promising to come back later.
As the police shepherd the two from the building, Sarah's mother screams for her father, and he joins them. They are part of a roundup of Jews in Paris, in which busloads are taken to the Vel' d'Hiv'.
Sixty years later, Julia Jarmond, an American woman reporter, who has lived in Paris for twenty-five years, and married a Parisian, is assigned to do a story on the sixtieth anniversary of this horrible event. Julie hadn't heard of it before, and as she does research, she is horrified.
When she discovers that her husband's family has a connection to the event, she is determined to find out about the family that used to live in the apartment her husband's grandparents lived in.
As we follow Sarah's story in 1942, we also follow Julia's investigation into the past.
This is a novel of a fictional family, set around a true event, and a terribly sad one. This particular raid was enacted by Frenchmen on Nazi orders, men who did not protest acting against their fellow citizens. This is a novel that was written to help enlighten the people of today about their past, and look toward a future of truth and acknowledgement.

The Grave's a Fine and Private Place

Finished May 11
The Grave's a Fine and Private Place by Alan Bradley, read by Jayne Entwhistle

This is the ninth book in the series featuring Flavia de Luce. Flavia, her sisters, and Dogger have left the family home to fill their days, their home being a sad place at present. Her oldest sister is put out by having to delay her marriage, and all three are unhappy at their aunt's insistence that they move to London. Dogger has suggested the village of Volesthorpe as a distraction, and as the book begins they are slowing being rowed on the river. Flavia has one hand over the side, skimming the water, when the hand catches on something. She imagines it to be a fish, but on examination it proves that her hand is caught in the mouth of a young man, a dead young man.
When she draws Dogger's attention to it, they head for shore, bringing the body with them. And Flavia is engaged in another mystery, a distraction indeed. Once on shore, Dogger assigns Ophelia and Daphne a task to keep them looking out at the river, as he and Flavia move the body to a grassy bank. When Dogger goes off in search of the police, Flavia looks for clues, and finds a few, naturally. As the police arrive, along with the vicar, the family retreats to the nearby inn for lunch. There, the two older sisters bolster themselves with a pint of Guinness and Flavia and Dogger make plans to investigate further.
There are other distractions here including a circus with an aggressive woman owner, and a group of rowdies, an inn landlady with a hidden poetry habit, and a famous actress in her golden years. Flavia befriends a young boy who has done some experimenting of his own, and butts heads with the local police officer.
The sisters grow closer here, something that is nice to see. Flavia also begins a much closer relationship with Dogger, who is more forthcoming about his own knowledge and connections. This book moves in a new direction, but an interesting one it is.

Reservoir 13

Finished May 9
Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor

This book was recommended to me by Ben McNally, and although it wasn't what I expected, I really enjoyed it. The novel takes place in a small town in rural England. One winter, a teenage girl on holiday with her parents goes missing. A search is mounted, but the girl is not found. But activities for the inhabitants of the town go on, more or less as they had done before. As the book follows a variety of people who live there, who arrive their after this event, and who leave for various reasons, we see the life of a town and its people. The small secrets, the kindnesses and resentments, the family dynamics. We see the cycle of nature, year after year, and the events large and small.
I loved how each year was a chapter, and that while some scenes of interaction were included, so were straightforward descriptions of what happened.
One example

The summer had been wet but in September the skies cleared and the mud in the lanes was baked into thick-edged ruts. There were springtails under the beech trees behind the Close, burrowing and feeding on the fragments of fallen leaves, and somewhere deep in the pile a male laid a ring of sperm. A blackbird's nest was blown from the elder tree at the entrance to the Hunter place, the mud mortar crumbled and the grasses scattered as chaff. Tony produced an arrangement of hops for the Harvest Festival display, and it was certainly striking but there were some who felt the pungent smell was out of place in a church. Jones's sister was seen at the post office, buying packaging paper and string, and this was understood as some kind of breakthrough. Irene sometimes told people that Jones's sister had been at her wedding, and had been the very life and soul. Such a shame, what happened, she would say. As though anyone actually knew. On Sunday in the evening Brian and Sally Fletcher at a meal together. Brian grilled lamb chops and boiled potatoes while Sally made a salad. It was a rule they had, to make sure they did this. For most of the week they kept different hours, and communicated through notes on the kitchen table. This suited them both. They had come to marriage late, and were each comfortable in their own company. But they'd decided they should always eat together on a Sunday night. I don't want to go forgetting what you look like, Brian had said. A meal, and a conversation, and then settling down together to watch whatever was on television. It was something about a murder, on the whole. At the allotments Ruth was seen working alone, pulling handfuls of beans down from the overloaded canes. The leaves were covered in blackfly but this late in the season she wasn't concerned. It was food for the ladybirds at least. She was letting the courgettes mature to marrows because even if no one really liked cooking them they did look good in baskets outside the shop. They made people think of harvest festivals, and that made tem come into the shop and spend money. The blackberries were thick on the brambles growing up around the greenhouse, and she thumbed a few into her mouth each time she went past. There had been words with the allotment committee about the brambles. The matter was not yet settled. Her phone beeped, and when she read the text a smile opened on her face that she found herself hiding behind a berry-stained hand. She sat on the bench for a moment, watching the shadows lengthen across the valley and feeling the warmth and thinking carefully about her reply. 

shows both the close observation and the narrative distance that occurs throughout the book. It is as though the narrator observes moments and strings them together in a loose connection by time. My enjoyment with this book grew as it progressed. The missing girl comes up each year as people still think about her and wonder what happened to her. But life here goes on, as it must.

The Seven Rules of Elvira Carr

Finished May 7
The Seven Rules of Elvira Carr by Frances Maynard

I loved this story of a young woman forced by circumstances to become more independent and engage with the world on her own terms. As the book opens, Elvira (Ellie) is twenty-seven. Her mother has raised her in a very protective way, allowing her only specific, controlled forays outside the house. As the book begins, Ellie's mother suffers a debilitating stroke, and Ellie calls an ambulance for her. Left alone in the house, Ellie tries to keep to her schedule, but must introduce new activities such as visiting her mother in the hospital.
Without her mother, she finds that she has more time to spare and begins to explore the world more. One of the people that helps her in this is her next-door neighbour Sylvia, a woman with grown children of her own. As Ellie learns new things, and tries new activities, she finds herself better than expected at some things. Perserverence helps her manage goals that she sets for herself, and new friends help her enlarge her life experiences.
It was wonderful to see Ellie grow, despite some setbacks, and gain confidence, even pride in some of the things she did. As she tries to follow the rules that she initially set for herself, she finds examples of these, and exceptions to them, and learns that she must carefully think about things before acting on them.