Like many of us bookworms, I’ve been reading a lot during this stay-at-home order. Here in Ajijic, my friends and I usually buy used books and pass them around. Once in a while, we’ll get a fairly new title from someone’s friend or relative in the US. Yes, Amazon. Here’s the thing: shipping’s expensive, often more than the book. Uh-huh, Kindle or i-Pad or whatever. I hate reading online. Many of my friends do, too. I did find a semi-local source for books in English, some titles anyway. So as soon as we are free to go to Guadalajara and shop, I’ll buy some books—not to mention clothes. Both would be heavenly. A great big mall, with overpriced coffee and a decent eatery. Oh, yeah.
Back to books. Here’s what I read in the last month or six weeks and what I thought of each book, followed by a brief description of the books I’m reading now. Tell me what you think.
The Silver Swan
Benjamin Black (aka John Banville)
Another “drunks in Ireland” mystery series. A woman, a newlywed who’s already cheating on her husband, is found dead, apparently drowned, probably a suicide. Her husband asks the medical examiner—an acquaintance from medical school—to cover up the apparent suicide, which the medical examiner agrees to do! Quirke, the medical examiner, is a sober non-alcoholic, according to him. Even when he later discovers it’s murder, he continues to cover up the truth. **
Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight
Alexandra Fuller
Memoir that takes place in Africa, where the author grew up. It’s a story about a very unusual childhood; about alcoholism but not child abuse; and about survival, resourcefulness, and courage. ****
Where the Crawdads Sing
Delia Owens
Crawdads is a southern murder mystery with the craziest cast of characters I’ve ever seen. The narrator, for instance, is deserted by her entire family, one by one, when still a child. She is also shunned by the townspeople—except a Black family—and brings herself up and figures out how to make a living while still a child. Full of surprises. ****
Pretty Girls
Karen Slaughter
Serial killer targets the women in one family—all of them pretty. I love Slaughter; I hate the title. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the interesting, entertaining read. ***
The Complaints
Ian Rankin
I was tired of Rebus, a drunken detective that stars in another series by Rankin. This character, nicknamed Foxy, is Rebus’s opposite. He heads up Complaints–the Scottish version of our Internal Affairs—and is one buttoned-down dude. In the end, of course, he breaks all the rules and … well, I won’t completely spoil the ending. Lothian and the surrounding small towns are an integral part of the story, which I enjoyed. **
Another Man’s Moccasins
A Longmire Mystery (as in the Netflix series, which I took one look at and said “yuck.”)
By Craig Johnson
Why did I read the book? The enforced isolation will last who-knows-how-long, and my supply of hard copy books is limited. (See note above about e-books and shipping costs.) The good thing is that the novel contains a lot of Native American lore and unusual American Indian characters. The setting is a small town near Cheyenne, Wyoming, and features its stock (Anglo) characters, and the prevailing racism. On the other hand, it’s written on the level of a 60’s hour-long horse opera. Black hats and white hats, a main character who always goes it alone, is always injured, and always recovers. Don’t these macho types ever learn anything? *
Reading Now …
Reincarnation: An East-West Anthology
Joseph Head and S. L. Cranston
I’ve been slogging through this anthology for months. It was written in 1961. Yes, 1961. I picked it up from a local used-book place, of which there are many here in nowhere, Mexico. I’m a nominal Buddhist, but I have trouble with supernatural stuff such as reincarnation. Contained in this volume are numerous semi-comprehensible excerpts from the Upanishads, the Suttas, and the Koran, among many others. In addition, the tome includes the writings of Lau Tsu, Saint Augustine, Aristotle, Kant, Kierkegaard, Thoreau, Thomas Edison, William James, Carl Jung, and others. A fascinating, but slow read, with all sorts of anachronisms and politically incorrect language. I just hope I live long enough to finish it.
A Three Dog Life: A Memoir
Abagail Thomas
A difficult read for an entirely different reason. It’s the story of a woman whose husband survives a traumatic brain injury. He is in assisted living but is partly functional—able to walk and talk, but not reason. It is tragi-comic due to his flights of fancy that almost make sense, perhaps left over from a creative mind, or perhaps evidence of keen observation. Occasionally, he is present and rational, if just for a moment. The book is very difficult to go back to every day, although I like its frankness. I hope the narrator gets to a better place. She’s functioning, but in some ways as hollowed out as her husband.
