Lillian Boxfish Takes A Walk

My last book for February since I finished it today was Lillian Boxfish Takes A Walk by Kathleen Rooney. Although it sounds like a children's book, Lillian Boxfish is very adult. On New Year's Eve 1984, Lillian Boxfish decides to take a walk across Manhattan, retracing her life there since 1926. Lillian rose to fame as the highest paid female advertising copywriter for R.H. Macy's. Lillian's walk takes her from her apartment in Murray Hill, to Grimaldi's, Madison Square Park, Delmonico's Restaurant, The Old National Biscuit Factory, Penn Station, and R.H. Macy's, before finally returning home. Lillain Boxfish is based on the life of Margaret Fishback, poet and once the highest paid female copywriter for R.H. Macy's.

I have never been to New York but for those who have, the inside covers of the novel feature a map of Lillian's walk. I liked this novel because I love to walk, especially around favorite cities or towns. My favorite city to stroll in is Paris and each time I go, I like to visit the same places to see how they have changed. While reading this novel, I often thought of my grandmother who was born in Chicago and lived there her entire life, most of the 20th century. The changes that she witnessed were astounding.

The Janus Stone

Please note, this post contains minor spoilers.

Book #37 was Elly Griffiths' The Janus Stone, the second Ruth Galloway mystery. A few months after the incident in The Crossing Places, Ruth is called to examine the bones of the child's skeleton (missing the skull) that are uncovered at a construction site. The bones could be Roman or they could belong to one of two children who went missing from a Catholic Children's Home that stood on the site a few decades ago. **Spoiler alert Someone is also threatening Ruth and her unborn child's life.

The myths and legends featured in this mystery revolve around the god Janus and the goddess Hecate. Janus is the god with two faces, the god of beginnings and endings, passages, and doors, also the namesake of the month of January. Hecate is a Greek goddess of death, necromancy, ghosts, and the moon. Shrines to Hecate were often placed at entrances to homes in the hopes of bringing prosperity into the home.

The Janus Stone was as good as The Crossing Places. The third novel in this series is The House at Sea's End.

#36 A Long December

A Long December is a collection of short stories written by Richard Chizmar and published in 2016. The collection is rather long, 489 pages, but it is a page turner. I either started reading this on Friday or Saturday and I finished it last night. At the end of the collection are story notes that give a little background information about the stories. I had never read anything by Chizmar, or so I thought, but it turns out "A Capitol Cat Crime" was published in the treasury of Cat Mysteries (see last post). This particular story was one I didn't care for. 

I did like: "The Tower",  "Brothers",  "Devil's Night", "The Sinner King", "Midnight Promises", "Only the Strong Survive" (features werewolves), and the novella that gives this collection its title, "A Long December".

Many of the stories have a nostalgic, wholesome, clean-cut overtones, but the dark undercurrent is never far. The stories are a mix of suspense, thriller, mystery, and crime. 

Five Little Pigs

#35 Five Little Pigs  (Also published as Murder in Retrospect) by Agatha Christie

Carla Lemarchant enlists Hercule Poirot's help to discover the truth behind her father's murder sixteen years ago. Sixteen years ago Carla's father, the artist Amyas Crale was poisoned. His wife, Caroline Crale, admitted to poisoning her husband, stood trial and later died in prison. At the age of 21, Carla came into her inheritance and also received a letter written by her mother proclaiming her innocence. Ever on the side of truth, Poirot agrees to investigate. He contacts the five people who were witnesses to the crime and asks them to provide a written recollection of the days leading up to the murder.

1. Philip Blake: stockbroker and Amyas Crale's best friend--the little pig who went to market.
2.  Meredith Blake: Philip's brother, country squire, botanist, admirer of Caroline Crale--the little pig who stayed at home. 
3. Elsa Greer: 20 years old  at the time of the murder, subject of Amyas' last painting, determined to marry Amyas--the little pig who ate roast beef.
4. Miss Williams: tutor and governess to Angela Williams, staunch feminist who disapproved of Amyas' treatment of his wife--the little pig who got none.
5. Angela Warren: Caroline's younger sister, has a scar on her cheek from having a paperweight thrown at her by Caroline when they were much younger--the little pig who cried wee wee wee all the way home. 

Cat Mysteries

The most recent book I read was A Treasury of Cat Mysteries compiled by Martin H. Greenberg. I like the genre of cat mystery, but this wasn't my favorite book to read. Some of the stories I really enjoyed and others I didn't care for at all. There was a mix of mystery, suspense, and science fiction. 

One of the stories I did like was called "SuSu and the 8:30 Ghost" by Lilian Jackson Braun. Jackson Braun is the author of The Cat Who... mysteries and is credited with started the cat mystery genre. The Cat Who... series features Siamese cats KoKo and Yum Yum and their millionaire journalist owner Jim Qwilleran. KoKo, and occasionally Yum Yum, help solve local crimes. The Cat Who... books feature literary references and word plays and this is another reason I like them. The first book in the series, The Cat Who Could Read Backwards, was written in the late 1960s. It was with the fourth book, The Cat Who Saw Red written in 1986, that the series and the cat mystery genre took off. The short story "SuSu and the 8:30 Ghost" reminded me a little of The Cat Who Saw Red. SuSu takes an interest in an elderly neighbor and looks for him each night at 8:30. When the man is reported dead, SuSu's nocturnal habits alert her owners to the possibility of foul play.

Everyday Sexism

Book 34 Everyday Sexism by Laura Bates is a MUST READ for everyone.

In 2012 Bates started a simple website, linked here Everyday Sexism, where people could share their experiences of everyday sexism. Very quickly, responses poured in and this book is the culmination of three years of responses, 100, 000 entries. 100, 000 instances of sexism. There is also a Twitter account @EverydaySexism.

Each chapter begins with a few statistics relevant to the topic at hand and then proceeds to the testimonies and entries from the website. The chapters cover:

1.  Silenced Women: The Invisible Problem
2. Women in Politics
3. Girls
4. Young Women Learning
5. Women in Public Spaces
6. Women in the Media
7. Women in the Workplace
8. Motherhood
9. Double Discrimination
10. What about the Men?
11. Women Under Threat
12. People Standing Up

This is not an easy book to read. The eye-opening, heart-breaking, appalling experiences are only tempered by feelings of comfort knowing that someone (many people in fact) are there to listen, relief in knowing that you are not alone, and a sense of hope and optimism that things will improve. 

I thought this quote summed up the goal of the project nicely: "Tackling sexism is no more about suggesting that all men are sexist than fighting homophobia means accusing every straight person of it. Nor is it about suggesting that all women are victims. Rather it is about giving a voice to victims who have never been heard before because their oppression has become so normalized as to be accepted" (Bates 334). 

#33 Karolina's Twins

Karolina's Twins by Ronald H. Balson was book number 33.

Lena Scheinman was born in 1924 in Chrzanow, Poland. Years later she enlists the help of lawyer Catherine Lockhart and her husband PI Liam Taggart to help her find out what happened to her friend Karolina's twin girls who were
abandoned during the Holocaust. Lena promised Karolina that after the war she would find out what happened to the twins. Lena's son Arthur, believes she suffers from obsessions and delusions in her old age, and attempts to have her declared mentally unfit and placed in a home.

As Lena tells her story, a story she has never shared with anyone before,  she must decide how much to reveal and at what cost.

This was an excellent book. Balson is also the author of Saving Sophie and Once We Were Brothers

Persepolis and Persepolis 2

Books 31 and 32 were Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood and Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return graphic novels written by Marjane Satrapi (were originally published in French). Satrapi was born in Iran in 1969. Persepolis is her account of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution which saw the overthrow of the Shah, the victory of the Islamic Revolution, and the war between Iran and Iraq. Satrapi stayed in Iran until she was 14 when her parents sent her to Europe. Persepolis 2 is the story of Satrapi's life in Austria and her return to Iran. In Austria she faces growing up and the trials and tribulations of adolescence without her parents. When she returns to Iran, she feels that her time in Austria was a failure. She attends university in Iran for graphic arts, but questions whether she can remain in Iran and have a future under the state-sanctioned repression.

It was interesting how young Marjane and her friends made sense of the cultural, social, and political changes taking place around them. For example, she and her friends pretend to be revolutionary figures: Fidel, Trotsky, and Che Guevara, and hold demonstrations in the garden. Marjane's conversations with God, about her becoming a prophet, were also entertaining.

In Persepolis 2 there were a couple of panels that I found note-worthy for their message. Marjane reconnects with a childhood friend Kia who served in the army and is not handicapped. After visiting Kia, Marjane says, "That day, I learned something essential: we can only feel sorry for ourselves when our misfortunes are still supportable...once this limit is crossed the only way to bear the unbearable is to laugh at it" (page 112). Laughter it seems is the best medicine.

Marjane also describes the small struggles and small acts of resistance that she and her classmates, especially her female friends, engage in. Their confrontations with the Regime were discreet. Small things, an uncovered wrist, a loud laugh, having a walk-man, were all pretexts to arrest them. In regards to women, she writes, "The regime understood that one person leaving her house while asking herself: are my trousers long enough? is my veil in place? Can my make-up be seen? or Are they going to whip me?, this person is no longer going to ask herself, "Where is my freedom of thought? Where is my freedom of speech?, My life, is it valuable?, or What's going on in the political prisons?" Fear was instilled in citizens to paralyze them, to cease their questioning. But, Marjane and her friends chose to show their hair or put on make-up as small acts of rebellion.

#30 The Crossing Places

I actually finished this late last night (quarter to midnight), so I managed to read 10 books in January! My goal was to read 8 books a month, but maybe I can do 10.

The Crossing Places  is part of the Ruth Galloway mysteries by Elly Griffiths. Forensic Anthropology professor Ruth Galloway lives in the remote Saltmarshes, a remote area of England with her two cats Flint and Sparky (appropriate names for an anthropologist's cats). The Saltmarshes were sacred to the inhabitants of the Iron Age and were considered not quite land, not quite sea. Ruth is contacted by Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson to examine some human bones that were found. Nelson believes the remains may belong to Lucy Downey, a young girl who has been missing for 10 years. Another young girl goes missing as well. Ruth is increasingly drawn into the case and does ultimately help solve it. She and DCI Nelson have an budding professional and personal relationship.

The Saltmarshes are not real but are based on the Norfolk coast in England and the myths and legends of that area. Detective Nelson receives a series of letters from the kidnapper/murderer with clues to where the bodies can be found. The letters contain references to the Iron Age, Norse mythology, the Bible, and Shakespeare. Griffiths used her husband, an anthropologist, and her aunt's tales and legends of the Norfolk area as inspiration for this series.

The second novel in the series is called the Janus Stone.