September Books Read

     It's been a chaotic few weeks.  I've been reading, but I haven't felt like posting because very few cheerful things have been happening.  Our business computer crashed and burned (as did my husband).  We had to buy a new desk computer and have our brilliant computer guy, one-arm-Brian, spend the day recovering lost data.  A few days later, our backup program went into action restoring files we had already restored and deleting new data.  Brian came back, gave them a good whacking, and straightened out the problem.  I think we lost only two files.

     In addition, my step-daughter is now in week three in the ICU, recovering from major surgery.  I have one thing to say to any smokers reading this:  STOP!  You don't want to go through what she's going through.

     We did have a lovely lunch at Great Sage in Clarksville, MD, a very busy vegan restaurant with delicious food.  And, on the same trip to visit my step-daugher at Johns Hopkins, I got to stop at Daedalus Books in Columbia, MD.  I've mail-ordered from them for years but had never visited, despite driving past several times.  I was so overwhelmed that I only bought four books, two of them for my little grandnieces, a mystery for me, and an adult coloring book for me about Paris.  For those days when all I can do is sit quietly and color in my coloring book.

     So, here's what I managed to finish reading in September:  

     The Studio Crime  -  Jerrold
     Blood Sinister  -  Harrod-Eagles
     As the Pig Turns  -  Beaton
     The Nature of the Beast  -  Penny
     Four Seasons in Rome  -  Doerr
     A Street Cat Named Bob  -  Bowen
     The Clue of the Tapping Heels  -  Keene
     Reckless  -  Hynde
     A Murder is Announced  -  Christie

     How's that for diversity, with a heavy lean on mystery?  I've blogged about some of the books but not others.  That doesn't mean that I didn't like them, I just didn't have a lot to say about them.  Or  they were finished while in the midst of the above referenced chaos.  I started two mysteries and abandoned them.  If they don't grab me fast, I'm not staying.

     I hope you had a good September.

Four Seasons in Rome - Anthony Doerr

I recently read All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.  I thought it was magical, that the writing was luminous, and that the story was wonderful and heartbreaking.  My cousin gave me that book and went on to recommend this one.  She mentioned that much of it was about being the new parents of twins, something with which I have no experience.  I chose a lifestyle without children and have never regretted it.

The day after his wife gave birth to twin boys, Anthony Doerr received an invitation for a year-long fellowship at the American Academy in Rome.  He accepted and they packed up their six-month old twins, time having elapsed, and moved to an apartment in Rome.  Neither of the adults spoke Italian and, of course, the twins hadn't even mastered English.  Brave or insane, I think I know which I think they are.

Through the haze of sleeplessness, Doerr describes stumbling through their first days in Rome.  They need to find the nearest grocers, fruit sellers, bakeries, and learn how to negotiate Roman customs.  You don't stand at the back of the line waiting your turn.  You shoulder your way to the front to call out your order.

Apparently, Italians have a universal love of babies, especially twins.  Old people, children, they all smile, say how beautiful they are, and want to touch the babies.  Despite having the lowest birth rate of all Europe, he says, he's constantly congratulated on having produced twins.

They find a babysitter so they can occasionally go off to explore Rome and Umbria by themselves.  I think we all know how gorgeous the countryside in Italy is, whether from personal experience or movies.  Rome is chaos, but layered by thousands of years of human life.  At times he seems overwhelmed by the ghosts of all the people who have lived where he and his family are living.

If this sounds like the babies are the centerpieces of the book, they are.  Doerr speculates on many aspects of Roman life, how they seem to accept death better than Americans do and, thus, live life more fully, more in the moment.  He finds a set of Pliny's Natural History and reads it during his stay.  Pliny, who I haven't read, seems much like Herodotus, who I have read, with their wild and wise observations.

In the world of coincidences, Doerr was in Rome, living near the Vatican, during Pope John Paul II's last illness and death.  We here in Philadelphia are about to go into literal lockdown mode for the visit of Pope Francis.  Two very different situations, but similar in the adoration and massing of the crowds.

The book is fairly short, about 200 pages.  It's interesting, although his descriptions sometimes seemed inappropriate for this sort of book, a bit over the top, perhaps better for a novel.  And it confirmed that I made the right decision about children!