Another Ghost Story: "Newport" by Jill Morrow

I picked up Newport by Jill Morrow on a whim: it was on sale at a local bookstore, and I could not pass by an opportunity to read a book set locally. The narration alternates between 1921 and 1898, so if you like the Gilded Age or stories set right after WWI, this is a good one to check out. What I did not realize going into this book was that it is another ghost story, which worked out great for October!

The novel starts as Adrian de la Noye, a seasoned attorney from Boston, and a young associate from his law office, arrive in Newport to change a will of a textile magnate Bennett Chapman. Chapman in his 80s decides to marry a woman half his age, and his adult children, understandably, are against any changes in the will that would benefit "the gold-digger". As the drama unravels, new secrets about times long past come to light and at the center of it all is the ghost of the first Mrs. Chapman who is cleverly manipulating the proceedings and pushing things along to the very end.

Newport is an enjoyable and fast-paced read. I was surprised to see that it has pretty mediocre ratings on Goodreads. I personally very much enjoyed it and would read more books in a similar vein. 5 out of 5 stars.  

Spooky Reads: Middle Grade Literature

This October, to get in the mood for Halloween, I read two wonderful middle grade novels that I highly recommend to all young and young-at-heart readers.

The first one is a new release: The City of Ghosts by Victoria Schwab. The main character in this novel is a girl named Cassidy who has the extraordinary ability to cross over into the realm of ghosts and interact with them. I normally do not like ghost stories, but this one was delightful. It is also set in one of my favorite cities in the world, Edinburgh, Scotland. Schwab brilliantly weaves in local history and lore into her narrative, and our heroine and her friends have a wonderful adventure uncovering an ancient evil. I do think this book could be a little too scary for some younger readers, so I would encourage the parents to be aware of that. I also believe that adults would enjoy this book just as much as I did. Five out of five stars.

My second spooky middle grade read was Nightmares! by Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller. The main character in this book is a twelve-year-old boy named Charlie. His mom died when he was nine, and now he, his dad and little brother have moved into a mysterious mansion built by the town's founder and owned by Charlie's new stepmother. Charlie absolutely loathes her, in fact, he calls her his step-monster. He is also tormented by nightmares to the point that he is afraid to go to sleep each night and prefers to stay awake. The story begins to unravel when Charlie realizes that most of his friends are also plagued by nightmares and his own personal nightmare has found a way to cross into the Waking World.

This book was a lot of fun. Not only does it have wonderful illustrations, and fun adventures, it also has a great underlying message about facing one's fears and not allowing them to become so big that they engulf your entire life. Sometimes it is just a matter of looking at your thinking and trying to understand why you feel so scared. Uncovering a fear is a huge step toward getting it under control. I highly recommend this book. In fact, there are two other books in this series, but it also reads very well as a stand-alone. Five out of five stars.

"Medicus" by Ruth Downie

Medicus is another book I read that is set in Roman Britain. The main character - Gaius Petreius Ruso - is a military doctor assigned to the Twentieth Roman Legion stationed in Deva, modern day Chester, England. Ruso is recently divorced and overburdened with family debts. Upon his arrival in Britain, one of the first cases he is presented with is examining the body of a drowned female. No one seems to know who she is until a soldier identifies her as a local barmaid. Ruso is certain the girl had been murdered. But the killer, whoever he was, left no clues, and the legion officials are in no rush to investigate a murder of a local prostitute. A few days later, another girl from the same bar turns up dead. Through a series of circumstances, Ruso gets embroiled in untangling the mystery.

Overall, this was an enjoyable read. The book is filled with humor and I found myself chuckling in several places throughout the book. The mystery is not really anything to write home about. I guessed who the bad guy was pretty early in the book. I am also not certain how historically accurate the book is. The author definitely did her research into Roman-day medicine, attire, etc. There are more books in the series, and I might check them out as well. 4 out of 5 stars.

"The Eagle of the Ninth" by Rosemary Sutcliff

This month I decided to pick up a couple of books about Roman Britain. The first of these is a modern children's classic by Rosemary Sutcliff called The Eagle of the Ninth.  In it, we follow a young centurion Marcus Flavius Aquila, who soon upon arrival in Britain is forced to leave the service due to an injury received in a skirmish with local tribesmen. Marcus has a much more personal connection to Britain than most. His father was a cohort commander of the Ninth Legion which disappeared without a trace during a march to Caledonia (modern day Scotland). During his stay with his uncle, Marcus hears of a rumor that the Eagle born as the standard of the Ninth Legion has been sighted in one of the druid places of worship. Marcus decides to embark on a mission to recover the Eagle and finally learn what happened to the four and half thousand legionnaires who marched under the Eagle of the Ninth.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It does a great job re-creating the atmosphere of the second century Britain. Where it falls a bit short is in character development. In particular, Marcus' slave-turned-friend Esca lacks complexity. As a rule, I do not like the trope of a native becoming a sidekick to a conqueror. I think Esca's motivation to help Marcus could have been explored a bit more. Nonetheless, this was a very enjoyable read, and I will continue with Sutcliff's other novels in the Dolphin Ring Cycle.

"The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle" by Stuart Turton

This book was one wild ride. I saw someone describe it as a cross between Agatha Christie and Downton Abbey. I couldn't agree more. The setting is a long-abandoned estate located deep in the woods and far from any civilization. Lord and Lady Hardcastle host a large party to celebrate the return of their daughter Evelyn who had for many years lived in France. The party is held on an anniversary of their son's death who was murdered at a lake near the estate almost 20 years ago. The same guests who were present at the time of his death, are re-assembled here now. But on the night of the party, the guest of honor Evelyn will die.

Now comes the Agatha-Christie-with-a-twist element of the story: Aiden Bishop has 8 days to solve the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle. He will relive the day of the murder 8 times, and he will do so while inhabiting 8 different guests present at the party. This book is unpredictable, action packed, creepy and unputdownable. Even though I zoomed through certain sections of it, it is quite a chunker at over 500 pages, and took me over a week to read.

If you are someone who likes murder mysteries, I highly recommend this one. It is original, and very well and realistically written. I could not guess who the murderer was, and there are so many twists and turns that you have to hold on to your seat to the very end. 5 out of 5 stars from me. I cannot wait to see what else this author has in store!

I received an e-ARC of this book from NetGalley. The novel will officially come out in the US tomorrow, September 18th, 2018.

Reading Autobiographical Essays: Chabon and Sedaris

I recently discovered a new genre that I enjoy: autobiographical essays. I first ventured into the genre when I picked up David Sedaris' Calypso which came as part of my Book of the Month subscription. This book was delightful. Sedaris reflects on everything from tracking steps on his Fit-Bit to talking to strangers to our inevitable mortality. Some of the essays in this book are laugh-out-loud funny and some tend to be more introspective and melancholy in nature. The stories are interconnected and the same characters re-appear over and over again. So by the end of the book,  you feel like you really got to know Sedaris' family. He makes poignant observations and captures essential details of others' personalities and quirks. I highly recommend this book.

The second essay collection that I just recently finished on an audiobook was Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces by Michael Chabon. The book begins with an account of a conversion Michael Chabon had in his youth with an unnamed famous writer, who advised him not to have kids if he ever wants to be a successful author. Well, Chabon has fathered four children and according to him, was the most prolific in putting out novels while enjoying a happy family life. His essays focus on the lessons he's learned about being a parent, on his relationship with his children and the love he has for his own father and the memories he cherishes of spending time with him now that his dad is no longer here.

I highly recommend both of these books. They are fairly short but pack an impressive punch. I will definitely be reading more from both of these authors. 5 out of 5 stars to both collections.

"Roadside Picnic" by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

If you like sci-fi, you must have heard of the film and video game Stalker. Roadside Picnic was the basis for both. In fact, the Strugatsky brothers also wrote the screenplay for the movie adaption, but lots of things were changed during the filming.

What I find fascinating about this now truly iconic novella is the premise that some sort of aliens pass through our planet and merely stop to have "a roadside picnic". They leave behind a bunch of picnic leftovers (trash) and move on. They don't look to wipe us out or to conquer. We do not make any kind of contact with an alien species. Instead, the earth now has several "zones" where this alien trash wreaks havoc on the environment. Stalkers are basically smugglers, adventurous die-hards who sneak into the zone and carry out alien "swag" that humans then re-purpose for use in everyday life. Some of it is useful (e.g. never-dying batteries), some - we do not understand at all. But ultimately, as one of the characters aptly puts it, we might be just using their microscopes as hammers.

Of course, this being a Russian novel, written in 1970 during the height of the Cold War, there are lots of political and philosophical undercurrents readers will enjoy deciphering. Let's begin with the term the Zone. In the book, this is the area where anomalies are at their strongest and where alien tech can be smuggled from. It is fraught with danger and yet, Stalkers cannot resist its pull. This addiction to getting an adrenaline rush like no other is one reason our main character Red keeps going into the Zone. In Russian, the term Zona (the Zone) is a widely used slang term for prison, or labor camp. Our character keeps going there, risking his life, but also constantly seeking some higher meaning. He asserts in the last chapter that he never sold his soul. You can read this to mean that people get imprisoned for being true to themselves, for standing up for what is right, for not giving up on their principles.

The theme of finding truth in the Zone is particularly palpable in the film. The Zone is the only thing that is in color. Outside of it, the movie is monochrome. The characters look like prisoners with their shorn hair and shapeless clothes. Also, in the film, the three people venturing into the zone are: the smuggler, the writer and the professor. Most Soviet political prisoners were intelligentsia (writers, scientists and other intellectuals), and people re-presenting anti-establishment, i.e. the smugglers, those who distributed western music, banned literature, and other "anti-soviet" merchandise.

Roadside Picnic is also eerily prophetic if you view the Zone as an epicenter of an ecological disaster. When the book was being written, the Chernobyl disaster was still 16 years in the future. But reading the novel, the abandoned city of Chernobyl is what kept coming to my mind, and I did not even know that Chernobyl is prominently featured in the Stalker video games!

Overall, a great piece of Sci-Fi. I highly recommend it. 5 out of 5 stars.