My favorite fantasy read - Owning a bookshop

Jenny Colgan's
The Bookshop on the Corner

Escapist literature is different for every reader and every once in a while you just need to get away from the world and into a good book. Life has been stressful lately - job, a family member with health problems, and the national election season - and I for one just needed to get away from it all. Thanks to the local library I found just the thing in Jenny Colgan's newest The Bookshop on the Corner. Colgan took me to Scotland and introduced me to a wonderful group of townsfolk, and to Nina Redmond a laid-off librarian who found the gumption to become the owner of a traveling bookshop.

Oh I've read lots of books that take place in bookshops and I dream of one day being independently wealthy enough to run one of my own. I know it's not easy running your own business let alone run a bookshop in today's electronic age. But studies show that people still like to read paper books and it might just lead to living longer. And who wouldn't want to tap into that.

I think this fantasy of mine may have started with reading Carolyn G. Hart's Death on Demand series where her protagonist inherits her uncle's bookstore. Other mystery based stories by Lorna Barrett's  set in a fictious Southern New Hampshire town, which based on the geographic clues isn't all that far from where I live, continue to feed my fantasies. As long as there are authors willing to write stories about bookstores, I will be willing to read them.

In search of a good read links:
Cozy mysteries set in bookstores

A Charming Read

Phaedra Patrick's
The Curious Charms of
Arthur Pepper 

After I lost my father I found that I was drawn to reading books about widows perhaps it was my way of understanding what my mother's new life must be like or even what my life would be if I lost my husband. Just over six months ago we lost my mother-in-law and the roles are reversed, I'm observing what the loss of a wife means to her husband. What would life be like for my husband if I go before him? Phaedra Patrick's The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper is one such story that gives such an example.

The story opens on the one year anniversary of Miriam Pepper's death and her husband Arthur has decided today's the day to clear out her clothes. In the year since her death, Arthur has gone about living a very regimented life, life as Miriam lived while dodging the helpful concern of fellow widow and neighbor Bernadette, and missing his two grown children. When he discovers a heart shaped box hidden in one of Miriam's boots he uses his locksmith talents to open the lock and discovers a charm bracelet within one that he doesn't remember his wife ever wearing. Why is it hidden away like this? What can it mean? One of the charms, a small elephant, even has a telephone number inscribed on it. Curiosity pushes Arthur to call the number and so begins his journey to learning about who his wife was before he married her. I'll cut to the chase, the real result is Arthur's journey to discovering who he is now.

Back cover quote - funny thing
I've now read all these titles. 

"But not once had his wife made him feel like he wasn't good enough. He was doing that to himself" (Patrick 132). This quote struck right to my heart as the struggle I've been living with all my life. I've always thought that people were judging me, and perhaps they were, but maybe not in the way I thought they were. I've managed to do that for myself and harshly at times. Lesson number one for Arthur, and for me, is to stop doing that to ourselves. The cliche that we need to love ourselves before we can love others is at work again here.

Arthur revisits a seaside vacation spot and discovers a small crab in a tidal pool, "Perhaps I've been stuck in a rock pool too, he thought. I need to be in the sea, even if it's scary and unknown. If I don't do it, then I will shrivel and die" (Patric 287) What really needs to happen for any of us is to heal our hurts in order to open ourselves up to the next great thing that life has to offer us. It takes courage to put ourselves out there in the world. Arthur realizes his desire to expand his horizons. This journey has taken him away from home, introduced him to new people, pushed him out of his comfort zone, and shown him a different side of his wife - a part of her life she wanted to hide from him - "I have to trust that you did it for the right reasons. And I'm still alive. I wish you were, too, but you're not. And I want to live even though it hurts. I don't want to be a dried-up crab" (Patrick 288). And that is so what I want for my husband should I go first - I want him to live.

Patrick, Phaedra. The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper. United States: Mira Books, 2016. Print.

A Mystic, CT Beach Read

  Mystic River Bascue Bridge
at dusk

Growing up in central Connecticut, Mystic was a town that we visited often on our way to the Rhode Island beaches or to travel on my uncle's boat, which he kept at one of the boat yards on the Mystic River. The Seaport and Aquarium were destinations for school field trips and when my children came along family vacations. So when I saw Hannah McKinnon's Mystic Summer on the summer reads display table at the bookstore I simply had to pick it up and read the back cover details. There I discovered that the main character, Maggie Griffin, is a school teacher like myself  with the summer vacation ahead of her. Sounded right up my alley so I purchased it.

In the opening pages, Maggie is in one of those difficult teacher-parent meetings that only those of us in the profession can appreciate - it's with one of those sets of parents. On the whole I would say that 99.9% of parents are wonderful people to work with but let's face it when our child is at the heart of the matter sometimes our sensibilities go out of the window. I feel for those parents, I really do, but they need to face reality sometimes - their child isn't that bright, or that talented, or has lied about doing their homework, or in the effort to please their parents has cheated in order to get the A. It is one of the downsides of the job, and so too is budget time and Maggie is the victim of cuts. Now her summer vacation is a permanent one.

She takes off from Boston (another location which I'm am very familiar with now do to my son's choice of college and my mother's cancer treatments), to return home for an extended visit with her family and an opportunity to rethink her next move in life. It's not only her job, but her living arrangements (roommate is getting married), and her love life (sexy, actor boyfriend) that need sorting through. It comes as no surprise to readers of this particular genre that of course the wonderful boyfriend isn't quite the right fit and when Maggie runs into her old high school/college flame that old feelings are rekindled. I'll leave the ins and outs of the rest of the story for you to read.

What I liked best was reading a story set in a location that I knew well. I could picture the Main Street of Mystic, the Seaport, the shops, the Crystal Mall, Watch Hill, the Ocean House, and the list goes on. They were familiar and comforting for didn't I want to revisit the town only last summer for a few days of vacation with my husband. We stayed in a cute cottage on the banks of the Pawcatuk River well situated between Mystic and Westerly, RI. The picture above was taken from our dining spot on the patio of the S&P Oyster House as we watched dinghies travel below the bridge and when larger vessels came the drawbridge would open backing up traffic - cars and pedestrian.

This story turned out to be a nice romance, girl figures out the next phase of her life story, and travel book all rolled up into one. As with many novels that I've read, I hope to one day visit the locations that the story is set in. Having visited this location many of times, I would recommend it as a lovely place to vacation and enjoy a good beach read.

Two ways to learn more about Asperger's

Over the years I've worked with several students who have been on the Autism spectrum, and looking back to my childhood before society's growing understanding of Autism, I'm sure I encountered people with this condition. John Elder Robison describes in his memoir Look me in the eye  about growing up in time when being different resulted in his being mis-labeled as a deviant, being told by his teachers and parents that he wouldn't amount to much, and bullied by classmates. It didn't help that his parents themselves struggled with alcoholism and mental illness. In the end John Elder, as his family called him, left school and home at an early age. Luckily, for him, he had a talent, a gift, some would even say a genius for electronics and that saved him.

It was the late 60s early 70s and John Elder began to hang out on the local music scene where he brought his talents to bear in repairing and enhancing sound systems. As his knowledge grew so did his reputation. He eventually became an employee of the rock band KISS developing trick guitars and effects. Wishing to settle down and get married, he walked away from the music industry and went to work in manufacturing as an electronics developer. All the while he continued to struggle with feeling different and trying to deal with interactions with other people.

Finally a friend suggested that he may in fact have something called Asperger's. Reading up on the subject John Elder came to see that there was a name for what he experienced in his life, and that there were older people like him. Over the years and with the birth of his son he learned how to adapt his behavior to what we consider more socially acceptable. The powerful lesson here is for the reader, Robison vividly explains how his mind works. It is only through sharing our inner workings that we can learn about others. There have been many times I've sat and wondered how other people think, do they see what I see, do they hear what I hear, or do they feel the same sensations as I do? Robison has become a successful businessman, husband, father, author, and now advocate for Aspergerians. We all need to learn about Autism and how it impacts the lives of those with the disorder and the people who love them.

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion is a novel featuring a character who doesn't even know he has Asperger's. Don Tillman is a professor of genetics who lives a very regimented life - practical clothes, planned menu for every day of the week, and times everything in his daily schedule for optimal efficiency. At the beginning of the book he is asked to fill in at a lecture to a group of children and their families about Asperger's so that his philandering friend Gene can cheat on his wife - well they do supposedly have an open marriage. Don does some research, gives the talk, relates with the children, but angers the parents and the woman who had organized the lecture, all not seeing that he himself is undiagnosed with Asperger's.

Don gets the brilliant idea to create a questionnaire in order to find a wife. Gene wanting to throw a spoke in Don's wheel sends him Rosie a woman who definitely will not fill Don's requirements for a wife. The rest of the story as you may guess is the growing friendship and eventual love between Don and Rosie with many ups and downs along the way. Don learns how to deal with one of the greatest challenges for people with Asperger's - how to deal with people when you can't interpret the social cues of facial expressions, body language or spoken figurative language. All these things don't make sense in Don's mind and here again is the lesson for the reader - not everyone's brain works the same. We can't expect everyone to behave the same for none of us is the same. We are not all programed the same way for we are not factory made, we are the result of a lot of chemical reactions which don't always work the same. Doesn't make one of us better than the other - just different and our world would be a much better place if we all could understand this and embrace the differences.

New Installments in Favorite Series

More reads from
Martin Walker and James Runcie

It's always a thrill when one of your favorite authors has put out a new work especially one in a series where you can follow the development of a set of characters. However, there can be a sense of awkwardness when you come into the middle of the character's story line, which I have on more than one occasion, and the author alludes to previous adventures and you have no clue what that means to the character. Then again it does give you the opportunity to search out the earlier titles and catch up on what you've missed, for example I did that with Elly Griffith's Dr. Ruth Galloway series. The only other problem I have experienced with a book series has been that sometimes the author becomes to formulaic and the stories lose their attraction, most notably for me, Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books. Thankfully, Martin Walker and James Runcie have come through once more.

The Grantchester Mysteries feature now Archdeacon Sidney Chambers as amateur sleuth and Anglican priest. In this newest installment, Sidney Chambers and the Dangers of Temptation,  the 1960s are drawing to a close and world events are drawing Sidney, his family and friends, and society into a new era. As with the earlier books, Sidney is struggling to balance his pastoral duties with his curiosity with crime and assisting his friend Detective Keating with his cases, add to that the pressures of marriage and fatherhood and now you have a character who is forever evolving and never growing boring.

Reading a story that takes place around the time I was a small child gives me a glimpse of what the world was like as I cannot remember those events for I was not yet three when the men walked on the moon. Most notably in this installment of the series, for me at least, was the episode dealing with homosexuality and the legal system in England. In earlier books, Sidney's curate Leonard, is portrayed as struggling with his sexuality, but in this book he has finally met the right person and has fallen in love. Unfortunately, even though homosexuality is no longer a punishable offense, the Church of England hasn't come to grips with the issue nor have many people in society. Leonard is faced with the difficult decision to come out when faced with blackmail. Sidney in his ever caring and thoughtful way gives support to Leonard and instructs the reader about the capacity of God's love. I won't spoil the outcome for you, only know that we are finally making strides today to be inclusive of all.

In contrast, Bruno Courreges, lives very much in our present time, but history has a way of impacting life and one can't always out run its influence. The Children Return focuses on a young autistic man, Sami, from Bruno's village who had disappeared from a local Mosque school and surfaces in Afghanistan. In spite of his disability, or rather as a result of his unique gifts, Sami is in fact a notorious bomb maker wanted by many governments for the deaths of many military personnel. As the book unfolds we are told of the brutality Sami witnessed and suffered in his home country of Algeria and of the impact that the violent struggle that occurred when fighting for independence from France had on him and others. Martin has explored this issue in other books as well.  Now as an adult, Sami has been used by others in their violent struggles. Here too I will not spoil the outcome of the story for you, only to say that terrorists are not born they are made. Children who are witness to brutality or suffer from bullying or abuse will have their personalities altered by the experience and some may grow up to be abusers themselves either on a small scale in their own circle or on a larger world level.

The Buried Giant

What is it that we keep buried deep within our memories? That is the only one of the themes that The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro explores. In this tale of medieval England, an elderly couple witness a malaise among their villagers, something they call 'the Mist,' which robs people of their memories. It results in strange behaviors and ideas among the people, but it isn't just their village that suffers from the Mist, but the entire countryside. The couple set off on a journey to visit their son and on the way encounter other travelers who are seeking a solution to the Mist problem said to be a result of the breath of an aging she-dragon.

There is more than just the Mist that is a problem for our elderly couple, the wife is suffering from a pain and along the way they stop to consult those who are skilled in the healing arts. The husband, Axl, is clearly worried by his wife's ailment, but with the Mist he doesn't see it for what it is. She has hidden her symptoms from him not wishing to worry him. They encounter a group of widows who warn them of the boatmen who would transport them to a distant island, but only after being submitted to interrogation regarding their memories. Only those who really love each other deeply can be together on the island while others are left to wander its shores alone.

Some argue that perhaps fixing the Mist problem wouldn't be such a good thing. Aren't they happy to forget the past, "Yet the mist covers all memories, the bad as well as the good....You've no fear then, of bad memories, mistress?" (Ishiguro 157). To which Beatrice replies, "What's to fear father? What Axl and I feel today in our hearts for each other tells us the path taken here can hold no danger for us, no matter that the mist hides it now. It's like a tale with a happy end, when even a child knows not to fear the twists and turns before. Axl and I would remember our life together, whatever its shape, for it's been a thing dear to us" (Ishiguro 157).

As they travel, their memories do begin to return - the good and the bad. For their marriage hasn't always been good, there has been unfaithfulness, which has been forgiven. Harsh words spoken. The son they seek to visit is in fact dead and buried. And the pain that Beatrice suffers is in fact a sign of a deeper illness buried dead within.

Eventually, Axl and Beatrice encounter the boatman and he speaks with both asking them about their most treasured memories. Each tells of the good and the bad for each are treasured, each type has contributed to their great love for one another. As they climb into the boat, Axl is told there is only room for one passenger and he cannot travel. It is an ache to read of his pleading to be allowed to come, his refusal to be parted from his wife. Yet in the end he has no choice. None of us do when death comes for those we love.

As I read, I tried to figure out what Ishiguro meant by the 'Mist.' Was it tied into society's dependence on escape from experiencing the good and the bad by distraction with technology or worse the use and abuse of drugs and alcohol. Having recently listened to a young man recovering from a heroin addiction, the depiction of the 'Mist' reminded me of his words about how the drug wrapped him in a blanket blocking out the world and his only desire when he came to was to figure out a way to get back to that state. In our communities today the opiate abuse issue is one of great concern, and I don't understand why anyone would be driven to using such a terrible thing to escape from life.

What else could Ishiguro have meant by the 'Mist?' Perhaps I should take it very literally and that as we age we lose our memories. Watching my love ones age and their personalities and memories erased by dementia is heartbreaking. Disease like cancer can alter brain chemistry and result in personality changes that I witnessed in my father's last days. Friends and neighbors share painful stories of caring for loved ones with Alzheimer's, and I've witnessed what happens to the victims of this disease when I visited my grandmother who spent her last years in the memory care ward of a nursing home.

The 'Mist' could mean many different things to different readers. Most importantly for me was the message that there are those that seek to fight the Mist. The importance of holding on to both the good and the bad memories and that one must have both to have a rich full life. That perseverance is a treasured value in helping to achieve a well lived life.

Summertime and the reading is easy ....

Vanessa Greene's
The Seafront Tearoom

For all my fellow school teachers - rejoice for summer is here! Time for relaxation and getting all the jobs we've put off doing all school year like painting the bathroom, cleaning the basement, making appointments with doctors or dentists, etc. etc. etc. Unfortunately I set myself up for failure and disappointment when faced with the arm's length list for summer chores so I've learned to take each day as it comes and do some little task. Keep the expectations low and you will be pleasantly pleased when you achieve even more.

So far I've spent my first two days of summer vacation tidying up around the house, doing laundry, working in the garden and ferrying a parent to a doctor's appointment. Oh yes - and reading. At first I couldn't settle down with a title - should it be something improving? Work related? Emotional? No - it should be something light and fun and summery. My second experience with Vanessa Greene's tea themed novels,  The Seafront Tearoom, delivered just what I needed. It is a story about women with challenges in their life that had to be faced. Women who needed to decide in which direction did they want their lives to go in. Women who needed companionship and found it in making new friends over a cup of tea.

Greene has presented me with several good themes to ponder at a time of transition in my own life. The end of the school year is always a challenging transition; grateful to have completed a year, a bit run down, a bit disenchanted, even managing to begin planning for the next school year, in much need of a break to regroup. I'm not going to go into a diatribe regarding the misunderstood challenges of teaching here, but I do want to say that between the stresses of a job and home life, regardless of what you do, a break is necessary to recharge the batteries before picking up the daily battle once more. Isn't it lovely that reading can be the conduit for that? Even just a couple of pages a day can bring respite. I'm so amazed when colleagues say they don't have time to read during the school year. I would simply die if I didn't make some time, even 15 minutes, for some personal reading every day. Reading is what helps to keep me sane. My advice - brew a cup a tea and sit with a fun book!

Where do the French go?

In continuing to read stories and memoirs where our hero or heroine picks up their lives and moves somewhere else, which I think I'll call the Peter Mayle effect, I've begun to wonder what this is telling me.  I don't have to wonder, I know - I'd like my life to be different than it is right now. Thankfully I find escape in books and not drugs; the habit is cheaper and doesn't ruin my body or my relationships. But where would I want to go? My last post was by a Canadian woman who moved to Paris via California (Paris Letters) and my newest read is another Brit (like Peter Mayle) who moves to the Poitou-Charentes region of France - Tout Sweet by Karen Wheeler.

I think countries like France and Italy have come up with a great way to get their old run down cottages, farms, and villas renovated and boost local employment of handy men/women - get some foreigner to come in with dreams of bucolic village life, and spend a lot of money trying to achieve it.  Don't get me too wrong here, I think restoring existing buildings is wonderful. I hate seeing the clearing of land followed by brand new construction when there are abandoned properties waiting to be reused. I often wonder why some of these places aren't being used - taxes? death? squabbling families and inheritance? In Tout Sweet and The French House (see post here), the in-comer buys a home that is more hovel than habitable: no plumbing or heating, roofs that need major repairs, flooring that must be put down, walls redone and the list goes on. But they are in love with the idea of what life will be like when everything is done, and because it has turned out well they've successfully pitched the book idea to some publisher.

So where do the French go when they want to start over? I certainly haven't read any of those memoirs, or perhaps they are only available in France. Or is it a mind set of Americans or Britons who need to escape? Are the French all happy just where they are or have they found the secret to living a contented life? As for me, I know that running away from home isn't going to be my solution. Learning to be content with where I am is the challenging lesson for the day.

How much money will it take ....

Paris Letters -
Janice MacLeod and
Cafe tea pot

I was drawn to Janice MacLeod's Paris Letters simply by the first line of the back cover blurb, "How much money does it take to quit your job?" Excellent question! In her case not as much as she thought, but her plan was to take a break for a year and rethink her career plans - I want to retire. I want to be done with working altogether. I'm still a bit young for retirement as I can't start drawing on the IRA monies for at least another ten years.

MacLeod did what many of us dream of, quit the job and go off to explore the world. She ended up in Paris. It seems everyone wants to run off to Europe to end up in Paris, or Provence, or Florence. To have a little apartment or reclaim a farm house and plant a garden. It all sounds so wonderful and I'm grateful to the numerous people who have done it and written about their experiences, but deep down I know it isn't what I want. I want a quiet little place on a lake or a lazy river where I can sit and watch the water flow, hear it lap against the bank, see sun or moonlight sparkle upon it. To set out in my kayak and paddle early in the morning or late in the afternoon as the sun sets. That's what I dream about. Now how much money do I need to make this dream a reality?

Money isn't really the object here, it's the belief that I can make this a reality that is at the heart of the matter here. I need to believe that I can have this dream. MacLeod wrote a lot about her 'old life' of being a copywriter and that it was her dream job but that she had come to dislike it. The dream hadn't turned out to be what she expected. She had been living a life that wasn't authentic. She began to strip things away until her possessions fit in a suitcase and took to the road. At some point she finally gave up one last reminder of her previous life and it was then that "I forgave myself for my prior judgements of not being good enough to be just who I was" (107). There it was - the truth - my truth. My constant daily struggle to be okay in myself no matter where I am. Quitting my job and going halfway around the world will not solve my problems. Accepting who I am is the only solution and discovering what it is that makes me happy and doing it is what's most important now. Everyone wants to travel to see Paris, but deep down in my heart I know it isn't for me. And that's okay. Step one - stop living someone else's dream.

"Write to learn what you know.... First and most obviously was that I had all the inner resources I needed to effectively deal with my situations" (240). Paraphrasing that - I read to learn what I know, and she's absolutely right, I do have the inner resources to deal with my life. I've been learning as I have managed to get through every challenge I have faced in my life. I've simply not given myself credit for the inner strength because I've been waiting for someone else to point it out to me. It's just not going to happen that way. The only person that can pat me on the back for all the hard work I've done is me. With that knowledge, I can begin to plot, plan, and save for rescuing myself from the life I thought I wanted and start living the life I really want. You can too!!

MacLeod, Janice. Paris Letters. Naperville, Illinois: Sourcebooks, 2014.

Curious Stories - Yann Martel

The newest novel from
Yann Martel

I remember when I finally sat down to read The Life of Pi and found myself completely sucked into the story. I was out there in the lifeboat with Pi and that tiger. The daily struggle to problem solve: filter water, catch food to feed himself and the tiger, how to overcome the fear and continue to fight the good fight for survival. The story telling was engaging, I had to keep reading until it was finished. DON'T BOTHER ME I'M READING! was my attitude.

I started The High Mountains of Portugal and once again I was enveloped in the book. This time Martel has written three distinct stories (Homeless, Homeward, and Home) that are intertwined with each other. In each is a man struggling with grief and the ones who love him may have good intentions in assisting, but they must find their own way. It is the theme of journeying to find themselves and their place, their home in the world after the loss of a loved one whether it be lover, wife, child, or parent.

Martel reflected on the importance of story telling in this novel. In the first story there is an old journal written by a priest, which plays a key role. The second is the passionate reading of Agatha Christie novels by husband and wife - something shared in their married life. The last story switches from reading (although there is some) to journaling. In the second story, there is a discussion of faith, of Christianity in particular. "A story calls upon us as God calls upon us, as individuals - and we like that. Stories benefit the human mind" (Martel 155). How profound I thought, how stories help to nourish our souls and that transcends religion and enters the realm of true faith something unique to humanity. Every culture has its stories and it is that which makes us who we are. Each one of us is a story unfolding, and when we were are gone, hopefully, there will be someone to share our story with others.

Using "Big Magic" to get beyond the fear

Most of us know our character flaws. Some are hidden well and take years to find, acknowledge and finally address. Mine is fear. There! San't be too afraid if I announce it to the entire world, but still I haven't come to grips with it. It doesn't drive my life like it used to, thankfully. When fear was in charge nothing happened. I was paralyzed. I kept doing, but I did what I thought everyone else wanted me to do. That's what fear did to me - it blinded me.

I just finished Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear and found it inspiring. Now as a famous writer, she admits to getting lots of fans who tell her how wonderful Eat Pray Love was, and many people have criticized it; I couldn't get through myself (can't tell you why, but there it is) so I can't give an honest opinion but by what she wrote in this book she's perfectly okay with that. That to me is a great lesson; not everyone is going to like everything I do or write, and that shouldn't keep me from doing and writing. The fear of people not liking me or my work kept me from even starting and that allowed fear to stay right where it wanted to be - in charge.

It's that perfectionism streak that does me in, and here's Elizabeth's advice on that: "You must learn how to become a deeply disciplined half-ass. It starts by forgetting about perfect. We don't have time for perfect. In any event, perfection is unachievable" (166). I love that. Someone has given me permission to be a half-ass, which is better than being a no-ass, which is what I was if I allowed perfectionism to prevent me from getting started. Being a half-ass is progress in my book.

Gilbert has peppered her work with many anecdotes and here is one of my favorites. A 70 year old woman told her, "We all spend our twenties and thirties trying so hard to be perfect, because we're so worried about what people will think of us. Then we get into our forties and fifties, and we finally start to be free, because we decide that we don't give a damn what anyone thinks of us" (174). That's where I stand now on the cusp of 50 and I've finally figured out that I just need to be me whether or not anyone else likes that. I've spent way too much time trying to be someone I thought I should be.

Her book is an eloquent pep talk for all those who strive to live a creative life. Creativity comes in so many forms and whether or not I ever achieve fame and fortune, I've learned that I need to live this way. Hiding my creative side was not helping me to be a happy person.  I'm happier and calmer when I'm following a creative pursuit like writing, or drawing, or decorating the house, or working in my garden, or knitting, or... or... or...  There are so many ways that I enjoy being creative and the challenge is that I only get 24 hours a day, which means I better get to work.

Gilbert, Elizabeth. Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. New York: Riverhead Books, 2015.

Where have I seen this before? #2

Constable on the wall of the
Boston MFA

In my first in the series "Where have I seen this before?" I wrote about mystery plots that had similar plots, that of murder within a group of tourists. Earlier this week I was visiting the Boston MFA, and while walking through the European Art gallery (2nd floor) I spied John Constable on the wall and thought instantly of Ngaio Marsh's Clutch of Constables that I had written about. Pondering the painting more I thought of all the novels I've read that have focused on art as their subject matter, and realized I could compose several blog posts for this series, but I'll start today with just one topic to focus on - smart, talented, young girl used by older guy.

The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro tells the story of Claire Roth a fine arts graduate student who has fallen in love with her married painting professor and engages in a sexual relationship with him. Isaac Cullion is a modern abstract painter with a case of undiagnosed mental illness (bi-polar?) who has lost his groove, flow, muse, inspiration - you choose what to call it. Claire makes the mistake of trying to egg him on to create a piece of art for an exhibition by telling him they will do it together. She starts the canvas, he directs by instructing her how to use his techniques. A work of art is produced and Cullion signs his name. The critics come to view and are astounded. The MOMA acquires the painting and proudly displays it. Cullion says nothing, accepts the accolades, and then returns to his wife. Claire decides to speak up for her work, but only manages to turn the art world against her - she's the spurned mistress trying to get hers back on her lover.

Several years later, Aiden Markel, owner of a prestigious Boston art gallery comes looking for Claire.  Claire has been making a living working for a firm that specializes in making reproductions of famous paintings, let's be clear they are not being sold as the real thing. Claire it turns out is very good at her job. Markel brings her one of the stolen art works from the infamous Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum robbery for her to forge. His plan is to sell the forgery to a buyer and get the real thing back onto the museum wall. I'll let you imagine how well this will work out for Claire. Sorry no spoilers today.

Amy Gail Hansen chooses a different art form that of writing for her novel The Butterfly Sister. Ruby Rousseau a senior at a fictitious all girls college on the banks of one of the Great Lakes, makes the mistake of starting a romantic relationship with her married professor, the one who will be grading her senior essay. The first sign that things aren't going well is that her notes mysteriously disappear around the time that Ruby's lover admits to sharing some of her ideas in a talk he'd given at a conference (the one he didn't or wouldn't let her attend with him). Must keep our relationship a secret is his excuse. As the semester goes on, the professor starts to grow cool while Ruby works long hours on her thesis. The big day comes - he gives her a D on the paper, she finds him in bed with another woman, and driven to the brink she attempts suicide.

Ruby has withdrawn from school and is working on putting her life back together when she receives the suitcase of a missing fellow student. Looking through its contents she spies a clue that she holds onto before turning the suitcase over to the police who are looking for the missing girl. Ruby begins piecing together the facts that her beloved professor, for she's still stuck on him, is in fact a serial user of students both sexually and for their work. That's right, the man has stolen her brilliant senior thesis and published it as his own work. And she's not the first he has done this to. Read on for I will give no spoiler here today.

Point is both these novels deal with young women who trust the wrong man when it comes their creativity. The men use their work for their own gains whether it be for money, prestige, or job security. Both women never saw it coming that the men that they loved would steal their creations and pass them off as their own. Plagiarism is a huge crime on the intellectual level, but these men also committed the crime of psychological and emotional abuse by using a sexual relationship to get what they wanted. Both women were immature when it comes to relationships and they gave themselves whole-heartedly to these men. Their hearts were abused, as well as, their minds leaving them with the task of learning to trust again and hopefully to love again. But more importantly having the confidence to create again.

Hansen, Amy Gail. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2013. Print
Shapiro, B.A. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2012. Print.

Coffee and books - the elixirs of Life

How Starbucks Saved my Life
Michael Gates Gill

Picked up a memoir to read over my February break from school, Michael Gates Gill's How Starbucks Saved My Life: A son of privilege learns to live like everyone else.  Now first of all I must be honest, as a New Englander, if I buy coffee out (Yankee thrift means I brew my own at home) I tend to prefer Dunkin Doughnuts to Starbucks. There I said it. I'm sure that will lead to lots of controversy. Point is I don't think you have to be a coffee drinker to appreciate the lessons that Gill learned and shared in his honest account of putting together his life after being fired from his long-time, high flying, well paid job as an advertising executive; divorce from his wife of many years with whom he had four children, and fathering of a fifth child with a woman he'd had an affair with, which contributed to his divorce. Alone and broke he found himself in his local Starbucks being asked by a young African American woman if he was looking for a job. His answer was simple - yes.

Gill was the son of wealthy, well-connected parents. His memoir is sprinkled with names of the famous people he met through his parents, as well as, the people he met in his own professional life after having attended the right school (Yale) and getting the right job (hired by another alumnus). But it didn't matter who he knew on the day he realized that he'd really screwed up his life because those people were no longer able to offer him the assistance he most needed - a job. Now he was a man who needed income and health insurance benefits, especially after learning that he had a rare tumor that was impacting his hearing. So he started his new job at the bottom. Afraid of screwing up he accepted cleaning chores and found them to be concrete tasks that he felt confident of being able to successfully complete. His manager worked him slowly up the task that he feared the most - waiting on customers and running the cash register. Eventually he would find a niche serving as a coffee ambassador and to the most challenging of all - making of the espresso drinks.

With each new hurdle, Gill shared a memory about a similar challenge in his earlier life, or more like seeing the situation from the side he'd previously been on. Now he was the student,  the minority,  the employee, or the invisible. I read how he learned so many of life's many painful lessons late in life and how had he been open to these lessons earlier in his life how different it would have been. Lessons in how to be a better husband, father, mentor, or member of society.

Sometimes we need to lose everything in order to start fresh and learn a new way of living. Many a recovering addict (insert addiction type here) will tell you that they had to hit bottom before they could take on Step 1 (admitted I was powerless and my life was unmanageable) and start the long road back to sanity. But there are others who say that you can start changing your life no matter where you are on the road. Reading this memoir was a reminder that I don't need to wait for the bad times for me to tackle change in my life. Change can happen any time as long as we are open to the signs, the lessons, the teachers, and the desire.

Where have I seen this before? - #1

Sometimes we all need a little refresher in how to do something that we do constantly and take for granted in this case - reading. Thomas C. Foster's How to Read Literature Like a Professor was sitting on our bookshelf from the time I purchased it for my daughter to use in her first AP Literature course as a junior in high school (now a senior in college?!!), just tempting me to pick it up and peruse its chapters. Several chapters were devoted to the sources from which authors draw inspiration for characters, themes, symbols, plot devices, and more. Of course I knew that authors do that all the time, but it made me pause to think about the current stories that I was drawn into.

I've written before about the joys of audiobooks as the ultimate in hands free reading. Talk about multitasking: reading while driving, reading while walking, reading while doing housework, and reading while knitting. What could be better? So I found a title among the many on the library's website, downloaded it and proceeded to "read." Katherine Hall Page's amateur sleuth, Faith Fairchild, a resident of a fictional Massachusetts town, which based on all the setting clues is located not to far from where I live, was on vacation in Italy with her husband. (The Body in the Piazza) Arriving in Rome they meet a charming British travel writer who shortly gets murdered in front of their very eyes. After giving the police their statements the Fairchilds figure that the authorities will take over and solve the case so they move on to their next stop a cooking class held at the Tuscan villa of their old friends. There they meet their fellow culinary students and all is not as it seems.

Now where have I seen this before? Ah-ha! Ngaio Marsh one of the Grand Dames of British Crime writing has used this one before. In When in Rome, she plants her multilingual, sophisticated inspector from the CID, Roderick Alleyn amend a group of tourists. He is hot on the trail of a drug dealer who ends up the murdered corpse. Not all of the members of the tourist group are who they seem to be. Oh there is the innocent traveler mixed in with the drug users and victims of the murdered man's blackmailing schemes, but who among them is the killer?

She used the device again in A Clutch of Constables, this time planting Troy Alleyn the inspector's wife in the role of amateur sleuth and innocent traveler among a group of tourists who are not who they claim to be. This time it is Troy who gathers clues and impressions of her fellow travelers trying to figure out who might be the killer. Luckily, her husband comes to assist in identifying the killer before an innocent traveller is falsely accused of murder.

Agatha Christie also placed her famous detectives on holiday among people with murder in their hearts. I can think of Miss Marple resting up on an warm tropical island after a bout with illness in A Caribbean Mystery and Hercule Poirot vacationing in Egypt cruising along in Death on the Nile. The more I sit and think about it, I find that  I could name many other titles where a group of tourists are under the suspicions of the police or super sleuth for having committed murder. It is certainly a favorite plot device of authors and of this reader.