Someday, Someday Maybe, by Lauren Graham

This was an entertaining, engaging, well done novel. Lauren Graham is a well-known actress, but obviously has other talent.

The novel is a first-person account of a young woman in New York City trying to find work as an actress. It's written with humor as well as down-to-earth realism, but is not sentimental or overly cute. Characters were well-drawn and believable. I read this book quickly and enjoyed it thoroughly.

Here's a review from the Washington Post.

Memory Loss -- a couple of books to read, maybe....

This review is about two books that deal with memory loss.

Find Me, by Laura Van den Berg, is a novel. I haven't read Van den Berg before, as I recall. The review mentions a short-story collection written before this novel, Isle of Youth, that sounds worth reading as well.

I have read one book by Kazuo Ishiguro, and attempted another. This review announces the publication of The Buried Giant, by Mr. Ishiguro. The book that I read, and greatly enjoyed, was Remains of the Day. I don't think that book appears in this journal, I think I read it before I started this project. The book that I attempted was The Unconsoled.  A copy of this sits on a shelf at home. Every time I see it I wonder if I should try it again. Previous forays have been unsuccessful.

Hmm. This just in (4 March 2015). I noticed a Tweet from NPR Books about  The Buried Giant, which doesn't make it sound tempting. "Lost in its own fog" kinda reminds me of how I felt about The Unconsoled.  Some day maybe we should have a talk about who reads certain books. Here's the NPR Books Review.

The Guardian's list of 100 Greatest Novels

The Guardian has posted a list of "The 100 greatest novels of all time." Of these, I have read, think maybe I've read, or attempted to read 38 of them. To wit:

A= attempted; R=read; ?=I'm not sure but I may have read, or attempted this

T=thanks to my high school education; *=one of my favorite books ever

Don Quixote A
Robinson Crusoe R
Gulliver's Travels R -- my elementary school library had a really beautiful edition of this, as I recall, with illustrations, such as one of Gulliver tied down by the Lilliputians.
Tom Jones R
Frankenstein R*
David Copperfield R
Jane Eyre R
Scarlet Letter RT
Moby Dick A
Alice in Wonderland R*
The Brothers of Karamazov A
Huckleberry Finn A*
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde R
The Picture of Dorian Gray R
Jude the Obscure R
Call of the Wild ?
The Wind in the Willows R*
Ulysses R
The Trial A
Brave New World R* "a gram is better than a damn"
The Big Sleep R*
The Plague RT
Nineteen Eighty-Four R* "war is peace"
Catcher in the Rye RT--I recently re-read this, and it didn't really hold up.
Lord of the Rings R
Lord of the Flies RT
The Quiet American -- I think I only saw the movie made from this. Really should read it. Greene is always delightful.
On the Road R*--Capote said it wasn't writing, but typing, but I loved it when I read it.
Lolita R
To Kill a Mockingbird R*T--I always felt I wanted to see more from Harper Lee, but she felt that she had written all she needed to.
Catch 22 R
Herzog ?
One Hundred Years of Solitude A
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy R*--and the miniseries at least twice, and the recent movie.
Song of Solomon R
The BFG ?--not sure, but I have definitely read "The Twits."
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting ?
LA Confidential R

The Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes

Alfred A. Knopf 2011

An electronic book, from the Pierce County Library.

An unusual story, narrated by a character named Tony Webster. It begins when he is an adolescent, becomes friends with a young man named Adrian, and falls in love with a young woman named Veronica. The story is told from Tony's old age. He is retired, perhaps seventy years old. He tells how he fell out with Veronica, who went on to form a partnership with Adrian, which he very much resented.

This is a story about consequences, remorse, and regret, but it is not a depressing novel.

Life does not reward merit, Tony Webster tells us.

Flight Behavior, by Barbara Kingsolver

Dellarobia, at the beginning of this novel, heads up into the hills near her home to meet a lover. She is, instead, waylaid by the sight of thousands, if not millions, of monarch butterflies clinging to the trees. She returns to her home and family, and her life is changed.

This book has feminism, environmentalism, religion, the people and culture of Appalachia, the nature of families, and the love of parents for their children.

It may have been a tad too simple, a bit maudlin, but mostly I enjoyed it.

Moonlight Mile, by Dennis Lehane

Robert B. Parker has left us, and, by implication, so has Spenser; but Dennis Lehane has given us a new Bostonian. Patrick Kenzie is not Spenser, Angela Gennaro is not Susan, and Bubba is not Hawk, but there are parallels. The differences are somehow endearing, though, and more interesting.

Kenzie doesn't like guns, and if I'm not mistaken doesn't fire one in this entire novel. He is more likely to be hurt than to hurt anyone. We are not told that Angela is beautiful or perfect, but that Patrick and Angela are very much in love, with each other, and with their four-year-old, Gabby. Bubba is probably the closest to his Parker shadow, a more or less omnipotent force or trump card with fierce and uncompromising loyalty to his friends.

We are brought into a complicated story that involves incompetent parenting, kidnapping, teenage pregnancy, mobsters from the former Soviet Union, and a bit of priceless jewelry from the history of Kiev.

It's a masterfully done piece of detective fiction. I look forward to reading another one soon. Lehane's Mystic River was made into a movie starring Sean Penn and others.

Lehane's latest book is Live By Night.