Murder at the Market – A Sliced Vegetarian by Liesa Malik

A light and cozy murder mystery set in a small town outside of Denver, CO. Daisy Arthur, a 50-something widow, tries to come to the rescue of Brian, a young man with developmental issues, who is accused of a brutal murder the local supermarket where he works. 

Ginny, a similarly challenged young woman, his girlfriend, is a close friend of Daisy, and also works at the market. Her father, Gabe, is the local police lieutenant who also happens to be Daisy's sometime boyfriend. He is very protective of his daughter, and also determined to prove that Brian committed the crime. His anger management issues don't help in his relationships.

Daisy gets herself into a number of compromising and dangerous situations while trying to help solve the murder and get Brian freed.

Of course, all's well that ends well. An entertaining book that is very supportive of individuals with learning disabilities and limitations, a big plus, though it is handled with a bit of a heavy hand.

Love and Duty in London – The Marrying of Chani Kaufman by Eve Harris

I can't imagine how such this book ever got within even being mentioned in the same sentence as the Booker Prize, unless it was as some kind of tokenism as a bone thrown to, or on the other hand, a massive rebuke of, the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community of London.

That community is more or less the same as the Ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods I lived in close proximity to in Brooklyn for over 15 years. I had plenty of opportunities to interact with and observe the women and children (no contact with the men, of course, other than occasionally on public transportation) on errands and while shopping – I often frequented stores on some of the main Jewish shopping streets (though I also went to the Italian specialty shops). For a time, I volunteered as an English conversation group leader at the Boro Park (a very observant neighborhood) branch of the Brooklyn Public Library where I was at times viewed rather suspiciously by some of the women who gathered there. 

Chani Kaufman is nineteen, and one of the middle daughters of a very large family of all girls. Her mother seems to be perpetually pregnant and exhausted and has no time for her questions as she prepares for her wedding, which was arranged in the traditional way, by a marriage broker. Chani takes instruction in how to be a good Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) wife from Rivka (originally Rebecca), the Rebbetzin (rabbi's wife). 

Rivka is struggling in her marriage, and has recently experienced, at forty-four, a massive miscarriage. Though she is tasked in her Rebbetzin role with counseling the girls on their Torah-defined (as their sect views it) responsibilities to their prospective husbands, families, and the community, she is questioning her own life choices and faith.

While Chani is described as a little unconventional compared to her friends and classmates, as she is more willful and high-spirited, she is essentially a typically innocent and obedient Haredi girl. She is ignorant and fearful of sex and what she wants to learn from Rivka is the "how's" of intercourse. Rivka will only take her answers so far, and defers to Chani's mother, who has no time or energy to explain anything, so Chani becomes ever more anxious about what she will face on her wedding night. 

Unknown to Chani, her fiancé, Baruch, at twenty, is as ignorant and fearful as she is, but of course in their tradition, there is no discussion of such things between them, and in fact, as is typical, they have met only a few times for chaste coffee "dates" before he proposes, so they hardly know each other. Baruch is also somewhat under the thumb of his very overbearing and judgmental mother, who deems Chani, whose family is very modest and undistinguished, as wrong for him. Baruch's family is far more materially successful and his mother has her eye on a very different girl. His mother connives to stop the marriage but Chani will not be deterred, and neither will Baruch, to his credit.

All of this swirls through the book, which starts as Chani awaits the wedding ceremony to begin, and is told in rapid flashbacks, alternating Chani's story with Rivka's, and interjections for Baruch and his best friend, Avromi, who is also Rivka's son. Avromi has his own story of rebellion that strongly influences Rivka's choices, though there is much more under the surface with her. 

The book abruptly concludes after Chani and Baruch's wedding night, and Rivka's surreptitious attendance of the wedding and her departure from the ceremony.

I was really astounded by the ending. It felt as though there was another entire book to follow, or at least a few more chapters. Rivka especially seemed left adrift.

The author, a secular Jewish woman living in London, has said she was inspired to write this book by teaching English for one year in a Haredi girls' school, where she was able to observe the customs and rituals of the community. She seems both highly critical and but also admiring of the Haredi beliefs and lifestyle. Many of the characters, but particularly Chani's and Baruch's mothers, the matchmaker, and Rivka's husband, Chaim, felt very clichéd and stereotypical. Clearly the author has many unanswered questions of her own but it doesn't feel like she dealt with them by writing this book. Disappointing. 

So Many Doubts, So Many Questions – The Land of Hope and Fear, Israel's Battle for Its Inner Soul by Isabel Kershner

Those of us who were Jewish children born in the United States not long after end of World War II and the founding of the State of Israel grew up with a rosy, inspirational set of images and ideas that are quite different from the modern, realistic picture of the country that Isabel Kershner presents in her book. 

Obviously, it has been clear that all is not milk and honey in Israel for many years, especially since the rise of Netanyahu and the hard right that supports such policies as exempting the Haredi from military service and taxes, and promotes settlements in disputed areas. 

Kershner, a long time reporter for the New York Times, and a resident of Jerusalem, presents the history and many sides of modern Israel in great depth. She examines the waves of immigration that have made the country far more complicated and heterogeneous than it was at its founding. Reading this book is illuminating, fascinating, and more than a little depressing at times. Israel cannot be kept on a pedestal – there are so many possibilities, and so much achievement, but also so many inequalities, contradictions, and frustrations for those who are minorities or viewed as outsiders. 

The book is eye-opening and thought-provoking. It was written before the current war, and ends on a note of hope, but knowing what has transpired since it was completed, makes it all the more an illuminating, compelling and vital book for those readers who are concerned about the rightward swing in politics here in the United States and other countries, and the increase in anti-Semitic (and anti-Moslem) crimes and protests. While it has no answers, it does provide some background and reasons for the alarming trends we face in the world today.

Isabel Dalhousie Is Back – The Sweet Remnants of Summer by Alexander McCall Smith

What a perfect book to wrap up my reading challenge for 2023!

The Isabel Dalhousie books by the amazingly prolific Alexander McCall Smith are my favorite among his many successful series. Set in contemporary Edinburgh, they chronicle the life of Isabel, a philosopher, her somewhat younger husband Jamie, a classical musician, their two little boys, and their housekeeper, Grace.

Isabel is a philosopher who edits and publishes a magazine devoted to ethics, and is a person who others come to for help with their personal problems and dilemmas. The series, and in particular this volume, explores how she (and we) cope with the challenges of modern life and its conflicts.

Isabel leads a very comfortable and appealing life, but though she is well off financially, has a loving and handsome spouse, and healthy children, she takes nothing for granted. She knows well that she leads something of a charmed life, and is aware of the good fortune that allows her to pursue her career, which is certainly not one that exposes her to what most of the rest of the working world experiences.

I am always just a little amazed how well McCall Smith writes from the woman's point of view. He seems so adept at understanding how women balance their personal, professional and inner lives.

He also presents the moral and ethical problems Isobel is called on to solve with a light, yet insightful and profound touch. It is impossible not to enjoy these books or come away with the positive feeling that all could somehow be right with the world if we would only make the effort.

A Summer of Drama by the Sea – Dreamland by Nancy Bilyeau

New York, 1911: Peggy Battenberg, an independent-thinking twenty-year-old woman and the eventual heiress to a fortune, unwillingly joins her family for a summer sojourn at the exclusive Oriental Hotel, a massive and lavish Victorian-era establishment on Brooklyn's fashionable Manhattan Beach, just down the shoreline from the playground to the masses, Coney Island.

Peggy had been enjoying her volunteer job at a Manhattan bookstore where she met intriguing people who furthered her interests in the arts, social welfare, and politics, but her widowed mother and uncles, who controlled the family money, put a hold on the relative freedom she'd tasted, in order to secure her younger sister's engagement to a man who would expand her family's influence and their holdings in the mining industry out west. As she was still a minor, and had yet to come into any of her inheritance, and because, as a woman, she had no property or other rights, she was compelled to obey her uncles as well as please her mother, who followed strict codes of behavior, dress, and even food and drink choices. Though the Batternbergs were Jewish, they had long left behind such traditions as kosher dining – their food restrictions were more about shunning the tastes of the less well off for such items as Coney Island sausages, which would eventually be known as hot dogs, and the new drink, Coca Cola.

Still, once at the hotel Peggy found opportunities for rebellion: bicycling with her brother as her only chaperone, doctoring her restrictive swimming costume to remove the sleeves and under layers, and eventually making her way to Coney Island, where she is determined to find new adventures, but ends up involved in far more scandalous and sinister activities than she bargained for...but also falls in love with both modern art and and a pioneering artist.

This carefully researched and richly detailed mystery novel is a compelling read, especially for those who are interested in New York and Brooklyn history, the art world as it edges toward modernism, and the societal changes in both Europe and the United States in an age of mass immigration and the sweeping technical and scientific developments in the period preceding World War I.

 

Drugs, Sex, and Dissension – All the Leaves Are Brown by Scott G. Shea

Some of most memorable sounds of the 60s were the harmonies of the Mamas and Papas, though compared to The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Beach Boys, and the artists of Motown, they lacked the depth of catalog and output, and their time as an active group was limited to just a few years, far fewer than memory may render. 

The group was composed of John Phillips, his eventual second wife Michelle Gilliam Phillips, Cass Elliott, and Denny Doherty, all of whom (other than Michelle) had initially been members of other groups and musical acts. The group came together in Greenwich Village and fell apart in California.

As the book started off with a very boring account of John Phillips's background, I skipped forward to where it became more interesting – when it finally got into the origins of the Mamas and Papas (a good deal of which I already knew), but then it meandered off far too much into the lives of other musicians, not necessarily related ones, and was also chock full of irritating typos and misspellings. Several artists were also savaged, rather unfairly in my opinion, including the great Laura Nyro. 

I was already well aware that John Phillips was a person who led a life of extreme excess. For a time he subleased a coop apartment in Greenwich Village in a friend's building, and she complained about his parties and the noise a number of times. After reading the book, I disliked him all the more. He squandered his talent and actually produced very little. Drugs, alcohol and sex seemed to be his most compelling pursuits.

The book made it clear that the most interesting and likable member of the group was obviously Cass Elliott. She too, lived a life of excess, and her early death was very sad. Had she been able to overcome her addictions, she could have had many more years of influence in the music world.

All in all, this was a chronicle that focused on how four lives were often badly spent. It seemed more an indictment of a period in music history than a celebration of it, and while there bright spots in the book, it seemed to glory in the bad aspects of the time. Overall, a more disappointing than satisfying read.

 

War and Art in Italy – The Last Masterpiece by Laura Morelli

A deep dive into World War II Italy, and the race between the Nazis and the Allies for the fate of the treasures of European art, particularly that of Florence, where, in my experience, there is something that stops the traveler in their tracks with practically every step.  

The author tells the story from the points of view of two fictitious women. Eva is a German photographer who is brought on to document the paintings, sculptures, and other works that the Nazis are removing from the museums and other locations, ostensibly to protect them, but in reality to eventually bring them to the "super museum" Hitler is planning for Linz, Austria. Her counterpart is Josie, an American, who has joined the WACs (Women's Army Corps), and because of her excellent stenography skills, becomes an assistant to the officers of the Monuments Men, who are trying to save the same works from falling into Nazi hands. 

Author Morelli is an art historian with a Yale Ph.D, who has written several historical novels set in the art world. This is the first I've read, but I will get to the others (eventually), as this one was so fascinating for a reader like me with a strong interest in art and art history, and a love for all things Italian. As I read, I thought of my trips to Italy, especially Florence, and how astonishing it is, and how grateful I am, that so many of the great works of art were saved, and that so much of the war's destruction has been restored. It is a profound to realize, while reading this book, how differently things could have turned out, had the Nazis triumphed – here that is concerning art, but of course there is so much to consider.

It is very evident how much research and knowledge went into this book, with its descriptions of the art and the physical environment throughout Italy, along with aspects of the conditions in Austria (as background for Eva's story).

Morelli also handled the characterizations very well, for both women, their families and personal relationships. Both primary characters evolved and grew due to their wartime experiences. The forays into the friendships and camaraderie that developed among the WACs, and the inner thoughts of each woman as they dealt with their own conflicts were sensitively portrayed. Her light touch on romance rounded out the novel, but was not its point – there was just enough.

I felt the chapters featuring Eva moved a little slowly at first – my only criticism. Because of her origins and beliefs, she was not immediately likable, or understandable, to me, but as I continued reading, I was able to understand and even feel sorry for her. As the book closed, I thought of what it would be like for her to be on that losing side, and return home, knowing that she had embraced and worked for a cause that she realized was both evil and immoral. That is a topic for another kind of book altogether...