A Farewell To Arms

My New Years resolution is to read more of the classic literature I've somehow missed.  Starting off with my book club we read Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms (#1,193).  I know after reading it that I will never, ever be a Hemingway fan.  I saw that it was an NEA Big Read selection, and their intro to the book says "it would be hard to find a more tender or rapturous love story than A Farewell To Arms."  I certainly beg to differ.  

If you've never read it either, the plot boils down to an American who drives an ambulance for the Italian army during World War I who meets a British nurse. The war is going badly for the Italians, and Frederic is wounded.  After convalescing from a mortar shell wound in Milan, where Catherine has come to nurse him, the pair wind up escaping to Switzerland after a disastrous Italian Army retreat from the Alps.  Theirs is not to be a happy ending, however.

When Hemingway is describing the action of the war - his work driving the ambulances through the treacherous countryside, the chaos of the Italian retreat from the Alps, the couple's efforts to find a safe haven, it's easy to become engrossed in the book.  But the central part of the plot is the relationship between Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley.  Personally, I don't think Hemingway could possibly make his female characters sound more stupid or wooden.  I think calling Catherine one-dimensional is way too generous.  The only reason their relationship goes behind simple sexual satisfaction for Frederic is that when he is wounded, he attaches to Catherine like a limpet, just as Hemingway did with his nurse in WWI in real life.  She's pregnant, but so what?  Frederic has absolutely no attachment to the child, nor is he upset when it dies.  In fact, he resents the fact that the child killed his mother.  So out into the rain he walks, and life rolls on as long as grandfather keeps sending those generous checks every month.

I didn't find either of the main characters admirable.  They did not act out of moral conviction.  Events just sort of happened to Frederic.  I suppose some see this attitude towards life freeing, but it's just not my cup of tea.  Oh, and did I mention that I absolutely hated the cover on the edition I read?  It's surprising to me that on this brutalist cover that it is Catherine who fills the foreground, not Frederic.  Why is that?  I'll consider this my own Farewell To Hemingway.

A Christmas Vanishing

It's become a tradition for my husband to put a copy of Anne Perry's annual Christmas novel under the tree for me.  This year it was A Christmas Vanishing (#1,192) which featured Chalotte Pitt's grandmother as the main character.  It seems fitting that this is the last book I will blog on for 2023, as A Christmas Vanishing is Anne Perry's final holiday novel.  She will be sorely missed in the coming years.

The reason her books had become a Christmas tradition was that these small novels always contained moral food for thought.  Yes, sometimes all you want to do is go along for a mindless ride with a holiday romance or "feel good" book, but if you stop to ponder the true meaning behind the holiday, your soul yearns for more.  Anne Perry's books always provided it.

Here, Mariah Ellison, Charlotte Pitt's grandmother from the popular mystery series, is invited to spend Christmas with an old acquaintance whom she hasn't seen for many years.  But a stay in a quiet country village she is fond of seems just the ticket.  The problem is that when Mariah arrives at Sadie Alsop's doorstep, her husband informs her that she is not at home, and that Mariah, despite being invited, is not welcome to stay.  

Why would Sadie invite her, and then not be there to greet her?  And where will Mariah stay for the night?  Something is not right, and Mariah intends to get to the bottom of it.  What she uncovers is a number of uncomfortable truths, not least about herself...

As always, Ms. Perry's holiday novel ends with a promise of hope.

I hope your New Year will bring many good things with it.

Bright Lights, Big Christmas

Bright Lights, Big Christmas (#1,191) by Mary Kay Andrews puts a different spin on this holiday romance.  Kerry Tolliver is feeling stuck in small town Tarburton, North Carolina, after she is fired from her graphics art job in Charlottesville.  She lost her position in a corporate merge, but she can't seem to settle.  When her estranged father suffers a heart attack just before Thanksgiving, Kerry is forced to help her grumpy older brother with the Tolliver Family Tree Farm stand in the heart of New York's West Village.

Jammed into a tiny trailer with no functioning kitchen or plumbing, Murphy introduces her to the neighbors on Abingdon Square, where he and their father have set up their Christmas tree lot for years.  Everyone knows and likes Murphy, so they welcome Kerry, too.  Despite the freezing weather, it doesn't take long for Kerry to meet a charming man with his young son in a parking misunderstanding.  Soon she finds her creative juices stirring as she creates a series of drawings for a book for young Austin.  When two brothers set up a rival tree stand across the street, things begin to get complicated...

You can see where this is all going, but you won't mind a bit as you settle down with this Christmas cozy!

Twas the Bite Before Christmas

What's Christmas reading without an Andy Carpenter mystery?  This year, it's Twas the Bite Before Christmas (#1,190).  It opens at the Tara Foundation Christmas party when Homicide Chief Pete Stanton arrives to arrest one of the dog shelter's volunteers.  On his way into the squad car, Derek Moore begs Andy to take care of his two rescue dogs, Sasha and Jake while he's in jail.

Of course Andy, Laurie and their son Ricky take in the golden and the dalmatian along with their own three dogs.  And of course, Andy agrees to temporarily represent Derek on murder charges.  The police believe they have an open and shut case, but when Andy starts digging, things just don't add up - the evidence is way too convenient.  If Derek is being framed, who could be behind it, and why?

It's a fun ride, and my husband and I both figured out a couple of the plot points before author David Rosenfelt reveals them in the narrative.  It was almost like a special Christmas gift because we were smart enough to solve part of it!

Loved all of Ricky and Laurie's over-the-top Christmas enthusiasm offset by Andy's "bah, humbug" riffs.  Plus, the cover photo of the dalmatian with the gingerbread cookie in his mouth is adorable. No wonder  David Rosenfelt's books always make my Christmas List of "To Reads".

Hunting The Falcon - Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and the Marriage That Shook Europe

I really enjoyed reading this latest non-fiction exploration of the Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn saga by John Guy and Julia Fox entitled Hunting The Falcon - Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and the Marriage That Shook Europe (#1,189).  Yes, it's a pretty dense read (I do have to stop and read the footnotes.) but it emphasizes aspects of this famous relationship which I had never thought about, or even been aware of in most of the other materials I have read about this couple.  Their respective upbringings and the political situation in Europe took center stage here, not the romantical or sexual aspects.  What a difference that shift of focus makes, and how it sheds light on what happened here.

Henry's absolute conviction that anything he thought or wanted was right reminded me forcibly of yet another modern day bloated, narcissistic politician with strong revenge motivations.  The only current distinction between the two at this point is that Henry had the literal power of life and death over his victims.  His pursuit of Anne is a case in point.  He wanted what he couldn't have.  Once he was convinced (with not a little help from those around him with axes to grind) that Anne had betrayed him, there was no turning back.  Not only did he have her put to death, he demolished every trace of her existence that he could find, including all her falcon badges carved everywhere in the royal residences.  Yet it was cutting off his nose to spite his face, as he never found another woman whom he trusted with his thoughts the way he did with Anne.

If you read Tudor history, add this book to your Must Read List.  It's good to get a different perspective, even hundreds of years after the facts.

The Housekeepers

I thought Alex Hay's debut novel, The Housekeepers (#1,188) got off to a great start, but for me, it bogged down in the middle and never really regained its momentum.  The monstrous house on Park Lane in London is a major character in this novel, which no one but its builder seemed to love.  Many suffered within its walls, and for a number of the characters, that's enough motivation to strip it down to its bare bones.

How that plays out is the crux of this novel.  Did I admire or even sympathize very much with the wronged staff and family?  Not really.  I couldn't even quite grasp the motivations of some of them, so that precluded my emotional buy-in to the novel.

An interesting glimpse into a bygone time and lifestyle, but this book would never make my list of favorites.

The Blonde Identity

The Blonde Identity (#1,187) by Ally Carter hits all the right notes for an action-packed rom-com.  A blonde with amnesia wakes to find a man standing over her in the street, urging her to get up and "Run!"  She does, but she has no idea why or where she is, or where she might be going, or who's after her.  You really don't need to know much more than that!

It all gets sorted out satisfactorily by the end.  I just hope for two things: one, that there's going to be a sequel (the ending makes that seem likely, fingers crossed!) and two, that someone optioned this book for the movies, it was so much fun!

Run, do not walk, to get your own copy!