Road Trip 2026 - Part I

 My grandson and I just completed a road trip of just over two weeks that completely took me out of my reading rhythm - and I'm still struggling to get back into it. I did fall asleep while reading in bed each night, though, and managed to finish one 345-page book while on the road. But things are still so frantic at home, what with dealing with lawyers and tax people concerning the estate problem we are trying to solve, that I just haven't been able to settle back into my old reading patterns even now.  

Despite that, I wouldn't trade those two weeks for anything, so here's just a little taste of the experiences we had while driving over 3700 miles inside the boundaries of nine different states:

This is the "famous" Cadillac Ranch just outside of Amarillo, Texas. As you can see from the photo, the cars have been spray-  painted now by so many people that they are barely recognizable as Cadillacs. The paint is so thick that big sections succumb to gravity every so often and harden on the ground where some enterprising locals scavenge the hardened paint in order to turn it into "jewelry" to be sold to tourist types like us. We did pass on that opportunity despite the rather surprising appeal to the eye of the jewelry tidbits.

We did a good bit of driving on the historical Route 66 that, in theory, still goes from Chicago to Los Angeles. I say "in theory" because much/most of the old route has been covered over by an interstate highway now. But in Adrian, Texas, we did spot this sign across the street from a large gift shop. It marks the official halfway point of the long drive and must have been quite a milestone for travelers to reach in the pre-interstate highway day.

The old gas station/gift shop at the midway point

There's an old "ghost town" called Puerto de Luna near Santa Rosa, New Mexico, that we drove about 20 miles out of our way to take a look at. The funny thing was that we could see it from the road long before we could find a way to reach the surviving buildings. We had no GPS at that point and couldn't find anyone to give us specific directions, but we eventually managed to get a few pictures. It was all kind of sad, really.

 Remains of the 1907 courthouse

Sideview

Main Entrance to old courthouse

Remains of the old county jailhouse

Another view of the old jail

The sad result of the damage done by vandals in recent years

We did end up having a nice chat with the Native American postman who services the tiny community nearest these old buildings who gave us a 30-minute oral history of the area and his tribe. It was quite interesting, and he seemed very proud of his tribal history. He was a nice man, ad we won't soon forget his generosity.

I'm going to stop here for part one of my trip recap. If you would like to see an enlargement of any of the pictures, just click on them and they will expand.

More to come in a day or two.

Three Short Reviews - Three Very Different Books

 I have to keep telling myself that I was only on the road for a little over two weeks because it feels like I've been out of touch a whole lot longer than that. And now I have accumulated nine un-reviewed books to catch up on - and I know that's never going to happen. I'm not even sure that would be fair to the books in question because, honestly, some of them are already starting to get a little bit hazy in my mind.

So I'll try a different approach:

I first read this classic when I was in my early teens, and I remembered it as a great adventure story. As it turns out, Around the World in Eighty Days is that and more. On the surface, it's the story of a wealthy Londoner who bets his fortune that he can circumnavigate the globe in just 80 days. He has done the calculations and he is convinced that it's doable. The problem is that there's little room for error, and he's not taken into account a bumbling London detective who is determined to arrest him for a theft our hero is not guilty of. This one is great fun; Vernes even manages to throw in a budding romance that takes a nice turn. This is a very accessible classic that I highly recommend.

Alexandra Oliva's The Radiant Dark is a first-contact novel, but it focuses as much on family dynamics as it does on the alien race fast approaching Earth. It's March of 1980 when a strange flickering in the night sky turns out to be a signal from a planet eleven light-years away. No one knows if they are friendly are not, but over the coming decades messages are exchanged with them as the two civilizations gradually learn to communicate with each other. It all evolves very slowly because of the immense distance between the two planets, but in the meantime people on Earth are forced to reassess their place in the universe. All of this is seen through the eyes of the Girard family and how it impacts the lives of each family member. The Radiant Dark is not the science fiction novel I expected it would be, but if you want a nice blend of scifi and family saga, you will really like this one.

I've read mostly short stories, as opposed to novels, from George Saunders so I don't have much to compare Vigil to. That said, this is one very strange little novel. Jill Blaine, who died in the 1970s, has been a spirit guide of sorts for the last several decades. Her current assignment is to help K.J. Boone, an 87-year-old man, through his deathbed experience. Boone, however, is not at all what Jill is used to; he's a ruthless businessman who feels no remorse at all about how he exploited the planet for his own purposes - and he's not having any of it. Things get complicated when other dead souls show up at Boone's home just to taunt and badger him during his final hours. I have to say that, even as much as I enjoy George Saunders short stories, Vigil just did not work for me at all. Frankly, I was just thankful that it is as short a book as it is. It won't scare me away from the short stories, but I can't recommend this one.

I'll stop with these three for now, hoping that I've given at least enough of a taste of each of them that you'll know whether they are for you or not. I'll get to the others soon, including the one I finished just this morning, The Daughters of Rosebud by Sonny Buttar (I absolutely loved this one.)

Two for One: Crows (1985) by Charles Dickinson and Mad Mabel (2026) by Sally Hepworth

 Since I'm about to leave on a two-week wander, with my grandson, around the mid-and-northwest states for a couple of weeks, it's getting to be a now-or-never situation for some of the book reviews that I've fallen behind on in recent weeks. I'm now seven books behind, and I hope to catch up a bit by doing some combination reviews like this one: 

Charles Dickinson's novels have always reminded me of those of another favorite writer of mine Anne Tyler. Their characters are usually numerous and so quirky that they turn out to be as much, or more, fun as the plots of the stories themselves. Crows is no exception.

The main character in Crows is a marginally successful local sportswriter who burns out at the ripe old age of twenty-seven. Perhaps the sheer boredom of Robert Cigar's life explains why he becomes obsessed with the sudden disappearance of his former biology professor, and friend, in a bizarre boating accident on a local lake. To everyone's surprise, including his own, Robert manages to move into his friend's family home and begins to spend most of his time searching the depths of Oblong Lake for the man's body. Over the ensuing months, while the search goes on and on, Robert becomes more and more a real part of the Ladysmith family - even though he is always just on the verge of being kicked out of the house by the missing professor's wife Ethel. 

I've now read Crows twice (some 34 years apart), and both times I began the novel thinking that I was about to read a mystery. And I was wrong both times. Crows is really a novel about grieving and the kind of distorted memories and impressions that can result in the unjustified idealization of those suddenly taken from us. Even though Robert, the main character, is twenty-seven years old, for him this is a coming-of-age novel in which he finally grows up enough to see his own parents through the eyes of a young adult. He even learns to see himself for what he himself really is, and he learns to live with that.

Charles Dickinson is a really good storyteller who hides a lot wisdom amidst the comings and goings of his unusual characters. His books are fun to read, but by the end of them it becomes obvious that producing just another "fun read" is not what Charles Dickinson is all about. I recommend this one.

Sally Hepworth's Mad Mabel tells a much more complicated story than it appears to tackle at first glance, so if you decide to read this one (and I hope you do), pay attention from the very first page. It's peppered with all the clues you need to figure things out well before the end of the novel - and it's fun to see your hunches be confirmed when you're all done.

"Mad" Mabel is one Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick, and 81-year-old woman who has lived quietly on the same Melbourne street for several decades. She's purposely never been easy to get along with, a trait she exploits to keep any of the neighbors from prying into her past. That works well for Mabel until an elderly neighbor is found dead under somewhat suspicious circumstances, and someone discovers that Elsie is actually Mabel Waller, who at just fifteen years old became the youngest person in Australian history to be convicted of murder. 

"At six feet tall with broad shoulders and a sturdy backbone, no one would ever accuse me of being birdlike - unless the bird in question was an ostrich. My hair is reddish-grey, and I call people "dipshit" with far more regularity than "dear."

Suddenly Mad Mabel is once again a national celebrity who can't leave her own home without being harassed by the press, the public, and one or two of her own neighbors. Now she is ready to tell her story - her way and in her own good time.

Hepworth uses two timelines for Elsie's story, alternating the present with episodes from her childhood. Mad Mabel is more a character study than it is a mystery, an exploration of how easily a person's life and future can be carelessly ruined by the adults around her - either through sheer inattentiveness or by purely evil intentions. This is a story about the difference between legal justice and real justice, a distinction that can sometimes make it almost impossible for a jury to make a decision that will satisfy anyone, much less everyone.

Mad Mabel is both funny and poignant at times, but most of all it's fun. And do watch out for my favorite character in the whole book, Persephone, a very precocious seven-year-old girl who refuses to take no for an answer when she decides that she and Elsie are going to be best friends forever. 

Out of the Rabbit Hole: Review Catch-Up Time

I slipped deep into a sorting/clean-up rabbit hole these last couple of weeks where whole days go by before I realize it. I suppose it was  all brought on by seeing what a mess my recently deceased brother-in-law left behind upon his sudden death that kicked it all off, but whatever the origin, this seems to be a goal, a feeling, that is going to go on for a lot longer than I imagined it would. 

And of course, having been an avid book collector for more than fifty years, the place to begin the overall curating process was with my bookshelves. I'm only just now poking my head out of that hole - but have now eliminated over 200 hardcover books. The end result of that hard work, and the fun part of all of this, is that I was then faced with a much needed, complete reorganization of my five bookshelves. That's finally all done, and I am now surrounded by my favorite 900 books, leaving me with one final culling of what's still stashed away in a couple of closets and in the garage; I expect that will rid me of another 50-75 books.

The next phase of the reorganization saw me tackling my CD music collection of more than 400 albums (plus a few audio books and dozens of live show recordings I made myself over the years) that was taking up way too much space. I solved that by removing all of the CDs from their original plastic cases and inserting the CDs and their artwork into individual plastic sleeves. That cut the space they were taking up by around 70% - and made them much more accessible, meaning that I'm actually able to enjoy them again. 

Phase three of the project saw me sorting through my movie collection in much the same way. I have over 500 movies, TV series, and vintage music performances from the 1950s on DVD, Blu-Ray, and 4-K discs that had become one big blur to me, so this phase of the project ended up taking longer than sorting the books and CDs. But that's all done now, and just in time for me to re-enjoy some of Dolly Parton's earliest appearances on some old Porter Wagoner shows that I have. 

Anyway, I'm all done with that now, and the challenge is not to slip back into my old habits. I want to use this stuff, make it more a part of my life again, and not just store it away for someone to have to deal with later. 

Unreviewed books are starting to stack up on me, so I plan to do some "pocket reviews" before leaving with my grandson on September 12 on a two-week road trip wandering the highways of America's mid-and-northwest. Six books are stacked up right now:

• Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne,
• Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth,
• Crows by Charles Dickinson,
• The Radiant Dark by Alexandra Oliva,
• Vigil by George Saunders, and
• King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby.

In addition, I'm well into each of these three:

Ray Lambert was a true American hero, and he has all the medals to prove it. Every Man a Hero is Mr. Lambert's 2019 memoir focusing on his experiences landing with the first wave to hit Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. Lambert was 98 years old when the book was published and died in 2021 at the age of 100. The book is co-authored by Jim DeFelice, the same man who co-authored American Sniper with former U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle. Lambert's vivid account of what he saw and experienced on D-Day is truly unforgettable. 

Nina McConigley's How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder is a cleverly written little book about two sisters who decide to take measures into their own hands after an uncle from India moves into their Wyoming home with their family. Sadly, the uncle soon proves to be a pervert with no qualms about abusing his two nieces (at least so far, no abuse details are shared with the reader, but the suggestion of what goes on behind the closed bathroom door is more than enough). I'm not sure what to think about this one yet because it reads more like a dark comedy than anything else. 

Old Age: A Beginner's Guide, by Michael Kinsley is a re-read for me but, frankly, I don't remember much about the book (maybe it's my old-age-memory that's causing that). I reviewed the book in early 2016 when Kinsley, who suffered from Parkinson's for well over two decades, was still alive. He has since passed. The book offers a series of essays on aging and dying, but somehow remains surprisingly cheerful overall. Kinsley was one of those guys I didn't often agree with, but I always admired his courage and talent. 

So that's what I've been up to lately. I hope you are all doing well and look forward to chatting with you soon.

Sherlock (2026) by Various Authors

The subtitle to Sherlock really says it all: "Ten New Stories. Ten Incredible Writers. The Game Is Afoot...Again." Add the terrific introduction by the always interesting Stephen Fry to this mix, and Sherlock turns out to be a real treat for longtime fans of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson.

As Fry points out, despite the enduring popularity of Holmes and Watson stories, the volume of Conan Doyle's Holmes output, respectable as it is, is really not overly impressive, consisting of only four novels and fifty-six short stories. What is perhaps more impressive is the sheer number of Sherlock Holmes stories written by others after Doyle's death that keep the character as alive and as fresh today as he ever was. Even Doyle's son Adrian participated in the deluge of Holmes material produced after his father's death by co-authoring a collection of Holmes short stories alongside author John Dickson Carr. And, especially now that all of the Sherlock Holmes stories have entered the public domain, new stories are likely to keep coming for a long, long time. 

And that's a good thing for those of us who can never get enough of Sherlock Holmes and John  Watson.

There are ten brand new stories in Sherlock, some more traditional than others, some set in the late nineteenth century and even one or two set in the twenty-first. The best of the stories focus first and foremost on the characters longtime Sherlock Holmes fans already know and love. Of course, as in any compilation featuring the work of ten different authors, some stories appeal to me more than others, and it's safe to assume that that will be the case for other readers who may enjoy the stories for reasons different than my own. I like character development, especially the interplay between characters I've been reading of for decades now. For other readers, the appeal may be more in the action sequences or the actual solving of the various mysteries that come Sherlock's way. We might have different favorite stories, but we will all be happy. 

My own particular favorites are: "The Glentorrance Mystery" (Abir Mukerje), "The Mystery of the Forsbrook Walkers" (Kate Mosse), and "Sherlock Holmes and the Game of Murder" (Steve Cavanagh). Over the last few years, I've become quite the fan of Sherlock Holmes stories set in the present day, so "Sherlock Holmes and the Game of Murder," in which Holmes matches wits with an AI-driven detective is the story that turned out to be the most fun for me.

If you are already a fan, you need to grab this collection and find out which story turns out to be the most fun for you. (Even the cover of Sherlock is fun. Take a look at the "Sherlock silhouettes" and you will notice that three of them are female, some have facial hair, some not, etc. Two are even wearing eyeglasses. All is not what it seems to be at first glance.)

(Review Copy of Sherlock was provided by the publisher. Sherlock is scheduled for December 1, 2026 publication.)

Lolly Willowes or, The Loving Huntsman (1926) by Sylvia Townsend Warner

A while back I mentioned here that I thought it might be fun to read a few books from 1926 in order to contrast the experience of reading books written 100 years ago to that of reading what is being published today. Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner is the novel I chose to kick off this project, and that may have been a mistake because this one really didn't work for me. (Thank goodness that, at about 230 pages, it's relatively short.) But as it turns out, I'm the one on the outside looking in when it comes to the critical and public response to Lolly Willowes or, The Loving Huntsman.

Warner had an instant hit on her hands with this debut novel. The novel was praised by both the Times Literary Supplement and the New York Times itself. France's Prix Femina committee shortlisted it for its own literary prize, and it was even favorably compared by some to the work of Jane Austen. Interestingly, too, Lolly Willowes became the first Book-of-the-Month Club selection in the United States. So I'm definitely in the distinct minority when it comes to my level of appreciation for this one. 

Laura Willowes (nicknamed "Lolly" by her young niece) has always been more interested in reading and plants than she has been in eligible young bachelors. So, having already lost her mother, she was unprepared for how drastically her life would change with the death of her father. Suddenly, Lolly finds herself dependent upon her elder brother and his wife Caroline. That means leaving the family estate, moving to London, and becoming the duty-bound "Aunt Lolly" helping raise her nieces for the next twenty years.

But such a life was never going to be enough for Lolly, so bring on an eventual pact with the devil and witchcraft as she seeks to claim a life all her own, one not doled out by the men in her life. 

"Is it true that you can poke the fire with a stick of dynamite in perfect safety?...even if it isn't true of dynamite, it's true of women. But they know they are dynamite, and long for the concussion that may justify them. Some may get religion, then they're all right, I expect. But for the others, for so many, what can there be but witchcraft? That strikes them real, even if other people still find them quite safe and usual, and go on poking with them, they know in their hearts how dangerous, how incalculable, how extraordinary they are. Even if they never do anything with their witchcraft, they know it's there - ready!" 

 

Sylvia Townsend Warner 

Lolly Willowes is recognized as an early feminist novel and, as such, it has stayed in print for 100 years now - no small achievement. It doesn't particularly work for me, I think, because of its satirical take on the state of women in the early twentieth century. I often struggle with satire as a genre, and it's happened again with Lolly Willowes. I can't emphasize enough, however, that my reaction to the novel should discourage no one from giving it a chance. Women, in particular, may love it.