This book has been on my radar for quite some time, and I decided it was time to read it since I was in the mood for a good thriller. It did not disappoint. It’s the twistiest twisted thriller I’ve read in a long time, and I couldn’t put it down. It covers all the thrilling plot devices of a compelling read, such as unreliable narrators, whiplash-inducing turns galore, and “lying liars.” I’m loath to say anymore about the plot lest I ruin it for readers, but the title says it all, “Look Closer,” and that means over, under, inside, and even from afar.
I recommend the audio format, which has multiple narrators. It is perfect for readers who like Harlan Coben, Linwood Barclay, and books that incorporate the “lying liars” trope, such as Ashley Elston’s The First Lie Wins and Julie Clark’s The Lies I Tell.
A few months ago, Ann Patchett raved about this book, calling it a huge bestseller. Well, she was right—it was a fabulous book—and while it made a brief appearance on the NYT bestseller list, it deserves to be more widely read.
Set in a small midwestern town, this story of two families who become entwined by various circumstances is a quiet tale of flawed people trying to overcome their mistakes — there were many. Starting after the close of WWII and continuing over the next 40 years, it was an absorbing story, though the last 1/4 was a little rushed.
This is an excellent book for readers of Ann Patchett, Richard Russo, Elizabeth Strout, and Anne Tyler. Also perfect for novels about marriages, including Sue Miller’s Monogamy and Wallace Stegner’s Crossing to Safety.
A bit of a trigger warning. This book has a couple of gut punches that required a few tissues. Since this is the fourth “weep-worthy” book I’ve read this past year (others were The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, Fun for the Whole Family by Jennifer E Smith, and Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall), I think I need to read happier books for a while.
A week ago, I learned about the closure of book distribution giant Baker & Taylor, and I felt a sense of loss as B&T was a part of my professional life since I started working in the library in 1974.
Have you been curious as to where all of those lovely books come from that grace library (and bookstore) shelves, many appearing on the publication day, or has it even entered your mind to wonder? The answer is that many of them are provided by the giant company Baker & Taylor, which has distribution centers around the U.S. They also provided services that made the lives easier of anyone who did library collection development (I was a fan of Automatically Yours, a service that automatically sent books by popular authors, and title catalogs, which listed major forthcoming books and print runs.)
Book Picker or Blackjack Dealer?
In the late 1970s or early 1980s, my husband and I both worked for the library system and were slated to be laid off should a library levy not pass. One of our options was moving to Reno, Nevada, so we spent a few days there, touring the Baker & Taylor distribution center and casinos. I was thinking I could get a job at B&T, or if that didn’t work out, become a blackjack dealer (no joke). Spoiler: the levy passed, and I didn’t spend the rest of my career as a book order picker or dealing cards in a smoky casino.
“Books. Cats. Life is Good.” — T. S. Eliot
But one of their major claims to fame was Baker and Taylor, two sweet Scottish Fold cats who became their mascots and whose faces graced company promotional materials. It was de rigueur to return from a conference sporting a coveted tote bag (I’m not sure how many I cleaned out of my work area when I retired, but it was a bunch.)
In 1983, the Minden (Nevada) Library acquired a Scottish Fold cat they named Baker after he was found sleeping in Baker & Taylor boxes. They wanted another but couldn’t afford one, so the company agreed to obtain another cat (and if I remember correctly, paid for their care), in return for using them for promotional purposes. In 1990, my husband and I were passing through Minden and stopped to meet the cats, which remains a highlight of my life. Despite our visit interrupting the staff’s workflow, they graciously took me to the back room for a “meet and greet.” If you can’t tell, Baker wasn’t very cool with having his photo taken, but he enjoyed the scritches. The story of the cats is chronicled in the lovely book, The True Tails of Baker & Taylor, by the then-library director, Jan Louch. However, a mutual colleague informed me that parts were not entirely factual, but I didn’t care; I still loved the book.You can find my Goodreads review here.
So, how will libraries obtain their books after B&T ceases its operation? Most will probably use Ingram’s, another big distribution company, but it’s going to take time to get it all sorted out. So my advice is to please be patient if your library doesn’t get books on the shelves or your hold isn’t filled as quickly as before.
I have always been obsessed with real-life hauntings, whether the spirits reside in manors, castles, hospitals, or mental asylums, so I veer towards any book about “true” ghosts and spooks. However, if I were ever to be confronted by a spirit, I would most likely be traumatized for life, but that doesn’t stop me from loving books about them.
Richard Estep is a respected paranormal investigator who writes books about real (and presumed) hauntings, making them a fast and fun read for anyone wanting to get their spook on. In this book, Estep covers many known and lesser-known hauntings, providing a bit of history and sometimes including his own discoveries with fact-based findings (sometimes the experiences of others don’t always live up to being proven), with photos. This is a great book to have handy for reading spurts.
Other books I enjoyed by this author are Asylum 49, which is based on an infamous haunted nursing home/hospital in Utah, and Spirits of the Cage, which is based on a medieval prison.
Perfect for fans of TV “reality” shows such as Ghost Adventures and Ghost Hunters, and the podcast, “Spooked.”
But wait! There’s more! Additional recommendations for haunted house novels for wimps coming soon.
Over the summer, I read four novels of family drama and dysfunction, one of my favorite fiction topics.
Wreck by Catherine Newman is the sequel to my favorite book from last year, Sandwich, and while it was great to see how Rocky (Rachel) was faring, I didn’t enjoy it as much as the previous book. However, Rocky, dealing with a chaotic family life while contending with an unknown illness, kept my interest. Read it if you loved the first book. Due to be published in late October.
These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean was a book I had been looking forward to reading for months, full of family drama with an intriguing thread of mystery. However, I was ultimately disappointed. Some of the scenes seem to go on forever, and about halfway through, I got bored, although I did love the bombshell ending. However, don’t let my crankiness deter you from reading it, as I know others who have thoroughly enjoyed it.
Whatever Happened to Lori Lovely? by Sarah McCoy was a, well, lovely novel based on the life of Delores Hart, an actress from the 1950s who left Hollywood to become a Benedictine nun. It is billed as a similar read to The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid, and it was comparable in pace and tone. The dual-timeline story (1969 and 1991) kept my interest, but it was a little predictable — not that there’s anything wrong with that.
What Kind of Paradise by Janelle Brown. While I generally love this author, the plot didn’t initially appeal to me, so I put off reading it. Then I started hearing about how good it was, so I dove in and loved it; it will be on my list of favorite books of the year. Taking place primarily at the dawn of the Internet in the early 1990s, the story of a father and daughter living off the grid is a blend of character study, coming-of-age, and mystery. It brought back memories of using dial-up Internet with modems, with AOL/Hotmail/Yahoo/Juno email services. It also reminded me of the real-life story of a father and daughter who lived off the grid in Portland’s Forest Park. It inspired Jennie Shortridge to write a novel about it in When She Flew (click on the title for my full review).
As usual, Jance writes a crackerjack mystery featuring Joanna Brady, who displays excellent investigative skills with diplomacy and empathy when dealing with the characters who populate these books. The setting of Southern Arizona is excellent, and I love how she incorporates real-life landmarks and settings into the story. This can work as a standalone mystery, as Jance does a good job of explaining events from previous books. However, for the whole experience, it’s best to start at the first book she wrote about Joanna (32 years ago!) and work your way through the series. Also, the Beaumont series is excellent and remains my favorite of Jance’s series.
Trigger Warning: I usually don’t do these, but I think readers should go into this knowing many of the killer’s victims are children.
Even though I have no interest in biking a long distance (or any distance for that matter!), I enjoy reading about challenging trips, especially bicycle journeys. This one was especially appealing since I’m familiar with all the coastal areas from Oregon to California. I loved it when he was describing the journey and experiences on the road, but the digressions to other parts of his life and the history lessons got a little distracting. At the risk of sounding shallow, he made a few errors in location names at the beginning of the book, such as going to Mt. Hood and visiting the “Stanley Hotel.” While he is correct in saying it was featured in the movie The Shining (the exterior anyway), the Mt Hood hotel is actually Timberline Lodge; the Stanley Hotel is in Colorado. Then in Portland, he said they went to “Jack’s Grill,” which should have been “Jake’s Grill.” Too picky? You make the call…
All in all, it was a fast read, and the author has an appealing style of writing, but if I were to recommend a book about bicycling the West Coast, I would recommend Jedidiah Jenkins’s To Shake the Sleeping Self and Barbara Savage’s story of her worldwide bicycle journey, Miles from Nowhere. For a bike journey from the POV of a middle-aged man, Bruce Weber’s Life is a Wheel is excellent.
Although this novel was popular a few years ago, it didn’t appeal to me, and I’m not sure why. However, I needed an audiobook and had heard that this one was well done, so I got it from Libby. It turned out that I loved this lovely story about surviving loss and finding family. Readers who want a “feel-good” and heart-warming tale similar to The Wedding People and Remarkably Bright Creatures will enjoy this. Authors who narrate their own books aren’t always the best choice, but Rowley did a great job.
So this was an interesting read in a couple of different ways. Please forgive my rambling review.
I first read this in the 1970s, during my horror phase (which I guess I’m still in), when I read Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and Robert Marasco’s Burnt Offerings. I recall being impressed by how frightening this was and how effectively the setting was portrayed. For some reason, I decided to reread it to see if it affected me the same way it did 50 years ago, and here is what’s different — I don’t remember the obvious uncurrent of sexual tensions of the women, and at times, the lewdness of the house’s history. I’m not judging, I’m just surprised I didn’t remember that aspect of the storyline. However, that all being said, it was still very scary (Stephen King said it was, “the scariest haunted house novel ever written.” I’m not sure I agree with our friend Stevie, as I think The Haunting of Hill House was way scarier in its subtlety.) I did feel the anticlimactic ending went on too long.
I followed up by watching the 1973 movie, The Legend of Hell House, and it was reasonably well done, although somewhat condensed; however, the setting was perfect. (Fun fact: my spouse and I saw this at the local drive-in, probably in the mid-1970s. Near the end, the bathrooms were closed due to a sewer problem, and we had to pee so bad we had to leave before the ending, and it wasn’t until last night that I saw finale!)
And here’s one more observation that about drove me bonkers during my recent read. Do you ever read a book and notice a repeated term or description that a good editor should have caught? In this case, the word “hiss” (or hissing or hissed) was used sixteen times according to my Kindle!
Richard Matheson also wrote the time travel love story, Bid Time Return, which was adapted into the romantic movie Somewhere in Time, starring Christopher Reeve and Jayne Seymour. (Loved the book but never saw the movie.)
Anyhoodles, if a reader is looking for a good haunted house story, one can’t go wrong with this book as long as the content isn’t objectionable. However, for the best haunted house story ever written (IMO), you can’t go wrong with The Haunting of Hill House (and the original movie, The Haunting), and the sequel, Elizabeth Hand’s A Haunting on the Hill. For a fun look at horror novels from the 1970s/1980s, get a copy of Grady Hendrix’s Paperbacks from Hell (click on the title for my Goodreads review).
I loved the first half of this unsettling dystopian novel about a reality show that is a combination of Big Brother and Love Island, with a dash of Survivor (and some reviewers had added Lord of the Flies to the mix). I was glued to the first half, but about 3/4 through, I started getting weary of the unlikable contestants and the machinations required to stay in the game, some of which were quite brutal. I understood what the author was trying to convey about consumerism and the public’s fascination with every move of a group of relationships that become dysfunctional (and mean) in the quest to be the “sole resident” of the Compound. However, I still found it a little tedious.
That all being said, this would be a fabulous book for groups, as there are sure to be those who love this and those who feel the way I did about it, which always leads to a good discussion.
Despite its lack of nail-biting narrative, fans of The Hunger Games series may enjoy this, and those who liked Libba Bray’s Beauty Queens (especially in audio format) will likely appreciate this novel as well. For a real-life take on participating in a reality show, Parvati Shallow (from Survivor) has a recent memoir, Nice Girls Don’t Win.
ROBIN'S BOOKS 