Death Comes For the Archbishop by Willa Cather

This book is loosely based on the life of the first Bishop of the New Mexico Territory, Jean-Baptiste Ramy.  It is 1851 and Jean Marie Latour has just been named Vicar Apostolic of New Mexico and Bishop of Agathonica in partibus. The New Mexico Territory is vast and new to the United States having just been won from Mexico in the war, so his diocese is a large one.  The seat of it is located at Sante Fe. The Bishop did not come alone, though. He was followed once again by his longtime friend Father Joseph Valliant whom he met in Seminary back in France and with whom he has been doing mission work with in America ever since. 

The two are an unlikely pair as Valliant has always been sickly, yet hardy in his faith.  He is able to raise money for the things the church really needs but basically never takes anything for himself with only a rare occurrence.  Latour is hardy in health by his faith has doubts at times.  He is good at running the churches and organizing things and does accept the odd nice gift from a parishioner.  They compliment each other nicely.  I really prefer Father Valliant over Bishop Latour. He's a much more likable fellow and in the book, he has many more friends.  

They both have their work cut out for them as the Mexican priests don't want to be under the rule of the Americans.  And they have no interest to be under the rule of a new French Bishop. There are some good priests and there are some churches that are in need of priests so Valliant and Latour must travel to them to do Mass.  Some of these churches are Native American churches and they must contend with their dual religions of Catholicism and the old ways.  The author also deals with, to some small extent, how the Native Americans have been treated by both the Americans and the Mexicans, which is interesting considering this book was published in 1927.  

The problem priests believe in being able to run wild and have sex with whatever woman they choose and pick up money from ventures that are not necessarily legal or morally right.  Latour sends Valliant out to one of the churches to preach for a while and bring the congregation back to the righteous path rather than the party path and gives the priest a rest so he can reflect on what he did wrong.  But the other two priests prove more wily and harder to deal with and a different solution must present itself.

This book is not really a novel with a plot so much as a collection of vignettes.  With this title, I must admit I was hoping for something a bit, well, sexier, like a murder mystery or a suspense novel.  But instead I got a good, but a not too exciting book, about a Bishop and a priest who tries to set up an American diocese in the old west. The descriptions will make you really feel as though you are there, but they can also go on and on in excruciating detail.  Overall this wasn't a bad book if it's your cup of tea.   

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Death-Archbishop-Annotated-Cathers-Classics-ebook/dp/B00OJJI2DK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1511962311&sr=8-1&keywords=death+comes+for+the+archbishop+by+willa+cather

Shroud For a Nightingale by P.D. James

This is an early CID Adam Dalgliesh of the Scotland Yard mystery that opens with a nurse, Miss Beale, an Inspector of Nurse Training Schools to the General Nursing Council goes to Heatheringfield, England, out in the country where the John Carpenter Hospital has been since 1792.  The nursing school is in the Nightingale House, an old haunted Victorian House that, in many people's opinions, is quite inappropriate for a nursing school in that the windows, while pretty, do not allow enough light in, and it is drafty and the rooms are not the optimal sizes for what is required.  Miss Beale is quite good at her job and at having the ability to size up people rather accurately.

Now, let me take a moment to explain the medical community in England at that time.  I have no idea how it is now, but if you do, please feel free to comment below.  In nursing, you go from Nurse to Sister, if you head up a ward or become a teacher, and then, if you are lucky and become head of the hospital nursing staff, you are called a Matron.  The highest a non-nurse can achieve is a surgeon, which are referred to as Mr. A Dr. is a step below that and is generally a simple general practitioner.  Those that are a Mr. look down upon those that are mere Drs.  as being inferior and less knowledgeable.

Miss Beale is there with Sister Rolfe, a middle-aged nurse there, Mr. Courtney-Briggs, a surgeon, and Matron Taylor, who has a reputation for excellence to the point that some wonder why she doesn't head up a place in London.  Some people, thinks Miss Beale, may not want to live in London.  The clinical instructor, Sister Gearing,  is filling in as a teacher because a bout of flu has hit the hospital and many nurses are in bed with it, including Nurse Fallon, who was supposed to act as patient for the demonstration of insertion of a gastric tube and pouring what will be milk for their purposes down the throat.  Nurse Pearce is instead acting as the patient and Miss Beale notices that she seems rather scared, but later puts it down to not liking being the patient when others inform her that she is always like that.  The other student nurses present are: Nurse Dakers, a conscientious  girl who knew her facts and was hard working; the Burnt twins, who were performing the procedure and were seen as rather competent; Nurse Goodale, whom Miss Beale sees as quite an excellent student;  Nurse Pardoe, a girl who is too pretty for her own good; Nurse Harper, a sullen girl.

As soon as the milk goes down the tube and hits Nurse Pearce's stomach, she jumps up gagging and Matron Taylor yanks the tube from her throat.  However, it is too late.  Even with all the medical help right there, she dies of poisoning from the disinfectant wash that had been put in the milk bottle.  No one knows what to make of this.  Was it a murder attempt, and if so upon whom?  Nurse Fallon was supposed to be the patient, but everyone seems to have known that she was in the hospital with the flu.  Someone did see her that morning running from the school, which is odd, considering she had a temperature of 103 degrees.  What could she possibly have needed so badly that she had to come back?  Nurse Pearce was not very well liked.  She was rather pious and holier-than-thou. It wasn't that she was religious; you could accept that about a person, but rather that she saw herself as a judge over others. She was known to have blackmailed others and believed in the punishment fitting the crime.

The police believe it was a complete accident and do nothing.  Nurse Harper leaves.  She is engaged to be married and her father was only indulging her by letting her go to nursing school when she was never going to practice.  Then, on the night that Nurse Fallon returns from the hospital, the twins wake up to go and get a drink of cocoa at around 2am and see Sister Bremfett, the ward nurse who is known to drag patients kicking and screaming from the jaws of death, whether they want it or not, and takes it as a personal affront when a patient dies.  She has just come from the hospital where one of Mr. Courtney-Briggs's patients had a relapse and had to have surgery, so she went to set the patient up for the night.  They also notice the light under Fallon's door and think about asking her for a cup of cocoa, but realize that Fallon, a private person, might not appreciate a disturbance.

The next morning at breakfast, no one has seen Fallon, so Nurse Drakers goes up to check on her and discovers her with her empty whiskey glass in her hand, dead from poison.  Everyone believes it to be a suicide, especially when it is discovered that she is three months pregnant.  The police call in Scotland Yard anyway, just to cover themselves, as two deaths, so close to each other have occurred at Nightingale House.  Dalgliesh arrives and does not believe this to be the case, but that both girls were murdered.  Some even try to convince him that Fallon was the one to poison Pearce and in a fit of guilt, committed suicide.

James writes serious mysteries, but this one has a very hilarious scene in it that had me about falling off the couch with laughter.  Matheson, the Sargent who is working with Dalgliesh on this case is sent to interview an older woman who might have information relevant to the case.  She is about to go out to a special ballroom dance hosted by her class. To get the information he has to go as her partner.  It is lucky that he is a rather good ballroom dancer.  As the evening wears on, she refuses to give him information.  Then the spotlight dance comes, and she is the Silver Award winner.  He has had a few to drink and is ticked off at her, so he decides to have fun with the dance and mess around with it.  When he realizes how much this dance means to her, he tells her to start talking or she'll end up on the floor.  The more she talks, the better he dances.  I do not think I've ever seen a cop get information from someone this way before.

The more Dalgliesh investigates this crime, the more secrets he uncovers.  Recent ones, as well as ones from long ago.  Which ones are the important ones?  Was Pearce killed because of her blackmailing schemes and was Fallon killed by the father of her child, who may be the surgeon, a man she had an affair with her first year?  This house was already haunted by one ghost, no it seems two more have joined it.  Is the killer finished are they just getting started?

Quotes

I haven’t anything to offer.  There isn’t any help.  We are all alone, all of us from the moment of birth until we die.  Our past is our present and our future.  We have to live with ourselves until there isn’t any more time left.  If you want salvation look to yourself.  There’s nowhere else to look.

--P. D. James (Shroud For a Nightingale p 101)

If you are proposing to commit a sin it is as well to commit it with intelligence.  Otherwise you are insulting God as well as defying Him, don’t you think?

--P. D. James (Shroud For a Nightingale p 116)

Everyone is interested in sex in their own way.

--P. D. James (Shroud For a Nightingale p 143)

This, after all, was the commonest, the most banal of personal tragedies.  You loved someone.  They didn’t love you.  Worse, still, in defiance of their own best interests and to the destruction of your peace, they loved another.  What would half the world’s poets and novelists do without this universal tragicomedy?

--P. D. James (Shroud For a Nightingale p 143)

In any relationship there was one who loved and one who permitted himself or herself to be loved.  This was merely to state the brutal economics of desire; from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.  But was it selfish or presumptuous to hope that the one who took knew the value of the gift; that she wasn’t wasting love on a promiscuous and perfidious little cheat who took her pleasure wherever she chose to find it?

--P. D. James (Shroud For a Nightingale p 170)

I’m beginning to wonder what’s happening to nursing.  Every report and recommendation seems to take us further away from the bedside.  We have dieticians to see to the feeding, physiotherapists to exercise the patients, medical social workers to listen to their troubles, ward orderlies to make the beds, laboratory technicians to take blood, ward receptionists to arrange the flowers and interview the relatives, operating theatre technicians to hand the surgeon the instruments.  If we’re not careful nursing will become a residual skill, the job which is left when all the technicians have had their turn.  And now we have the Salmon Report with all its talk of first, second, and third tiers of management.  Management for what? There’s too much technical jargon.  Ask yourself what is the function of the nurse today.

--P. D. James (Shroud For a Nightingale p 176-7)

Vanity, Mr. Dalgliesh, is a surgeon’s besetting sin as subservience is a nurse’s.  I’ve never yet met a successful surgeon who wasn’t convinced that he ranked only one degree lower than Almighty God. 

--P. D. James (Shroud For a Nightingale p 181)

“You have little respect for men apparently, Sister?” “A great deal of respect.  I just don’t happen to like them. But you have to respect a sex that has brought selfishness to such an art.  That’s what gives you your strength, this ability to devote yourselves entirely to your own interest.”

--P. D. James (Shroud For a Nightingale p 181)

Only the young or the very arrogant imagined that there was an identikit to the human mind.

--P. D. James (Shroud For a Nightingale p 198)

I suppose a surgeon is rather like a lawyer.  There’s no glory to be had in getting someone off if he’s obviously innocent.  The greater the guilt the greater the glory.

--P. D. James (Shroud For a Nightingale p 204)

You can’t run a nurse training school like a psychiatric unit.  I’m not going to be blamed.  People here are supposed to be sane, not homicidal maniacs.

--P. D. James (Shroud For a Nightingale p 221-2)

“Miss Brumfett,” said Dalgliesh, “you seem determined by your behaviour to give me the impression that you killed these girls.  It’s possible you did.  I shall come to a conclusion about that as soon as I reasonably can.  In the meantime, please curb your enthusiasm for antagonizing the police and wait until I can see you.  That will be when I’ve finished talking to Mr. Morris.  You can wait here outside the office or go to your own room, whichever suits you.  But I shall want you in about thirty minutes and I, too, have no intention of chasing over the house to find you.

--P. D. James (Shroud For a Nightingale p 232)

You men like to make things so complicated.

--P. D. James (Shroud For a Nightingale p 239)

Here were no photographs to invite speculation; no bureau bursting with its accumulated hoard of trivia; no pictures to betray  a private  taste; no invitations to advertise the diversity, the existence even, of a social life.  He held his own flat inviolate; it would have been intolerable to him to think that people would walk in  and out at will.  But here was an even greater reticence; the self-sufficiency of a woman so private that even her personal surroundings were permitted to give nothing away.

--P. D. James (Shroud For a Nightingale p 248)

Then she said that she had once slept with a surgeon and it was only too apparent that most of the bodies he came into contact with had been anaesthetized first; that he was so busy admiring his own technique that it never occurred to him that he was in bed with a conscious woman.

--P. D. James (Shroud For a Nightingale p 272)

“I know that I wanted to make love to a woman.  I wanted to know what it was like.  That’s one experience you can’t write about until you know.”  “And sometimes not even then.”

--P. D. James (Shroud For a Nightingale p 273)

 I know she could.  Not for long.  Not often.  But when she was happy she was marvellous.  If you once know that kind of happiness you don’t kill yourself.  While you live there’s a hope it could happen again.  So why cut yourself off from the hope of it for ever?

--P. D. James (Shroud For a Nightingale p 278)

He wasn’t particularly interested in people.  He divided them into two broad groups, the law-abiding and the villains and the ceaseless war which he waged against the latter fulfilled, as he knew, some inarticulated need of his own nature.  But he was interested in facts.  He knew that, when anybody visited the scene of a crime, some evidence was left behind or some was taken away.  It was the detective’s job to find that evidence.  He knew that finger-prints hadn’t yet been known to lie and that human beings did frequently, irrationally, whether they were innocent or guilty.  He knew that facts stood up in court and people let you down.  He knew that motive was unpredictable although he had honesty enough sometimes to recognize his own.

--P. D. James (Shroud For a Nightingale p 302)

The war [World War II] was old history. It had no more relevance to his life than had the War of the Roses, less since it did not even evoke the faintly romantic and chivalrous overtones of the history learned in his boyhood.  He had no particular feelings about the Germans, or indeed about any race other than the few he regarded as culturally and intellectually inferior.  The Germans were not among those.  Germany to him meant clean hotels and good roads, rippchen eaten with the local wine at the Apfel Wine Struben Inn, the Rhine curving below him like a silver ribbon, the excellence of the camping at Koblenz.

--P. D. James (The Shroud of a Nightingale p 327)

We English are good at forgiving our enemies; it releases us from the obligation of liking our friends.

--P. D. James (Shroud For a Nightingale p 327)

I like that smell, sir.  It reminds me of boyhood.  I suppose.  Summer camps with the Boy Scouts.  Huddled in a blanket around the camp fire with the sparks soaring off into the night.  Bloody marvellous when you’re thirteen and being patrol leader is more power and glory than you’re ever likely to feel again.

--P. D. James (Shroud For a Nightingale p 331)

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Shroud-Nightingale-Adam-Dalgliesh-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B007OVD834/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1511791541&sr=8-1&keywords=shroud+for+a+nightingale

Captain America: Sam Wilson Civil War II by Nick Spencer (Writer), Angel Unzueta (Artist), Daniel Acuna (Artist, Colorist), Cris Peter (Colorist), and VC's Joe Caramagna (Letterer)

When we left off, Maria Hill's Pleasant Hill town that held criminals with special powers there under mind control by an alien cube turned into a child, Kobik, had just been overrun by the criminals who had gotten their memories back. Captain America, Bucky Barnes, and Steve Rogers are there to stop it with some late help from the Avengers.  Steve touches the Kobik and is healed and becomes his old, or rather, young, self again.

A meeting is held where Maria knows that not only will she keep her job she won't be punished for it because the Avengers don't want any of this to get out. This doesn't sit well with Sam who wants something done to her.  When he storms out of the meeting Steve follows and suggests that they find a way to replace her using the Board.  He also agrees with sharing the duties of Captain America with Sam now that he is back in fighting form.

Now, there are two storylines going on here, and they do have a reason for being there though they may not seem like it. The first is that the Immortals have a person who can see into the future and everyone is wondering what to do about this.  Do you follow up on their tips?  Captain Marvel and Iron Man are still fighting, but oddly, both are trying desperate to get Captain America to agree with them on their position on the seer, in which they are in agreement.

The other storyline involves Americops, a revamped invention by Paul Keane who is a close friend of Senator Tom Harold who is the strongest speaker calling for Sam Wilson to give back the shield.  He's never liked him because he helped someone who was helping immigrants, and his politics do not align with his at all.  The Americops are robots that act as cops that enforce the law on the streets. The problem is that they are mostly doing it in poor areas where people of color live. People are ending up in the hospital due to their forceful arrests for small stuff like playing music too loud or "loitering", which the rest of us call hanging out in your neighborhood.  This brings out a person with abilities who is looking to help out the people of the neighborhood of South Philly, which gets Captain America involved.

John Walker, U.S. Agent, also makes a surprise appearance in this comic. This comic hits hard on what it's like to be an African American super hero.  The good and the bad, but mostly the bad.  Sam Wilson's battle has just begun if he wants to stay Captain America and it will be an uphill battle.  He'll have help from Falcon, Misty (my hero), and Dennis. I'm pulling for him every step of the way.  This book shows that he's the real Captain America. 

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Captain-America-Wilson-Civil-2015-2017-ebook/dp/B01N1WWU9K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1511531434&sr=8-1&keywords=captain+america+sam+wilson+civil+war+ii

Looking For Alaska by John Green

Miles Halter is fascinated with famous people's last words and is a bit of an outcast at his high school in Florida, so he asks his parents to send him to Culver Creek boarding school where his dad had gone in Alabama.  His roommate is Chip, whose name is perfect for him as he has a chip on his shoulder about the rich people at school (he's there on a scholarship). He goes by the appropriate nickname "The Colonel" as he is great at being a leader who organizes things.  He introduces him to Takumi and to the enigmatic and mercurial Alaska with whom Miles, now given the nickname Pudge since he is so scrawny, is falling in love with.  Only Alaska has a boyfriend who goes to Vanderbilt. That doesn't stop her from flirting with Pudge though.

Things get serious when the Weekday Warriors, or those who only stay during the week and then go home on the weekends and are very rich and stuck up, don't just toss Pudge in the lake like everyone else goes through as a rite of passage, but duct tape him head to toe and then toss him in.  The Colonel becomes livid. The Weekday Warriors think that the Colonel ratted on two people last year that got them expelled.  He didn't and now it's on.  They've roped in Alaska and Takumi and Lara (a girl that Alaska is trying to set him up with) to get even with them.  And while he can have Lara he still loves Alaska.

All the while, Pudge is looking for Alaska. He is trying to figure out this girl who has him tied up in knots who is hot and cold to him; bitchy and then warm and fuzzy.  She would go overboard emotionally for no reason that they could see, but then she never told them everything.  Like there's a lot I'm not telling you here. This book really got to me. Trying to figure out Alaska is an almost impossible task. I think Green leaves it up to us to come up with our own idea of who she is and what damage she is capable of and what good.  This is Green's, who wrote The Fault In Our Stars, won the Prinz Medal for this book and deservedly so.   I cannot recommend this book enough. 

Quotes

Y’all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die.

-John Green (Looking For Alaska p 44)

Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia…You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you’ll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it.  You just use the future to escape the present.

-John Green (Looking For Alaska p 54)

“You’re awfully philosophical for a girl that just got busted,” I told her.

“Sometimes you lose a battle. But mischief always wins the war.”

-John Green (Looking For Alaska p 56)

She said she still loved me. God, ‘I love you’ really is the gateway drug of breaking up.

-John Green (Looking For Alaska p 78)

So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.

-John Green (Looking For Alaska p 88)

Link To Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Looking-Alaska-John-Green-ebook/dp/B000YI1K0C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1511363082&sr=8-1&keywords=looking+for+alaska 

     

Lunatics by Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel

Lunatics is a very appropriate title for this crazy novel as are the names of the two main characters, Jeffrey Peckerman, who is a real peckerhead, and Phillip Horkman, who is like something bad you horked up.  Though of the two, I prefer Phillip, but that isn't saying much.  These two are a pair of walking dominoes or dynamite, who touch things and set them in motion in a big way while still being the biggest idiots ever.

It starts with Horkman making a possible bad call at a soccer game against Peckerman's daughter. The two believe that they'll never see each other again, but fate has plans for them. Peckerman, a forensic plumber by trade, is out on a job when his wife calls and asks him to pick up a bottle of wine for her Oprah book club.  He stops at the business called The Wine Store which is owned by Horkman. Only Horkman doesn't sell wine there, he sells pets. Wine is his in-law's last name and they insisted when they loaned him the money to open the store that he use their name for the store.  Peckerman, of course, blows his lid at not finding wine there and Horkman reacts to that and pretty soon you have Peckerman beating a hasty retreat with a lemur.

Horkman, desperate to get his lemur, and pissed off that Peckerman ran over his foot, finds his address and goes over there to get his lemur back. Inside the house, the lemur gets loose during the book club right when Debbie is showing off her insulin pump, which the lemur snatches and takes off with right out the front door where Horkman grabs him and takes off.  The lemur jumps out of the window, however, without the pump.  Later, Debbie shows up at Horkman's children's concert with the lemur and threatens to throw it off the George Washington Bridge if he doesn't give her back her insulin pump. A chase ensues between Peckerman, Horkman, and Debbie. Peckerman's wife has made him go after Debbie and try to help her get her pump back.

While at the toll booth, Horkman finally sees the pump in his car and gets out to give it to her as she is just two cars ahead of him, but she drives away before he can. Desperate to catch her he drives through the toll without paying. He's out of gas in his Prius so he's only able to go 35mph and the cops are chasing him with a helicopter above him. He has no idea what's going on so he pulls over and they grab the pump and blow it up thinking it was a bomb.  Peckerman was ahead of him and rear-ended Debbie who is passed out in her car. Peckerman goes to the cops to try to get medical help for Debbie and the cops believe that Peckerman is with Horkman and try to arrest him too.  The lemur appears and jumps on the cops causing one of them to fire off a shot into the helicopter hitting the cop in the helicopter in the scrotum.

In the chaos, Peckerman and Horkman both leave but wind up meeting up together again, but fate will not keep these two men apart for long.  On the run, as they are now being called terrorists, but not everyone who is hunting them down wants to turn them into the cops.  This book is hilarious, which is nothing less than what you'd expect from a Dave Barry book.  Zweibel wrote for Saturday Night Live, Gary Shandling's Show, Monk, and Curb Your Enthusiasm, winning Emmy's for his work.  As you read it you cannot imagine what can possibly happen next, but you do know it will be laugh-your-ass-off funny. 

Quotes

 She said this with that voice women develop at a very early age, the one where whatever happens—the cable goes out, they have a headache, a lemur is shitting on the bed—it’s your fault.

-Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel (Lunatics p 23)

“She’s hot for you.” “Oh, that’s just the diabetes talking,” I told him. “Diabetes doesn’t’ talk. High fevers talk. Alzheimer’s talks. Certain infectious diseases don’t shut up for a second. But diabetes? NO. Diabetes comes stag and pretty much sucks the air out of the party.” “Okay, then it’s the insulin that’s talking!” I shouted back. “I’m telling you , she has no idea what she’s saying.” “Insulin doesn’t talk either. Serotonin talks Dopamine talks. Ultracet. A lot of your ADD and ADHD medications can be quite chatty. As can certain kinds of marijuana, cocaine and other street drugs. Bu insulin? Hell no. As boring as diabetes is, it’s a veritable one-man band compared to insulin.”

-Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel (Lunatics p 50)

There are precious few activities that grown men should do while naked. Showering. Swimming when no one else is around. Sex, whether someone else is around or not. And anything that takes place in front of blind people. Beyond that, all unclothed activities performed in the presence of those who’re sighted should be filed under the heading “Dear Lord, If He Bends Over One More Time I’m Going to Hang Myself.”

-Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel (Lunatics p 93)

“Fuck her yet?” “Excuse me?” “The nun. A word to the wise, Horkman. Nuns consider themselves married to God, so I’d watch my step if I were you, “he said, pointing skyward. “That is one jealous husband you don’t want to piss off. He’s God, for God’s sake! Fucking guy can turn your dick into a fried wonton just like that,” he said while snapping he stubby little fingers.

-Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel (Lunatics p 145)

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Lunatics-A-Novel/dp/B006YMJ9PU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1511194095&sr=8-1&keywords=lunatics+dave+barry

   

Black Widow: S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Most Wanted by Mark Waid (Writer), Chris Samnee (Writer and Artist), Matthew Wilson (Colorist), and VC's Joe Caramagna (Letterer)

This comic opens up explosively with the announcement of an S.H.I.E.L.D. agent that Black Widow is an enemy of S.H.I.E.L.D. and to apprehend her at all costs.  Black Widow manages to escape the heliocarrier and the evade capture on the streets below.  She stole something from S.H.I.E.L.D. but she didn't have a choice.

She had been picked up by the person who wants her to do a job.  The Weeping Lion who has very sensitive material on her that he intends to make public if she does not do as he says wants her to steal something from S.H.I.E.L.D.  For now she is trapped into doing what he says.

He then wants her to fly to Russia to the Red Room from where she came and get a file. When she arrives she finds a surprise as the deserted building is not so deserted after all.  The program that created her was supposed to have been shut down, but when she runs into a young girl who stabs her in the basement, she has to wonder.

What is the Black Widow's secret that she doesn't want to get out and who is the Weeping Lion?  What is really going on in the old Red Room?  This is a fabulous comic. The plot is engaging and the artwork is stellar. The paneling for the fight and chase scenes are incredible and really bring them to life.  I can't wait to see how Black Widow wrangles herself out of this mess.

https://www.amazon.com/Black-Widow-Vol-S-H-I-L-D-s-ebook/dp/B01M2VOKRT/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1510925225&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=black+widow+shileld%27s+most+wanted

The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla by Lauren Willig

This book is the eleventh in the Pink Carnation Napoleonic Wars spy series.  If you have not read any books in this series, I highly suggest you do.  They are thrilling, suspenseful, and the dialogue is razor sharp.  In this book, we hear about the story of Turnip Fitzhugh's sister, Sally.  Sally is in her second Season after graduating from boarding school and her friends Agnes and Lizzie are having their first Season.  The only problem is that as excited as Sally was to begin going to what she thought would be exciting parties is actually quite boring and her two closest friends have moved on without her. 

The talk of the Ton is the novel written by Miss Gwen, The Convent of Orsino, and people are seeing vampires, especially after, Lucien, the Duke of Belliston, has returned to the London home of his family.  Lucien has the brooding looks of Lord Byron and the sweetness and mysteriousness of Johnny Depp.  I absolutely adore him.  It is hard not to.  He has been absent for twelve years and everyone suspects that he is a vampire because he never leaves his home and is believed to stay awake at all hours.  Sally, a sensible creature, does not believe this story, as well as the ones that his family is cursed, he sacrifices chickens, and was chained up in an attic because he was mad.

Lucien, it turns out, was the one to discover his parents, his mother, a young woman from Martinique, and his older father, dead in what is called a "folly", which I believe is some sort of type of gazebo.  They had been poisoned by the bark of the Manzilla tree.  Lucien's mother was an avid botanist and his father was highly active in the House of Lords.  Many believed that his mother killed his father, then committed suicide.  After a few years at Eaton, he returns to the family country home, Hullingden, where his Uncle Henry is taking care of it for him until he is of age to do so himself.  His aunt hates him, because she wants to be a Duchess and his cousin, Hal, follows him around like a puppy.  At the age of fifteen, Lucien escapes to the colonies in search of his mother's family and finds her sister and stays on her plantation, plotting his vengeance on his parent's murders.

At a party, Lizzie dares Sally to go over to Lucien's garden and look in one of the windows and see what is going on.  Not one to back down from a challenge, she does, and meets a man who is very much flesh and blood, not a vampire.  The two will meet again at his sister Clarissa's coming out party.  Clarissa hates him for leaving her all those years ago.  While there, Lucien receives a note that promises information he will be interested in.  Sally is there when he gets it and insists on going with him because she believes it is a trap by some girl to get herself compromised and win a Duke.  When the two go out onto the balcony, they instead find a dead woman with a Manzilla blossom in her hands, his father's snuff box at her feet, and two drawn on "bite marks".  Sally convinces Lucien to leave at once before someone suspects him of the murder, and "discovers" the body herself.

Sally decides she must help Lucien, because she sees the way his family walks all over him and he just apologizes for it.  She has heard about his parents and  he agrees to accept her help, however unwillingly.  The flowers, of course, make Sally think of spies, especially after Uncle Henry tells Lucien that his mother was thought to be passing on information to the French.  The young woman turns out to be a stage actress and the director of the play is Lucien's old tutor, who mysteriously disappeared right after his parents' death and was suspected of possibly having an affair with Lucien's mother.  Love notes from an anonymous "protector" are found in her dressing room, but the director, Mr. Quinten, says she told him she was leaving as she had better prospects.  He believed that she had found another "protector". 

Soon the gang are all assembled at Sally's home, headed by Miss Gwen.  The flowers indicate that the person his mother may have been spying for is the infamous French masterspy, the Black Tulip.  Lucien has already gone through his parent's things at the London home, so they decide to fake a betrothal between Lucien and Sally in order to get Miss Gwen access to Hullinden, where she might find more information.  The more time Sally and Lucien spend together, the closer they become and the more they realize that maybe they do not want to end the engagement.  However, they have spies to chase, murderers to catch, and try to keep the police from executing Lucien for a crime he did not commit.

Sally is quick minded and has a sharp, witty tongue that always has to have the last word.  She also insists on helping people whether they want it or not.  Sally is a rare woman of her time in that she can take care of herself and is quite fearless and ready to flaunt, to an extent, the rules of society. Lucian is a sweet, good man who, as Sally points out, has been neglecting his duties for far too long and lets people treat him poorly, because he feels that somehow he deserves it.  It was an absolute delight to read the story of these two characters.  They fit so well together and understand each other in ways that no one else does.  I would say that this is one of my top favorite of the Pink Carnation bookd, but I tend to say that about all of them after I read them.  This book, though, was an excellent read and worthy of the series way beyond measure.  I am sure I will find myself reading it again, because once was not enough. 

Quotes

This was Hist and Lit, after all. If you couldn’t work the term “liminal” into your tutorial, you were doing it wrong.

--Lauren Willig (The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla p 7)

 

 

What was it about the word “fine” that always makes it sound quite the contrary? As if “fine” were a synonym for “altogether crappy and thank you for not inquiring further.”

--Lauren Willig (The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla p 139)

 

Don’t worry… I have a very high tolerance for insanity.  It runs in my family.

--Lauren Willig (The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla p 166)

 

…but Sally had a hard time imagining the playwright as a cold-blooded killer.  On the other hand, a man who would rewrite Shakespeare would shrink from nothing.

--Lauren Willig (The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla p 185)

 

“Didn’t someone once say that the simplest solution is usually the best?”

“Yes, a person with no imagination.” Miss Fitzhugh discarded Occam’s razor without a qualm. “The simplest solution is merely the path of least resistance.  It doesn’t mean it’s right.”

--Lauren Willig (The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla p 201)

 

Some lost causes were noble; others were just lost.

--Lauren Willig (The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla p 294)

 

Considerably soaked in gin, but if vino brought veritas, then gin was a veritable fountain of truth.

--Lauren Willig (The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla p 342)

 

I guess no one ever likes to see the ex.  And goodness only knew what Grant had told her about me.  My guess was that it was along the standard “she doesn’t understand me” lines.  Which usually means that the other person understood you all too well.

--Lauren Willig (The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla p 353)

 

Goodness, it was exhausting living in her head.

--Lauren Willig (The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla p 364)

 

He didn’t want to think of love.  Love was terrifying.  Love made you vulnerable.  Love hurt.

--Lauren Willig (The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla p 380)

 

…and then felt even worse, because she was arguing with a stoat, for heaven’s sake.  And everyone knew that stoats were just a whisper away from weasels, and you could never win an argument with a weasel, because they were just too slippery.

--Lauren Willig (The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla p 389)

 

“He hasn’t been in shackles; he’s been in the colonies.” Which some people might regard as the same thing, but that was another matter.

--Lauren Willig (The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla p 399)

 

“It isn’t strictest confidence—it’s slander.  Next you’re going to tell me Lucien has been sacrificing chickens,” said Sally in disgust. “Not that they wouldn’t deserve it, nasty, clucking things.”

Sir Matthew fixed her with a stern gaze. “Do you dare to joke of this matter?”

Sally met him eye to eye.  She wasn’t afraid anymore.  She was too angry to be afraid. “I never joke about chickens.”

--Lauren Willig (The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla p 399-400)

 

Like Romeo and Juliet…I’ve never understood why everyone loves that play so.  The hero and heroine are annoying and the ending is depressing.

--Lauren Willig (The Mark of the Manzanilla p 421)

 

 Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Mark-Midnight-Manzanilla-Carnation-Novel-ebook/dp/B00G3L1AF4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1510754486&sr=1-1&keywords=the+mark+of+the+midnight+manzanilla&dpID=51NVCvXZw6L&preST=_SY445_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

Act of Mercy by Peter Tremayne

Unfortunately, I missed the book before this one, The Monk Who Vanished, because I have the feeling something happened in it that was important to the Sister Fidelma series. This is the ninth book in the series and we find that Sister Fidelma, sister to the King of Cashel, a religieuse of the Celtic Church, and a dalaigh, or officer of the court (and the second highest degree you can get) is on board the ship, The Barnacle Goose, heading for what is modern-day Spain and the city of Iberia, where the Shrine of St. James is, in order to reflect upon her relationship with the Saxon monk, Eadulf, and the crisis of faith she is experiencing.  Among the group of pilgrims, the leader, Canair, does not show up in the morning when the ship leaves, because, unbeknownst to some of the pilgrims, she has been murdered at the Inn in Ardmore.

Sister Muirgel takes over since she sees herself as the next one in line due to her nobility.  When Fidelma comes aboard, the Captain, Murchad, recognizes her name, and therefore her rank and reputation as a dalaigh.  Fidelma wants to just be a Sister on a pilgrimage and asks that he not mention any of this to anyone.  Fidelma is to be bunked with Sister Muirgel, but when she arrives, the Sister is suffering horribly from seasickness and Fidelma gives in and takes a room all by herself.  After a brutal storm their first night out, Muirgel is missing and a search of the ship fails to discover her, so it is assumed that she went overboard.  Now Cian, a man that Fidelma had an affair with ten years ago when she was a student that ended with him marrying another woman, sees himself as the one to take over.  Cian was a warrior in the High King's Army, until five years ago when an arrow that pierced his right arm, made it useless.  He felt he had no choice in life but to become a religieuse, even though he does not have a religious bone in his body.

Sister Fidelma begins an investigation, at the behest of the Captain, to uncover what happened to Sister Muirgel.  Wenbrit, a sailor on the ship, finds Sister Muirgel's robe with a cut in it and blood on it, which makes no sense if she went overboard.  Later, Sister Muirgel shows up in her room, dying from a knife wound, holding Sister Canair's crucifix in her hand, which she gives to Sister Fidelma. Brother Guss claims that the two were in love and that they had been in the room next door to Canair's at the Inn and heard her die.  After this happened, Guss tells Fidelma that Muirgel was terrified for her life, which is why she faked her death.

These are only two of the deaths that occur on this cursed ship that also endures being chased by Saxon pirates, fearful storms, and watching a ship crash on the rocks and only being able to save three of the men on board.  One of the men is Toca Nia who accuses Cian of some horrid war crimes.  After he dies, and Cian disappears, suspicion begins to fall on Cian, who also had love affairs with the two other dead women (but then Cian seems to have slept with most of the Sisters at the Abbey).  Fidelma really wishes that her friend Eadulf were there.  He is a Watson to her Holmes; a Captain Hastings to her Hercule Poirot.  He always notices something she misses or says something that just makes everything click into place.  This ship is not just one of death, but also of lust, as they all seem to have slept with each other.  Fidelma really struggles with this one.  She cannot seem to see the path to the truth and when attempts are made on her life, she realizes that she is dealing with a dangerous and possibly insane killer who has developed a taste for murder and will not stop unless Fidelma can uncover their identity in time.

Quotes

To be enemies means some feeling remains between us.  There is nothing between us now.  Not even bitterness.

--Peter Tremayne (Act of Mercy p 106)

 

It seemed to her that seamanship was nothing but long, boring periods of inactivity, interspersed by frenetic outbursts of action and turmoil.

--Peter Tremayne (Act of Mercy p 124)

 

Yet, madness can be a gift from God, so perhaps she is blessed.

--Peter Tremayne (Act of Mercy 171)

 

Link to Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Act-Mercy-Celtic-Mystery-Fidelma-ebook/dp/B006CQ99LC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1510584608&sr=8-2&keywords=act+of+mercy

Avengers X-Men: Axis by Rick Remender (Writer), Adam Kubert (Artist), Laura Martin (Colorist), Matt Milla (Colorist), Edgar Delgado (Colorist), Jesus Aburtov (Colorist), Paul Mounts (Colorist), Leinil Francis Yu (Penciler), Terry Dodson (Penciler), Jim Cheung (Penciler), Gerry Alanguilan (Inker), Jason Paz (Inker), Rachel Dodson (Inker), Mark Morales (Inker), Dave Meikis (Inker), Guillermo Ortega (Inker), Mark Roslan (Inker), and Jim Cheung (Inker)

To set up this comic you have to know what has happened in the Marvel world previously. Under the Phoenix influence, Cyclops killed Charles Xavier making him hated by everyone.  The Avengers Unity Squad (A mix of Avengers and X-Men) went to war with Red Skull who had Charles's brain and was using it to create a war between mutants and humans. He escaped capture and began to collect mutants and imprisoned them in a camp. Magneto was there and when freed he went against the wishes of the Avengers and killed Red Skull. This backfired and created Red Onslaught.

The Avengers are fighting Plant Man (yeah, he's as pathetic as his name) when they suddenly start fighting each other.  Except for Iron Man, because Iron Man has a built-in psychic wave protector in his suit. He cannot be manipulated mentally.  So he adjusts the frequency of it and projects it to affect the other Avengers in order to get them to stop fighting themselves. He also fixes it so it covers the city of Los Angles, but  when he finds out that it's a global phenomenon he realizes it would take him days or a week to come up with a fix for the entire planet and meanwhile the entire planet is fighting each other and it's only a matter of time before someone kills someone else.  Steve Rogers figures out that it's Red Onslaught and they hunt him down. Some superheroes go to fight him while others stay behind to put out fires around the world.

Red Onslaught has a surprise for them. While Tony was asleep he had him make two Sentinels made of adamantium that are uploaded with the weaknesses of every superhero he has ever come into contact with and how to beat them.  A file Tony has secretly kept for years on his computer.  The Sentinels start knocking out heroes, but Rogue, while attached to Scarlet Witch who Red Onslaught is trying to absorb, sees that a part of Charles is still inside there.  The plan becomes to have Scarlett Witch and Dr. Strange work two types of magic in order to switch the consciousnesses of Red Onslaught with Charles so he can be shut down from causing worldwide destruction.

This is easier said than done as one by one of the good guys go down. But Magneto who slipped away comes back with reinforcements that Stark didn't count on.  If they can survive this day nothing will be the same for the Avengers or the X-Men or others who were on Genosha that day.  It will be up to Spiderman and Steve Rogers with some unlikely help to right the world again.  This comic is as amazing as Spiderman. And the dialogue is true to the characters and when you have characters such as Spiderman, Ironman, and Deadpool for starters the language gets pretty snappy and funny.  A great deal of this comic is fighting and the artists really go to town showing it in glorious grim detail.  I really loved this comic. It had a fabulous storyline and a million characters that you know and love. I cannot recommend it enough.

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Avengers-X-Men-Axis-Rick-Remender-ebook/dp/B00SJIRUZ8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1510316810&sr=8-1&keywords=avengers+xmen+axis    

All In: Volume Two of The Book of West Marque by Richard Parkinson

When we left off, John Gray, the Fifth Wheel lawman, was chasing the Dead Priest who had collapsed the bridge he was on and sent him into the river below.  John survives, but without his guns or his badge, though he does have his marque calling him to the Oath Swearing and some coins.  He makes it into a town and goes into a pub looking for a meal and finds himself in trouble at first until he explains his story from start to finish to the pub's owner and his wife.  They tell him that in Four Valley the law is not looked favorably upon and that he should keep the fact that he is a Fifth Wheel to himself.  He knows the Dead Priest, Paulus is staying in the Crow's Nest where the Lord of the area lives with his large army of men.  So, Gray joins the Lord's army in order to get a way into the city without drawing attention to himself.  While there he spies on Paulus but Gray is no spy he is a man of action and soon he will do something he might come to regret.

Marcus Dawn, the novice priest was found guilty of killing the priest at Jonah's Sword because those who did it suspected that he might know that they really did it and why.  The wild Marcus was sent to the ends of the realm: Axefell.  The winters there are frigid which he finds out since he is sent there during the winter.  If the brothers do not accept him then the sentence of death will be carried out. Cleo who is tasked with bringing him to Axefell and has taken it upon himself to teach Marcus using his staff as a tool when need be, is very effective. Marcus finds himself wanting to do well and be a better person, perhaps to make Cleo proud of him rather than in service to the Giver, but it's a start.  When the two go out to tend to the villagers and exchange goods they run into problems when the head cheiftan's seventh wife is about to give birth and they want Cleo to deliver the baby but are not anxious to see him or Marcus leave.

You will also hear from Lara Mainhouse the young girl who is sleeping with her guardsman for fun and will grow up one day to be quite a dangerous lady, the Lady of Seawall, Genevieve Goodregard whose ambitions know no bounds and is so close to seeing them come true to having her husband become High Marshall, the gambler James Gallant whose part in this play will become clear, and Quentus the Dead Priest who seems to be several steps behind what is going on with his fellow Dead Priests as he escorts with his wife Sabine the young child who is possessed to the Dark Mother.  In this book, the pieces will all fall into place and everything from the last book will make sense.  I really love this series. The characters are truly engaging and you find yourself, in the end, rooting for them even when they are probably not the ones you should be supporting.  Parkinson makes you feel deeply for the characters he has created. Whether it's annoyance at Lara's behavior toward Will or being impressed at her ability with a gun. Or agreeing with Cleo when he wacks Marcus with his rod or praises him for something good he has done and being amazed at how much the character has grown from the last book.  And what's not to admire about the honorable John Gray who in the end makes mistakes just like the rest of us.  The storyline is also incredible and complex and a fascinating look at politics and two religions in a realm with an immense power struggle.  This book is a worthy follow up to the last book and I can't wait to find out what happens in the next book.

Quotes

  The compliments of children are worth as much as their desires.

-Richard Parkinson (All In: Volume Two of the Book of West Marque)

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/All-Two-Book-West-Marque-ebook/dp/B06XS6Z617/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1510147952&sr=8-1&keywords=all+in+volume+two+of+the+book+of+west+marque&dpID=41aCDMGA93L&preST=_SY445_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

        

My Reading Life by Pat Conroy

This unusual book really is about reading books and a bit about writing them as well. Some of the chapters are entitled: Gone With the Wind (how his mother introduced him to this book as a young kid); The Teacher (about his high school English teacher who guided him through reading); Charles Dickens and Daufuskie Island (the last place he worked as a teacher for some illiterate black islanders off the coast of South Carolina for a year and their version of A Christmas Carol); The Old New York Book Shop (a used bookstore in Atlanta that he discovered in the 1970s and began his book collection with them); On Being a Military Brat; A Southerner in Paris (writing his novel in Paris); A Love Letter to Thomas Wolfe (his obsession with the author);  The Count (his obsession with War and Peace); My Teacher, James Dickey (taking a class under the author), and the essay Why I write.

His high school English teacher, Gene Norris, was like a father-figure to him. He also helped to guide him on his reading journies.  The two would take weekend trips together to go antiquing or to meet the Poet Laureate of South Carolina, which in today's light would be deemed highly inappropriate.  Nonetheless, the trips and the extra attention Norris paid to Conroy and to other kids over the years helped to save them.  He sounds like he was an extraordinary man, though perhaps, an odd one.

In the essay The Old New York Book Shop, he talks about the used bookstore that he walked past for the longest time in Atlanta on his way to the office he rented to write his novel out of.  Until one day he stumbled into it and began buying up books like a fiend. His bookshelf at home pretty much only held textbooks from college.  Soon he was getting more bookshelves.  He became friends with the owner Cliff Graubart a transplanted New Yorker. He was in there all the time and knew the collection as well as Cliff and helped him to better arrange it since Cliff knew little about literature but a lot about the business end of rare books which he also sold.  The bookstore would become a place for other writers to hang out and have launch parties for their books.  It was THE place to be in the literary world of the area.  Sadly, it closed twenty years ago.

I had trouble reading this book because Conroy's giant ego and what is known as "purple prose" got in the way.  Basically, he just wrote so puffed up and went on and on and you wondered if he was ever going to get to a point in your lifetime.  But a couple of them were good such as the two I just mentioned and I personally liked the one on Gone With the Wind because I enjoyed that book as a child.  Overall, I cannot fully recommend reading this book.  Parts were good to read, but at least half of it wasn't worth it. 

Quotes

 Books contained powerful amulets that could lead to paths of certain wisdom.  Novels taught her everything she needed to know about the mysteries and uncertainties of being human.  She was sure that if she could find the right book, it would reveal what was necessary for her to become a woman of substance and parts.

-Pat Conroy (My Reading Life p 5)

In the vast repository of language, the poets never shout at you when you pass them by. Thiers is a seductive, meditative art. They hand you a file to cut your way out from any prison of misrule.

              -Pat Conroy (My Reading Life p 140)

In Paris, it is a spiritual duty to grow fat

               -Pat Conroy (My Reading Life p 223)

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/My-Reading-Life-Pat-Conroy-ebook/dp/B003F3PKDG/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1509979877&sr=1-1&keywords=my+reading+life+by+pat+conroy

Black Panther: Volume Three A Nation Under Our Feet by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Writer), Brian Stelfreeze (Artist), Laura Martin (Color Artist), Matt Milla (Color Artist), Chris Sprouse (Layouts,Pencils), Rachelle Rosenberg (Color Artist), Paul Mounts (Color Artist), and VC's Joe Sabino (Letterer)

In the last volume, Shuri was trapped in the petrified state known as the Living Death where her spirit was driven to The Djalia or the Wakanda plane of memory.  While there she learned of Wakanda's past, present, and future from a Griot who took the form of her mother, Ramonda. Her real mother is in the hospital in ICU after an attack from a suicide bomber.  T'Challa enhances Manifold's teleportation abilities in order to send them into the Djalia to rescue his sister which he does. She returns with Wakanda's collective knowledge and new abilities.  Meanwhile, the faction known as The People led by Tetu and Zenzi is gaining ground.  There is also the Dora Milaje, formerly the protective service to the crown who left to follow the Midnight Angels Ayo and Aneka who seek to protect the women and children of the country who have been abused and ignored.  The two groups have yet to form an alliance but Tetu is trying to work on one.

T'Challa realizes that things cannot be done in the way that they have always been done in the past and that the government must change. The chants from his people that "No One Man" has hit home and he wants to set something up more representative of the people but first he must put down Tetu and deal with the Dora Milaje and keep them from joining forces. Shuri, the Queen decides to pay the Midnight Angels a special visit and lets them know in no uncertain terms that they will decimate them if they decided to join with Tetu. She also lets them know that Tetu will likely betray them and that they know this. Their only real logical step is to join with them and fight Tetu and face whatever consequences there might be for their actions afterward.

T'Challa finds himself talking to Changamire, the teacher whose teachings sparked this revolution in the first place and seeking counsel and his help.  For he will need it with the battle coming ahead. Zenzi has control of the men's emotions and she has brought out their fears and anger in order to make them better fighters. Her and Tetu care less about the men under them, only winning.  The battle will be tough and the aftermath even tougher.  This volume heightens what the other two have been building up to.  At the end is included bits from New Avengers #18, 21,24 which involve T'Challa and Shuri as they try and keep Wakanda from becoming a city of the dead after it has been attacked.  This book is a good close to an excellent and complex storyline that I have enjoyed immensely.

Link To Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Black-Panther-Nation-Under-2016-ebook/dp/B06XDFDY11/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1509712016&sr=8-1&keywords=black+panther+vol+3&dpID=51EDxqJix5L&preST=_SY445_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

Just what does it take to kill yourself in peace and quiet?

 Ove's wife died six months ago and while he is not a sentimental man he was just forced to retire from his job and now he has no job to go to and no wife to take care of. His day consists of getting up at a quarter to six, drinking his coffee and making a tour of the neighborhood. He takes his notebook and writes down the license plates of those in the guest slots because they are only allowed to stay so long. Any longer and he will report them.  He also locks up the bikes that are found outside of the bike shed.  The dog across the street is peeing on his flagstones and he is trying to figure out what to do with that as well as the stray cat hanging about his place.  He is a man with no purpose in life and for a man like Ove that is death. He might as well go and join Sonja in heaven.  So he sets out to do just that.

But things have a way of interfering with his plans.  His new next-door neighbor the pregnant Parvaneh with her lanky idiot husband Patrick and their two daughters are the first to stick their noses into his business.  Patrick takes out his mailbox trying to back a trailer (illegally) into the side of their house. Before he can do more damage Ove insists on doing it himself to the happiness of Parveneh who also thinks her husband is an idiot but loves him anyway.

Parveneh guilts him into looking into his old once friend Anita and Rune's radiator that is leaking.  Rune has Alzheimer's and the Home Health Service, it looks like, is coming soon to take him away to a home since Anita has MS and they deem her unfit to take care of him.  Rune and Ove used to be friends. Ove drives Saabs and Rune drove Volvos. But then Rune got a BMW and that was the straw that broke the camel's back on the friendship for Ove because you just couldn't reason with someone who drove a BMW and because he didn't understand leaving a car you had been loyal to for years.  So because Ove goes and fixes her radiator he stays alive another day.

It's my opinion that the funny Parvaneh figures out what Ove is up to and sets out to rescue him. But she has help from unexpected places.  Ove is a curmudgeon of the worst sorts. Some people may find it hard to get into the book at first because of that. I didn't but that may be because I have a bit of the curmudgeon in me and my father is a first-rate one so I really related to it.  This book is a hilarious look at a simple honest man who says little but does a lot.  I highly recommend this book.

Quotes

He must be close to six and a half feet tall. Ove feels an instinctive skepticism towards all people taller than six feet; the blood can’t quite make it all the way up to the brain.

-Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Ove p 15)

Ove can’t understand people who long to retire. How can anyone spend their whole life longing for the day when they become superfluous? Wandering about, a burden on society, what sort of man would ever wish for that?  Staying at home, waiting to die. Or even worse: waiting for them to come and fetch you and put you in a home. Being dependent on other people to get to the toilet. Ove can’t think of anything worse.

-Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Ove p 24-5)

Ove, only a swine thinks size and strength are the same thing.

-Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Ove p 38)

It’s a strange thing, becoming an orphan at age sixteen. To lose your family long before you’ve had time to create your own to replace it. It’s a very specific sort of loneliness .

-Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Ove p 71)

He’d discovered that he liked houses. Maybe mostly because they were understandable. They could be calculated and drawn on paper.  They did not leak if they were watertight; they did not collapse if they were properly supported.  Houses were fair, they gave you what you deserved.  Which, unfortunately, was more than you could say about people.

-Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Ove p 90)

A BMW! How can you reason with a human being like that? How?

-Fredrick Backman (A Man Called Ove p 232)

Loving someone is like moving into a house. At first you fall in love with all the new things, amazed every morning that all this belongs to you, as if fearing that someone would suddenly come rushing in through the door to explain that a terrible mistake had been made, you weren’t actually supposed to live in a wonderful place like this.  Then over the years the walls become weathered, the wood splinters here and there, and you start to love that house not so much because of all its perfection, but rather for its imperfections. You get to know all the nooks and crannies. How to avoid getting the key caught in the lock when it’s cold outside. Which of the floorboards flex slightly when one steps on them or exactly how to open the wardrobe doors without them creaking. These are the little secrets that make it your home.

-Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Ove p 305-6)

Death is a strange thing. People live their whole lives as if it does not exist, and yet it’s often one of the great motivations for living. Some of us, in time, become so conscious of it that we live harder, more obstinately, with more fury. Some need its constant pressure to even be aware of its antithesis. Others become so preoccupied with it that they go into the waiting room long before it has been announced its arrival. We fear it, yet most of us fear more than anything that it may take someone other than ourselves.  For the greatest fear of death is always that it will pass us by. And leave us there alone.

-Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Ove p 325)

One of the most painful moments in a person’s life probably comes when there is more to look back on than ahead. And when time no longer lies ahead of one, other things have to be lived for.  Memories, perhaps. Afternoons with someone’s hand clutched in one’s own.  The fragrance of flower beds in fresh bloom. Sundays in a café. Grandchildren, perhaps.  One finds a way of living for the sake of someone else’s future.

-Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Ove p 325-6)

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