True Grit by Charles Portis

For our meeting coming up in January, my Theme Team book club decided to read a western. In this club, we all choose our own book to read on the theme then share our experience with it at our meeting. I don’t generally read westerns. After doing some research, I landed on this as my book.

Most people are at least familiar with the John Wayne film based on this novel or the more recent remake staring Jeff Bridges. It is the story of Maddie Ross, a fourteen-year-old girl from rural Arkansas, told in the first person long after the events have taken place. After her father is murdered by a drunken hired hand on a trip to Fort Smith, AR, Maddie arrives there to claim her father’s body. While there, she hires US Marshall Rooster Cogburn to help her find the murderer, Tom Chaney, who has escaped to Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma). She is very stubborn, insisting that she accompany Rooster in his pursuit. She chose Cogburn because, in her opinion, he has “true grit”. She wasn’t interested in “the best”. She wanted the man who would stick with it until the job was done.

Many have ranked this as one of the best books they’ve read. It is a rip-roaring tale that doesn’t let up for moment. It is filled with realistic characters doing realistic things. It is emotional without becoming maudlin. I can see why two movies have been made of it and why so many people still read it. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, but for me it didn’t rank in the category of superlatives. Definitely read it, especially if you are a fan of westerns.

My rating: 4/5

The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry

My book club previously read Lonesome Dove by the same author. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed it. So when one of our members suggested this book for December, it won our vote. I finished reading it a couple weeks ago.

It is the story of three teenagers in rural Texas: Sonny, his best friend Duane, and Duane’s girlfriend Jacy, who Sonny has a crush on. They are all graduating high school and trying to figure out what to do with their lives. As the book opens, Sonny breaks up with his girlfriend. Without giving any spoilers, the three teens spend the rest of the book struggling to figure out relationships in general and their own with each other and the rest of the town.

This is not a cheery book with what anyone would call a happy ending. Some may call the harsh glimpse it gives “real”. For me, I think it is a little over the top, even soap opera-like. At least one of the characters is downright stupid and unlikable, at least for me. However, the writing is excellent and the emotions are spot on. It is a well structured, well written novel. I am just not sure it was meant for me. I prefer my novels to address whatever issues they bring up and show some ways to deal with them. There was a little of that. Don’t get me wrong. I like a cautionary tale, but this one somehow left me wondering what all the fuss was about this book.

My rating: 3/5

Enshittification by Cory Doctorow

I subscribe to and read Cory Doctorow’s blog at pluralistic.net. He publishes there regularly, discussing his ideas on the intersection of technology and politics. When he recently published a book in a similar vein discussing the concept and word he coined back in 2022, I immediately purchased it. I finally got around to actually reading it this month.

Doctorow explained enshittification in a January 2023 article in Wired magazine:

Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification….

Part 1 of the book shows how this happened with four platforms (Facebook, Amazon, iPhone, and Twitter). Part 2 is a short chapter how we got on the path to platform decay. Part 3 is a detailed review of what previously prevented enshittification and how those stopgaps were eroded. Finally, in Part 4 the author lays out a plan for overcoming the issues he laid out in the previous three parts of the book.

The book is engaging and informative. The writing is conversational and lays out technical ideas in everyday language that anyone can understand. This is a primer for our times on how the internet has become the cesspool that it is and how to get back to what Doctorow calls “an old, good internet.” It is an excellent, if not essential, read for everyone with one exception. If you regularly read his blog, none of this is new. It is, however, an excellent and concise explanation of the author’s technology philosophy. I highly recommend it.

My rating: 4/5

Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley

Each November, my book club reads indigenous fiction or history. This month, we chose to read this book. It was an excellent choice.

Daunis is an eighteen-year-old Chippewa living near the Ojibwe reservation in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. She feels like she doesn’t fit in either the while world or the native world despite belonging to both. She used to play on the high school hockey team and her half-brother is the captain of the local club team. When handsome newcomer Jamie joins the team and befriends her brother, he asks her to be his ambassador. As she gets closer to Jamie she finds out more than she expected and her world turns upside down.

This is a wonderful coming-of-age novel that explores all the feelings and issues without getting too sappy and deals with them realistically. I loved how immersed it is in Ojibwe culture and language. And it is so well-written. Hard to believe it is a debut novel!

My rating: 5/5

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

My book club selected this book as our read in October for horror/fantasy.

It is the story of a young girl (January) who struggles to be good in the eyes of her guardian while her father is out gathering objects for him. She finds a book that tells the story of a woman told by her husband. It tells of doorways to other worlds. January longs to find such doors through which she can escape.

I found the writing in this book beautiful without getting in the way of the storytelling. It was easy to read and touched on topics that mean a lot to me: feminism, misogyny, and self-determination. Highly recommended.

My rating: 4/5

Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew Sullivan

This was another thriller that my partner and I listened to on a recent road trip. We didn’t quite finish it by the time we got home. I finished it on my way to work the next day.

Lydia Smith works at a bookstore. Late one night at closing, I regular is discovered having hanged himself in the store. Lydia was close to this patron and finds that his effects have been left to her. In her effort to understand why she begins to uncover things in her past that she thought she left behind.

This was both a thriller and an exploration of relationships and dealing with the past. Better than most but nothing spectacular. A solid choice for a road trip.

My rating: 3/5

When These Mountains Burn by David Joy

My library book club members all read different books for each meeting. For our last meeting, the prompt was to read a book by a North Carolina author. Having read and enjoyed a previous novel by David Joy, I selected this audiobook for a recent road trip.

Raymond Mathis gets a call from a drug dealer. He says that unless he pays his son’s debt, he will kill him. He reluctantly bails his son out, warning the dealer to never sell to his son again. After his son relapses, Ray goes after the operation that poisoned his son.

What I loved most about this novel is that it takes place where I live. Once seen included a location I drive through every day. The author also does an amazing job of capturing the people and nature of the mountains of western North Carolina. Despite the depressing subject matter of this book, I thoroughly enjoyed how the community worked to overcome its own issues.

My rating: 4/5

Jaws by Peter Benchley

This being the 50th anniversary of the release of the movie, I have been hearing a lot of coverage about its making. This led me to want to read the book to see what all the fuss was about in the first place.

The plot of the novel is fairly similar to that of the movie. There are naturally other plot lines in the book that didn’t make it to the movie. These include the mayor of the town getting into trouble with local organized crime and the sheriff’s wife having an affair. The ending it also a bit different.

While I enjoyed this novel, I don’t really see what all the fuss was about. Perhaps it was one of those books that was a product of its time. It still holds up as a good novel, but I don’t think it would be the hit it was then if it was released today. This is the rare case where the movie was better than the book.

My rating: 3/5

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

My book club reads classics in September. We unanimously selected this one this year. One of our members had already read it and really enjoyed. It was just okay for me.

Rebecca is the dead wife of Maxim DeWinter. The narrator meets him in Monte Carlo and they are soon married. They return to Max’s home in England. This home is almost a character in the house. The home revolved around the previous Mrs. DeWinter and her presence is still felt. The narrator feels smothered by her until a revelation halfway through the book changes the entire perspective of the novel.

There is a really creepy, closed in feeling in this book. It almost feels like a haunted house book but it isn’t. The writing is excellent but I quickly found the narrator naive and irritating. Still, the story is unique and well-told.

My rating: 3/5

Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide by Rupert Holmes

If it weren’t for my Theme Team book club at my local library, I would likely never have even known about this book, let alone read it. For each of our bi-monthly meetings, we each read a different book on the same topic. For our September meeting, the theme was mystery. At the end of our July meeting one of our members mentioned this book to me because the author is the singer/songwriter for the smash hit “Escape (The Piña Colada Song)“. She went on to tell me the premise of the book. It sounded kind of absurd but fun, so I decided to read it.

The plot revolves around Cliff Iverson, an aircraft designer whose boss has changed his design on the latest aircraft, set to make or break the company. Unfortunately, his boss is conniving, controlling, selfish jerk who knows nothing of aircraft design. While the change will save money, it will also create a catastrophic failure at some future date, likely killing hundreds of passengers. When Cliff and two others confront their boss, he ignores them. Worse, one he forcibly retires without benefits by framing him for industrial espionage. Another is driven to suicide. Finally, Cliff has had enough and attempts to murder his boss. It doesn’t go well, but Cliff finds himself at a school that trains would be murderers on how to do it right.

This tongue-in-cheek tale of murder is so fun! I almost feel horrible writing that, but it is. The school attempts to have some morals behind murder by requiring it be done right and only to those who deserve it. In fact they have four rules that must be followed. Once at the school and after, the story follows Cliff and two other students and their “theses” (planned murders). These are incredibly complex and clever. However, they are rather easy to follow without being obvious. In fact, some of the things done aren’t clear when they happen until suddenly I found myself thinking, “Oh, that’s why they did that!” This is not a traditional mystery with a murder that you slowly learn who did it. Rather, you see murder from the other side and slowly learn how they plan to execute said murder. It is a funny, absurd joy ride of a novel that I recommend to any mystery fan.

My rating: 4/5