To Fudge or Not to Fudge

To Fudge or Not to Fudge is the second in Nancy Coco's Mackinac Island-based murder mystery series. My thoughts on this book are very, very similar to my thoughts on the first book, All Fudged Up. Which means, if nothing else, that Coco is consistent.

Allie McMurphy, the new and young owner of the McMurphy Hotel and Fudge Shop has found another body. In this case, it's pieces of a body - bones to be precise, and they're buried in mulch under a flowering lilac bush. The annual Lilac Festival is just around the corner. To complicate matters, a reality show based around - what else? - fudge making comes to town, and with it more murder and mayhem. As usual, Allie finders herself at the center of the drama.

There is not earthly reason I should have stayed up past my bedtime to learn whodunnit. Allie is not especially endearing, the writing is not especially crisp (I really, really don't care what color Allie's t-shirt is, how many times she changes it, or most anything else about her wardrobe, which Coco appears to think is an important plot point given the frequency with which such things are mentioned), and the whole premise is - again - entirely over the top. And yet I really, really needed to know who and why and how...

The Best American Travel Writing 2013

The only thing better than traveling vicariously is traveling vicariously to places you have previously visited and seeing them from a new perspective. So many memories triggered, so many moments relived. That, for me, is Best American Travel Writing 2013 in a nutshell.

I love the Best American anthologies for the gorgeous writing. From the opening pages to the closing paragraphs, I never doubt the richness of the prose. This volume was an especial treat for me with pieces on Cuba, Maine, and Paris, which I have visited, as well as many places (Egypt and Vietnam, for example, which I have not, and likely will not any time soon.)

Many of the pieces, such as the one on Cuba, are traditional travel writing. Author goes to location, spends time in location, reflects on experiences while there. Many of the included essays do not follow this mold, though, and in a refreshing way. The essay on Paris evokes the City of Lights, but focuses primarily on dentistry in said city. The essay on Peru takes in the landscape and culture, no question, but does so against the backdrop of child labor and human trafficking. Another selection discusses an author's decision not to travel, in his case by foot the length of the U.S.-Mexico border.

As I wrote in my recent review of Best American Short Stories, I had forgotten how wonderful these anthologies are. I've got another lined up for company on my next long flight. So many books, so little time.

The Great Match Race: When North Met South in America's First Sports Spectacle

I never expected to enjoy a book about a horse race so much.

In 1823, a southern horse (whose shall remain nameless, as the selection of this horse is the heart and soul of the book) and a northern horse, Eclipse, squared off in the first mass sporting event in American history. Running the "heroic distance" (4 mile heats), the race to be the fastest horse was merely a stand-in in the decades-long superiority contest between North and South that would culminate in the Civil War four decades later.

What is remarkable about this book is the quality of the storytelling. John Eisenberg has taken a single event that happened nearly 200 years ago and imbued it with a level of suspense and outsize importance such that the reader feels the outcome truly matters, even if the reader can't quite decide who should win. The characters - two- and four-legged alike - are richly drawn, the conflicts (and there are so many beyond the actual race itself) given life and legs, and the outcome smoothly drawn out to the closing pages.

My only complaint with this book, and it is a relatively minor one, was the frequency with which the main characters are referred to by their nicknames (i.e., William Ransom Johnson is almost always Napoleon and William Wynne is invariably Racing Billy).

The Great Match Race: When North Met South in America's First Sports Spectacle is an improbably wonderful read, certainly for anyone who loves horses, sporting events, American history, or any combination of the three. Four stars.

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Anyone who has ever lost a friend and not known why can relate to Tsukuru Tazaki. The defining experience of his life is that at age 20 his four best friends, the people he considered an extension of himself, cut him off without explanation. Sixteen years later, their treatment of him still stings - it is the reason, Tsukuru believes, that he always keeps a distance between himself and others, that any future rejection will not cut so deeply. Spurred by a new girlfriend, Tsukuru strives to make peace with his past by visiting - unannounced and one-by-one - each of his former friends.

I have mixed feeling about this book. On the one hand, I read it in about two days, so I was obviously hooked. But I still can't figure out why. Tsukuru is not a particularly likeable character and the pages are often filled with minute details on nothing (this is a character whose single hobby is watching trains arrive and depart from Tokyo train stations). I also found the ending a bit maddening - perhaps the author was tired of his story and simply wanted to finish?

I have read other review that say, essentially, if you've read one Haruki Murakami, you've read them all. I can't say; Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki is my first. What I can say is that the book is infused with a sense of "Japanese-ness." That is, the entire essence of the book is Japanese which is, I believe, what ultimately kept me reading and why in the end I still liked it.

The Long Way Home: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel

Peter Morrow is missing. Peter is one of the best regarded artists in Canada, or at least he was until his wife's talent (and fame) outstripped his. Tired of his petulance, Clara sent him packing with a plan to meet again in one year and reassess one another. But when he doesn't return she senses something must be amiss and so turns to her friend Armand Gamache, former Chief Inspector of Quebec's Homicide Unit, to track him down.

Louise Penny has written a wonderful mystery with all of the requisite twists and turns. Her characters are quirky, but fairly fade into the background so that the real star is her plot (as it should be). I've read only one other Penny novel (Bury Your Dead, which is also an Inspector Gamache novel), and of the two I preferred the Bury Your Dead to Long Way Home for the reason that the former is set in Quebec City and is alive with the sights and sounds of that lovely city. The small villages along that Saint Lawrence that form the setting of Long Way Home do not have the same vitality.

One of the great things about Penny's mysteries is that they are quick and light reads, a form of pure entertainment. I read this one on an airplane recently - my only regret was that the flight ended before I could finish.

The Best American Short Stories 2013

Years ago, my mom used to receive the full series of Best American writings at work (one of the perks of working in a university English department!) and would pass them along to me. My source dried up when she changed jobs and I can honestly say I had forgotten how much I enjoyed reading these anthologies.

The title, of course, says it all. This is a collection of the best short stories published in 2013. The style and setting of each varies, from those set centuries ago to those that border on the dream world. My favorite was the very first, which is set in an unnamed South American country, in a dusty, forgotten town, in the aftermath of a patriarch's death, in which the protagonist finds himself wrestling with promise and prosperity and unfulfilled ambitions.

The beauty in all of these stories is the writing, though. Few pleasures in life are greater than immersing oneself in truly fine writing and that, above all, is what Best American Short Stories offers.