Murder On Gramercy Park by Victoria Thompson

Murder On Gramercy Park (2001) is the third novel in Victoria Thompson's bestselling Gaslight mystery series.  And thank you Lark at Lark Writes...on books and life for  recommending this author.  I am hooked and with 24 more novels to go in the series I have alot of reading pleasure ahead.  

As to what makes this mystery series so good it starts with the fact that Victoria Thompson is a very fine writer.  The setting New York City in the 1890's is fascinating and Thompson does a good job of researching that era.  And at the center of each novel is our detective duo, Frank Malloy and Sarah Brandt.  

As to why Frank, a police detective and Sarah, a nurse midwife would team up together to solve crimes, Frank isn't happy about that either when they first meet.  But Sarah is smart and not to be told no and by the third novel, Murder On Gramercy Park, Frank calls Sarah in to help investigate the death of Dr. Edmund Blackwell. 

Edmund advertises himself as a doctor but he has no medical degree.  His practice involves the laying on of hands to heal his patients. His practice has made him very wealthy and popular particularly with his female patients.  But then Dr. Blackwell is found dead in his study by his horrified wife.  It looks at first to be suicide but Frank soon determines it was murder.  But who killed Dr. Blackwell?  The list is long and Frank and Sarah are on the case.  

I love the chemistry between these two and so in a few months I will be on to book four, Murder On Washington Square.

My Favorite Kind of Books to Read

I have favorite book genres but going deeper there are topics that I love to read about in books. Here is my wish list:

1.  Novels set in the South Bronx during the 1940's and 1950's.  It's where my Mom was born and grew up and Marty is a favorite movie of mine.  But sadly when it comes to NYC there are very few novels set in the Bronx.  Tons of novels about Manhattan and Brooklyn but not so much about the Bronx, Queens and Staten Island

2.   I would love to find a biography of the poet C. P. Cavafy.  

3.   A new collection of essays from Vivian Gornick.

4.   Books about the Great Depression of the 1930's. I know I have romanticized this era as a time of can do spirit where everyone was pulling together and trying to make ends meet.  It's different today where poverty is still out there but it's not a national story the way it should be and everyone is on their own.

5.  Books about Jack Kerouac. What's odd is that I have never been able to get through On The Road but my fascination with Jack Kerouac stems from Ann Charters' wonderful biography Kerouac.  Read it many years ago and her biography has made a lasting impression on me.

6. Amarillo by Morning by George Strait is a favorite song of mine and wouldn't that song make a great novel about the lives of cowboys who ride the rodeo circuit?  A lonely life I would imagine and dangerous and yet they love it.  Reminds me that Larry McMurty's Moving On needs to be on my TBR list!

7.  Christmas Romance Novels.  Around October they certainly put me in the Holiday Spirit.

8.  Van life memoirs.  Have loved this genre since I read William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways in my 20's.

9.  19th century homesteading novels set in log cabins.

10.  Books set in remote parts of Alaska or Antartica.  

11.  Haunted House Novels where a young person down on their luck arrives at a lonely isolated mansion hoping for a new start.  And it helps if they bring their cat with them.  

 How about you?  What are your favorite type of books to read? 

The Forbidden Notebook by Alba De Cespedes

I love diaries, fiction or non-fiction and I have tried to keep my own journals.  But the trouble is what if someone were to find my diary and read it?  It's probably every diary keeper's fear.  You want to write honestly about what you feel and how your life is going but that often requires writing about others and that's where it gets tricky.  

And that is the dilemma faced by Valeria Cossati the diary writer in Alba De Cespedes's excellent novel Forbidden Notebook (1952).  Valeria is 43 and living in Rome with her family in the early 1950's when Forbidden Notebook begins.  She is a wife and mother.  Her son and daughter are in their late teens.  Both Valeria and her husband Michele work outside the home but money is tight and so all four family members are living together in an apartment with not much privacy.  

Valeria has a full time job in an office but when she comes home another full time job awaits since she does the cooking and cleaning.  And so needing some space for herself Valeria decides one Sunday to buy a diary.  But from the moment she takes the diary home where to hide her journal preoccupies her thoughts.  And the more Valeria writes in her diary the more she questions whether buying it was a good idea: 

It’s two in the morning. I got up to write: I can’t sleep. Yet again it’s the fault of this notebook. Before, I’d immediately forget what happened at home; now, instead, since I began to write down daily events, I hold on to them in my memory and try to understand why they occurred. If it’s true that the hidden presence of this notebook gives a new flavor to my life, I have to acknowledge that it isn’t making it any happier. In the family you have to pretend not to notice what happens, or at least not to wonder about its meaning".

When I began reading Forbidden Notebook I was thinking that it wouldn't be the end of the world if Valeria's husband Michele or their childten Mirella and Riccardo found her journal.  Maybe they should learn that Valeria is a person in her own right and shouldn't be expected to always be at their beck and call.  But the deeper I got into the diary the more it became clear that no Valeria's diary cannot be shared with anyone.  Due to her diary writing she begins to take risks in her life that are not for anyone else's eyes.   The end of the novel is kind of sad but in hindsight it is the only decision Valeria could have made.

Thanks to Sam at Book Chase (please see the link under blogs I follow) for recommending Forbidden Notebook by Alba De Cespedes.  This novel is a gem, a neglected classic of 20th century Italian literature and beautifully translated by Ann Goldstein.  Forbidden Notebook will definitely be on my best books of 2024 list at the end of this year. 

Look For Me There: Greiving My Father, Finding Myself by Luke Russert

I have loved travel memoirs since I was in my twenties and read Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon.  And so when I heard about Luke Russert's memoir Look For Me There: Grieving My Father, Finding Myself (2023) I was interested.  Luke Russert is the former Capital Hill Correspondent for NBC news and the son of the legendary journalist Tim Russert who died tragically at age 58 from a heart attack.  

And in Look For Me There, Luke Russert writes about how he had a great job as a correspondent at NBC that he had held for eight years.  But the pressure in competing for the next story or interview combined with the increasing acrimony on Capital Hill began to sour him on a job he had once loved.  

Also Luke had never come to terms with the grief he felt at his father's death.  Tim Russert's death was so unexpected and sudden that Luke started having worries about his own health: 

"I know I’ve suffered from anxiety since my father died. A therapist even confirmed it. Any routine pain or shortness of breath makes me think I’m going to have a heart attack. That I’m going to keel over and flatline just like he did. The feelings intensify during work hours. Breathing techniques help. Beers at night do, too—the irony, of course, being that any hangover only strengthens the anxiety tenfold the next day. I still tremble when I have to go into an audio tracking booth and record a script for a piece. Dad died in a tracking booth".

And so in 2016 at age thirty Luke Russert decided to make a radical change.  He quit his job at NBC in order to travel the world, visiting six continents and Look For Me There is the memoir of his three year odyssey, the countries he visited, the people he met and what he learned about himself along the way. 

Look For Me There is divided into twenty-eight chapters with most of the chapters covering a different country Luke visited.  But solo traveling is lonely and it can be dangerous.  Luke discovers that seeing the next country on your list, visiting the tourist sites, posting pictures on instagram, living in hotels and motels is fine if you do it for a few weeks or even months.  But three years wandering the globe without any real purpose and the excitement and fun diminished fast for Luke and he discovers that wherever you go you take yourself and your issues with you. 

Look For Me There is a travel memoir that people who are feeling lost and don't know what they should do next can benefit from.  And Look For Me There is also a loving tribute from a son to his father.  Tim Russert would be proud.

What I'll be reading thanks to Libby!

I've done my fair share of complaining about how my local library has nothing when I go there to visit.  And then I decided to check out Libby.  It's a reading service that is hooked up to the local libraries in your area and the books you choose are delivered straight to your tablet or laptop computer.  They are sent in audio version or directly to your kindle depending on what you decide. I must be the last reader to discover a service like this and now that I have I am in book heaven!

Listed below, thanks to Libby, are the books I will be reading in the next two or three weeks and the biggest find was Forbidden Notebook (1952) by Alba de Cespedes.  Thanks  for recommending this book Sam!  I have almost finished Forbidden Notebook and it will definitely be on my best book list at the end of this year, a true classic.

And finally, Libby is very easy to sign up for.  All you need is your library card and you type in your card number and you are subsribed and can begin checking out books.  Libby gives you two weeks to read each book.  Some books there is a demand for but often the wait is no more than two weeks and so many quality books are available immediately and there is no charge.  It's a great service!

Happy Reading!

Clara's Kitchen: Wisdom Memories And Recipes From The Great Depression by Clara Cannucciari.

"Times are tough now, like they were when I was growing up.  People need tips and encouragement to survive these thin times, and I'm happy to have a way to help". - Clara Cannucciari.  

For someone who doesn't cook much I have certainly aquired my share of cook books.  But my favorite is Clara's Kitchen: Wisdom Memories And Recipes From The Great Depression (2009) by Clara Cannucciari.  

Clara is best known for her YouTube show:  Great Depression Cooking With Cllara.  She was a 92 year old chef cooking the meals her famiy ate during the 1930's:  Dandelion Salad, Eggplant Burgers, The Lonely Meatball, Pasta With Peas, Pasta With Brocoli, Pasta With Meat (when they could afford it) etc.

Clara's cooking show began in 2007 and ran for a few years.  It was an internet sensation partly because in 2008, 2009, 2010 the country was in a deep recession.  Clara was a comforting presence as she cooked her meals and shared stories about how her family made it through hard times.

Clara Cannucciari passed away in 2013 at the age of 98.  But her cooking show is still on the internet in reruns and we have her book as well.  Both are worth checking out.

Between Them: Remembering My Parents by Richard Ford

"The fact that lives and deaths often go unnoticed has specifically inspired this small book about my parents and set its task". - Richard Ford

Richard Ford is one of America's great writers and I became a fan decades ago when I read his short story collection Rock Springs.  I loved that book, particularly the title story.  I then went on to read The Sportswriter.  It's the first novel in Richard Ford's acclaimed series centering around the life and times of Frank Bascombe.

I enjoyed The Sportswriter but I never bonded enough with Frank Bascombe to continue with the series. As I recall Frank can be very funny in an understated way but at his core there is a sadness to him and I wasn't in the right mood at the time.  But thanks to Richard Ford's moving and beautifully written memoir Between Them: Remembering My Parents (2019) I am reconnecting with an author I have long admired.  

Between Them tells the story of Richard's parents Parker and Edna Ford.  They grew up in Arkansas in the early part of the 20th century.  Their childhoods were not easy and so when they met each other it was a stroke of good luck.  Edna and Parker married young and Richard Ford writes:: 

"All along they wanted children. It was the normal thing. But that simply hadn’t happened. They weren’t sure why. Though it only made them closer—walled out the past and the future both. A suicide for a father and a severe Irish mother can close off a lot. Plus, my mother had had anything but an easy life before going to the nuns. The past for them wasn’t an accommodating site"

Parker and Edna accepted the fact that children were not in their future.  Parker was a traveling salesman throughout the 1930's and Edna travelled with him on his sales trips.  They lived in hotels, became friends with all kinds of people, ate at supper clubs and made a good living.  But most important they were together.  And then in 1944 fifteen years into their marriage Edna got pregnant and Richard Ford their only child was born

There is a sadness to this memoir in that the author does seem to feel that when it comes to his parents they loved him but he was a bit of a third wheel in their lives.  As many have commented the title of the memoir Between Them seems to indicate this.  But is Richard Ford right?  I thought so at the beginning of the book but by the end of this memoir (which is not very long) I wasn't so sure.  

I say this because Between Them is written in two parts.  The first part of the book is Richard Ford's tribute to his father, Parker Ford, and was written recently in 2017.  This section has a more distant quality because Parker Ford died in 1960 from heart failure when Richard was sixteen.  And before his death Richard didn't really know his father well.  Parker was away alot as a traveling salesman and when he came home he didn't communicate his feelings that much.  And we can only imagine the effect on Parker that his own father's suicide when he was a young boy must have had on him.

Part Two is Ford's tribute to his mother and was written in 1981 shortly after her death from cancer.  Edna Ford lived twenty years after her husband.  She never fully recovered from Parker's death but she got on with life.  Edna had a job working in an ER which she liked, made friends, went out to dinner.  She was a big fan of The Dodgers and Richard and his wife Kristina took Edna on trips, visited, had her over and took her to baseball games.  And Edna cared about her son Richard.  As the author tells us, Edna would sometimes pull him aside and ask: 

"Richard, are you happy?” And when I told her I was, she would say in a warning voice, “You must be happy. That’s so important.” Not that she was unhappy, but just that she knew whereof she spoke.

Between Them: Remembering My Parents by Richard Ford is a great memoir, 5 stars.  And thank you to Sam at Book Chase (bookchase.blogspot.com) for his very fine review last year alerting me to this book.  It had been my plan for many years to return to reading Richard Ford and Sam's review gave me the push I needed.  And now it's time to dust off my copy of the Sportswriter and give Frank Bascombe another try.