Tuesday, July 04, 2023

WWW.WEDNESDAY

 

 

WWW. WEDNESDAY asks three questions to prompt you to speak bookishly. To participate, and to see how other book lovers responded, click here

PS I can no longer participate in WWW.WEDNESDAY via that link because her blog won't accept Blogger comments. I mention this only to save you the frustration I experienced trying to link up.

1. What are you currently reading? Such Good Friends by Stephen Greco. This is a fictionalized account of the friendship between Lee Radziwill and Truman Capote. Our narrator is Marlene, Lee's domestic for decades. Since Lee was the kid sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, this puts Marlene in a rarefied atmosphere. The course of her day-to-day puts her in contact with bold-faced and historic names, like JFK, Ari Onassis, and the author who was once Lee's dearest friend, Truman Capote.
 
You could shorthand this as "Camelot meets Capote," so it's easy to see why the Goodreads algorithm recommended it to me. I'm giving it a go because my library happened to have it available when I saw the Goodreads recommendation. But I admit I'm skeptical. In my non-fiction reading I've come to regard Princess Lee Radziwill as pretentious and shallow and Capote, though undoubtedly a genius, as a self-involved asshole. We'll see how much I enjoy spending 480 pages with these two.
 
2. What did you recently finish reading? Murder in an Irish Village by Carlene O'Connor. This is Book #1 in a cozy mystery series. Twenty-something Siobhan O'Sullivan, is trying to keep her five siblings together after the sudden death of her parents last year. To do this, she stays in the small Irish village of the title, even though she'd planned to go to university in Dublin. She's now the guardian to her younger siblings and she's struggling to keep the family's coffee shop afloat. It's a heavy burden to bear. 

Made more difficult by the body in the booth.
 
It was a nifty mystery. A village of suspects, including Siobhan's brother. I thought I had it figured out about 3/4 of the way through, and I was wrong. I like it when I'm fooled. Also, looking back, I can't think of any plot holes. YAY! Plus, I really liked the Irishness of this book. It's a little thing, but I had to look up how to pronounce two of the charming but unfamiliar-to-this-Yank: Grainne and Ciaran. 
 
In all, this was hitsville. I'm going to have to look for more in this series.
 
3. What will read next? I don't know.

 

The ripple effect

Monday afternoon, hours before the game, Anthony Rizzo showed up at Yankee Stadium to learn CPR alongside New York Public School students and teachers.

Part of why I adore this man is that he always seems to find more ways to give back. I'm inspired. This 4th of July I'm celebrating by doing another round of Postcards to Voters and Letters Against Isolation.


PS Stamps are going up in price again on July 9.