Tuesday, January 30, 2024

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 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?  Everyone Here Is Lying by Shari Lapena. Another paranoid suburban thriller by Shari Lapena, who is very good at this genre. This one is set in Stanhope, a small town with a sterling reputation. Dr. Wooler is having an affair with a hospital volunteer, a beautiful society matron who is willing to slip away with him for sexy interludes in the afternoon. He has come to enjoy, even depend on, these secret assignations more than he ever intended to. The afternoon when he realizes how much he loves The Other Woman, and how impossible their situation is, he is distraught and returns home for a little quiet time to reflect. Instead of an empty house, he unexpectedly finds his 9-year-old daughter -- rebellious, confrontational Avery. She is quite possibly the last person on earth he wants to see at this moment.


Later that day, Dr. Wooler's wife comes home to an empty house and panic stricken, she reports their daughter missing. What the hell? 

 

We know a lot more about Mrs. Wooler's life than she does, but we don't know everything. Yet. That's what keeps me reading. 


2. What did you recently finish reading?  Babe: The Legend Comes to Life by Robert W. Creamer. "Too much baseball." Three words I never thought I'd say. But the Babe played 21 seasons for three teams and came up to bat 8,399 times. I know Creamer didn't catalog each of those at bats here, but it felt like it. The detail in this book is mind numbing at times. 


But the charisma of The Babe endures. What a man! America's first sports celebrity, for more than a decade our most admired citizen. Childlike, childish. Enormously talented. Heedless with his money, his talent, and the people closest to him. But never mean, never vindictive. An astonishingly gifted athlete and an endlessly interesting man. My favorite thing about him: he never refused a kid. Not at any ballpark, on any street corner, in any country in the world (we follow him to Japan, France and England). His generosity was inexhaustible. I'm glad his name lives on.


3. What will you read next? I don't know.