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? Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham by MC Beaton. My first three books of 2025 were heavy and it's time for something light. I don't know what it says about me that to me, light means murder. But here I am.
My heroine Agatha tries a DIY dye job and mucks it up. We all know how bad bad hair makes us feel. So to remedy the situation she turns to a new stylist, Mr. John, who is hailed as the Wizard of Evesham. He not only leaves her looking great, his flirtations lift her spirits. Yet she senses something is "off" about him. Why is someone so talented languishing away in Evesham when he could make more money in London? Why does he insist on staying in this small town? Is he hiding from something? Should she embark on a relationship with this charming and attractive man, or should she trust her suspicious gut?
Then, as always happens around Aggie, someone at Mr. John's salon gets dead. And we're off!
2. What did you recently finish reading? Leo Durocher: Baseball's Prodigal Son by Paul Dickson. I grew up on Leo. He was the ferocious manager of the Cubs when I was a little girl. He managed the heroes of my youth. He was at the helm when the Cubs folded in 1969, breaking the hearts of everyone in my family. But he was an old man when he got to Chicago. I had no idea who he was before. He led a huge, entertaining life and even after 350+ pages, I wanted more.
Leo Durocher was charismatic. Eisenhower was a fan. Garbo thought he was adorable. When movie star George Raft was in New York, he didn't stay at a hotel, he stayed with Leo. During the winter he played poker with his California neighbor, Frank Sinatra, and vacationed with Dean Martin in Acapulco. His third wife was a film actress, and Leo's jealous behavior on the set pissed off John Wayne. He was good enough at billiards to go pro. During the 1940s he was regularly named one of America's best-dressed men.
He was also an asshole. He bullied three of baseball's best good guys -- Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, and Mr. Cub himself, Ernie Banks. Even as a little girl, I hated how he treated Ernie. I was surprised by how emotional I got when I revisited his time here. The '69 Cubs went from 8 games up in August to watching the Mets take the pennant in September because Leo fucked up. He never rested his players, even though the Cubs were the last team to play all their home games during the day in the dog days of summer. He mocked them if they showed fatigue. They came to hate the manager who publicly blamed individual players after each loss (contrast this with Joe Maddon, who "praised publicly and criticized privately").
But he showed courage and integrity when he helped integrate baseball. His clashes with Jackie Robinson came later; Leo could not have been more supportive of him at the start. He was a warm and sensitive mentor to the great Willie Mays and Roy Campanella. Baseball and the nation owe him a huge debt of gratitude for that.
I enjoyed this well-written book, even if I didn't always enjoy the man himself.
3. What will you read next? I don't know.
