Susannah’s Fall, Winter Reading List…2024-2025

    In movie terms, a sleeper is a film that wasn’t expected to do well, but became a surprise hit.

    Think Chariots of Fire, Little Miss Sunshine and The Artist that ended up grossing 133.4 million dollars.

    So I’m calling this list my Sleeper Edition since most of the books mentioned were a big surprise to me.

    Without further ado…allow me to introduce…

     Miss Maisie Dobbs…Psychologist and Investigator

    A Heroine To Cherish…New York Times Book Review

     Not since Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlow have I been this enamored with a sleuth. Maisie, an English girl starting life as a maid in a rich household before becoming a young, chicer Mrs. Marple, will steal your attention to the point where you’ll be up at midnight to see what she’s up to next.

    The twists and turns of woven intrigue makes Maisie’s creator, Jacqueline Winspear, a present day Sir Arthur Conan Doyle siring a more than equal Sherlock Holmes.

   Maise Dobbs…Jacqueline Winspear (2003)

   Birds of a Feather…Jacqueline Winspear…(2004)

   Pardonable Lies…Jacqueline Winspear (2005)

   And the best news…there are 18 Maisie Mysteries in the series, the last, The Comfort of Ghosts written this year.  

    I warn you though. You’ll find yourself drinking lots of tea and eating slabs of toast slathered with butter and jam. 

  The Verdict…Barry Reed (1980)             

   Remember the film with Paul Newman? Who knew it came from a best selling novel I found all dusty on my Library’s shelf as if it retired into the Novel’s Hall of Fame.

   Of course it’s far better than the film, the usual case, and much different. But the good news…you can picture Paul in all his glory as the aging, alcoholic, still sexy lawyer Frank Galvin as he looked in Sidney Lumet’s 1982 film. 

  Mrs. Poe…Elizabeth Cullen (2003)       

   Historical Fiction at its very best.

   Edgar Allen Poe’s true love wasn’t his wife Virginia who was also his cousin, 22 years his junior. It was the writer and poet, Sara Elmira Royston Shelton he couldn’t stay away from, treating turn of the century scandal as an afterthought.

   Poe, our darkest poet to date, dying from alcoholism at 40, was the romantic suitor all women dream of…Sir Lancelot with a quill…taking every risk for love proving packaging can indeed be deceiving.

   Ms Cullen’s prose, lusty yet heartfelt, will keep your nightlight on.

  White Collar Girl…Renee Rosen (2015)  Finding a woman journalist at the Chicago Tribune in the 1950s was more than a little rare. Between disrespect and inappropriate sexual behavior, the #metoo movement would have had a field day with men whose balls were so big, you wondered how they ever sat down.

   Rosen’s heroine, Jordan Walsh, should have folded like a deck of cards, but her strong desire to write despite it all, would have made all women writers throughout the ages more than proud.

   Very entertaining…intelligent fluff hard to come buy.

   Let’s move into nonfiction that also held surprises.

    What This Comedian Said Will Shock You…Bill Maher (2024)  From its first page, couldn’t put it down. I was very impressed by what I read, writing to the author to tell him so.

   Why was I impressed? For having the courage to simply state the truth knowing mud along with a few death threats, no doubt would come his way.

   Bill Maher is the Erik Larson of Late Night since, neither men sugarcoat their point of view. Maher highlights our troubled times, we wishing none of it true, yet knowing full well that, alas, most of it is.

   Speaking of Mr. Larson…

  The Devil In The White City…Erik Larson (2003)  It’s 1893 at Chicago’s World’s Fair, or the World’s Columbian Exposition as it was fancily called, where wonders such as the Elevator, Cracker Jacks, the Ferris Wheel and Aunt Jemima Cake Mix, Jemima herself handing out samples, debuted.

   While people from all over the globe pour into Chicago, a serial killer is loose luring women using the fair as bait, who never make it back home again. The way Larson criss-crosses both themes is an art all in itself.

   Not often can a reader be entertained, educated and chilled down to their socks at the same time.

   Erik Larson is an amazing writer highly recommended, but not for the faint of heart holding nothing back without apology.

   One should buckle up, but also know it will be well worth the ride.

  Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania (2015)

          The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family and Defiance During The Blitz (2020) 

  The Demon of Unrest: A Tale of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War (2024)

 White House By The sea..Kate Storey (2023)  A birthday gift I throughly enjoyed packed with history more than scandal. You read about JFK and his many siblings along with parents whose better angels Storey chose to focus on. A positive spin, a nice change, when it comes to the Kennedys.

   Lincoln At Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President…Harold Holzer (2004)  Speaking of better angels, Abe’s political launch has a Mark Twain feel to it. How no one expected this gaunt, self-effacing giant in an ill-fitting suit no one ever heard of, to be so eloquent, stealing the hearts of those who came to hear him leading to his ill-fated Presidency.

   And to think it was right here on Astor Place where the Cooper Union still stands. I inhaled it, like a second helping of an outstanding meal.

 The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir…Griffin Dunne (2024)  The eldest son of the writer Dominick Dunne, nephew of writers Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, and brother to actress Dominique Dunne who in 1982, at the age of 27, was brutally killed by her Hollywood Chef-to-the-Stars boyfriend, launching the biggest murder trial prior to O.J.’s.

  Between the eminent players and social scandal, you’ll be reading with blinders on.

 A page-turner and then some.

  Somehow: Thoughts On Love…Anne Lamott (2024)  I’ll end with God’s quirky emissary whose two cents come by way of her tilted halo.

   Ms Lamott breathes new life into all she feels as the Christian queen of self-deprecation, complete with punchlines.

   Imagine Joan Rivers if she were born-again. (if only)

   I read it twice to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

  Life is such a mystery, that you have to wonder of God drinks a little.  A.L.   

   See what I mean?

   Happy reading everyone, and always remember, it’s a privilege.

  SB