Book Review: Musical Chairs by Jen Knox

I admire the frank way Jennifer Knox wrote this autobiography and her willingness to share the detailed story of her life - her parent's divorce, her running away from home, her subsequent jobs as a strip dancer among others, her treatments for panic disorder and alcoholism, and her decision to attend college and to write. I was impressed by her struggles, including finding out more about the health history of her great-grandmother Gloria, overcoming her own problems, and eventually coming into her own as a writer.

The book is written in a straight-forward chronological narrative, the story mainly speaking for itself but with Jen's voice briefly commenting on her experiences throughout. I would have liked to read more about her internal journey through these experiences and her reactions now as a writer, looking back on her life. Nevertheless, this is an eye-opening book about one young woman's coping with adverse family health and circumstances.


Jennifer Knox is a fiction editor at Our Stories Literary Journal, a freelance writer, editor, and writing tutor.   (Thanks to the author for providing a review copy of this book).

Friday Finds: U Is For Undertow by Sue Grafton, mystery

Friday Finds is hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.

My Friday Find is U Is for Undertow, a brand new book by Sue Grafton, Putnam Books, in the alphabet mystery series featuring amateur sleuth Kinsey Millhone.

Here is an excerpt from Chapter I:

Chapter I:

My name is Kinsey Millhone. I’m a private detective, female, age thirty-seven, with my thirty-eighth birthday coming up in a month. Having been married and divorced twice, I’m now happily single and expect to remain so for life. I have no children thus far and I don’t anticipate bearing any. Not only are my eggs getting old, but my biological clock wound down a long time ago. I suppose there’s always room for one of life’s little surprises, but that’s not the way to bet.

I work solo out of a rented bungalow in Santa Teresa, California, a town of roughly 85,000 souls who generate sufficient crime to occupy the Santa Teresa Police Department, the County Sheriff’s Department,
the California Highway Patrol, and the twenty-five or so local private investigators like me. Movies and television shows would have you believe a PI’s job is dangerous, but nothing could be farther from the truth . . .
except, of course, on the rare occasions when someone tries to kill me. Then I’m ever so happy my health insurance premiums are paid up.
Threat of death aside, the job is largely research, requiring intuition, tenacity, and ingenuity. Most of my clients reach me by referral and their business ranges from background checks to process serving,
with countless other matters in between. My office is off the beaten path and I seldom have a client appear unannounced, so when I heard a tapping at the door to my outer office, I got up and peered around the corner to see who it was.

Through the glass I saw a young man pointing at the knob. I’d apparently
turned the dead bolt to the locked position when I’d come back from lunch. I let him in, saying, “Sorry about that. I must have locked up after myself without being aware of it.”

“You’re Ms. Millhone?”

“Yes.”

“Michael Sutton,” he said, extending his hand. “Do you have time
to talk?”

SUE GRAFTON

Publication date is December 1. Excerpt courtesy of Putnam's Sons.

Book Review: The Art of Meaningful Living by Christopher F. Brown

The Art of Meaningful Living by Christopher F. Brown

I find something new to think about each time I open this book...

"Happiness is not a destination; it is an experience you will have on the way there." (p. 21)

"You experience the learning curve each time you try something new. It's a process, like change, of varied duration." (p. 48)

"Significant discrepancy between what is meaningful to you and how you spend your time is a warning sign of quiet desperation."(p. 67)

The self-help book of 113 pages is divided into four sections: Wisdom, Action, Relisience, and The Art of Meaningful Lives, with advice and psychological insight into making lives happier and more fulfilled.

From the publisher's description:

Too often our meaningful lives and the things we are passionate about get buried under disappointments and lost dreams. Christopher F. Brown, LCSW, MBA, offers a powerful book combining psychological concepts with beautiful provocative artwork by John Palmer...."

Brown says, "With The Art of Meaningful Living, I provide tools that will help readers learn to manage their minds, cope with the world around them, define what is valuable to them and hopefully move toward the lives they truly want. Remember that change is a journey, not a single event.” www.theartofmeaningfulliving.com

Wish I could also show the colorful artwork that is on every page of this beautiful coffeetable book.

Review copy provided by publicists Phenix & Phenix.

Book Review: Breathing Water: A Bangkok Thriller

Breathing Water: A Bangkok Thriller by Timothy Hallinan


"Behind every great fortune is a great crime..." is the premise for Timothy Hallinan's latest thriller, Breathing Water.

The book is set in the Bangkok of today and has all the complications of its real life - a shaky political situation, great poverty and great wealth, street children and those who prey on them, corruption, and the pull of love and death. This all makes for a great setting for a thriller, plus an engaging plot that pulls all the complexities of the city together.

From the publisher's description:

For American ex-pat writer Poke Rafferty, a late night poker game delivers an unexpected prize: an "opportunity to write the biography of Khun Pan, a flamboyant, vulgar, self-made billionaire with a criminal past and far-reaching political ambitions. The win seems like a stroke of luck, but as with so many things in vibrant, seductive, contradictory Bangkok - a city of innocence and evil, power and poverty - the allure of appearances masks something much darker.

Within a few hours of folding his cards, Rafferty, his wife, Rose, beloved adopted daughter, Miaow, and best friend, Arthit, an honest Bangkok cop, have become pawns in a political struggle among some of Thailand's richest, most powerful, and most ruthless people.

A great book for mystery/thriller readers.

Book Review: Friends Like These by Danny Wallace

Title: Friends Like These: My Worldwide Quest to Find My Best Childhood Friends, Knock on Their Doors, and Ask Them to Come Out and Play by Danny Wallace
Genre: nonfiction, memoir

Those who watch a lot of the BBC will probably like BBC documentary host and author of Yes Man, Danny Wallace, who describes his summer of searching for 12 school friends listed in the little black address book he had as a kid.

The rest of us who don't know much about him may find the quest less exciting, though Wallace travels from London to Berlin to Australia, to California, and finally to Tokyo to find his school friends. Most of the pals, however, he finds in the good old U.K.

This is nonfiction and his friends are regular, normal guys, not as funny as Jim Carrey in Yes Man.

Hachette Books provided a review copy of this book.

Sunday Salon, Nov. 1

Avocado milk shake and beef noodle soup in Toronto, Canada just before Oct. 31 ended. Spent the rest of the night planning to buy four tickets for the Canadian $50million lottery and planning how to split and spend our winnings, among seven of us. This conversation was fueled by glasses of Bailey's Irish Cream and sweet wine.

Before heading for Toronto on All Hallow's Eve, I had finished three book reviews for the week:

Persian Girls by Nahid Rachlin
A Sportscaster's Guide to Watching Football by Mark Oristano
Nanny Returns by Emma McLaughlin, a new sequel to the Nanny Diaries which will be out Dec. 15.

And also an interview with mystery writer, Susan Arnout Smith, who discussed why she writes mysteries/thrillers such as her latest, Out At Night.

Books have come in from Hachette and other sources, so my TBR pile has been mounting again after I thought I had really whittled it down some.

Am now reading a library book, Breathing Water, a thriller set in Bangkok, Thailand, which is quite good and will be keeping my attention on the long ride back to the States from Canada.

Now, off for dim sum breakfast at a Chinese restaurant. I love to start a new week this way.
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Halloween Reads

Halloween Murder by Shelley Freydont



A really good mystery book for Halloween!

Here are some other Halloween mysteries to ponder:
A Catered Halloween (Mystery with Recipes) by Isis Crawford
Who Stole Halloween? by Martha Freeman
Witches Bane by Susan Wittig Albert
Death on All Hallowe'en by Leo Bruce
Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie
Cat with an Emerald Eye by Carole Nelson Douglas
Trick or Treat by Leslie Glaister
Trick or Treat by Kerry Greenwood
Poisoned Tarts by G.A. McEvett
Trick or Treat Murder by Leslie Meier
Dance of the Scarecrows by Ray Sipherd
The Scarecrow Murders by Mary Welk
All Hallow's Eve by Charles Williams
All Hallow's Evil by Valerie Wolzien