First Chapter: Inheritance from Mother by Minae Mizumura

Inheritance from Mother by Minae Mizumura, May 2, 2017, Other Press

Genre: serialized novel, 2011-2012; translated from the Japanese

Source: library

First chapter:

The Long Telephone Call in Lieu of a Wake

"So how much do we get back from Golden?" 

Before answering, Mitsuki, on the phone with her sister Natsuki glanced once again at the numbers. At this late-fall night the window by the desk was closed, but instinctively she lowered her voice in reply. "Around seventeen million yen."  

"What?" said Natsuki. "You mean they keep a whole ten million even though she was there such a short time?""Looks like it." 

Golden was the private, exclusive nursing home where their mother had been living. Its full name was Golden Years, but everyone always called it Golden....

Book description:

Minae Mizumura demystifies the notion of the selfless Japanese mother and the adult daughter honor-bound to care for her. In addition to her husband’s infidelity, Mitsuki must deal with her ailing eighty-something mother, a demanding, self-absorbed woman who is far from the image of the patient, self-sacrificing Japanese matriarch.

Inheritance from Mother not only offers insight into a complex and paradoxical culture, but is also a profound work about mothers and daughters, marriage, old age, and the resilience of women. (publisher)

Based on the first chapter, first paragraph,  and the description, would you continue reading? 

MEME: Every Tuesday Bibliophile by the Sea hosts First Chapter First Paragraph, Tuesday Intros sharing the first paragraph or two, from a book you are reading or will be reading soon.

Devotions by Mary Oliver: The Selected Poems

Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver, October 10, 2017, Penguin Press
I browsed and looked at this collection of poems by Mary Oliver and then bought it after reading some of he poems! I love her emphasis and appreciation for all of nature, and her simple and meaningful way of expressing her thoughts and observations.

She chose the poems for this edition, so they must have special meaning for her. The collection is called Devotions, but they are not prayers as such. At least, I haven't seen any in the book as yet.

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Book Beginning: To Siri With Love by Judith Newman

To Siri With Love: A Mother, Her Autistic Son, and the Kindness of a Machine by Judith Newman, August 24, 2017, courtesy of Quercus

Genre: non-fiction

Book Beginning:

Introduction

My kids and I are at the supermarket.

"We need turkey and ham!"

Gus tends to speak in exclamation points. "A half pound! And...what, Mommy?" I'm stage-whispering directions, trying to keep the conversation focused on deli meats. Behind the counter, Otto politely slices and listens, occasionally interjecting questions. We're on track here.

And then...we're not. 

Book description:
The author's 13-year-old autistic son, Gus, develops a friendship with Siri, Apple's 'intelligent personal assistant.' Siri always has the right answers to Gus's incessant stream of questions about the intricacies of national rail schedules, or box turtle varieties, and she never runs out of patience. The book chronicles one year in the life of the family. (publisher)

Page 56:
Berkner directs me to a blog called Autism Daddy, where the dad describes his nonverbal twelve-year-old sleeping with a framed photo of Laurie (singer on Nickelodeon) like it's a teddy bear.

Memes: The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.

First Chapter: The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine

Psychological thriller: The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine, October 17, 2017, HarperLuxe

The Last Mrs. Parrish 

A debut psychological thriller full of twists about a coolly manipulative woman who worms her way into the lives of a wealthy “golden couple” from Connecticut to achieve the privileged life she wants. (publisher)

First chapter:

Amber Patterson was tired of being invisible. She'd been coming in this gym every day for three months - three long months of watching these women of leisure working at the only thing they cared about. They were all self-absorbed; she would have bet her last dollar that not one of them would recognize her on the street even though she was five feet away from them every single day. She was a fixture to them - unimportant, not worthy of being noticed. But she didn't care - not about any of them. There was one reason and one reason alone that she dragged herself there every day, to this machine, at the precise stroke of eight. 

Would you continue reading based on the first paragraph and the book description?

MEME: Every Tuesday Bibliophile by the Sea hosts First Chapter First Paragraph, Tuesday Intros sharing the first paragraph or two, from a book you are reading or will be reading soon.

Sunday Salon: Historical Novels and a Review

A new arrival this week, thanks to River Books Press is The Stairway Guide's Daughter by John Burgess, published September 25, 2017. The book is an historical novel set in the Angkor civilization of 12th century Cambodia. 

Description: "...a young woman called Jorani earns her living guiding pilgrims up a two thousand-step stairway to the magnificent cliff-top temple, Preah Vihear. One day, she accidentally witnesses the furtive burning of sacred palm-leaf documents, and is drawn into a succession struggle at the temple. She is forced to choose between loyalty to family and to the son of the abbot, with whom she forms an unlikely bond."

Another book I was excited about is by the new Nobel Prize winner in Literature this year, Kazuo Ishiguro.

I found my 2007 Goodreads review of When We Were Orphans. I reread it recently and got a few more ideas. Here is the original review:

"A book I have wanted to look at again. Set in the 1930s, it's about a young English detective with a faulty memory who returns to wartime Shanghai in 1937 to find his parents who had disappeared there years ago when he was about nine years old. As he is an unreliable narrator, readers have to figure out the puzzle of his past and become detectives themselves to decide what is fact and what is fiction. Christopher meets a Japanese soldier in Shanghai who may or may not be his playmate from years ago, before the war. How Christopher reacts or doesn't react to him and how he ignores his surroundings in Shanghai during the Japanese invasion is part of his strange, delusional persona. This book intrigued me so much, I want to try again to get the hard facts of Christopher's journey, which may not be possible, given his inaccurate memory. Ishiguro, born in Nagasaki, Japan and now living in London, is also author of The Remains of the Day, a Booker Prize-winning novel made into the award winning film with Anthony Hopkins." I'll just add now that on reading it again the past two days, I found the narrator Christopher to be a kind of English/European version of the Ugly American, representing the tunnel vision that ignored the reality of what was going on in Shanghai before and during WWII. If anyone has read  When We Were Orphans, I would love to discuss it and get your ideas here. What have you been reading this week?

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Two Book Reviews: The Vegetarian by Han Kang and Mad by Chloe Esposito

Here are two brief reviews of books I finished this week. Both are controversial, I think, and a little
out of the ordinary.

The Vegetarian by Han Kang
Think Franz Kafka and his Metamorphosis. Yeong-Hye stops eating meat and soon imagines herself one with the plant world, needing only sunlight. But her body remains the same, a human body needing food, even if meat-free.

I am not sure if this is a psychological study of extreme delusion or a study of a woman reacting to the strictures of a patriarchal world and a society with strict laws, especially when it comes to women's status. It could be both.

The story is told from three points of view - that of Yeong-Hye, of her brother-in-law who becomes obsessed with her, and of her older sister, the supposedly responsible, sane sister in the family.

It's a bit disturbing, this story, but with lots to ponder.

Book beginning:

Before my wife turned vegetarian, I'd had always thought of her as completely unremarkable in every way. To be frank, the first time I met her I wasn't even attracted to her. Middling height, bobbed hair neither long nor short; jaundiced, sickly-looking skin, somewhat prominent cheekbones; her timid, sallow cheekbones told me all I needed to know. As she came up to the table where I was waiting, I couldn't help but notice her shoes - the plainest black shoes imaginable. And that walk of hers - neither fast nor slow, striding nor mincing.  

Mad: A Novel (Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know Trilogy) by British author Chloe Esposito, June 13, 2017, Dutton
1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars[ 3 of 5 stars ]4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars

I am, like some of the other reviewers, ambivalent about the direction the main character headed. Alvie was a scattered young woman asked by her identical twin sister to fly to Sicily to switch places with her for a few hours.

I was surprised at the turn in the character in the story in the second half of the book. Her sister Beth acts strangely about the identity swap, and things go awry quickly. This is the first in a trilogy, so I'm wondering where the story will go from here. Alvie/Beth is probably not going to be everyone's idea of a perfect protagonist, though she certainly is an interestingly"mad" one.

Book beginning:

Alvie darling, 

Please stop ignoring me. I know you received my last two emails because I put that recipient-tracker thing on, so you can stop pretending. Despite being at risk of repeating myself, I would like to invite you, yet again, to come and stay with us at our villa in Taormina. You would LOVE it here: 16th century, original features, the smell of frangipani in the air. The sun shines every single day. There is a pool to die for....

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First Chapter: Pupcakes by Annie England Noblin

Pupcakes: A Christmas Novel by Annie England Noblin, October 10, 2017, courtesy of William Morrow
Genre: romance, Christmas story
This is a novel of one woman starting over, who is adopted by an aging pug named Teddy Roosevelt, and continues when Brydie uses her baking skills to open a bakery named after its mascot - Pupcakes. 

First paragraph, first chapter:

The dog came with the house. Or maybe the house came with the dog. Either way, no matter how the sentence was constructed, the house and the dog came together.
Brydie Benson looked down at the at the fat wad of fur on the floor in front of her. Its tongue hung out of its mouth, fixed in what seemed to be a permanent pant. Bits of drool dripped from the protruding tongue and pooled onto the hardwood floor between them. 
Brydie took a step back. "Are you sure it can't go live with a relative or something?" she asked. "I'm not really a dog person." (from an uncorrected proof; final copy may differ)

Would you read on based on the beginning and the book description? 

MEME: Every Tuesday Bibliophile by the Sea hosts First Chapter First Paragraph, Tuesday Intros sharing the first paragraph or two, from a book you are reading or will be reading soon.