Nickel and Dimed

TITLE: Nickel and Dimed: (On (Not) Getting By in America

AUTHOR: Barbara Ehrenreich

I've been working my way through old books. I'd thought I'd read this years ago, but no. Despite reading it so many years after it was published (in 2001), it still feels current (minus the out-of-date statistics). 

The author spent the better part of a year working in low-income jobs and paying for her expenses with her earnings only. She waitressed in Florida, cleaned houses in Maine while working weekends at a nursing home, and was sales "associate" at a Wal-Mart in Minnesota. 

Ehrenreich has a way with words, making for an entertaining read while educating readers about the issues faced by the working poor, a situation that still stymies upward mobility and financial security of this economic class. Well worth reading.

Death at the Sign of the Rook

TITLE:  Death at the Sign of the Rook

AUTHOR: Kate Atkinson

It's been a tough year for me for reading, but hopefully, I'm now back on track.

Kate Atkinson is one of my favorite authors and her PI character, Jackson Brodie, is one of my favorite fictional creations. This latest installment in the series is a complete delight. The mystery -- possibly connected art thefts -- is almost beside the point, serving mainly to bring Jackson and the rest of the main characters together for a murder mystery weekend at a mansion/hotel during a blizzard. Jackson is merely one character in the quirky cast and the alternating points of view bring them all to life, so much so that some of them deserve their own novels. This is a compulsive, delightful read.

Girls of Tender Age

TITLE: Girls of Tender Age

AUTHOR: Mary-Ann Tirone Smith

My goal of reading older books I've accumulated over many years continues with this memoir/true crime book. Tirone Smith grew up in Connecticut during the 1950s, a time when people had no fear of leaving their doors unlocked. Her prose is very readable and full of humor, and her choice of using present tense gives her story a timeless feel.

Two things make this more than a simple memoir. First is the challenge of living with an autistic brother at a time when the condition was poorly understood. Second is the murder of her fifth grade classmate at the hands of a pedophile and the lasting effect that horror had on Tirone Smith's life. Together, these two things elevate a story of childhood innocence into something more memorable. I'm glad I finally got around to reading it.

The Hunter

TITLE: The Hunter

AUTHOR: Tana French

A sequel to The Searcher, this book picks up two years later. Retired Chicago cop Cal Hooper has settled into small town life in Ireland where he is mostly accepted by the locals, especially Lena Dunne with whom he has a comfortable relationship. They both care about fifteen-year-old Trey Reddy who, with their guidance has begun changing from a near-feral kid into a good kid with a good future. So, when Trey's absentee father returns from London with a wealthy investor in tow, Cal senses trouble. 

Slowly, Johnny Reddy's great plan -- to dig for gold in the fields and nearby mountain -- is revealed. Local investors are needed and Cal smells a scam. He wants to protect Trey from her father's scheming, but Trey has plans of her own.

French's prose is compelling and the way she uses the town as a character helps build the suspense. This isn't much of a mystery, but it is a well-written story about characters I've come to love.

Two Novellas

These two novellas were my last reads of 2024:

This World is not Yours by Kemi Ashing-Giwa

As Many Ships as Stars by Weyodi OldBear

Both were well reviewed by "Publishers Weekly," so I decided to give them a shot. I've been trying to read more diverse books, especially in science fiction and these two sounded perfect.

They both were enjoyable, but they reminded me of how much I dislike reading short stories. They're too short, and read in places like a synopsis. The character development is basic and I found it hard to care about what happens to most of them, especially those in This World is not Yours. Both had places where I wanted to know more, but there was no more.

This World is not Yours is a bit of a horror story in a work of science fiction. Two women in a romantic relationship and their male friend are part of a team colonizing  a remote planet that features something they call the Gray, something that the planet produces to violently remove anything it perceives as a threat. I understand the importance of diverse characters so readers of all ethnic groups and sexual orientation, but I felt like those characters could've been anyone and the story would've worked pretty much un changed.

As Many Ships as Stars is more ambitious, covering 30,000 Earth years, with a few time jumps that had me wishing for more. A work of Indigenous Futurism, the story focuses on Leia, a Comanche woman working as an engineer on the spaceships that will take the richest families off a dying Earth (due to climate change), while knowing people like her will be left behind. So she decides to steal one of the ships. 

The first third of the book shows how tough life is for her and her people, but the scenes felt too similar and I almost stopped reading because nothing much was happening. The book finally takes off pun intended, when she and her family and friends launch the spacecraft. Things get interesting, and the cultures of the Indigenous spacefarers come into play. But after the slow moving opening section, the rest feels rushed. I'd love this to have been at least twice as long. One quibble: the typesetting is awful, with words being split at the right margin in weird places with not a hyphen in sight. I do hope OldBear tries her hand at novels.