Beginning ~ with a better idea?

Book Beginning

"I have a better idea.  Let's have him killed."

Bad Trust (An Attorney Rachel Gold Mystery) ~ by Michael A. Kahn, 2020, mystery (St. Louis), 232 pages

St. Louis attorney Rachel Gold and her colleagues use their wits, legal skills, and a dash of chutzpah to defend both a slander case and a woman accused of murdering her rather nasty brother.  An ugly trust fund dispute among siblings turns deadly when Isaiah, CEO of the family firm he stole from their father, is murdered in his office.

Jewish lawyer Rachel Gold, hired to bring suit against Isaiah on behalf of his sisters, must now defend one against the charge of fratricide.  But playing at detective for her legal case means getting entrenched in the complex dynamics of the Jewish family.

As Rachel and her team seek essential evidence, the widowed Rachel struggles with family issues of her own, including relationships with her young son Sam and her boyfriend Abe. The jury is still out on whether or not Rachel can create the work-life balance she is seeking.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts

Book Beginnings on Fridays.

Thinking about piles of snow

These piles of snow from our recent snow storm that were pushed into huge piles in the parking lot by the snow plow are beginning to melt, but they have only shrunk a little bit.  People are still having to use shovels to get out of their spots.

This afternoon, I walked across the street to Walgreen's and literally couldn't see to get home across the street.  Okay, I was going west, toward the setting sun, but even using my clip-on sunglasses, I was having trouble and needed to hold my hand up to shade my face, like the brim of a baseball cap.  Next time, if I go around that time of day, I'll wear a cap with a brim!

Hmm, I just noticed that photo above was taken after sunset last fall, so it doesn't look like the blinding snow I face today.  Gotta go now and comb my hair before going downstairs for our Resident Council meeting.

Let's be logical

I just learned about this when I got online, so this TWOsday gets an extra post.  Let's be logical, okay?  Let's think about it, like the famous "thinker" in this photo and on the cover of this small book on critical thinking that I have.

The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking: Concepts and Tools (Eighth Edition) ~ by Richard Paul and Linda Elder, 2020, philosophy, 48 pages

This powerful book introduces core critical thinking concepts and principles as an empowering problem-solving framework for every profession, course of study, and indeed every area of life. It distills the groundbreaking work of Richard Paul and Linda Elder, targeting how to deconstruct thinking through the elements of reasoning and how to assess the quality of our thinking.

The eighth edition of this guide further details the foundations of critical thinking and how they can be applied in instruction to improve teaching and learning at all levels; it also reveals how we can learn to identify and avoid egocentric and sociocentric thought, which lead to close-mindedness, self-deception, arrogance, hypocrisy, greed, selfishness, herd mentality, prejudice, and the like.

With more than half a million copies sold, Richard Paul and Linda Elder’s bestselling book in the Thinker’s Guide Library is used in secondary and higher education courses and professional development seminars across the globe. In a world of conflicting information and clashing ideologies, this guide clears a path for advancing fairminded critical societies.

I remember fitting together shapes like this little wooden puzzle.  Did you?  I thought of it because of that picture at the top, with the shapes being almost pushed together.

Two more books from the library

The Collected Regrets of Clover ~ by Mikki Brammer, 2023, psychological fiction (New York), 317 pages

What’s the point of giving someone a beautiful death if you can’t give yourself a beautiful life?  From the day she watched her kindergarten teacher drop dead during a dramatic telling of Peter Rabbit, Clover Brooks has felt a stronger connection with the dying than she has with the living.  After the beloved grandfather who raised her dies alone while she is traveling, Clover becomes a death doula in New York City, dedicating her life to ushering people peacefully through their end-of-life process.

Clover spends so much time with the dying that she has no life of her own, until the final wishes of a feisty old woman send Clover on a trip across the country to uncover a forgotten love story –– and perhaps, her own happy ending.  As she finds herself struggling to navigate the uncharted roads of romance and friend-ship, Clover is forced to examine what she really wants, and whether she’ll have the courage to go after it.  This book was named a Best Book of 2023 by NPR.  Looks very interesting to me.

House of Leaves ~ by Mark Z. Danielewski, 2000, literary fiction, 736 pages

A house that's larger on the inside than on the outside?  House of Leaves has been called a terrifying story and has inspired doctorate-level courses and masters theses.  So what's it about?  Here's what I found online:

Neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of the impossibility of their new home, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story — of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.

I put this one on reserve because someone here at the Crown Center told me about it, but I'm not sure it's for me, now that I have it in hand.  I'll give it a try (and let you know what I think), but I already know for sure that it's a heavy, chunky book!

Musing about a local cemetery

Movers and Shakers, Scalawags and Suffragettes: Tales from Bellefontaine Cemetery ~ by Carol Ferring Shepley, 2008, history (Missouri), 384 pages

The history of Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis is told through the stories of those who are buried there.  The book is organized into sections:

1. Movers and Shakers
2. Scalawags and Nortorious Women
3. Suffragettes
4. Fur Traders
5. Civil War Patriots
6. Captains of Industry
7. Professionals
8. Titans of Transportation
9. Artists and Architects
10. Men of Sports
11. Phulanthropists
12. Cemetery Lore
13. Art and Architecture of Note

Besides being a history of a significant place, this book is a guidebook to St. Louis and its notable residents.  Because so many of St. Louis’s leading citizens (such as William Clark, James Buchanan Eads, Susan Blow, and Adolphus Busch) are buried in Bellefontaine, the book is a tale of the city.

Too many library books?

Somebody's Daughter ~ by Ashley C. Ford, 2021, memoir (Indiana), 224 pages

This is the story of a poor Black girl's childhood defined by the absence of her incarcerated father.  Through poverty, adolescence, and a fraught relationship with her mother, Ashley C. Ford wishes she could turn to her father for hope and encouragement.   There are just a few problems: he’s in prison, and she doesn’t know what he did to end up there.  She doesn’t know how to deal with the incessant worries that keep her up at night, or how to handle the changes in her body that draw unwanted attention from men.  In her search for unconditional love, Ashley begins dating a boy her mother hates.  When the relationship turns sour, he assaults her.  Still reeling from the rape, which she keeps secret from her family, Ashley desperately searches for meaning in the chaos.  Then, her grandmother reveals the truth about her father’s incarceration, and Ashley’s entire world is turned upside down.

Note to self:  It's "dangerous" to walk through the little Crown Center library, especially if you stop to align books on the shelves or even glance at titles while you are there.  Especially when you know how easy it is to sign out a book (or two).  I have two books from the University City Library checked out, plus six books and a magazine checked out of the Crown Center library where I live.  No, wait, I just found one more Crown Center library book in my bedroom, left there when I fell asleep last night.

Here's what I have posted this week:

1. GRATITUDE is my chosen word for this year.
2. So I ordered a GRATITUDE JOURNAL, which is supposed to arrive today.
3. My THURSDAY THOUGHTS were about Adriana Trigiani's memoir Don't Sing at the Table.
4. I shared the beginning sentences of Holy Fools by Joanne Harris in my BOOK BEGINNINGS on Friday.

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz

hosts The Sunday Salon.

Beginning ~ with seven players

Beginning

It begins with the players.  Seven of them, six men and a girl, she in sequins and ragged lace, they in leathers and silk.  All of them masked, wigged, powdered, painted; Arlequin and Scaramouche and the long-nosed Plague Doctor, demure Isabelle and the lecherous Geronte, their gilded toenails bright beneath the dust of the road, their smiles whitened with chalk, their voices so harsh and so sweet that from the first they tore at my heart.

Holy Fools ~ by Joanne Harris, 2004, historical fiction, 355 pages

Joanne Harris transports us back to a time of intrigue and turmoil, of deception and masquerade.  In 1605, a young widow, pregnant and alone, seeks sanctuary at the small Abbey of Sainte Marie-de-la-mer on the island of Noirs Moustiers off the Brittany coast.  After the birth of her daughter, she takes up the veil, and a new name, Soeur Auguste.  But the peace she has found in remote isolation is shattered five years later by the events that follow the death of her kind benefactress, the Reverend Mother.

When a new abbess ― the daughter of a corrupt noble family elevated by the murder of King Henri IV ― arrives at Sainte Marie-de-la-mer, she does not arrive alone.  With her is her personal confessor and spiritual guide, Père Colombin, a man Soeur Auguste knows all too well.  For the newcomer is Guy LeMerle, a charlatan and seducer now masquerading as a priest, and the one man she fears more than any other.

Soeur Auguste has a secret.  Once she was l'Ailée, "The Winged One," star performer of a troupe led by LeMerle, before betrayal forced her to change her identity.  But now the past has found her.  Before long, thanks to LeMerle, suspicion and debauchery are breeding like a plague within the convent's walls ― fueled by dark rumors of witchcraft, part of the false priest's brilliantly orchestrated scheme of revenge.  To protect herself and her beloved child, l'Ailée will have to perform one last act of dazzling daring more audacious than any she has previously attempted.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts

Book Beginnings on Fridays.