Jodi Picoult recommends a book

Yesteryear ~ by Caro Claire Burke, 2026, satirical novel, 400 pages

This book is about a popular "tradwife" influencer, Natalie Heller Mills, who wakes up in 1855, forced to confront the harsh reality of the pioneer life she romanticized online.  And this authentic 19th-century version of her homestead is brutal.  The book explores themes of tradition, fame, and the performance of womanhood through the eyes of Natalie, its narcissistic but compelling protagonist, as she navigates a world that is both a nightmarish reality and a potential hoax or reality show.  It's a critique of modern online culture.

This is considered a major book of 2026 and has been picked as a Good Morning America Book Club selection.  Jodi Picoult is my favorite novelist, so I plan to read this book, even though 400 pages is more than I like in a book.

Using "had had" repeatedly ~ and my first audiobook

Looking for an illustration using a "had had" sentence, I found this mug using four HADs in a row.  The following sentence is my version of a famous "had had" demonstration.  See if it makes sense to you.  I'll break if up into lines and add punctuation, letting you know when to pause so you can "hear" the right meaning:

John, where James had had "had,"

had had "had had";

"had had" had had the teacher's approval.

Count them.  There are eleven HADs in that sentence — eleven HADs in a row, with no other words intervening.  It's a perfectly good English sentence, and I love saying it.

Choice ~ by Jodi Picoult, narrated by Thérèse Plummer, 2022, SF (speculative fiction), 38 minutes, 8/10

Margot and James are broken up — for good this time.  James made sure of it when he dropped the bomb on Margot:  that he doesn’t want kids, ever.

Then, on the biggest morning of his life, James — an ambitious lawyer at a high-powered firm — wakes up pregnant.  He realizes with dread that he is part of a recent epidemic of men suddenly and inexplicably becoming pregnant.  His condition obvious to the higher-ups, James is denied the promotion he was expecting, sending him reeling.

Meanwhile, Margot, a social worker, must handle the influx of desperate, pregnant teenage boys suddenly seeking her help.  When she receives a call from James with the same problem, the challenge of navigating post-Roe America hits even closer to home.

(Please note:  This content is intended for adults only.  It features themes of pregnancy loss that may be upsetting to some listeners.  Discretion is advised.)

What can I say about this book, this idea?  Well, it made me think.  It seems impossible for a man to have a baby — but if you think about it, so does a woman having a baby seem impossible.  Yet I myself have done it — I have twin daughters and a son.  (And I have six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, but who's bragging?)

I'll probably be thinking about this "speculative fiction" for several days, and I'll probably mention it to friends as we chat.  It was a very good story, but I realized I'd still rather READ a book than LISTEN to one.  I'm a visual person.

Collecting my thoughts for Thursday

1.  Advice for the new year:  The best way to find something that is lost among your stuff ("It's gotta be here somewhere") is to buy another one.  When you get the new one, I can almost guarantee that you'll find the old one that same day.  Maybe within minutes.

2.  Fall Creek Falls in Tennessee:  My friend Debra took this photo of my favorite falls on January 1, 2022.  Fall Creek Falls is the highest free-fall waterfall east of the Mississippi River, according to Wikipedia.  The height is 256 feet (78 m).  Thanks for the memories, Debra!

3.  Sticker shock:  To help you understand why seniors have a hard time dealing with prices these days, here's what I used to earn.  As a teenager, I made 75-cents an hour as a file clerk working in an office in downtown Chattanooga in the afternoon, after school was out.  In my first full-time job in 1959, I made $1 an hour.  That's $40 a week, which equals $2,080 a year before taxes were taken out.

4.  Now let's look at rent:  Compare that $2,080 annual salary in #3 with this statistic I found using Google:  "The average asking rent is now $1,900 — with single-family houses averaging $2,018 a month."  It blows my mind!

5.  Does this make cents?  Yes, I spelled it correctly.  When I typed #3 above, I needed the "cent" sign.  Typewriters used to have that cent-symbol "back in my day."  My laptop doesn't have any such thing!  Is that because a cent is almost worthless these days?

6.  On the other hand:  I learned to type on a typewriter like this clunky Underwood.  Although I can't focus in on it here, I'm sure this big typewriter has the symbol for cent over the 6, as in the slightly more modern keyboard in this photo below.

7.  More on the cent symbol:  I tried several ways different people said I could use to make the cent sign, but none worked.  Here's my solution:  I simply found one that somebody else had made and copied it.  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  ¢  That was easy!

8.  Nickels aren't worth much, either:  On Sunday, I considered a new occupation, until I realized that nickels aren't worth what they were back in my day, either.  So apparently, paper money is worth more than "hard" currency (unless it's collectible, like a buffalo nickel, also called an Indian Head nickel).

9.  Word of the Day:  clunk·y /ˈkləNGkē / adjective INFORMAL = awkwardly solid, heavy, and outdated.  Example:  "Even last year's laptops look clunky."  (See #6 above.)

10.  Do you have a system?  Before I leave my apartment, I count what's in my pockets (jeans with pockets are my retirement uniform):

• pen and paper
• pills and phone
• keys and comb
• clippers and Kleenex
• mask and money
• plus calendar and Kindle, if I take my cart  (too big for my pockets)

11.  The last thing I did in 2022:  I changed the calendar on the bulletin board beside the elevator on my floor.  Oh, wait!  No, I came home from changing the calendar and fed Clawdia.  She was eating as fireworks hailed a (hopefully less pandemic-y) New Year.

12.  I'm still wearing masks because of my age and being immunocompromised.  Is anyone else still masking up?

13.  I have decided I won't stop at an arbitrary number just because Colleen has done a Thursday Thirteen for years.  So I'll keep sharing until it's time to post my thoughts.

14.  Library books checked out:  I've blogged about how many books I had checked out of the library at any one time:  one, four, seven, fourteen, etc.  One (very unusual) time, I had ZERO books checked out.  The shocker, even to me, is that I now have 26 books checked out.  Yes, that number is 26.  That's proof I'm a "bookie," isn't it?

15.  I have a conundrum:  Why don't the words tough, cough, and dough rhyme?  On the other hand, these words DO rhyme:  dew, do, and due.  Why?  Can you explain it?

16.  Word of the Day (see # 15)

co·nun·drum / kəˈnəndrəm / noun = a confusing and difficult problem or question.

17.  We can now officially end sentences with prepositions if we want to.  (So I just did!)

18.  Do you "follow" any authors?  I see that I follow eight Amazon authors:

• Richard Bach
• Roberta C. Bondi — my former professor
• Lisa Genova — whose book Remember I just downloaded onto my Kindle
• Beth Kephart
• Stephen J. Patterson
• John Pavlovitz
• Jodi Picoult — whom I've meet in person
• Joan Uda, who's my best friend — so I picked up my phone and called her.  (The photo shows Joan and me when I visited her in 2019.)

19.  On New Year's Day, I read a children's book while waiting for someone:  Henry and Mudge and Annie's Perfect Pet ~ by Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Suçie Stevenson, 2000, 40 pages.  I rate it 10/10.  Annie needs a pet that's soft and dry and doesn't fly — one that's quiet and careful, just like Annie.  (Spoiler:  it's a soft white rabbit, but you won't find a rabbit among the animals shown on the cover.)

20.  Study the cover carefully (as a child might do), and tell me what pets you find.

Library Loot ~ the latest book by Jodi Picoult

Mad Honey ~ by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan, 2022, fiction (New Hampshire), 455 pages

Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over.  Her picture-perfect life — living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising their beautiful son, Asher — was upended when her husband revealed a darker side.  She never imagined that she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in and taking over her father’s beekeeping business.

 

Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too.  When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start.  And for just a short while, these new beginnings are exactly what Olivia and Lily need.  Their paths cross when Asher falls for the new girl in school, and Lily can’t help but fall for him, too.  With Ash, she feels happy for the first time.  Yet at times, she wonders if she can trust him completely.

 

Then one day, Olivia receives a phone call: Lily is dead, and Asher is being questioned by the police.  Olivia is adamant that her son is innocent.  But she would be lying if she didn’t acknowledge the flashes of his father’s temper in Ash.  As the case against him unfolds, she realizes he’s hidden more than he’s shared with her.  Mad Honey is a riveting novel of suspense, an unforgettable love story, and a moving and powerful exploration of the secrets we keep and the risks we take in order to become ourselves.

Donna and I met Jodi Picoult in September of 2019, when Jodi spoke at the St. Louis County Library.  Donna's on the left, and I'm on the right.  Jodi is my favorite writer, so I put this book on reserve at my library.  And now it's my turn to read her latest book, published in October 2022.

Books bought, books read, book quoted

 Eight added to my Kindle

The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread ~ by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by Timothy Basil Ering, 2003, children's fantasy, 272 pages

Welcome to the story of Despereaux Tilling, a mouse who is in love with music, stories, and a princess named Pea.  It is also the story of a rat called Roscuro, who lives in the darkness and covets a world filled with light.  And it is the story of Miggery Sow, a slow-witted serving girl who harbors a simple, impossible wish.  These three characters are about to embark on a journey that will lead them down into a horrible dungeon, up into a glittering castle, and, ultimately, into each other's lives.  What happens then?  As Kate DiCamillo would say:  Reader, it is your destiny to find out.

(See what Kate DiCamillo posted this week on Facebook by clicking HERE.)

The Irish Cottage: Finding Elizabeth (The Irish Heart Series Book 1) ~ by Juliet Gauvin, 2014, fiction (Ireland), 349 pages

Elizabeth Lara built a perfect life as San Francisco’s top divorce attorney, but when she loses her great-aunt Mags, the woman who raised her, she boards a plane and leaves it all behind.  The Irish shores welcome her as she learns a shocking truth, kept secret for thirty-five years.  Devastated and now alone in the world, Beth tries to find peace in a beautiful cottage by Lough Rhiannon . . . but peace isn’t what fate had in mind.  Almost as soon as she arrives, Beth’s solitary retreat into the magic wilds of Ireland is interrupted by Connor Bannon.  A man with light brown hair, ice blue eyes, and a secret.  With the help of Mags’ letters, the colorful townspeople of Dingle, and Connor, Elizabeth might just find a way back to the girl she lost long ago and become the woman she always wanted to be.

The Storyteller of Casablanca ~ by Fiona Valpy, 2021, historical fiction, 305 pages

Morocco, 1941.  With France having fallen to Nazi occupation, twelve-year-old Josie has fled with her family to Casablanca, where they await safe passage to America.  Life here is as intense as the sun, every sight, smell and sound overwhelming to the senses in a city filled with extraordinary characters.  It’s a world away from the trouble back home — and Josie loves it.

Seventy years later, another new arrival in the intoxicating port city, Zoe, is struggling — with her marriage, her baby daughter, and her new life as an expat in an unfamiliar place.  But when she discovers a small wooden box and a diary from the 1940s beneath the floorboards of her daughter’s bedroom, Zoe enters the inner world of young Josie, who once looked out on the same view of the Atlantic Ocean, but who knew a very different Casablanca.

It’s not long before Zoe begins to see her adopted city through Josie’s eyes.  But can a new perspective help her turn tragedy into hope, and find the comfort she needs to heal her broken heart?

The Sister Joan Mysteries, Books 1-5 ~ by Veronica Black, 2021 (box set), cozy mysteries, 827 pages

1. A Vow of Silence (Book 1, first published in 1990) ~ The Daughters of Compassion share a chilling secret they cannot confess:  Sister Sophia is dead.  Another nun is missing.  What’s going on with them?  It’s up to newcomer Sister Joan to uncover the truth.  She’s faced her own demons, but can she save her sisters from theirs?
2. A Vow of Chastity (Book 2, first published in 1991) ~ Evil.  Temptation.  Mystery.  Dark doings are afoot in the sisters’ quiet corner of Cornwall.  A teenager vanishes and Sister Joan feels compelled to lead the search to find him.  But is it out of duty?  Or some other motive that is decidedly less pure of heart?
3. A Vow of Sanctity (Book 3, first published in 1993) ~ Sister Joan heads to the shores of Loch Morag for a retreat.  But trouble has a way of finding her, even in the middle of nowhere.  After a storm, a body surfaces in the loch.  Who was he?  The villagers close ranks in the face of Joan’s questions.  But she won’t rest until she unearths the truth.
4. A Vow of Obedience (Book 4, first published in 1993) ~ A teen girl vanishes from home in the night.  Days on, Sister Joan finds her body in the schoolhouse, dressed in wedding white.  A second young girl turns up strangled, and Joan realizes a killer is stalking the moors.  Can she catch up to him before more innocent victims die?
5. A Vow of Penance (Book 5, first published in 1995) ~ When the rectory housekeeper is found dead, everyone assumes it’s suicide. But Sister Joan is not so sure. Then a John Doe turns up dead, mutilated — and his killing leads Sister Joan back to a much older crime. What if the key to this mystery lies buried twenty years in the past?

Books completed so far in 2022

1. From the Dark We Rise ~ by Marion Kummerow, 2021, historical fiction (Germany), 281 pages, 7/10
2. A Light in the Window ~ by Marion Kummerow, 2021, historical fiction (Germany), 280 pages, 6/10
3. War Girl Lotte ~ by Marion Kummerow, 2017, historical fiction (Germany), 180 pages, 7/10
4. Croissants and Corruption ~ by Danielle Collins, 2017, cozy mystery (Virginia), 164 pages, 8/10
5. Mrs. Peachtree and the Eighth Avenue Cat ~ by Erica Silverman, illustrations by Ellen Beier, 1994, children's picture book, 32 pages, 8/10
6. Caterpillar Kisses: Lessons My Kindergarten Class Taught Me About Life ~ by Christine Pisera Naman, 2005, anecdotes, 100 pages, 9/10
7. West with Giraffes ~ by Linda Rutledge, 2021, historical fiction, 381 pages, 7/10
8. Wish You Were Here ~ by Jodi Picoult, 2021, fiction, (New York and Galápagos), 325 pages, 9.5/10
9. Chester's Way ~ by Kevin Henkes, 1988, children's picture book, 32 pages, 10/10
10. The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread ~ by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by Timothy Basil Ering, 2003, children's fantasy, 272 pages, 8/10

Here are my favorite quotes from Jodi Picoult's Wish You Were Here (#8 above):

• "There is a profound difference between knowing your situation is temporary and not knowing what's coming next" (p. 74).
• "Isolation, I think, is the worst thing in the world" (p. 78).
• "In the grand scheme of things, losing dollars is nothing compared to losing time" (p. 104).
• "There aren't clocks in hospital rooms, and your sleep keeps getting disturbed, and the lights never really go out fully, so it's hard to get a sense of time passing.  Sometimes I'm not sure if hours have gone by, or days" (p. 203).
• "Okay . . . what if death wasn't the ending you've been told it is?  What if time is like fabric, a bolt that's so long you can't see where it starts or it ends? . . . Maybe at the moment a person dies, that life gets compressed so small and dense it's like a pinprick in the cloth.  It may be that at that point, you enter a new reality.  A new stitch in time, basically" (p. 270).

Deb at Readerbuzz hosts Sunday Salon,

a place for us to link up and share what

we have read and done during this week.

Bits of Bonnie ~ Sunday Salon

"Great conversation starter," it says in the fine print above.  So let's start a conversation about book titles.  "If there was a book about you, what would the title be?"  I like the question because I already have an answer.  The title for a book about me would be Bits of Bonnie.  As a matter of fact, here's what I've already written about such a book:

"I keep a journal, sort of, in the sense that I collect my thoughts and memories in notebooks like this one.  If I ever write a memoir, I'll call it Bits of Bonnie."

Sprinkle before ironing

Do you know what this empty Coke bottle was used for back in the olden days?  I remember!  It was filled with water to sprinkle on clothes before ironing them.  There's been a discussion on Facebook about clothes sprinkled with water, then rolled up and put into the fridge before ironing them.  One woman on FB asked why anyone would dampen clothes and put them in the fridge.  The last time I looked, there were 6,885 replies to her question!  Yikes!  No, I didn't even try to read them all.

I'm so old that I know the answer, as did several others who may be close to my age.  (I'll be 82 in April.)  When I was young, we didn't have a steam iron and there was no such thing as polyester or permanent press.  Our cotton clothing came out of the washer very, very wrinkled, needing to be ironed.  Damp cotton clothes — especially cold, damp clothes — smoothed out nicely once we ironed them.  Someone on FB remembered a "sprinkler thingy," so I shared this photo.  It made sense back then, and it worked.

Wish You Were Here ~ by Jodi Picoult, 2021, fiction (New York and Galápagos), 325 pages

Diana O’Toole is perfectly on track.  She will be married by thirty, done having kids by thirty-five, and move out to the New York City suburbs, all while climbing the professional ladder in the cutthroat art auction world.  She’s an associate specialist at Sotheby’s now, but her boss has hinted at a promotion if she can close a deal with a high-profile client.  She’s not engaged just yet, but she knows her boyfriend, Finn, a surgical resident, is about to propose on their romantic getaway to the Galápagos — days before her thirtieth birthday.  Right on time.

But then a virus that felt worlds away has appeared in the city, and on the eve of their departure, Finn breaks the news:  It’s all hands on deck at the hospital.  He has to stay behind.  You should still go, he assures her, since it would be a shame for all of their nonrefundable trip to go to waste.  And so, reluctantly, she goes.

Almost immediately, Diana’s dream vacation goes awry.  Her luggage is lost, the Wi-Fi is nearly nonexistent, and the hotel they’d booked is shut down due to the pandemic.  In fact, the whole island is now under quarantine, and she is stranded until the borders reopen.  Completely isolated, she must venture beyond her comfort zone.  Slowly, she carves out a connection with a local family when a teenager with a secret opens up to Diana, despite her father’s suspicion of outsiders.

In the Galápagos Islands, where Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection was formed, Diana finds herself examining her relationships, her choices, and herself — and wondering if when she goes home, she too will have evolved into someone completely different.

Library Loot ~ I've been waiting for this new book from Jodi Picoult, and finally it was my turn on the waiting list at my library.  I got it on Thursday.  Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire of The Captive Reader and Sharlene of Real Life Reading that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.

Today's PUN-ishment

You've heard of Murphy's Law, but do you know what Cole's Law is?  Oh, come on!  Surely you remember.  It's made of chopped cabbage.

Deb at Readerbuzz hosts Sunday Salon,

a place for us to link up and share what

we have read and done during this week.

Beginning ~ with a reason to be born

Beginning

When I was little, the great mystery to me wasn't how babies were made, but why. . . . I was born for a very specific purpose.  I wasn't the result of a cheap bottle of wine or a full moon or the heat of the moment.  I was born because a scientist managed to hook up my mother's egg and my father's sperm to create a specific combination of precious genetic material.

My Sister's Keeper ~ by Jodi Picoult, 2004, fiction, 423 pages

Anna is not sick, but she might as well be.  By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood.  The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for her leukemia-stricken sister Kate, a life and a role that she has never challenged — until now.  Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is.  But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister — and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays.

Books I'll remember

I posted about "15 books that will always stick with me" on Facebook in 2009.  I decided to do it again, updating that list to include books that I've read in the last dozen years.  So here are 15 books, in alphabetical order, that I think will always stick with me:

1. Agape Love: A Tradition Found in Eight World Religions ~ by John Templeton, 1999
2. The Gnostic Gospels ~ by Elaine Pagels, 1979
3. The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions ~ by Karen Armstrong, 2006
4. The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith ~ by Marcus J. Borg, 2003
5. Herland ~ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1915
6. Honest to God ~ by John A. T. Robinson, 1963
7. Little Women ~ by Louisa May Alcott, 1868
8. Miss Rumphius ~ by Barbara Cooney, 1982
9. My Sister's Keeper ~ by Jodi Picoult, 2003
10. The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity ~ by Hyam Maccoby, 1986
11. The Red Tent ~ by Anita Diamant, 1997
12. The Social Construction of Reality ~ by Peter L. Berger, 1966
13. Talk Before Sleep ~ by Elizabeth Berg, 1994
14. Time and Again ~ by Jack Finney, 1970
15. A Wrinkle in Time ~ by Madeleine L'Engle, 1962

I am currently re-reading The Social Construction of Reality ~ by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, that I told you about in a recent blog post.  And now I want to re-read some of the other books on this list.

Deb at Readerbuzz hosts Sunday Salon, a place for us to link up and share what we have been reading and doing during the week.

New book by Jodi Picoult

I just learned that Jodi Picoult's next book is coming out at the end of November 2021.  She's my favorite writer.  I'm on her email list, so I can get a copy as soon as possible.

Here's a photo of Donna (on the left) and me (on the right) with Jodi Picoult in September of 2019, when Jodi spoke at the St. Louis County Library.

Beginning ~ three times

#1 Prologue

My calendar is full of dead people.

#2 Land/Egypt

My mother, who lived and died by superstitions, used to make us say together before we went on a trip:  We're not going anywhere.  It was meant to trick the Devil.  I can't say I believe in that kind of thing, but then again, I didn't say it before I left home, and look at where that got me.

#3 Water/Boston

When I get home, Brian is waiting.  He stares at me as if I am a hallucination, and then he approaches me cautiously — the way you would move toward a feral animal or someone whose world has gone to pieces around her.

The Book of Two Ways ~ by Jodi Picoult, 2020, fiction (Egypt and Boston, Massachusetts)

Everything changes in a single moment for Dawn Edelstein.  She’s on a plane when the flight attendant makes an announcement:  Prepare for a crash landing. She braces herself as thoughts flash through her mind.  The shocking thing is, the thoughts are not of her husband but of a man she last saw fifteen years ago:  Wyatt Armstrong.

Dawn, miraculously, survives the crash, but so do all the doubts that have suddenly been raised.  She has led a good life.  Back in Boston, there is her husband, Brian, their beloved daughter, and her work as a death doula, in which she helps ease the transition between life and death for her clients.

But somewhere in Egypt is Wyatt Armstrong, who works as an archaeologist unearthing ancient burial sites, a career Dawn once studied for but was forced to abandon when life suddenly intervened.  And now, when it seems that fate is offering her second chances, she is not as sure of the choice she once made.

After the crash landing, the airline ensures that the survivors are seen by a doctor, then offers transportation to wherever they want to go.  The obvious destination is to fly home, but she could take another path:  return to the archaeological site she left years before, reconnect with Wyatt and their unresolved history, and maybe even complete her research on The Book of Two Ways — the first known map of the afterlife.

As the story unfolds, Dawn’s two possible futures unspool side by side, as do the secrets and doubts long buried with them.  Dawn must confront the questions she’s never truly asked:  What does a life well lived look like?  When we leave this earth, what do we leave behind?  Do we make choices . . . or do our choices make us?  And who would you be if you hadn’t turned out to be the person you are right now?

An illustration from the book

This is the wavy map of the Egyptian Book of Two Ways (pp. 259-260).  When I borrowed this book from my friend Donna, I was in the middle of reading Jacqueline Winspear's The Mapping of Love and Death: A Maisie Dobbs Novel (2010).  Both books are about maps and death.  That's eerie.  Maurice, who is Maisie's mentor, said in an earlier book in the series that "coincidence is a messenger sent by truth" (p. 50 in Birds of a Feather, 2004).  Is this one of Maisie's "coincidences"?  And look at this Amazon comment:

"To have a book dropped wordlessly in the night into your Kindle in a night you are climbing out of recovery for Stage 4 cancer treatment, and to have the book be this one, this spiritual agnostic acknowledges, again, that there are forces in our world at work that we cannot explain.  To say I couldn't put this down is clichéd, and I did.  I had to sleep.  But I didn't stop thinking. I have never ran a complete parallel conversation in my brain as I did with this one.  I will need to re-read to capture all the Egyptology details, and confirm what time spinning I believe took place.  I can't imagine the brilliance of how to weave quantum physics, Egyptian pathways, and death doulas into a love story for a daughter, a mother, a brother, a lover and a husband — and maybe even a little growing love for self and all that is sacrificed in living life and all that we fear when faced with dying.  Thank you, Jodi.  It's the book I wanted to read before I died."

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays.  Click the blue link for more book beginnings.

The Book of Two Ways ~ by Jodi Picoult

Jodi Picoult came to St. Louis last year, so Donna and I went to hear her speak.  Donna, Jodi, and Bonnie (left to right) on September 25, 2019.

The Book of Two Ways ~ by Jodi Picoult, 2020, fiction (Egypt)

After months and months of being asked by readers, "When's the next book coming out?" I can finally tell you:  The Book of Two Ways will hit shelves on 9/22!  It's a story about life, death, love — and the "one who got away."  I've wanted to write this book for about a decade now, ever since my son Kyle was majoring in Egyptology at Yale.  He started telling me about something called The Book of Two Ways — and I immediately thought, "That's such a great title for a book."  THEN I learned more about it — we've all heard of the Book of the Dead — the funerary texts used in the New Kingdom of Egypt.  They evolved from earlier funerary texts — first the Pyramid Texts from the Old Kingdom, which were papyrus scrolls buried with kings ... and then the Coffin Texts in the Middle Kingdom, spells written in the cedar coffins of governors and the like.  Some of those coffins included the Book of Two Ways — the first officially known map of the afterlife.  Usually drawn on the bottom of the coffin, they incorporated a wave blue line and a wavy black line, separated by a red "lake of fire."  The idea was that the deceased could take either the blue water route OR the black land route in order to reach Osiris (lord of the Netherworld) and to be one with Re, the sun god.  No matter which path you took, you'd wind up in the same place.  The catch was that there were terrible monsters and obstacles and pitfalls, and you had to have the knowledge of how to evade those to get to your destination.  Cool, right?  I started to imagine how that might apply, structurally, to a woman who is perfectly happy with where life has taken her ... until she almost dies, and finds herself wondering about what might have been.  For those of you who are Egypt buffs — you'll learn a lot about Egyptology!  But in the spirit of other novels of mine, it examines yet another topic we all shy away from, but which is inevitable:  how to have a good death.  This book was a beast to write, and feels sweeping and epic, and I cannot wait to share it with you!  See below for details on pre-ordering a copy now!
XO,
Jodi (email on 1-28-2020)

Jodi Picoult emerging from a pyramid

THE BOOK OF TWO WAYS:  Available September 22, 2020!

Everything changes in a single moment for Dawn Edelstein.  She's on a plane when the flight attendant makes an announcement: prepare for a crash landing.  She braces herself as thoughts flash through her mind.  The shocking thing is, the thoughts are not of her husband, but a man she last saw fifteen years ago:  Wyatt Armstrong.

Dawn, miraculously, survives the crash, but so do all the doubts that have suddenly been raised.  She has led a good life.  Back in Boston, there is her husband, Brian, her beloved daughter, and her work as a death doula, where she helps ease the transition between life and death for her clients.

But somewhere in Egypt is Wyatt Armstrong, who works as an archaeologist unearthing ancient burial sites, a job she once studied for, but was forced to abandon when life suddenly intervened.  And now, when it seems that fate is offering her second chances, she is not as sure of the choice she once made.

This showed up on Facebook on July 18th, making me wonder which (if either) of these two show the actual cover of the book.  Well, according to Amazon, this pale blue and gold one is the cover we'll see.  According to my library, it will be the dark blue cover shown at the top of this post.  I'll find out when I get the copy I put on reserve on July 18th, although I was 18th in line for requests for the six copies that were on order in July.

I was happy the date of publication was getting closer.  I've had this waiting to be posted on my blog since the end of January, which was weeks before the pandemic and lockdown hit the world.

A whole wall of wrestling holds

Heiroglyphs for linear time and cyclical time

Heiroglyph for mother

I got email from Jodi yesterday (August 17, 2020), giving us a link to read an excerpt fromt the Prologue of the book.  There are also more photos of her trip to Egypt.  Take a look.  As you can see, this post has been a long time in the making.  Met Jodi in September, email in January, Facebook announcement in July, and another email in August.  I can hardly wait for her new book to arrive.

Read an excerpt of the book here, on Jodi Picoult's website.

Discussing Jodi's Book of TWO Ways is perfect for a TWOsday post.

Beginning ~ with a boy stealing things

Opening lines

"When I was four years old, I kept telling my mother that the little boy in our house was stealing things.  I should preface this by saying I was an only child — a precocious one at that."

Where There's Smoke: A Short Story ~ by Jodi Picoult, 2014, fiction, 9/10

In this original short story, Picoult introduces Serenity Jones, one of the characters from Leaving Time (2014).  Even as a child, Serenity knew she possessed unusual psychic gifts.  Now, decades later, she’s an acclaimed medium and host of her own widely viewed TV show, where she delivers messages to the living from loved ones who have passed on.  Lately, though, her efforts to boost ratings and garner fame have compromised her clairvoyant instincts.  When Serenity books a young war widow to appear as a guest, the episode quickly unravels, stirring up a troubling controversy.  And as she tries to undo the damage — to both her reputation and her show — she finds that pride comes at a high price.

I read Leaving Time several years ago, so I no longer remember details.  I ran across this Kindle Single and decided to buy it.  Looking for the description of this short story, I discovered another Kindle Single that's a novella and bought it.  Shall I share a BONUS book beginning with you?  Okay.

Opening Lines

"Moments after receiving the worse news of my life, I drive into the middle of a massacre.  The five elephants lie on their sides, dusty hills, aberrations in the landscape.  Flies swarm around the black blood that has seeped into the dirt, and overhead spins a pinwheel of vultures."

Larger Than Life: A Novella ~ by Jodi Picoult, 2014, fiction (Botswana), 9/10

A researcher studying memory in elephants, Alice is fascinated by the bonds between mother and calf — the mother’s powerful protective instincts and her newborn’s unwavering loyalty.  Living on a game reserve in Botswana, Alice is able to view the animals in their natural habitat — while following an important rule:  She must only observe and never interfere.  Then she finds an orphaned young elephant in the bush and cannot bear to leave the helpless baby behind.  Thinking back on her own childhood, and on her shifting relationship with her mother, Alice risks her career to care for the calf.

Alice is the main character at the center of Leaving Time, which I've read, as I said above.  Having read these two short fiction pieces, maybe I should re-read Leaving Time.

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Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts
Book Beginnings on Fridays.
Click this link for book beginnings
shared by other readers.
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