Queen Mother

I've been trying to finish this biography about Queen Elizabeth II's mother *forever*. It's not that it wasn't good, it certainly was, it just kept getting pushed to the back burner as due dates for library books popped up. Shawcross was the Queen Mother's official biographer, so it was very complimentary. Elizabeth Bowes Lyon grew up in Scotland, nursing wounded soldiers as a young teen during WWI. She was very pretty and popular and had no shortage of young men, but she chose (after much persuasion on his part) Prince Albert. Since the Prince had an older brother, David, she never dreamed she would someday be queen, but after Edward VIII abdicated, Bertie became King George VI and Elizabeth became Queen. It was a very touching, loving portrait of a woman who dedicated her life to public service.

Forest City Killer; Sitcommentary

This true crime piqued my interest when I read the summary, so I checked it out. It was good, I liked her writing style. Even though it was a subject I knew absolutely nothing about (cold case murders in Canada), it held my interest. In the 1960s and 70s, young women were found raped and murdered. To complicate matters, a few younger boys were also found in similar situations, all close to the small town of London, Ontario. Some experts insist there were two killers at work, others believe it was only one. The author, Vanessa Brown, is hoping advances in DNA technology might lead to a solution to these terrible crimes and finally bring some sense of closure to the grieving families. 

Robinson's book about sitcoms that changed America was a quick, funnish (sometimes) read. After all, his point is that sitcoms brought about social change by making us laugh at all our faults and shortcomings as a society. For the most part, he was pretty nonpolitical, but when he was it made sense in the context of the subject he was discussing, so it didn't bother me. What kind of did bother me was how he left some pretty major (I think, anyway) sitcoms out of the discussion. If you want to talk about groundbreaking, what about "Married with Children"? "The Simpsons"? I know you have to pick and choose, but some of his choices left me wondering why that show rated the cut and others didn't.

The Way We Became the Brady Bunch

I loved the Brady Bunch so much when I was a kid, I tried to convince my next door neighbors that I was Cindy Brady. They, of course, were too smart to fall for it, but I gave it a shot. I had no idea that the shows weren't "new": by the time I saw them they had been in syndication for awhile. Author Kimberly Potts wonders how a show that never cracked the top 30 while it aired (for a mere 5 years) became so ubiquitous in not just American culture, but worldwide? What was it about this silly, hokey show that made so many people watch episodes over and over and over again and inspired so many homages? It's really not easy to say, but I think she got close in saying that it aired in syndication at a time when a lot of households were single parent and kids were watching their parents go through a divorce. Like me, everyone wanted to be part of the safe, happy Brady family. So what if the shows were sappy and ridiculous to the point where Robert Reed refused to even show up? I still enjoy them to this day. There's just something about the Brady Bunch. It was a fun, nostalgic read.

Just Watch Me; Daisy Jones & the Six

Jeff Lindsay of "Dexter" fame is back with a new series about a master thief named Riley Wolfe. Riley thrives on the impossible, and in this first book, he aims high. The Crown Jewels of Iran, featuring the "Sea of Light", one of the largest pink diamonds known to man, is traveling to a small museum in New York, and Riley plans to rip it off. It was fun and a lot less dark than the Dexter books (which never bothered me). Riley is hard not to like even though you know you shouldn't, much like Dexter. 

I'm not sure how I feel about "Daisy Jones & the Six". I wanted to love it, and then I wanted to hate it, and then I decided it was probably better than I was giving it credit for. The book is told in through a series of interviews with the band members of Daisy Jones & the Six, a 1970s rock band (think Fleetwood Mac). Their meteoric rise and fall is told decades later by all the band members, and in the end we find out the interviewer is the eldest daughter of one of the lead singers. It was a quick read, based on the style. I did enjoy it, for the most part. I think what bugged me is how hard it is to read (and I'm sure to write) about music when there isn't any. For instance, the characters all refer to one of the band's top hits, "Honeycomb", and they talk about it like the reader knows exactly how it goes (which, if it were a real rock band, we all would. Refer to "Rhiannon" right now and I can sing it from memory). Well, it's a fake song. It doesn't exist. I don't know the words or the tune and I haven't listened to the song a million times. It made it a little harder to be as invested as I should have been in order to really enjoy the book, I think. And it's no fault of Reid's: I've read other books about rock bands and had the same issue. I also wasn't as enamored of Daisy as other reviewers have been: she seemed immature and selfish and everything in life came easily for her and she didn't appreciate it. I don't find that charming, I find it infuriating. Honestly, I just don't think I was in the right mood to read this one right now.

Dexter in the Dark

The third book in the Dexter series finds Dexter and Rita preparing for their upcoming nuptials, and Dexter trying to put Cody and Astor on the Harry Path: Cody has a Dark Passenger of his own, and Dexter is trying to keep him from making mistakes and getting caught. When two co-eds are brutally decapitated, Dexter takes one look at the crime scene and his own Dark Passenger runs for the hills, leaving him alone for the first time. Dexter isn't sure what kind of evil could possibly frighten his own, but clearly it isn't good.

Drums of Autumn; The Clergyman's Wife

Moving right along with the Outlander series, book four finds Claire and Jamie making their way to America. Jamie's aunt Jocasta lives in the Carolinas, and Jamie and Claire decide to make their home not too far away in the wild mountains, and start a homestead. Meanwhile back in the 1970s, Roger Wakefield found the Fraser's death notice while doing some research and debates over whether or not he should tell Brianna. He knows if he does, she'll want to travel back in time and warn her parents about their upcoming and potentially avoidable deaths. Roger figures out Brianna has already left through the stones and follows her six weeks later, catching up to her in America. There were a lot of fun scenes in this book: Brianna meeting her Aunt Jenny and Uncle Ian in Scotland, Brianna meeting Jamie, Jamie meeting Roger.

I love "Pride and Prejudice", and I've read a lot of the books inspired by or written about the same characters. Some have been pretty good, others not so much, but I really liked this one. Charlotte married Mr. Collins after Lizzie refused him, and moved to Kent. Three years later they have a baby girl named Louisa. Charlotte knows she should be grateful for the comfortable, safe, and secure life she has, but she's aching for love. Then she meets Mr. Travis, one of Lady Catherine's tenant farmers. Despite never having a male friend, the two of them hit it off and look for excuses to run into each other. Their sweet, budding, hesitant friendship is cut short though when Mr. Bennett dies, leaving Mr. Collins the new master of Longbourn. It was a nice, kind, gentle sort of book that unfortunately doesn't come out very often (or I don't read very often) but it was perfect after the fourth Outlander book. I needed something light :)

The Crown Companion Volume 2; The Other Windsor Girl; Darkly Dreaming Dexter; Dearly Devoted Dexter

I was disappointed by the second volume of the companion to the Netflix series "The Crown" (much like season 3...ugh). The first volume was lovely: beautiful full color photographs and clear descriptions of each episode of season 1 and which parts of the story were myth and which were real. This volume, which covered seasons 2 and 3, felt very rushed and haphazard. Hardly any photos, and most were black and white. The recaps of each episode weren't nearly as concise as in the first volume, either. 

I checked Georgie Blalock's "The Other Windsor Girl" out on a whim, and was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed it. The book starts in 1949 with Vera Strathmore, dreaming of writing "real" fiction one day instead of the romance novels she churns out under the pen name of Lavish. Vera's fiance died in the war, and she's saving her money to go to New York and leave drab, decaying Britain behind. Her cousin introduces her to Princess Margaret one evening, and the Princess takes a liking to the unconventional Vera, who quickly becomes one of her "set". Vera is caught up in the whirlwind that is Princess Margaret: drinking and dancing all hours of the night, meeting all the best people. When the Queen asks Vera to be Margaret's second lady in waiting, Vera has a tough decision to make. It will mean giving up her own hopes and dreams to be available for Margaret 24/7. It was a fun book, a quick read, and despite some questionable slang (at one point Margaret uses the word "crap", which just struck me as absurd, especially in the 1950s) it was entertaining.

Sigh. So I happened upon Dexter reruns on Showtime the other day, and started rewatching them. Which led to me picking up the first Dexter book, "Darkly Dreaming Dexter", and rereading it. Despite the fact that I have a million library books checked out with due dates, and a million more books I own that I haven't read yet. Oh well. I know better than to fight it.
We meet Dexter, a serial killer who works as a blood spatter analyst for the Miami Homicide department. His foster sister, Deb, is a cop who is looking to make detective. When a series of hookers are murdered and drained of their blood, Deb begs Dexter for help catching the killer. The show dubbed him the Ice Truck Killer and had poor Deb actually date and get engaged to him, but in the book he's just Brian, Dexter's homicidal older brother. On the show Dexter killed him to save Deb, but in the book he let him run to show up and pester Dexter another day.

And then, once again ignoring all the library books, I reread the second Dexter book (I checked the third one out this morning from the library, since I only own the first two, so clearly we can see where this is headed...). Dexter accidentally becomes engaged to Rita. Doakes is following him night and day, making it very difficult for Dexter to cut people up. There is a killer on the loose who is cutting appendages off of people but leaving them alive and basically insane from the torture. Kyle shows up from Washington to handle the situation, and tells Dexter the killer's name is Dr. Danco, and he was involved with some shady stuff back in the day. So was Doakes. Deb and Kyle start a relationship, and then Dr. Danko kidnaps Kyle, so Deb turns to trusty Dexter to save him from a terrible fate.