A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson

 

3 By Irving by John Irving

 

Re-reading SETTING FREE THE BEARS after a million years: I may have read it in high school? None of it rings a bell. Pretty absorbing if overstuffed with physical landscape/sky/weather descriptions. But many of the picaresque Irving qualities are already in place. He published it when he was 26, after a couple years of writing. So good on him! The other two early novels included here are shorter, I'll try to read them again too.

The Stories of Jane Gardam

 

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson

 

Another winner. Postwar 1920s London, a night-club empress and her six children navigate a world of crime and wealth, a sub-plot of several young women making their way to the big city, and a detective investigating the night club corruption scene and disappearing women.

Wouldn't have thought it was my cup of tea, but Atkinson is just a delicious storyteller, un putdownable.

DEath at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson

 

First of Atkinson's mysteries I've read, first 100 pages well written as always but I'm mystified at the three strands interconnection so far.

"A Jackson Brodie Book" - for the recurring detective at the center of the case.

The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of the Beatles by Peter Brown and Steven Gaines

 

Meh. No huge insights afte last year's deep dive. Obsession with Brian Epstein which does not move me. The music is the very last thing considered here.

I remember it as being an "important book at the time" as Peter Brown was an insider and first to share widely about the Beatles. But it comes off as tacky now - with all of his "revealed for the first time here" and "said to me, Peter Brown, the author" posturing.

And again, the lack of insight about the music is appalling. Though the Beatles inventing the rock music industry (among everything else they invented) and the business/industry side takes up an oversized space here.