Books in 2020

Yep.  If it's the end of the year, then it must be time for the 2020 wrap-up:  Let's begin, shall we?  We'll start with books read.

Vanishing in the Haight - Max Tomlinson - 2.75

Stay - Allie Larkin - 3.5

The Boy from the Woods - Harlen Coben - 3.5

Button Man - Andrew Gross - 3.25

Captivating in Love - Jennifer Skully and Bella Andre - 3.75

Born Standing Up:  A Comic's Life (audiobook) - Steve Martin - 3.0

The Dreamer - Sheldon Siegel

The Sun Down Hotel - Simone St. James - 3.25

Its Not PMS, It's You - Rich Amooi - 3.5

The Things We Cannot Say - Kelly Rimmer - 3.5

Park Avenue Summer - Renee Rosen - 3.625

Last Boat out of Shanghai - Helen Zia - 3.5

Three Hours in Paris - Cara Black - 3.0

Big Lies in a Small Town - Diane Chamberlain - 3.625

Darling Rose Gold - Stephanie Wrobel - 3.25

The Second Chance Supper Club - Nicole Meier - 3.5

The Two Lila Bennetts - Liz Fenton & Lisa Steinke - 3.5

Freedom Lost - Chandra Ingram

Dream Beach - Linda Gunther

Cerberus - A.J. Silverberry - 3.25

The Closer You Get - Mary Torjussen - 3.5

The Yellow Bird Sings - Jennifer Rosner - 3.5

On Safari to Stay - Mike DeGregorio

Just Another Silly Love Song - Rich Amooi - 4.0

Tell Me More - Kelly Corrigan - 3.0

Love Is A Rebellious bird - Elayne Klasson - 3.5

The First Emma - Camille di Maio - 3.75

The Plum Tree - Ellen Marie Wiseman - 3.5

The Narcissism of Small Differences - Michael Zadoorian - 3.0

Fire by Night - Alina Sayre

Stranger in the Lake - Kimberly Belle - 3.0

The Giver of Stars - JoJo Moyes - 3.625

He Could Be Another Bill Gates - Donna Levin

My Sister's Grave - Robert Dugoni - 3.5

The Book of Lost Names - Kristin Harmel - 3.75

Musical Chairs - Amy Poeppel - 3.0

Paper Wife - Laila Ibrahim - 3.25

Side Trip - Kerry Lonsdale - 3.5

Sold on a Monday - Kristina McMorris - 3.625

A Little Bit of Grace - Phoebe Fox - 3.625

Charming Falls Apart - Angela Terry - 3.25

The Dutch House - Ann Patchett - 3.0

What You Wish For - Katherine Center - 3.5

The Orphan Collector - Ellen Marie Wiseman - 3.625

The Light in the Hallway - Amanda Prowse - 3.375

Finding Chika - Mitch Albom

The Swap - Robyn Harding - 3.75

The Order - Daniel Silva - 3.5

The Party - Robyn Harding - The Order - 3.25

Coal River - Ellen Marie Wiseman - 3.25

Dear Edward - Ann Napolitano - 3.375

A Door Between Us - Ehsaneh Sadr - 3.25

Let's Talk - Art Rios - 4.0

The Good Sister - Sally Hepworth - 3.5

Between the Lines - Jodi Picoult & Samantha van Leer - 3.0

The Final Out - Sheldon Siegel

Trading Secrets - Rachael Eckles 

White Collar Girl - Renee Rosen - 3.5

The Uncanny Valley Girl - Stephen Howser

The Vanishing Half - Britt Bennett - 3.25

The Chain - Adrian McKinty - 3.5

A September to Remember - Carole Bumpus

The Story of Arthur Truluv - Elizabeth Berg - 3.5

63 books

20,346 pages

The 63 compares to 80 last year.  Part of the difference comes from not being in the car to listen to the audiobooks (where would I go?).  And part comes from being home.  Interestingly enough, it was harder to read while at home than it is to be out and about.  Tough to explain.

In the next few days I will list my new authors and ratings that are 3.5 or higher.

Some Quick Ratings

Hello, all.  I have been extremely remiss in keeping you up-to-date on the books I have recently read.  And by "recently" I mean in the last 4 months!  Plus I've got year-end posts coming up over the next couple of weeks.  So I'm just going to give you ratings.  I will also asterisk the authors that will be Zooming into our book club.  If you have any interest in seeing them live, let me know, and I will send you the schedule of appearances.  

In order of reading:

The Orphan Collector - Ellen Marie Wiseman - 3.625

The Swap - Robyn Harding* - 3.75

The Order - Daniel Silva - 3.5

The Party - Robyn Harding* - 3.25

Coal River - Ellen Marie Wiseman - 3.25

Dear Edward - Ann Napolitano - 3.375

A Door Between Us - Ehsaneh Sadr* - 3.25

White Collar Girl - Renee Rosen* - 3.5

The Vanishing Half - Britt Bennett - 3.25

I also read Finding Chika, by Mitch Albom, and Trading Secrets, by Rachael Eckles.  Unfortunately, I failed to give them a rating at the time of reading and can't remember all of these months (weeks?) what rating I intended to give them.  I did like them both, though.

My only disappointment was Lisa Wingate's The Book of Lost Friends.  I absolutely loved When We Were Yours.  But I couldn't get through this one.  I gave it a pretty fair chance - 86 pages.  But when my son-in-law, Joe, gave me a book that he highly recommended (a review will be upcoming), I jumped at the chance to put TBoLF down.  And here's the crazy part...it has a 4.21 rating on Goodreads with almost 34,000 ratings! That is a very high score.  I can't explain it.  I guess it just is what it is.

On the Trail of Delusion, by Fred Litwin - Everything You Wanted to Know about Jim Garrison and His Take on the Assassination of JFK

Everybody knows that Jim Garrison, the DA in New Orleans from the early 60s to the early 70s, claimed that the Warren Report was inaccurate and set out to prove his theory.  But what he did during his investigation is mind-boggling.  Fred Litwin has done an amazing job of giving us a detailed account of the time Garrison spent trying to discredit the Warren Report.  Here are just a few of the highlights:

1.  He claimed that Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby, and several others were part of a homosexual ring that were responsible for the assassination.

2.  He linked co-conspirators based, in part, on how close they lived to each other.

3.  He ultimately said it wasn't the Oswald-Ruby group but, rather, anti-Castro Cubans who were unhappy with how the Bay of Pigs incident was handled.

4.  He blamed LBJ, claiming that he benefited the most from the assassination.

5.  He said the Dallas police were involved.

6.  He targeted certain individuals whose lives were ruined by the attention they got.  (One of them, Clay Shaw, was found innocent in 54 minutes.  And it only took that long because the jurors had to queue up for the bathroom!)

7.  He said that the dismissal of any further prosecution against Clay Shaw by the Supreme Court was due to a conspiracy consisting of top-level military authorities and our intelligence agencies.

8.  Garrison came out with his first book in 1970, called A Heritage of Stone.  He wrote several others.

9.  He was interviewed by Playboy, which led to one of the biggest circulations Playboy has ever had.

10.The bulk of the book concerns the JFK assassination.  But the last part explores some quirky side notes, including an explanation of how Oliver Stone, in his 1991 movie, JFK, made Garrison out to be a hero.  Kevin Costner played the title role.

There were parts of the book that dragged for me a little.  But the original documents and quoted passages are outstanding.  In college I took a history course that only looked at original documents.  And I still remember (many decades later!) how that positively affected my enjoyment of the class and the impact it had on me.  That was a really neat part of the book.

Let me wrap up by saying this:  If you are looking for a comprehensive tome on Jim Garrison and all of the efforts he made to tell us what really happened re JFK's assassination, complete with a whole slew of original documents and actual conversations, then I strongly recommend you pick up a copy of On the Trail of Delusion, by Fred Litwin.  It's all you will need to understand Jim Garrison and his many machinations.