Held by Anne Michaels

This was short listed for the 2024 Booker Prize, and as so often happens to me, I like some of the books that were long listed better than those that make the cut. To be fair, I am pretty sure there is beauty here that I just did not get--it is written by a poet, and that is very evident in the structure and cadence of the book. I am just not someone who much appreciates poetry--my spouse and I have put it on our list of things to do when we retire, but at this point, we still work full time. The scenes in the book loop back and forwards from 1902 through to 2025. Locations shift from a battlefield in first world war France to North Yorkshire, London, Belarus and various war zones. John was grievously wounded in the first world war. Alan is a war photographer. His partner, Mara, is a nurse in a field hospital. Her father, Peter, makes exquisite hats. Sometimes, the reader is able to understand how these characters and their stories connect but often the links are not explicit, and often, I struggled to find the common thread. As you would expect from a poet, it is lyrical and flows nicely, but it just was not story telling that resonates with me.

Gin et Gingembre

I have been remiss in posting cocktails, it is true. This one is a keeper, and well worth laying in a bottle of the Domaine de Canton (which is a flavorful liquor all on it's own). 2oz Gin 1oz Domaine de Canton 3/4 oz mint simple syrup 1 oz lemon juice Shake with ice; strain into coupe; garnish with mint sprigs. Enjoy!

The Safekeep by Yael Van der Wouten

I read this because it was short listed for the 2024 Booker Prize, and if it weren't for how spectacular a book James is, this would be my choice to win. The book is set in post-WWII Netherlands and it deals with the reckoning with what happened. Isabel is the main character, and she is emotionally complicated and very buttoned down and inhibited--she is a figure seething with resentments and desires that she keeps, rigidly and violently, in check. She lives in the house in which she grew up and in which her mother died, in a small town 15 years after the end of the war, obsessively cleaning and polishing the tableware and other objects that her mother loved while ruling tyrannically over the meek local girl who is her maid. When her socially confident and womanizing brother – who has been promised the house as his inheritance, making Isabel’s residence there tenuous and time-limited – leaves the country for several weeks, he brings his new girlfriend, the vivacious and flamboyant Eva, to live with Isabel, threatening to loosen or to sever the tight coils into which she has wound her existence. Both Isabel and I did not see what was coming from Eva, and it is a really enjoyable twist in the plot that comes to a satisfying conclusion.