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I love books—hard, soft; big, little; library, bookstore.
Sometimes, though, I take a break. I went on such a break recently, and now I’ve returned. Here are short reviews of some of the books I’ve been reading.
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I’m one of many mystery and crime readers who enjoy the work of Michael Connelly. Among the characters in his thirty-eight novels are Harry Bosch, Mickey Haller (the Lincoln Lawyer), and Renee Ballard, who dwell in the same world, interact with each other, but have distinctly different personalities.
Connolly’s latest mystery features Renee Ballard, with a cameo appearance by Harry Bosch. Ballard, a loner cop who surfs between police department mysteries, tackles several puzzles at a time including, in this novel, LA’s most famous murder case, the Black Dahlia.
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Michael Connelly’s characters, spread out over thirty-eight books, stand in sharp contrast with Hilary Mantel’s most famous true-to-life character Thomas Cromwell, who has risen to power as the fixer, enabler, and companion to Henry VIII and his wives. It’s hard to imagine more different writers than these two, and yet both are brilliant in their own ways.
Mantel in particular stands out, writing some of the most beautiful prose in the English language, to be enjoyed in each of the three volumes of her Cromwell series: Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies, and the book I’ve just finished, The Mirror and the Light, in which we read about the complicated, fascinating, heartbreaking end of Cromwell’s life.
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Recently I attended one of Nashville’s best literary events, the Southern Festival of Books. Flipping through the program, I discovered a book with this compelling title, written by local author and songwriter Alice Randall. I showed up at Randall’s presentation and was surprised to learn that she was African American and the author of several well-known country songs including “Girls Ride Horses,” “Get the Hell Outta Dodge,” and “XXXs and OOOs.”
The book, which I bought that day, isn’t simply a history of Black country music; it’s a memoir of Randall’s life and times in Nashville.
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