Category: Books

An Immense World, by Ed Yong (Random House, 359 pages)

In the 17th century, the French philosopher and priest Nicolas Malebranche wrote: “animals eat without pleasure, cry without pain, grow without knowing it: they desire nothing, fear nothing, know nothing.”

That hasn’t aged well.

While the sentiment may have been useful for vivisectionists throughout the ages, what’s not self-evidently wrong in the statement has been proven false by research over the past few decades. As for “knowing nothing,” that nonsense is grandly refuted in Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Ed Yong’s second book, An Immense World.

Animals may not know how to build bridges or perform cardiac surgery, but they possess extraordinary abilities that humans lack, some of which we now well understand (like echolocation), others that we still can’t. Yong walks us through the ongoing research into animals’ capabilities while trying to make sense of their “umwelt” — their “perceptual world.”

“Umwelt” is a German word coined by a biologist in 1909 to describe what it’s like for a spider to be a spider, for a bird to be a bird. It’s impossible to fully understand animals’ perception of their world, but a genre of scientists called sensory biologists are trying. And their research is fascinating, once you push past wondering why tax dollars are going to pay for their experiments. Thankfully, much of this research is going on in other countries.

For example, there is the scientist who studied insects called treehoppers in a Panama forest and listened to the communication of a family by clipping microphones onto a plant and listening with headphones. Without the headphones, he could hear nothing. But headphones allowed him to eavesdrop in the treehopper world, where the insects were making sounds similar to cows mooing. “The sound was deep, resonant, and unlike anything you’d expect from an insect. As the babies settled down and returned to their mother, their cacophony of vibrational moos turned into a synchronized chorus.”

In anecdotes like this, An Immense World seems a sequel to Yong’s first book, 2016’s I Contain Multitudes, in which he explored the microbes that populate the human body. The takeaway from both is that for all our abilities, for all the wonders of the human eye and ear, we are oblivious to much of what is going on around us (and inside us). When we take the time to learn and pay attention, there is as much reason for awe as there is when we contemplate the night sky.

Yong tantalizingly suggests that learning about animals’ seemingly miraculous senses can help us to make better use of our own. Like the oft-quoted aphorism that humans only make use of a fraction of our brain power, it appears that much of our sensory power goes unused.

Yong visits a California man, blinded by cancer in infancy, who naturally learned to echolocate like a bat. He navigates by making a clicking sound and following the echoes. This doesn’t just allow him to walk and bike down streets, but also to do things sighted people can’t do. For example, when Yong accompanies the man on a walk, he asks if someone had parked on their lawn at a house they passed. The car was half on concrete, half on grass. The man was able to perceive this without seeing, just from decades of practicing echolocation. He is blind, but inhabits a rich sensory world that sighted people don’t access; that is his umwelt.

Similarly, animals inhabit worlds that may not be as expansive as ours in some ways, but they are attuned to scents, sensations, chemicals and magnetic and electrical fields we don’t perceive.

As Yong travels the world interviewing scientists who work with animals ranging from manatees to electric fish to rattlesnakes, he explains their extraordinary abilities in largely accessible language (although there are passages in which an advanced degree would help).

He devotes a chapter to the subject that is most controversial in the general population: how animals experience pain. Pain, as Yong describes it, is “the unwanted sense,” and it is a difficult subject for modern scientists to explore, since most of them reject the ancient belief that animals are fundamentally oblivious to it. There is still wide disagreement about to what degree animals experience pain, and whether this is reason enough to stop eating lobster.

What most people call pain is actually two different experiences, Yong explains. The first is nociception, which is our response to painful stimuli, such as touching a hot stove or an electrified fence. Our sense of touch apprehends danger and we pull back instinctively. The pain that follows is a different thing. Some scientists have argued that all animals’ reactions to painful stimuli is nociception, that they can’t suffer as we do. Not everything that is alive has consciousness, which is believed to require a nervous system. And some creatures exhibit behavior in which they do seem oblivious to what we would think of as excruciating pain: say, the male praying mantis that mates with a female that is devouring him.

But research has shown that a wide range of animals subjected to pain will choose painkillers that are offered to them. This is true of even zebrafish. And animals who respond to injury by licking and grooming will stop when given painkillers. But Yong offers no clear answers, like the scientist who tells him, “I’m often asked if crabs and lobsters feel pain, and after 15 years of research, the answer is maybe.”

Yong is more definitive when it comes to what our response should be to new knowledge about how animals’ lives are governed by senses of which we are largely unaware. For example, we now know that the migratory patterns of birds and butterflies are affected by artificial light, that sea turtle hatchlings (which have a 1 in 10,000 shot of enduring to maturity) die because they are drawn to house lights and bonfires when these eclipse the moonlight, which would normally guide them to sea.

The fluttering of moths around a lightbulb can be fatal to them; many die of exhaustion. The “Tribute of Light” that New York City installs each year to commemorate 9/11 can be seen for 60 miles and disrupts the migration of thousands of songbirds, so much so that when too many confused birds start circulating the light, it’s shut off for 20 minutes to allow them to, as your GPS would say, recalculate.

Animals evolve and adapt and many will eventually adjust to modernity if they don’t go extinct. The pandemic showed us, however, that nature can quickly bounce back once humans change their behavior. The first step in doing so is knowledge.

An Immense World is a lackluster title; not so the book. Others have dabbled in this topic, such as primatologist Frans de Waal in 2016’s Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? Yong, who seems incapable of covering a topic superficially, does it better than most. A

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Book Events

Author events

• LAURIE STONE presents Streaming Now: Postcards from the Thing That Is Happening at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, Aug. 4, at 6:30 p.m.

• MARIANNE WILLIAMSON presents The Politics of Love at the Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, bookerymht.com, 836-6600) on Wednesday, Aug. 10, at 7 p.m. Free event; register at www.bookerymht.com/our-events.

• KATHLEEN BAILEY and SHEILA BAILEY present their book New Hampshire War Monuments: The Stories Behind the Stones at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, Aug. 11, at 6:30 p.m.

• R.A. SALVATORE presents Glacier’s Edge at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Friday, Aug. 12, at 6:30 p.m.

• CASEY SHERMAN presents Helltown at the Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, bookerymht.com, 836-6600) on Sunday, Aug. 14, at 1:30 p.m. Free event; register at www.bookerymht.com/our-events.

Poetry

• OPEN MIC POETRY hosted by the Poetry Society of NH at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com), starting with a reading by poet Sam DeFlitch, on Wednesday, July 20, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Newcomers encouraged. Free.

• DOWN CELLAR POETRY SALON Poetry event series presented by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. Monthly. First Sunday. Visit poetrysocietynh.wordpress.com.

Writers groups

• MERRIMACK VALLEY WRITERS’ GROUP All published and unpublished local writers who are interested in sharing their work with other writers and giving and receiving constructive feedback are invited to join. The group meets regularly Email [email protected].

Book Clubs

• BOOKERY Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. 844 Elm St., Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com/online-book-club or call 836-6600.

• GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.

• TO SHARE BREWING CO. 720 Union St., Manchester. Monthly. Second Thursday, 6 p.m. RSVP required. Visit tosharebrewing.com or call 836-6947.

• GOFFSTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY 2 High St., Goffstown. Monthly. Third Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. Call 497-2102, email [email protected] or visit goffstownlibrary.com

• BELKNAP MILL Online. Monthly. Last Wednesday, 6 p.m. Based in Laconia. Email [email protected].

• NASHUA PUBLIC LIBRARY Online. Monthly. Second Friday, 3 p.m. Call 589-4611, email [email protected] or visit nashualibrary.org.

Language

• FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE CLASSES

Offered remotely by the Franco-American Centre. Six-week session with classes held Thursdays from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. $225. Visit facnh.com/education or call 623-1093.

Nightcrawling, by Leila Mottley (Knopf, 271 pages)

Promising young writers don’t always live up to their potential; they can collapse under the combined weight of heavy expectations and featherweight talent. In the interest of kindness, let’s not name names.

Not so Leila Mottley, the young novelist that Oprah Winfrey has been gushing about. Mottley started writing Nightcrawling at 17; she’s now 20. Her novel is all Winfrey promised it would be, and then some.

It’s based on actual events in Oakland, California: the sexual abuse of a young Black woman by police officers who trapped her into serving an ever expanding number of officers sexually. Mottley, who lives in Oakland, read about the case and the ensuing cover-up and couldn’t stop thinking about the young woman and the experience of growing up “vulnerable, unprotected and unseen.”

From her imagination came Kiara, a 17-year-old in similar circumstances. Kiara and her older brother, Marcus, live in a run-down apartment complex where the pool is contaminated with feces. “Houses give away all their secrets at the door. Dee’s is full of scratches. Mine doesn’t even have a working lock no more,” Kiara muses in the first-person narrative which is both lyrical and devastating.

Their father is dead; their mother long gone and currently living in a halfway house. Their only other family member is an uncle who is something of a rap star in L.A. and has no contact with them.

Kiara carries the weight of their meager existence, since her brother spends his days recording rap music in hopes of hitting it big like his uncle. When the apartment complex is sold and they receive notice that the rent has been doubled, she is desperate, not only for herself and her brother, but also for Trevor, the young boy in an adjacent apartment whom she has been caring for in the absence of his mother.

She tries to find work, but without a work history, she is repeatedly turned away. Even the third-rate bars to which she applies won’t hire her until she turns 18.

One night, she has a sexual encounter that is more of a business transaction than romance, and the shock of receiving several hundred dollars for sex leads Kiara into selling her body more frequently. One night, she’s picked up by a couple of police officers who, in exchange for not arresting her, take advantage of her services. They soon begin calling her regularly and sharing her with other officers, to the point of her being the “entertainment” at police parties.

Although Kiara does not know the officers by name, she knows them by their badge numbers, and they indulge in her services so much that she knows their preferences and habits; she is paid both in money and also in a shabby form of protection. For example, once, when she is at a party, she gets a call from an officer who tells her that there are undercover officers in the house and there’s about to be a bust. An officer picks her up, preventing her arrest, but his “protection” involves taking her to his home for the night and sexual activities for which she is not paid.

One day, police come to her home and take Kiara to the station for questioning. The administration has learned of Kiara’s existence and abuse through a suicide note left by a member of the force. Kiara denies any involvement with officers and is released, but from there, must confront more dilemmas that a teenager should never have to face.

She has choices, but they’re all terrible. She feels she can trust no one; the institution that is supposed to protect her is corrupt. Her brother — who loves her so much that he had her fingerprint tattooed on his neck, who pierced her ears with a sewing needle as a gift for her 16th birthday — is in jail. And Kiara is unable to pay the rent and buy food without the money she receives from sexual encounters with the police.

While Kiara’s experiences and life, even before she descended into sex work, are foreign to much of America, they will be painfully familiar to many.

Mottley clearly knows something about the humiliation of poverty: of having nothing but cereal and ramen in a roach-infested pantry; of having to share a washing machine with someone else at the laundromat; of making your own birthday cake from a mix using syrup because you don’t have any oil; of never having slept in a real bed, or been invited to anyone’s house because your daily existence is limited to staying alive.

In one moving scene, Kiara remembers going grocery shopping with her mother, before she disappeared. While her mother is trying to figure out how much credit was left on their EBT card, how much they could spend, young Kiara wistfully fills a carriage with frozen pizza and “fancy” cereal — things that, to her mind, were luxuries only rich people can afford.

“I don’t think you can feel more trapped than in the center of food you’re not allowed to eat, waiting to go home, and not knowing if anyone will remember your existence,” Kiara says.

While Nightcrawling takes us into a deeply depressing underworld of shame, despair and corruption, it is still a pleasure to read. Mottley’s voice is true and compelling, and she endows Kiara with unsettling wisdom that gives us hope that she will survive and move (both literally and figuratively) to a better place, with Marcus and Trevor in tow. A

Book Notes

It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly a year since the disappearance of Gabby Petito, the young woman traveling across the country in a van with her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, who the FBI has said claimed responsibility for killing her, according to a January story in the New York Times and other media reports. That case mobilized a nation of armchair investigators. We can all track down murderers now from the comfort of our living room, or at least come up with tips that might prove helpful.

And there are plenty of unsolved cases out there, as Trailed by Kathryn Miles reminds us. Trailed (Algonquin, 320 pages) is the account of two women, Laura “Lollie” Winans and Julie Williams, who were found dead in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, and Miles’ personal investigation into their deaths. The case remains unsolved, but Miles, a science writer who lives in Portland, has evidently done a masterful job of telling this story; there are lots of “couldn’t put this book down” in reader reviews. The author explores not only the flaws that plagued the investigation, including charges that the National Park Service tries to bury cases like this so people feel safe on its property, but also the unique dangers that confront women and members of the LGBTQ community when in the wilderness.

The “true crime” genre isn’t for everyone, but for those who enjoy it, there are plenty of offerings this summer. Another is When the Moon Turns to Blood(Twelve, 320 pages), journalist Leah Sottile’s account of the Idaho murders allegedly committed by Lori Vallow, a former beauty queen, and her husband Chad Daybell, a doomsday novelist. The couple are accused of killing two children and Daybell’s ex-wife. (The trial is scheduled for January 2023.) The subtitle promises “a story of murder, wild faith and end times.”

Less sensational but equally dark is We Carry Their Bones (William Morrow, 256 pages) by Erin Kimmerle. The author is a forensic anthropologist who examines the crimes committed at the Dozier School in Florida, which operated from 1900 to 2011 despite reports of cruelty, abuse and unexplained deaths of young boys, many of whom were Black. School records show that about 30 boys were buried in a field on the property; Kimmerle found that there were actually twice the number of graves.

And finally, those who enjoy true crime will appreciate Unmasked: My Life Solving America’s Cold Cases (Celadon, 288 pages) by Paul Holes. Hole is the forensic detective whose obsession with the case of the Golden State Killer led to a former police officer’s arrest for 13 murders and 50 rapes in California between 1974 and 1986.

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Book Events

Author events

• DIANE HALLENBECK presents Rejecting Fear: Learning to Be Led By Loveat the Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, bookerymht.com, 836-6600) on Thursday, July 28, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Free event; register at www.bookerymht.com/our-events.

• MARY ELLEN HUMPHREY presents My Mountain Friend: Wandering and Pondering Mt. Majorat Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, July 28, at 6:30 p.m.

• LAURIE STONE presents Streaming Now: Postcards from the Thing That Is Happeningat Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, Aug. 4, at 6:30 p.m.

• KATHLEEN BAILEY and SHEILA BAILEY present their book New Hampshire War Monuments: The Stories Behind the Stones at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, Aug. 11, at 6:30 p.m.

• R.A. SALVATORE presents Glacier’s Edge at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Friday, Aug. 12, at 6:30 p.m.

• CASEY SHERMAN presents Helltown at the Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, bookerymht.com, 836-6600) on Sunday, Aug. 14, at 1:30 p.m. Free event; register at www.bookerymht.com/our-events.

• VIRGINA CHAMLEE presents Big Thrift Energy: The Art and Thrill of Finding Vintage Treasuresat Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Monday, Aug. 15, at 6:30 p.m.

• SPENCER QUINN presents Bark to the Future: A Chet & Bernie Mysteryat Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, Aug. 18, at 6:30 p.m. and on Sunday, Aug. 28, at noon at the Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, bookerymht.com, 836-6600). The Bookery event is BYOD: bring your own dog.

• PHIL PRIMACK presents Put It Down On Paper: The Words and Life of Mary Folsom Blair in a Literary Lunchtime event at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, Sept. 8, at noon.

Poetry

• OPEN MIC POETRY hosted by the Poetry Society of NH at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com), starting with a reading by poet Sam DeFlitch, on Wednesday, July 20, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Newcomers encouraged. Free.

• DOWN CELLAR POETRY SALON Poetry event series presented by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. Monthly. First Sunday. Visit poetrysocietynh.wordpress.com.

Writers groups

• MERRIMACK VALLEY WRITERS’ GROUP All published and unpublished local writers who are interested in sharing their work with other writers and giving and receiving constructive feedback are invited to join. The group meets regularly Email [email protected].

Book Clubs

• BOOKERY Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. 844 Elm St., Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com/online-book-club or call 836-6600.

• GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.

• TO SHARE BREWING CO. 720 Union St., Manchester. Monthly. Second Thursday, 6 p.m. RSVP required. Visit tosharebrewing.com or call 836-6947.

• GOFFSTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY 2 High St., Goffstown. Monthly. Third Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. Call 497-2102, email [email protected] or visit goffstownlibrary.com

• BELKNAP MILL Online. Monthly. Last Wednesday, 6 p.m. Based in Laconia. Email [email protected].

• NASHUA PUBLIC LIBRARY Online. Monthly. Second Friday, 3 p.m. Call 589-4611, email [email protected] or visit nashualibrary.org.

Language

• FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE CLASSES

Offered remotely by the Franco-American Centre. Six-week session with classes held Thursdays from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. $225. Visit facnh.com/education or call 623-1093.

I love a well-written rom com that’s not super cheesy and entirely predictable, and I often still enjoy the ones that are. I’ve read Emily Henry’s two other novels, Beach Read and People We Meet on Vacation, and I really enjoyed them (that falls somewhere between just plain “enjoyed” and “loved”). I admit I was hoping Book Lovers — a book about love and people who love books?! — would reach “loved” status, but ultimately the main characters were a little too bland to get me there.

Still, I really enjoyed Book Lovers, which centers on Nora, a New York City literary agent who is described as cold and entirely focused on her job. She thinks of her life as a book; as the main character, she sees herself as the villainess, never the hero. She meets Charlie, a book editor, to pitch her author’s latest book. He says no. They’re not especially kind to each other. The end.

But! Two years later, that book she’d pitched has become a bestseller with a different editor, and Nora heads to the town the book is set in, Sunshine Falls, because her sister Libby is pregnant with her third child and said she wanted to get away, specifically to that small town, before the baby is born. Nora agrees to go with her sister because she feels like the two used to be closer, and she wants to rebuild that bond. She even agrees to follow Libby’s checklist of small-town things to do, like sleep under the stars and save a small business.

Guess who lives in Sunshine Falls, guys? Charlie! It’s his hometown, and he’s back to help his parents, who have health issues, run their bookstore. Turns out he’s not so bad! Even with him there, though, the story is more about Nora and Libby and family and the things we do for them no matter what. It’s … nice.

Here’s one of my issues with the book. Nora is constantly described as cold-hearted and ruthless. Her author’s newest book is kind of about her, in fiction form; the main character is known as a “shark.” Nora sees herself in the character immediately and hates that people see her that way.

The thing is, there are very few times in the book — Book Lovers, not the book in the book – that Nora actually seems cold-hearted. She’s never really mean. She desperately wants to please her sister. She spent much of her young adult life making sure Libby was taken care of after their mom died, which meant sacrificing the relationship she was in at the time, and, for a long time, the possibility of other relationships. She’s cautious, but understandably. So that contradiction throughout the book was a little frustrating for me, and I had a hard time connecting with her character.

I also vacillated between loving the dialogue and being annoyed by it. It definitely flows well and is fun to read most of the time, but occasionally it feels a little over the top, a bit too scripted — like, no one in real life can banter back and forth that wittily for that long.

Take this small part of a scene where Nora and Charlie are at a bar, begrudgingly sharing bits of their lives before challenging each other to a game of pool.

‘Why do you care why I’m here?’ I [Nora] ask.

‘Morbid curiosity. Why do you care about my bad day?’

‘Always helpful to know your opponent’s weaknesses.’

He holds the cue out. ‘You first.’

I take the stick, flop it onto the edge of the table, and look over my shoulder. ‘Isn’t now the part where you’re supposed to put your arms around me and show me how to do it?’

His mouth curves. ‘That depends. Are you carrying any weapons?’

‘The sharpest thing on me is my teeth.’

Really?

But then I loved the very next, non-dialogue line: “I settle over the cue, holding it like I’ve not only never played pool before but have quite possibly only just discovered my own hands.” The book, for me, was a roller coaster of “Ugh, Emily Henry, you’re trying too hard,” and “Aah, Emily Henry, your writing is brilliant!”

The plot is somewhat unique, and the genius of it is that the predictability is meant to be predictable because it’s a romance novel that’s about book lovers who are experts in the typical tropes and characterizations of romance novels. Henry describes them in those terms, and creates a plot that’s purposefully “this is where the story is supposed to go,” and it does. There are a couple of twists, which I didn’t find all that stunning or exciting, but there is some originality that helped level up my feelings for the story.

All in all, Book Lovers is definitely worth the read. It was a little more same-same than I had hoped, but it’s still a fun book that most rom-com lovers will really enjoy. B+ — Meghan Siegler

Book Notes

Animals, including humans, not only eat less in periods of hot weather, but also do less. Researchers have found a connection between high temperatures and lower productivity. If this tendency toward summer sloth also applies to your reading, it’s a good time to take a break from the 400-page multi-generation historical novels and indulge in bite-sized fare. Here are some story and essay collections easily digested in the embrace of a hammock.

Night of the Living Rez (Tin House, 296 pages) is a collection of 12 stories set in the Penobscot Indian Nation in Maine. The author, Morgan Talty, is a citizen who grew up there. This is his first book, but his writing has been published in collections of the best American short stories in 2020 and 2021.

The Angel of Rome: And Other Stories (Harper, 288 pages) is from Jess Walter, whose six novels include Beautiful Ruins and The Financial Lives of the Poets. His stories have been called “wonderfully inventive” and the publisher says they’re about “those moments when everything changes — for the better, for the worse, for the outrageous.”

Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World (Random House, 352 pages) is a collection of essays by Barry Lopez published posthumously. Lopez was a widely acclaimed nature writer (Arctic Dreams and Of Wolves and Men) who died of cancer in 2020; his work has been compared to that of Henry David Thoreau.

Ghost Lover (Avid Reader Press, 240 pages) is by Lisa Taddeo, a two-time Pushcart Prize winner who lives in Connecticut. The Guardian says Taddeo is known for writing about “female desire.” The Kirkus Review says the stories “take us into the world of people cooler and more attractive than we are.”

Finally, O. Henry Prize winner Frederic Tuten is out with The Bar at Twilight (Bellevue Literary Press, 288 pages). From the Los Angeles Times Review: “In ‘The Snow on Tompkins Square Park,’ a man has entered a horse bar, and the bartender, a blue horse, tells him flatly, ‘We serve horses here, and people who look horsey. You aren’t and you don’t.’” Sign me up. — Jennifer Graham

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Book Events

Author events

• PAULA MUNIER and SARAH STEWART TAYLOR present their respective mystery novels The Wedding Plotand The Drowning Sea at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, July 21, at 6:30 p.m.

• LINDA REILLY presents her cozy mystery No Parm No Foul at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Tuesday, July 26, at 6:30 p.m.

• DIANE HALLENBECK presents Rejecting Fear: Learning to Be Led By Love at the Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, bookerymht.com, 836-6600) on Thursday, July 28, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Free event; register at www.bookerymht.com/our-events.

• MARY ELLEN HUMPHREY presents My Mountain Friend: Wandering and Pondering Mt. Majorat Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, July 28, at 6:30 p.m.

• KATHLEEN BAILEY and SHEILA BAILEY present their book New Hampshire War Monuments: The Stories Behind the Stones at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, Aug. 11, at 6:30 p.m.

• R.A. SALVATORE presents Glacier’s Edge at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Friday, Aug. 12, at 6:30 p.m.

• CASEY SHERMAN presents Helltown at the Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, bookerymht.com, 836-6600) on Sunday, Aug. 14, at 1:30 p.m. Free event; register at www.bookerymht.com/our-events.

• VIRGINA CHAMLEE presents Big Thrift Energy: The Art and Thrill of Finding Vintage Treasures at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Monday, Aug. 15, at 6:30 p.m.

Poetry

• OPEN MIC POETRY hosted by the Poetry Society of NH at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com), starting with a reading by poet Sam DeFlitch, on Wednesday, July 20, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Newcomers encouraged. Free.

• DOWN CELLAR POETRY SALON Poetry event series presented by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. Monthly. First Sunday. Visit poetrysocietynh.wordpress.com.

Writers groups

• MERRIMACK VALLEY WRITERS’ GROUP All published and unpublished local writers who are interested in sharing their work with other writers and giving and receiving constructive feedback are invited to join. The group meets regularly Email [email protected].

Book Clubs

• BOOKERY Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. 844 Elm St., Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com/online-book-club or call 836-6600.

• GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.

• TO SHARE BREWING CO. 720 Union St., Manchester. Monthly. Second Thursday, 6 p.m. RSVP required. Visit tosharebrewing.com or call 836-6947.

• GOFFSTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY 2 High St., Goffstown. Monthly. Third Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. Call 497-2102, email [email protected] or visit goffstownlibrary.com

• BELKNAP MILL Online. Monthly. Last Wednesday, 6 p.m. Based in Laconia. Email [email protected].

• NASHUA PUBLIC LIBRARY Online. Monthly. Second Friday, 3 p.m. Call 589-4611, email [email protected] or visit nashualibrary.org.

Language

• FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE CLASSES

Offered remotely by the Franco-American Centre. Six-week session with classes held Thursdays from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. $225. Visit facnh.com/education or call 623-1093.

Sparring Partners by John Grisham (Doubleday, 320 pages)

Stuck at home with Covid, John Grisham was writing way too much, he said in a post on Goodreads back in January. The result is Sparring Partners, his first collection of novellas. They’re based on ideas he’s had for a long time that were too short to be novels but too long to be short stories, he wrote.

I’ve read all of Grisham’s novels and wasn’t especially excited to read this non-novel; short stories have never appealed to me, maybe because it seems like there’s not enough time to get attached to the characters, and I wasn’t sure if I would like longer short stories either. Plus, Grisham’s most recent books tend to all blend together in my mind — they’re good stories, but not outstanding, and I’ve gotten less and less eager to read them.

I guess it helped to have low expectations, because I was pleasantly surprised by Sparring Partners.

The first novella, “Homecoming,” takes place in Ford County and features Jake Brigance — both the location and main character should be well-known by Grisham fans. Brigance just heard from an old friend, Mack, a former lawyer who stole from clients, then disappeared. Jake and Harry Rex (another familiar name) help him return, but of course, it’s complicated by Mack’s angry children and, oh yeah, all those pesky crimes he committed that he never did time for. Once word gets out that he’s around, the FBI steps in.

The story feels complete because of Margot, one of Mack’s daughters. She’s strong and sassy but also willing to give her father the most tentative of chances, and their relationship is a highlight of the novella. She’s not a lawyer, judge, law enforcement officer or criminal; she’s just a young woman trying to figure out her relationship with her father, and it’s a refreshing point of view.

“Strawberry Moon” is the second novella, about a young death row inmate named Cody Wallace who is just hours away from execution. There’s no way to save him, so this isn’t a suspenseful last-minute race for clemency. It’s beyond that point already, so the story we get is more about Cody’s past, his experiences on death row and a final request.

I had conflicting feelings about this one. The brevity and pace of all the stories made Sparring Partners as a whole feel like a good, easy beach read, but having an entire novella set on death row is dark and depressing, a bit of a downer in the midst of more light-hearted fare. None of them are exactly uplifting, but the other two are a little more action and a little less doom-and-gloom social commentary on the justice system. It’s not unexpected from Grisham, but in this particular format, it seemed a bit rushed and ineffective. I didn’t care enough about Cody at the end to feel the impact of his fate.

That being said, this is John Grisham, not a quintessential beach read author like Elin Hilderbrand or Jennifer Weiner, so I can’t take off too many points for darker content.

The final novella is “Sparring Partners,” the partners being brothers Kirk and Rusty Malloy, who inherited their father’s law firm when he went to prison. They hate each other and talk as little as possible, but they have to come together when they plot to make sure their father stays in prison so they can get their hands on a life-changing chunk of cash. Meanwhile, fellow lawyer and soon-to-be self-designated partner Diantha makes the smartest move of her career with the press of her phone’s “record” button.

This is the best story of the bunch. The Malloys are seriously dysfunctional, and it’s fun to watch Diantha set herself up for success after years of being an honest, hardworking attorney but not getting as far as she should have. But it’s also hard to dislike the Malloy brothers; there is some level of sympathy for two unhappy brothers who are happy their dad is in jail but also happy that he killed their mother.

Overall, this collection is worth the read. Most Grisham fans won’t be disappointed, and those who haven’t read him before will get a taste of his easy-to-digest, fast-paced writing style. It’s not A Time to Kill or The Firm, but it’s not meant to be, so enjoy it for what it is. Though if you’d rather wait for a full novel, you won’t have to wait long; Grisham has a new legal thriller, The Boys from Biloxi, coming out in October. B+ — Meghan Siegler

Book Notes

The recent death of James Caan, one of the stars of The Godfather, will no doubt kindle nostalgia for the film. If you’re watching, check out last fall’s Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli, The Epic Story of the Making of The Godfather (Gallery, 448 pages).

It’s written by former Vanity Fair editor Mark Seal, who writes in his dedication that his father kept one book by his bedside: the book that inspired the film. That would be, of course, The Godfather, written by Mario Puzo and first published in 1969. It’s one of the rare books that seems to have been eclipsed by the movie. There are probably millennials among us who don’t even know there was a book.

But the symbiotic relationship between books and film is ever expanding, and there seems to be no film so outdated that it doesn’t merit a “the story behind” book. Witness The Church of Baseball (Knopf, 272 pages) by Ron Shelton, which is the story behind the 1988 movie Bull Durham: “home runs, bad calls, crazy fights, big swings and a hit.” Shelton directed the film, which seems to be as much about baseball as movie-making.

While we’re speaking of Hollywood, Ken Auletta, longtime writer for The New Yorker, is out with Hollywood Ending (Penguin, 480 pages), a biography of disgraced mogul Harvey Weinstein, the film producer now in jail for serial sex abuse.

It seems a short walk from Hollywood to Helltown, Casey Sherman’s true-crime story of a serial killer at Cape Cod in the 1960s. But this isn’t just about the investigation of a string of murders, but also how Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer became part of the story, with each launching investigations of their own in order to write about the killer. (Sourcebooks, 464 pages.)

For fiction readers, the paperback of New Hampshire author Jodi Picoult’s 2021 bestseller, Wish You Were Here, is finally here (Ballantine, 400 pages). It’s about a life-changing trip to the Galápagos Islands made by a New York City woman who gets stranded there as the world shuts down because of a virus. Read fast; it’s already been optioned by Netflix.

And finally, worth a look is Joan (Random House, 368 pages) by Katherine J. Chen. It’s a new reimagining of the life of French hero Joan of Arc that got lots of advance praise. — Jennifer Graham

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Book Events

Author events

• SARAH MCCRAW CROW presents The Wrong Kind of Woman at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Tuesday, July 19, at 6:30 p.m.

• PAULA MUNIER and SARAH STEWART TAYLOR present their respective mystery novels The Wedding Plot and The Drowning Sea at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, July 21, at 6:30 p.m.

• LINDA REILLY presents her cozy mystery No Parm No Foul at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Tuesday, July 26, at 6:30 p.m.

• DIANE HALLENBECK presents Rejecting Fear: Learning to Be Led By Love at the Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, bookerymht.com, 836-6600) on Thursday, July 28, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Free event; register at www.bookerymht.com/our-events.

Poetry

• OPEN MIC POETRY hosted by the Poetry Society of NH at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com), starting with a reading by poet Sam DeFlitch, on Wednesday, July 20, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Newcomers encouraged. Free.

• DOWN CELLAR POETRY SALON Poetry event series presented by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. Monthly. First Sunday. Visit poetrysocietynh.wordpress.com.

Writers groups

• MERRIMACK VALLEY WRITERS’ GROUP All published and unpublished local writers who are interested in sharing their work with other writers and giving and receiving constructive feedback are invited to join. The group meets regularly Email [email protected].

Book Clubs

• BOOKERY Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. 844 Elm St., Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com/online-book-club or call 836-6600.

• GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.

• TO SHARE BREWING CO. 720 Union St., Manchester. Monthly. Second Thursday, 6 p.m. RSVP required. Visit tosharebrewing.com or call 836-6947.

• GOFFSTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY 2 High St., Goffstown. Monthly. Third Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. Call 497-2102, email [email protected] or visit goffstownlibrary.com

• BELKNAP MILL Online. Monthly. Last Wednesday, 6 p.m. Based in Laconia. Email [email protected].

• NASHUA PUBLIC LIBRARY Online. Monthly. Second Friday, 3 p.m. Call 589-4611, email [email protected] or visit nashualibrary.org.

Language

• FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE CLASSES

Offered remotely by the Franco-American Centre. Six-week session with classes held Thursdays from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. $225. Visit facnh.com/education or call 623-1093.

Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting, by Claire Pooley (Pamela Dorman Books/Viking, 338 pages)

The unwritten rules for commuting are pretty much the same as the unwritten rules for riding an elevator: Avoid eye contact if possible. Keep in your space. If you must say something, comment on the weather.

But what if you ride a train five or more days a week and often see the same faces? And what if, one day, one of them nearly chokes to death on a grape? Do you go back to impersonal nonchalance, or question the etiquette rules that would even make you consider that?

The answer is right there on the cover of Clare Pooley’s Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting, a fun summer read that advises “Sometimes you have to break the rules.” Set in London, the novel is vaguely reminiscent of Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary, only Iona Iverson is in the twilight of her career, happily partnered, and gay.

Also, Iona is but one part of this story; don’t be fooled by her top billing. In fact, it’s the clever interweaving of different perspectives and storylines that makes this novel sing.

There are four central characters: Iona, the “Dear Abby”-like magazine advice columnist who has been deemed a dinosaur by her younger colleagues, who are trying to drive her out of the job she loves and has been doing for 30 years; Piers, an unhappy investment banker who was eating a salad on the train when he choked on the grape; Sanjay, a shy nurse with a crippling anxiety disorder who nonetheless saved Piers’ life; and Emmie, a voracious reader who works an unfulfilling job in marketing and is oblivious to Sanjay’s infatuation with her.

The four lives intersect meaningfully in the moment of Piers’ medical emergency, and then, once the problem is resolved and lives resumed, they want to retreat to their respective silos of silence. Except for Iona, whose stubborn insistence on righting the world’s wrongs — not only in her column but in the lives of the people around her — compels her to keep the conversations going.

If this sounds kind of saccharine and frothy, well, on one level, it is. But we are solidly into the season where you don’t have to read anything that could have been assigned by a teacher or boss. And Pooley is a genuinely funny writer, rolling off bits and one-liners at a pace that makes this novel as much a comedy as a beach read.

If the idea of commuting seems a bit antique in these days of working at home, it’s not in Pooley’s hands. She hits the issue head on, having Iona’s boss urging her to work from home. She declines — believing “It was important to keep at least one finger plugged into the zeitgeist” — even though she doesn’t like the trend of hot desking, which she rightly interprets as sharing, something she didn’t like to do even as a child.

So Iona keeps going to work daily, accompanied by her French bulldog named Lulu, whom she balances on her lap while drinking tea on the train. Some of the other passengers avoid her and think of her as “Crazy Dog Lady.” There are often empty seats around her.

But it’s Iona who decides to help the painfully shy Sanjay interact with the young woman he’s crushing on, and Iona who leaps to the defense of a distraught teenager who gets sick on Piers’ laptop one day. Then after one especially nasty exchange between Iona and Piers (in which an observer likens them to T. rex and Indominus rex going after each other in Jurassic Park), the two break through to something resembling humanity, after Piers admits, in an unguarded moment, that he desperately hates his job.

It is but one concealed bit of trouble among a host of troubles concealed by passengers on the train, and as the story unfolds, Iona becomes as much of a helper and adviser in real life as she is in her column; more so, actually. But as the commuters slowly get to know one another — first in abbreviated interactions on the train and then in other ways — they all begin to help each other in surprising ways, often inadvertently.

It would be “the feel-good movie of the year” if it were a movie, let’s just say.

While Rules for Commuting isn’t all sweetness and light — there are side plots involving a young mother undergoing cancer treatment and a young woman being cruelly bullied — there’s never a sense that we will get our hearts ripped out at the end. It offers escapism without the darkness that so much escapist fare contains.

Is it real life? Of course not. Will it help make yours more tolerable for a couple of hours? Absolutely, which is really all we need from a light summer book. B

Book Notes

You can read a book a week and still find yourself perpetually surprised that someone is a “New York Times bestselling author” you’ve never heard of. Take, for instance, the Virginia young-adult novelist Jenny Han, who is currently all the rage for her trio of summer-themed books that have just come out as an Amazon streaming series.

The Summer I Turned Pretty is the first title in the trilogy, and also the title of the series. It’s described by NPR pretty simply: It’s the story of “one teenage girl whose summer goes the way it always does except for one thing. The two boys she’s known her whole life are looking at her differently, and suddenly she has a big choice to make.”

OK, so it’s probably not William Faulker, whose story “The Long Summer” and two others were the basis for the film The Long Hot Summer.

But Han’s novel and two subsequent titles — It’s Not Summer Without You and We’ll Always Have Summer — will be released in a hardcover boxed set (Simon & Schuster, 880 pages in total) in two weeks. It’s been an extraordinary run for the books, seeing as the first book was released in 2009. Props to any author who can sell a book with a protagonist named Belly and still be selling well more than a decade later.

The other literal summer reads are, for the most part, the beach reads and chick lit we expect, such as Rebecca Serle’s romance One Italian Summer (Atria, 272 pages) and May Cobb’s mystery My Summer Darlings (Berkley, 368 pages).

But there’s one notable exception: The Summer Friend (Knopf, 240 pages) by Charles McGrath, a former editor at The New Yorker and The New York Times.

Set in New England, The Summer Friend is a memoir about McGrath’s friendship with a man named Chip Gillespie, who grew up in New Hampshire (his father taught classics at Phillips Exeter Academy). “Whenever I try to tell my own summertime story, I find myself telling a story that is partly his,” McGrath writes. The pair sailed, golfed and lobstered together for years, their summers entwined, until Chip’s life was struck short by cancer.

An intelligent and emotive departure from the typical “summer” books, it’s worth your attention, particularly if your childhood memories, like McGrath’s, are set near New England water.

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Book Events

Author events

• JOYCE MAYNARD presents Count the Ways at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Tuesday, July 12, at 6:30 p.m.

• ADAM J. MEAD presents The Complete Financial History of Berkshire Hathaway at the Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, bookerymht.com, 836-6600) on Wednesday, July 13, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Free event; register at www.bookerymht.com/our-events.

• KARI ALLEN presents and signs copies of her picture book The Boy Who Loved Maps at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Wednesday, July 13, from 4:30 to 6 p.m.

• SARAH MCCRAW CROW presents The Wrong Kind of Woman at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Tuesday, July 19, at 6:30 p.m.

• PAULA MUNIER and SARAH STEWART TAYLOR present their respective mystery novels The Wedding Plot and The Drowning Sea at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, July 21, at 6:30 p.m.

• LINDA REILLY presents her cozy mystery No Parm No Foul at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Tuesday, July 26, at 6:30 p.m.

• DIANE HALLENBECK presents Rejecting Fear: Learning to Be Led By Love at the Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, bookerymht.com, 836-6600) on Thursday, July 28, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Free event; register at www.bookerymht.com/our-events.

• MARY ELLEN HUMPHREY presents My Mountain Friend: Wandering and Pondering Mt. Major at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, July 28, at 6:30 p.m.

• KATHLEEN BAILEY and SHEILA BAILEY present their book New Hampshire War Monuments: The Stories Behind the Stones at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, Aug. 11, at 6:30 p.m.

• CASEY SHERMAN presents Helltown at the Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, bookerymht.com, 836-6600) on Sunday, Aug. 14, at 1:30 p.m. Free event; register at www.bookerymht.com/our-events.

• VIRGINA CHAMLEE presents Big Thrift Energy: The Art and Thrill of Finding Vintage Treasures at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Monday, Aug. 15, at 6:30 p.m.

Poetry

• DOWN CELLAR POETRY SALON Poetry event series presented by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. Monthly. First Sunday. Visit poetrysocietynh.wordpress.com.

Writers groups

• MERRIMACK VALLEY WRITERS’ GROUP All published and unpublished local writers who are interested in sharing their work with other writers and giving and receiving constructive feedback are invited to join. The group meets regularly Email [email protected].

Book Clubs

• BOOKERY Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. 844 Elm St., Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com/online-book-club or call 836-6600.

• GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.

• TO SHARE BREWING CO. 720 Union St., Manchester. Monthly. Second Thursday, 6 p.m. RSVP required. Visit tosharebrewing.com or call 836-6947.

• GOFFSTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY 2 High St., Goffstown. Monthly. Third Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. Call 497-2102, email [email protected] or visit goffstownlibrary.com

• BELKNAP MILL Online. Monthly. Last Wednesday, 6 p.m. Based in Laconia. Email [email protected].

• NASHUA PUBLIC LIBRARY Online. Monthly. Second Friday, 3 p.m. Call 589-4611, email [email protected] or visit nashualibrary.org.

Language

• FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE CLASSES

Offered remotely by the Franco-American Centre. Six-week session with classes held Thursdays from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. $225. Visit facnh.com/education or call 623-1093.

James Patterson, The Stories of My Life, by James Patterson (Little, Brown and Co., 360 pages)

There’s a rumor out there that James Patterson doesn’t write all his books, not just the novels he co-authors with people like Bill Clinton and Dolly Parton, but also the ones that only bear his name. “Conceived, outlined, co-written and curated” is how The Washington Post described his work in 2016, likening Patterson to a factory of words.

When the author got in trouble recently for telling a journalist that white men can’t get a break these days, this was one of the insults hurled at him on Twitter by fellow writers like Roxane Gay, who wrote, “James Patterson, of all people. First, write your own books, pal.”

Patterson’s new memoir, which he dubs an “ego-biography,” is a seemingly preordained response to that slight. There’s no question he wrote this book, that the anecdotes sprang fully formed from his forehead. It’s three-quarters ego, one-quarter heart, strictly adhering to the formula that makes Patterson’s novels the most read in the world: short chapters — some only a single page — delivered in a folksy, conversational style. Example:

I’ve been poor and middle class, then poor and middle class again, and now I’m pretty well-to-do. Okay, I’m kind of rich.

On balance, I prefer rich.

But I don’t think I would be the person I am, or the writer, if I hadn’t experienced the whole spectrum — all the ups and downs and sideways.

The downs, if we’re being honest, are scarce.

In short vignettes, Patterson describes growing up as the only son of four children in a working-class Catholic family. They lived in modest neighborhoods but books were always strewn around. He was an altar boy and took piano lessons from a nun and had parents who demanded their boy make all A’s. (One of the chapters is named “You’re Slipping, James.” Clearly there’s some parental animosity he hasn’t yet fully worked out.) Strangely his father saw nothing wrong with regularly taking his young son to a pub on the weekend and giving him a half mug of beer. Then again, this was in the 1950s, so maybe not quite so scandalous as it seems now.

We learn about Patterson’s first kiss, his first job at a psychiatric institution in the suburbs of Boston, his matriculation at Manhattan College and then at Vanderbilt and the New York City advertising job that in retrospect seems the perfect training for James Patterson Inc.

Because he was a natural-born writer, writing with the ease in which others talked, he was promoted early and often and within a few years was handling big-name accounts, for a while flying between New York and Chicago, where he was put up in a suite with a view of Lake Michigan. At one point his salary tripled. According to Patterson, he wrote the advertising slogans “Picture a brand new world” for Kodak and “I’m a Toys R Us Kid” for Toys R Us. He also writes that he renamed what was then known as Allegheny Airlines to U.S. Air.

The disclaimer “according to Patterson” is often necessary when describing these stories because some are so incredible as to be unbelievable. They sound like something a world-famous novelist might have made up. Take Patterson’s first kiss, which is the subject of an early vignette and occurred when he was in the sixth grade. The girl was named Veronica Tabasco. In a later chapter, he writes of visiting his grandfather’s grave when he was in his 30s, turning to leave and noticing that Veronica Tabasco — the Veronica Tabasco — was buried right next to his grandfather.

“According to the stone tablet, Veronica had died in her mid-twenties. I’d had no idea until that moment. It kind of broke my heart,” he wrote.

Unusual things like that happen to Patterson all the time (according to Patterson). While his success as a novelist has made him friends with a wide range of famous people (“Damn near addictive” is the Ron Howard blurb on the cover), he’s been hobnobbing with the soon-to-be rich and famous since he was broke and unknown. For example, at the Belmont, Massachusetts, psychiatric hospital where he worked during the summer, James Taylor was a patient for a while and would sing in the hospital coffee shop. The late poet Robert Lowell was there for a while, too, and would do poetry readings in his room.

Much later in life, when Patterson was collaborating with Bill Clinton on a novel, he ran afoul of the Secret Service because someone else named James Patterson had been telling the hotel where he was staying that he was the famous author. He carries Tom Cruise’s personal number in his wallet. And he once got kicked out of the offices of the dating service called It’s Just Lunch.

These are the sorts of stories that your grandfather would tell while you’re out fishing together, if you fished with your grandfather and he was drinking and conditioned to tell stories about his past in increments of two to three pages. They are fanciful to the extreme, making it clear that the rich-to-be are different from you and me, right from the start. Then again, Patterson writes at the start of the book, “I want to tell you some stories … the way I remember them, anyway,” giving him plausible deniability. Who knows for sure if the first girl Patterson kissed is really buried next to his grandfather? Whether it’s true or not, it’s a great story, as most of the stories in this rambling, stone-skipping book of memories are.

The constant throughout Patterson’s life is books. Even while he was working seven days a week in advertising, he was working on novels early in the mornings and late at night. That is what he was most driven to do, even though a college professor had told him, “You write well enough. But stay away from fiction.”

By his mid-30s, he’d published four bestsellers featuring the detective Alex Cross (whom he’d originally written as a woman). He was also now CEO of the advertising company although he’d generally hated the work all along. (He frequently refers to it as advertising hell.) Then he had an epiphany sitting in traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike. He soon left the company to write full-time.

It’s hard to begrudge Patterson his success, however, as this memoir makes clear that he put in the work, even if he was a naturally talented writer. “Every night after work, I’d come home in a daze of jingle lyrics and cutesy catchphrases, sit in my kitchen, stare around at the tiny antiseptic space, then start writing again. He wrote his first drafts then — and still does now — with a No. 2 pencil. He still writes, he says, 350 to 360 days a year.

In this memoir, James Patterson may have finally written a book for people who don’t like James Patterson books. Stephen King may be among them. King, according to Patterson, once said that he was a terrible writer, even though he contributed a blurb for the book. It’s a highly entertaining read, but just remember that it’s the truth as Patterson remembers it. B

Book Notes

It’s hard to remember that there once was a time when the cable network AMC stood for American Movie Classics. Now it’s associated with edgy hit shows like Better Call Saul and The Walking Dead. But everything transforms, even actors to authors. Saul’s Bob Odenkirk came out with a memoir a few months ago (Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama, Random House, 304 pages), and now Walking Dead megastar Norman Reedus is hawking a novel.

The Ravaged (Blackstone Publishing, 294 pages) has a co-author, Frank Bill, so it’s unclear how much Reedus (the Dead’s Daryl Dixon) actually wrote. He told People magazine that the book started as a pandemic project and while not autobiographical it weaves in some stories of his past. It’s about three people “either running from something or running to something, and they’re finding a sense of family along the way,” he says.

Speaking of AMC, the network will launch a new series this fall based on the ever popular Interview with the Vampire by the late Anne Rice, who died last year from complications of a stroke. The book, published in 1976, has already been made into a movie, but clearly AMC thinks there’s more money to be made here. Interview (Knopf, 352 pages) was the first of 13 in a series. Producer Mark Johnson has said he’s hoping “those viewers who have never read an Anne Rice novel will go running to the bookstore eager to understand what all the fuss is about.”

Rice’s last book, co-authored with her son Christopher Rice, is Ramses the Damned, The Reign of Osiris (Anchor, 368 pages) and came out in February. It’s the third in the fantasy series that puts the historical Ramses the Great in a cursed state of immortality. Not unlike a vampire, you might note.

For something a bit less fantastical and more in keeping with the upcoming holiday, check out Mark Clague’s O Say Can You Hear? A Cultural Biography of the Star-Spangled Banner (W.W. Norton, 352 pages).

A musicology professor at the University of Michigan, Clague examines how the song took off after Frances Scott Key composed “Defence of Fort McHenry” and became both a beloved war anthem and a landmine in the culture war. A fun fact from the book: Clague considers the best popular rendition of the song to be Whitney Houston’s performance at the 1991 Super Bowl. (Available on YouTube for your holiday viewing.)

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Book Events

Author events

• PAUL BROGAN presents A Sprinkling of Stardust Over the Outhouse at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, June 30, at 6:30 p.m. See the June 23 issue of the Hippo on page 10 for a discussion with the author. Hippopress.com; find e-editions near the bottom of the home page.

• SARAH MCCRAW CROW presents The Wrong Kind of Woman at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Tuesday, July 19, at 6:30 p.m.

• CASEY SHERMAN presents Helltown at the Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, bookerymht.com, 836-6600) on Sunday, Aug. 14, at 1:30 p.m.

Poetry

• DOWN CELLAR POETRY SALON Poetry event series presented by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. Monthly. First Sunday. Visit poetrysocietynh.wordpress.com.

Writers groups

• MERRIMACK VALLEY WRITERS’ GROUP All published and unpublished local writers who are interested in sharing their work with other writers and giving and receiving constructive feedback are invited to join. The group meets regularly Email [email protected].

Book Clubs

• BOOKERY Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. 844 Elm St., Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com/online-book-club or call 836-6600.

• GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.

• TO SHARE BREWING CO. 720 Union St., Manchester. Monthly. Second Thursday, 6 p.m. RSVP required. Visit tosharebrewing.com or call 836-6947.

• GOFFSTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY 2 High St., Goffstown. Monthly. Third Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. Call 497-2102, email [email protected] or visit goffstownlibrary.com

• BELKNAP MILL Online. Monthly. Last Wednesday, 6 p.m. Based in Laconia. Email [email protected].

• NASHUA PUBLIC LIBRARY Online. Monthly. Second Friday, 3 p.m. Call 589-4611, email [email protected] or visit nashualibrary.org.

Language

• FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE CLASSES

Offered remotely by the Franco-American Centre. Six-week session with classes held Thursdays from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. $225. Visit facnh.com/education or call 623-1093.