More Books I Did NOT Finish

I have become so picky about my reading. Used to be that I would persist in reading a book til the bitter end. But now, if it doesn't grab me after 50-100 pages, I let it go.

Before the Ruins by Victoria Gosling. Publishers Weekly and others gave it rave reviews. Here is what they said: "British author Gosling's stellar debut focuses on four childhood friends--Andy, the bold ringleader; her boyfriend, Marcus; her best friend, Peter; and the creative and enterprising Em. In the summer of 1996, the four, all in their late teens, decide to experience "the apocalypse" that Andy's alcoholic mother believes will happen on June 20 at an abandoned manor house in the Wiltshire countryside that was the scene of a suspicious death and the theft of a priceless diamond necklace in 1936. When they arrive at the manor that day, there's no apocalypse, but they do encounter a stranger, David, in the drive. He knows the new owners, a wealthy family waiting to remodel it. David, flirtatious and a bit older than the others, is immediately drawn to Andy--and to Peter, creating tension between the two friends. In the days that follow, Em finds a suitable, cheap facsimile of the stolen necklace in a thrift shop, and the friends take turns hiding the fake necklace, which the others must find. Some romantic drama ensues, and in the autumn they all go their separate ways. More than 20 years later, Andy and Peter meet on occasion, but avoid talking about what happened at the manor. Then Peter disappears, and Andy resolves to find him. The gorgeous, poetic prose perfectly complements the suspenseful plot."

What Could Be Saved by Liese O'Halloran Schwarz. Again, positive review from Publishers Weekly and others: "In Schwarz's superb sophomore novel (after The Possible World), an American family's young boy goes missing in Thailand and resurfaces decades later. During the Vietnam War, Robert Preston works as a spy for the U.S. government and moves his family to Bangkok in 1972 under the pretense that he's designing a dam. His resentful wife, Genevieve, begins an affair, and after their youngest child, Philip, disappears, the Prestons return to America with their other two daughters. All except Genevieve assume he's dead, and Genevieve repeatedly returns to search for him. Forty-seven years later, Bea is aghast when her younger sister, Laura, travels to Bangkok in hopes of retrieving Philip, having received an email from a man who claims to have found him. The question of whether the man Laura returns with is their brother remains open for much of the book. The sisters are reluctant to press Philip for details about his disappearance and wonder how to break the news to Genevieve, who now has dementia. Schwarz is a remarkable storyteller, juggling many characters, and the seamless alternating chapters narrated by Laura and a servant from the Preston's house in Bangkok gradually deepen the reader's understanding of the past and present. Schwarz's stellar work is riveting from its start all the way to the final horrifying twist."

The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar by Maurice LeBlanc. I originally became interested because of the Netflix series called "Lupin" that is based on LeBlanc's books and stars Omar Sy. 

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. This book has received numerous very positive reviews, is on lots of "Best of" lists, but still, it felt disjointed to continually find out after a conversation who had said what. Meh. Here is Publishers Weekly review: "Saunders's (Tenth of December) mesmerizing historical novel is also a moving ghost story. A Dantesque tour through a Georgetown cemetery teeming with spirits, the book takes place on a February night in 1862, when Abraham Lincoln visits the grave of his recently interred 11-year-old son, Willie. The distraught Lincoln's nocturnal visit has a "vivifying effect" on the graveyard's spectral denizens, a gallery of grotesques who have chosen to loiter "in the Bardo"-a Tibetan term for a liminal state-rather than face final judgment. Among this community, which is still riven by racial and class divisions, are Roger Bevins III, who slashed his wrists after being spurned by a lover, and Hans Vollman, a "wooden-toothed forty-six-year-old printer" struck in the head by a falling beam shortly after marrying his young wife. As irritable, chatty, and bored in their purgatory as Beckett characters, Bevins and Vollman devote themselves to saving Willie from their fate: "The young ones," Bevins explains, "are not meant to tarry." Periodically interrupting the graveyard action are slyly arranged assemblies of historical accounts of the Lincoln era. These excerpts and Lincoln's anguished musings compose a collage-like portrait of a wartime president burdened by private and public grief, mourning his son's death as staggering battlefield reports test his (and the nation's) resolve. Saunders's enlivening imagination runs wild in detailing the ghosts' bizarre manifestations, but melancholy is the novel's dominant tone. Two sad strains, the spirits' stubborn, nostalgic attachment to the world of the living and Lincoln's monumental sorrow, make up a haunting American ballad that will inspire increased devotion among Saunders's admirers." Also reviews from The New York Times, NPR,  The Guardian, The New Yorker, and Kirkus.