FTWBooks2023

  Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years by   Julie Andrews Edwards This was an interesting story.  I had not read her previous books, which deal with her early years and theater.  This book starts with being cast as Mary Poppins and goes on from there to her extensive movie career.  It ends before the surgery that ruined her voice, so you learn nothing of that. (The co-author of this book, Emma Walton Hamilton, is Julie's daughter) What is strange about this book is that it seems to be the story of a mother who has a side job, which takes her away from her children, and how sad she feels about that. Her feelings about the movies she was in and the roles she played, some of which, like Sound of Music , Victor/Victoria, and Mary Poppins , are Hollywood classics, yet she never seems to feel comfortable in her performance and spends a lot of time trying to get home to see her kids.  She had two step children and with husband Blake Edwards adopted two girls ...

  I will Find You by Harlan Coben When I saw that there was a new Harlan Coben book out, I ordered it immediately.  I have read all of his books and have been missing him!   The sad thing about this book is that it was so good I couldn't put it down and spent all night (no sleep!) reading.  Now I have to wait for him to publish a new book again! David Burroughs is jailed for murdering his 3 year old son, Matthew, though he insists he's innocent.  After five years in prison (during which time his wife divorces him, marries again, and is pregnant) David is visited by his sister-in-law who has shocking news for him--she's convinced that she has seen Matthew at a fair, and she even has a photo.  David needs to break out of prison to try and find his son...and prove his innocence.  Fortunately the warden of the prison just happens to be David's godfather and helps him escape.  From there the action -- finding important people, learning about Matth...

  Dream Town by David Baldacci I got this book because I thought it was the first in the 3-book series featuring private investigator Aloysius Archer. When I finished the book I realized it was actually the third book. Perhaps if I had started with the first book I would have enjoyed this more. Too many characters, too many complications, cross relationships to keep straight (even the character names are similar enough that it is confusing). I learned from reading other reviews that many of the characters are introduced in earlier books. It was also strange to read a book set in the 1950s. The story is good, Archer trying to find a missing woman after discovering a dead body in the lobby of her home. There's a lot of violence and while I don't normally mind it, somehow this seemed over the top and bothered me. On the whole I was disappointed in this book.

  This seems the perfect time to re-read this book, written in 1949. I read it during college, but remembered very little of it. The character Isherwood Williams ("Ish") is in the mountains for some "time away." He is bitten by a snake and ends up in his cabin for a couple of weeks, recovering from the snake bite and some sort of illness. When he returns to civilization, he discovers that there has been a massive pandemic and everybody is dead. He is able to get food, a better car, gasoline, etc. by taking what has been abandoned. He settles in his family home in Berkeley and then drives across the country, finding other individuals or small groups who have survived. Returning to Berkeley. he continues to explore and finds, first, a woman with whom he partners, and then a handful of others who have also survived. Together, this small group start a tribe, with the birth of babies and learning how to deal with what has been left behind and how to cope when, for exampl...

  Things I  Wish I Told My Mother James Patterson, Susan Patterson and Susan DiLallo James Patterson has taken to writing with co-authors and this book has two women co-authors (one his wife) and, except for a surprise ending absolutely nothing like previous James Patterson books. It definitely has the feel of a story told by women. It's the story of a mother and daughter who have a difficult relationship and how a trip they take to Paris and to the mother's family home in Norway affects them. The story is good and, given Patterson's other books, I expected some nefarious characters to pop up, but that doesn't happen. The surprise twist at the end kind of ruined the whole story for me.

  Home Front Girls by Suzanne Hayes This is a fun book, a collection of letters between pen pals set during WWII.  They have never met, but become very close friends as their lives are impacted by the war. Glory is a young wife with small children from New England whose husband is in the service. Rita is from Iowa.  She is a mature woman with her husband and son off to war.   This gives a wonderful look at what life was like for families during the war.  (I particularly loved how Glory is surprised when her husband returns and wants peanut butter on bread with some jelly....she'd never heard of that combination before)