H is for Hawk

 

The Book: When Helen Macdonald's beloved father unexpectedly dies of a heart attack Helen tries to deal with her grief by raising and training a goshawk that she names Mabel. Helen is an experienced falconer but goshawks are known to be very difficult to train. Helen tells of her successes and failures both in training Mabel and in dealing with her grief. Her memories of her father, who seems to have been a lovely man, are strewn throughout the memoir. She also evaluates previous writings about the training of goshawks especially a memoir by T.H. White (the author of The Sword in the Stone). Unlike Helen, T.H. White had no experience and made a mess of his attempt to train a goshawk but despite that Helen is drawn to the memoir and compares her own experience with White's experience.  By the end of the year Helen has learned much about Mabel and about herself.

The Author: Helen Macdonald

Genre: Non-fiction (memoir)

Length: 387 pp (e-book on my mini ipad)

One good thing:  This beautifully written memoir reads more like a novel than most memoirs.

One not-so-great thing: There really isn't anything not great about this book but I suppose if you are completely uninterested in either birds, woods or T.H. White you might be a bit bored with parts of it. 

Nancy Pearl's "Four Doorways":  Although this is a memoir, it reads like a novel so I feel it is appropriate to discuss this. 

    Story:  Obviously, since this is a memoir, the story is dependent upon reality. And yet there is a story arc as Helen trains Mabel and moves through her own grief.  This is not a page-turner but a book to be read slowly and savored.

    Characters: Because of her grief, for much of the book Helen has mostly withdrawn into a world that is just she and Mabel. But she makes Mabel a character without anthropomorphizing her. I definitely ended the book wanting more of both Helen and Mabel.

    Setting: Most of the book is spent in the woods and fields of England in and around Cambridge.  It's nice to read a book set in this locale that isn't about the university. 

    Writing: This is a beautifully written book. All of the information about birds, especially goshawks, could have been very dry but isn't. And all of the information about White could have been seen as a distraction from the main story but instead is well integrated into Helen's story. 

    

    

What We Can Know

 

The Book: The year is 2119 and the earth has suffered a series of cataclysms due to global warming and AI. What was previously the island of Britain is now an archipelago. But universities still exist and the humanities are still under siege. Thomas Metcalf is a scholar who studies literature from the early 21st century. He is primarily studying the poet Francis Bundy (a sort of minor Seamus Heaney) and his wife Vivien. Back in 2014, at a birthday party for Vivien, Francis presented her with a long poem said to be one of his greatest. She possessed the only copy. But what did she do with it? Metcalf wants to find out everything he can about Vivien and Francis but especially wants to find that poem. If this premise sounds similar to A.S Byatt's prizewinning novel Possession, it is. Both involve long dead poets and a scholar's search for information about their private life. But, in fact, it more resembles her much less acclaimed novel The Biographer's Tale which seemed to say that in the end all biography owes something to the creative ideas of the biographer - and wouldn't they just rather write fiction? In all three of these novels the premise is that scholars in the future can only know a limited amount about the life of someone in the past even when, in the case of Francis and Vivien Bundy, there are digital archives of every email, text and social media post they ever made. 

The Author: Ian McEwan

Genre: Literary Fiction 

Length: 301 pp (hardback)

One good thing:  McEwan creates a very believable 2119 which is similar and yet different from the early 21st century. Although he explains how the world ended up the way it did, he doesn't dwell on the "why" but focuses on how things are at that time. 

One not-so-great thing: The novel is divided into two parts. The first part, the longer of the two, is the story of Metcalf's research while at the same time the story of his relationship with his lover and colleague Rose. Metcalf creates a believable story about Francis and Vivien and their friends out of the information he has reviewed although Rose warns him that some of this story is just his own speculation. In the second, shorter, part we go back to the 21st century and learn what really happened. That section is very much a narrative with little dialog and action and in my opinion it went on too long. 

Nancy Pearl's "Four Doorways":

    Story:  There is a story arc, although not a lot of action. This is a very cerebral novel.  And yet, as long as you are in the mood for a cerebral novel, the story does move along keeping the reader in suspense. 

    Characters: We see the character of Tom Metcalf through his first person narrative and while he has a bit of a character arc I don't feel that at the end of his story he is significantly different than he was at the beginning. The more interesting characters are the other "historical" characters that Tom is researching and they are interesting partly because Tom has made them interesting. If you are someone who dislikes when Ian McEwan reminds the reader that novels are FICTION, this might bother you.  

    Setting: McEwan is good at describing the world of the future where English people must travel by boat from island to island. But this isn't a true science fiction novel in which he creates a whole new world.  

    Writing:  As usual, the primary reason to read a McEwan novel is the writing itself. Even though there isn't a dynamic plot, he moves it along (until the end) and even though we are seeing characters through Tom's eyes, and therefore we cannot rely on it, they are interesting. And the world of the future is very cleverly created. 

Avoid Reality With YouTube

In these days when every morning we wake up to news that is bad or crazy or both, I think we are all looking for diversions. One of my diversions is YouTube.

I often listen to the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast which features, among others, Linda Holmes. Every Friday the group talks about what is "making them happy" that week. Last week Linda pointed listeners to a YouTube channel called "Anti-Chef" which features an ordinary guy named Jamie who has been teaching himself to cook. Linda said that she finds it super relaxing.

And I agree!  I've been watching Anti-Chef for a few years now. At first Jamie really didn't know what he was doing but he's pretty good now. And the best part is that he always shows all his mistakes. It's very relatable. Here he is making a rolled cake for 2025 Christmas but flashing back to his attempts in other years.

Anti-Chef is actually the only cooking channel that I regularly watch. (Sometimes I watch the America's Test Kitchen channel.)  But I got to thinking about other YouTube channels that I watch to relax and thought that I would share them.  

Reactors

One genre of YouTube Channel that I find relaxing in the evening before bed is the reaction channel where the hosts watch movies or TV shows for the first time and react to them. Because of copyright law they can't show the whole show on the channel, they can only show selected scenes. So I only watch reactions to movies and TV shows that I've already seen. 

The last couple of months a lot of channels have been reacting to Robert Redford movies, for example, and I could always watch reactions to The Sting by people who have never seen it.  Madison K. Thames reacts to movies on her channel and last week she reacted to The Horse Whisperer (which I hadn't seen in years, I need to rent it). I anticipate a lot of reactions to Rob Reiner movies in the coming months. 

I also sometimes watch reactions in the middle of the day when I'm eating lunch. One of my favorite channels is "Watch This! With Joe and Kevin".  They are two smart guys who always "get" what is going on in a scene (some reactors are not so smart).  Right now they are working their way through, among other things, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (on Mondays) and The Gilmore Girls (on Wednesdays), so I usually watch when I'm eating lunch on those days.

Another favorite channel is Jen Murray who is working her way through Star Trek: Deep Space Nine on Sunday mornings.If you watch a couple of Reactor Channels Youtube will recommend more through their algorithm. On really bad days I just randomly pick one and watch it.  

Big Historic Houses

For some reason I'm a sucker for videos about big historic houses. This House is a good channel for that with the added benefit that the videos are short. The subjects are usually American mansions, many of which have unfortunately been torn down. 

American Countess is Julie Montagu's channel. Julie is an American, born somewhere outside Chicago. But now she's the Countess of Sandwich. On her channel she travels around to British great houses and shows them. Being a Countess gets her into a lot of houses (plus the owners want to drum up visitors because those houses are expensive to maintain). She also shares her research into her husband's great grandmother who was also an American countess (sort of like Cora in Downtown Abbey). 

Being a Countess, Julie and her husband Luke (the current Earl of Sandwich) have their own great house called Mapperton. So they have their own channel  called Mapperton Live on which she and Luke share all the trials and tribulations of trying to keep a great house in good repair. It makes you think twice about any dream you might have about living an aristocratic life. And it's good for a weekly escape from reality.

Miscellaneous

Sometimes I search for travel Vlogs because I like to think about being other places. There are lots of them. Tyler Braun has two channels, including one called Disneyville Podcast which is all things Disney and I've always been fond of Disney World.  He is slowly moving all Disney related Vlogs over to that channel from his other channel which is just called Tyler Braun.  (He owns a travel agency and travels a lot with his family but also sometimes does daily-life Vlogs where he repairs things or talks about books or the holidays.)

I also enjoy beauty blogs when I want to get really, really mindless.  I look for older women but it's hard to find beauty channels that cater to older women (mature skin is 35 to these people).  So I also look for makeup artists who do weddings because they work on different aged people (i.e. mothers and grandmothers of the bride). A few that I like are Angie Hot and Flashy (Angie is in her 60's), Mandy Davis MUA (she's a makeup artist who lives in Nashville), Pampered Wolf (she's in her 40's but she regularly has on her "mum" who is over 65) and Risa Does Makeup (she's a 50 year old makeup artist lving in Las Vegas).  And then there's Tati, who is generally over the top (more is more!) but somehow very soothing. 

I hope this gives some ideas about escaping from the daily bad news. 

All The Beauty In The World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me

The Book: When Patrick Bringley's brother died of cancer in his twenties, Patrick quit his job at The New Yorker, where he worked in the public events office, and took a job as a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He wanted to assuage his grief and "applied for the most straightforward job I could think of in the most beautiful place I knew".  As he says "My heart is full, my heart is breaking, and I wanted to stand still awhile." This is a beautiful memoir of grief, joy, and love of art. It is also a love letter to the Met. In a world where bad things happen every day, it's nice to know that the Met exists. And it is nice to have books like this.

The Author: Patrick Bringley

Genre: Non-Fiction (Memoir)

Length:  321 pages using my iPad mini as e-reader. But note that the last 13 pages are a bibliography of books about art and the preceding 40 pages are "Art Works Referenced in the Text".  At the beginning of that section is a link to the part of Bringley's web page containing the same list with links you can click that will take you to an image of the art.

One good thing:  Bringley writes in a very accessible way about the art in the museum, so don't be afraid to pick this up even if you know that you have little background in art.

One not-so-great thing:  In later chapters occasionally Bringley does not tie the art he is describing into events in his own life or the lives of the visitors to the Met and he tends to go into "art instructor" mode. I kept waiting for him to get back to his own life. 

Personal Memory: Nancy Pearl's "Four Doorways" are meant for fiction and aren't applicable here. Instead, I want to bring a personal memory. One of my favorite paintings is Jan Van Eyck's "Marriage of Arnolfini". In March 1991 I visited London for the first time. My travel plans were made during the First Gulf War, although the conflict had ended by the time I arrived. Due to that war, there were almost no tourists in London (a rarity). One day I visited the National Gallery by myself. This was before the Sainsbury Wing had opened. It was morning and the museum was almost empty. I either didn't know that the Arnolfini portrait was held by the National Gallery or I had forgotten. I was wandering through various galleries, just me and the guards, when I happened upon that painting. I know my face lit up and I'm pretty sure I said aloud "Mr. Arnolfini!".  Then I stood in front of it for a good ten minutes, knowing I would never get this chance to be alone with it again.  Just me and the guard.  After reading this memoir I regret that I didn't share this with the guard, but I'm sure he watched and knew.  The next time I visited the National Gallery the Sainsbury Wing had opened and Mr. Arnolfini had been moved there. The room was packed with visitors and I missed having him all to myself. 

 

My Beloved: A Mitford Novel

 

The Book: For Christmas, Father Tim's wife Cynthia tells him she wants a letter from him. But after writing a deeply personal love letter from his heart, Father Tim finds that it has somehow gone missing! Through a comedy of errors the letter ends up being passed around (although not necessarily read) by the community, causing unexpected revelations. This is Karon's 15th novel in the Mitford series, which is set in the fictional small mountain town of Mitford, North Carolina. By this time, Father Tim is retired but still active in the community and Cynthia is still creating her children's books. The characters that started as children are now grown with children of their own. Characters that were middle aged to start with are now old. But as usual in a Karon novel, although the characters have (sometimes very bad) problems, they still get through life by believing in the power of "love thy neighbor" and they believe in the power of prayer. 

The Author: Jan Karon

Genre: General Fiction (Christian Fiction, Southern Fiction, Holiday Fiction)

Length:  406 pages in hardback

One good thing:  For those who have read all the Mitford novels, this is like catching up with old friends during the holidays. Reading it is like sitting down for an episode of Gilmore Girls. It is heartwarming without being too saccharine because Karon makes sure that there are enough realistic problems that her characters deal with that are never completely solved (just like in real life). But they make progress in solving them. 

One not-so-great thing:  Even though I have read all the Mitford novels, it has been a while since the last one. I had trouble remembering who many of the "side" characters were and what problems they were dealing with. Karon gives some background without resorting to a lot of exposition but I wonder if someone who just picked up this novel without reading the earlier novels would be lost. 

Nancy Pearl's "Four Doorways":

    Story: As usual in a Mitford novel, the incident that instigates the plot is very mundane and isn't of the type that moves a story along. It is mostly a device to move the story between characters. This is not a page turner by any means. 

    Characters: There are a multitude of characters, most of them introduced in previous novels.  Karon is very good at giving each character an individual "voice" that I find easy to hear in my mind. But even if you like character-driven stories that meander through plots you may be frustrated unless you started with the first book in the series. This book was clearly written with existing fans in mind.

    Setting:  While I think many people read the Mitford novels for the characters I'm convinced most people read them for the setting. While Karon doesn't shy away from showing that rural America has many problems, Mitford is the small town that everyone who ever dreamed of living in a small town wants to move to.  

    Writing:  Nobody buys the Mitford novels for the writing itself but Karon is very good at dialog. And her descriptions of food will make you hungry. (By the way, OMC stands for Orange Marmalade Cake, which should be avoided by anyone diabetic!)

    

    

The Rest of Our Lives

The Book:  Tom Layward lives in Westchester, New York with his wife Amy. His life may look outwardly good but Tom is dealing with some major issues. He has health problems that his doctor has diagnosed as Long Covid. He has been put on leave from his job as a law professor but he hasn't told his family. An old friend is pressuring him to get involved in a class action case for race discrimination against white people. But mainly he is dealing with a big decision about his marriage. Twelve years ago Amy had an affair and Tom decided that he would leave Amy as soon as their youngest child left for college. Now it is time to drive his daughter to school in Pennsylvania but after dropping her off Tom decides to keep going rather than returning home. He visits his brother in Indiana, an old friend in Denver, an old girlfriend in Las Vegas and his son in Los Angeles. Along the way he thinks about the rest of his life, both what came before and what will come next. This novel was a finalist for the 2025 Booker Prize. 

The Author: Ben Markovits

Genre: Literary Fiction

Length: 256 pages using ipad mini as e-reader

One good thing:  This is a very accessible novel, written in the first person almost as if Tom is having a conversation with the reader. This made me want to "keep the conversation going" and keep reading. 

One not-so-great thing:  The physical structure of the novel may be off-putting for some readers. The dialog does not use quotation marks, which I know annoys some people more than me. There are, also, only three very long chapters so there aren't many natural stopping points.

Nancy Pearl's "Four Doorways":

    Story:  This is not what I would call a plot-driven novel. If you are looking for a typical "page turner" with a high action plot, this is not the novel for you. While there is a plot, most of the action takes place in Tom's head.   

    Characters: I would call this a one-character driven novel. The main character is, of course, Tom and we are in his head for the whole novel. Even though the novel is not plot-driven, I found it hard to put down. I felt a little bereft when the novel ended and I wanted to know more about what happened to Tom after we leave him. We see the other characters through Tom's eyes and we seem to discover things about them as Tom has realizations about them. 

    Setting: Although Tom is driving cross country this isn't a travelog. There are descriptions of places but "place" isn't really a big part of the story. 

    Writing:  Well written but written in every-day language. No sentence made me want to re-read it because it was so beautiful. On the other hand, Markovitz knew how to fill in back story without it seeming like exposition and there were a couple of moments of foreshadowing that were so subtle that I had to read them twice.  

    

    

2026 Blog Ideas

I don't usually set New Year's resolutions, but the beginning of a year is always a good time to take stock and come up with ideas for the coming year. One of the things that I wanted to do when I retired was to return to regular posting on this blog. I've been somewhat successful. Over the last couple of years I've been good about posting end-of-the-month summaries of my reading. This year I even managed a few posts about operas I had seen. 

The thing that I haven't done is create many long posts about the books that I've read. I always intend to write more about the books I read but, with the exception of Stone Yard Devotional, I did not manage to do that in 2025. Part of the problem is that I find I have little interest in spending time writing about a book unless there is something about that book that really captures my attention, even if I enjoyed it. (I could never be a professional book reviewer!) I found 2025 so distracting that most books didn't capture my attention enough to make me want to write a long post about them.  

Of course the other thing is that this is a little blog I mostly keep for myself. I don't have a lot of readers, which is fine. But writing a long analysis of a book takes time. If I'm not excited about a book (or puzzled by a book) I don't have any incentive to write about it when I know few people will read what I write. (This isn't a complaint, I've never had any desire to do the things required to gain a large readership.)

On the other hand, back when I used to write more long book posts I found that I retained what I read better. And sometimes I found things to think about that didn't automatically occur to me when I was reading. So I'd like to write more about books for those reasons. What I don't want to do is post a long summary of the plot of a book and conclude with a short statement of why I did or didn't like it. That seems more like a book report of the type I had to write in Elementary School to prove I read the book. 

I've been giving it some thought. One blogger that I follow is Jan Simpson, a theater critic who publishes the Broadway and Me blog. At some point last year she recognized that she was seeing a lot of shows that she didn't have time to fully blog about, or that people weren't interested in enough to read a long blog post about, and so she started a separate blog called Broadway & Me Quickies. These are, in her words, short takes on shows currently playing in New York for people too busy for longer reviews. The idea was that it would give the reader a quick sense of the show without having to write a full review.

I've enjoyed her short takes and it occurred to me that I could do something similar for books that I read. Her short takes always follow the same format: First a summary of what the play is about, then identification of the playwright and director and then, most importantly, "One Good Thing" about the play and "One Not So Great Thing" about the play. 

I'm thinking of borrowing this format (with full credit to Jan) for some of the books that I read in 2026 and seeing how it goes. Part of me wonders how it will really differ from my end-of-the-month summaries (which I will continue).  But having to think specifically of a good thing and a not-so-great thing might be helpful. I'm also thinking that I might be able to incorporate Nancy Pearl's "Four Doorways" concept into the quick takes. I can't guaranty that I will stick with it, but it seems like something I could try out for 2026.

By the way, if you like Broadway you should follow Jan who also appears regularly on the Broadway Radio podcasts with a podcast that looks in depth at Pulitzer Prize winning plays (called All The Drama) and a podcast in which she does interviews with playwrights (called Stagecraft).  She is also on BlueSky under Broadway and Me.