Home Sweet Anywhere

author: Lynne Martin

As I’ve mentioned I have a decided weakness for travel writing, and books wherein the characters travel. This nonfiction memoir follows Lynne and Tim as they reconnect late in life, marry, and find themselves approaching 70. They decide that they want to live in various places around the world instead of just traveling to and from a list of spots on individual vacations. So they sell their house and set off to be what they term “Home Free.” The book, inspired by Lynne’s blog, Home Free Adventures, follows them on their first year of living abroad as they enjoy – or not-so-enjoy – extended residences of a month or so in places such as Mexico, Ireland, Argentina, France, Morocco, Portugal, and Italy.

Part of the memoir is their adventures figuring out how to live in various places, and those were the segments I found the most interesting. The descriptions of where they found long-term furnished rentals, what to expect of those rentals (short answer: not comfy couches or chairs), how and why they chose different locations, and the details and routines they established in each new temporary home were fascinating. I had to Google some of the apartments and buildings they stayed in just to look at the pictures. The decision to redefine “retirement” and “old age” and to live without a permanent home is a big one, and Martin manages some of the time to address the very intimate specifics, down to the check list of things they do on their first day in a new location, as well as the larger issues of cultural expectations, negative responses from family and strangers, and navigating new places every few weeks.

The parts I found most frustrating were the “As you know, Bob,” dialogue that peppered the narrative and the at times long-winded descriptions of not just their own rentals but everyone else’s. Eventually, the descriptions began to seem redundant. Some of their conversations were too pat, too riddled with guidebook details to be real, and I found them awfully trite and grating after awhile.

But despite those irritants, I couldn’t stop reading because each chapter was a new location to explore with them both, and each brought new ideas for my own travel and destination plans – and retirement plans, too, someday. This book is light and easy reading, and explores a number of places from a very specific viewpoint. Most of the time, I was very happy to be along for the ride.

– SB Sarah

Nonfiction

The Glass Universe

author: Dava Sobel

The Glass Universe is the story of the women who worked for the Harvard Observatory from the mid-1800’s though the 1940’s. Like the women of Hidden Figures, these women were known as “human computers”. Under the leadership of Professor Edward Pickering, and later Harlow Shapley, these women catalogued the locations, relative brightness, and distances of stars. In the process, they discovered new stars and nebulas, created a classification system, and paved the way for the discovery that the universe is expanding.

Stylistically, The Glass Universe is the opposite of Hidden Figures, the book and movie about the African American women who worked as human computers for NASA. Hidden Figures keeps a tight focus on a small group of women. While it talks about their scientific work, the focus is on their lives.

The Glass Universe describes the scientific events that took place at Harvard Observatory in considerable detail, covering a large expanse of time. This means that while the book does a good job of demonstrating the number of women who contributed, and how and what they accomplished, it’s short on nuanced character descriptions of individual women. Even the women who are given specific page time, including Williamina Fleming, Annie Cannon, and Henrietta Leavitt, remain professionally recognized but personally enigmatic.

This book is a great resource for readers with an interest in women in science. The pictures alone are delightful. Just beware that the focus is on science rather than on biography. Annie Cannon, who was the only woman at an international forum on astronomy in 1913, may have the last word:

They sat at a long table, these men of many nations, and I was the only woman. Since I have done almost all the world’s work in this one branch, it was necessary for me to do most of the talking.

– Carrie S

Nonfiction

The Missing

author: Caroline Eriksson

I’d really like to write a longer review of The Missing by Caroline Eriksson because it’s a superb psychological thriller, but in order for readers to perfectly get the story, I can only talk about the novel superficially. This book is all about fascinating layers, but they really need to unfold for readers organically.

Like a lot of thrillers, this book is told deep POV style from an unreliable narrator–in this case, Greta, a young Swedish woman. Greta is on vacation with her boyfriend, Alex, and his four-year-old daughter, Smilla, staying in a cabin in the woods. They decide to take a boat across the appropriately named Lake Malice to an island. Greta waits on the boat while Alex and Smilla explore the small forested space, but as it grows dark, she becomes concerned when they don’t return.

This is a very small island–not the sort of place a grown man and a child can hide. And no one else is coming or going. So where the hell did Alex and Smilla go?

I was pulled into the mystery immediately (and unexplained vanishings are totally my catnip), but as the book unfolds I became absolutely addicted. It turns out Greta has a complicated past–she tells us her father disappeared, too. And Greta isn’t behaving like I’d expect someone to given the situation. She isn’t calling the police, but rather is searching herself while becoming increasingly untethered.

I can’t say more about this book without ruining it, but I can say that it offers some excellent Not Sorry Not Sorry Female Rage, as well as reflection on the relationships women have with their mothers. Trigger warnings need to be issued for depictions of domestic violence and animal abuse (the latter happens off screen but I found it deeply troubling).

The Missing is a dark, dark book, but a deeply satisfying one. It’s the sort of book I desperately want to talk to someone about–but I have to wait for them to read it first. It’s worth not being spoiled.

– Elyse

Mystery/Thriller