From One Book Lover

If you're off by one degree and don't correct your course, the gap between where you are and where you want to be grows wider with every step. Kate Atkinson measures each step of Ursula's existence in Life After Life , and we see what happens if she alters it by as little as a single step. At first, the return to her birth appeared relentless, and I feared it would be the same story with a different ending each time. Thankfully, that was not the case. The plot complications begin to vary in very interesting ways. Ursula is born on a snowy winter day in 1910. The weather prevents the midwife from arriving, and the doctor arrives too late: the cord was around the baby's neck and she did not live. Had the doctor been there with a pair or surgical scissors.... The scene changes. Snow is still falling but the doctor manages to hitch a ride through the snowy fields from a local farmer and, when delivering the baby, quickly removes the cord. The child lives. Howe...

I have a crowded nightstand. And that's not the half of it.  Hello, Goodbye, Hello — Truman Capote meets Peggy Lee, Peggy Lee meets Richard Nixon, Richard Nixon meets Elvis Presley... it's a chain of 101 meetings.  The book blends from one encounter to the next seamlessly with well-recorded conversations and comments from reliable resources: published accounts, diaries, third-party accounts, all verifiable, all more honest than one would expect. Winds of Marble Arch — A not-easily found collection of Connie Willis' short stories. (Well, some not terribly short. In fact, most I've read have been rather long. Not quite a novella, but certainly a long tale.) I like her, and I like her stories. I can't wait to see what bite-sized nugget (or substantial snack) comes next. Wolf Hall — I have both of Hilary Mantel's books in this trilogy. (The third one is in production.) I really like them: a little rambling, but one wants to be in the heads of her chracters...