The Other Typist
by Suzanne Rindell
Narrated by Gretchen Mol
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Publish Date: May 7, 2013)
Format: Audio, 10 hours | 6 minutes
Audio Listening Level: Easy
Rating: 4½ of 5
Publisher’s Synopsis:
Rose Baker is a typist in the New York City Police Department on the lower east side. Confessions are her job. The criminals admit to their crimes, and like a high priestess, Rose records their every word. Often she is the only woman present. And while she may hear about shootings, knifings, and crimes of passion, as soon as she leaves that room she is once again the weaker sex, best suited for making coffee.
When glamorous Odalie, a new girl, joins the typing pool, despite her best intentions Rose falls under Odalie’s spell. As the two women navigate between the sparkling underworld of speakeasies by night, and their work at the station by day, Rose is drawn fully into Odalie’s high stakes world and her fascination with Odalie turns into an obsession from which she may never recover.
Some Thoughts:
I enjoy stories set in the 1920s. It was probably a frustrating time to be a woman, but an exciting time too with all the changes and innovations, that high time at the height of a boom before everything crashed in 1929. If I were to regress to a past life, assuming there was such a thing, it would be to that era.
The Other Typist begins in 1923. Rose, the typist and our narrator, is very prim and proper and takes her job seriously. Odalie, the other typist, is fun and aloof, and doesn’t worry about the accuracy of her job. Rose becomes obsessed with Odalie and as the story progresses we see changes in her character. Rose wants to be like Odalie and begins to borrow her clothing and dress like her, go to speakeasies and flirt with men. But something isn’t quite right with Rose’s story.
It becomes clear early on that Rose is a very unreliable narrator and as a result the reader doesn’t know what to believe. The psychological tension began to build and I was pulled into this story. Neither Rose nor Odalie was likeable, yet the story was compulsively readable. I had to keep going not because I liked either of them, although a few of the minor characters were alright, but because I wanted to know what happened. Who is Odalie? Is anything Rose tells us about Odalie the truth? Was Rose naive or calculating? In the end, I don’t know!
I listened to the audio which was narrated by Gretchen Mol. This was my first time listening to her read and was pleased with the performance. She spoke with even pacing, almost mysterious at times, and with enough change in her voice that I could easily tell Rose from Odalie.
In the end I listened to the last part three times and I’m still not sure what to believe. There are several ways to interpret the ending and I’ve settled on one in my mind so I can stop thinking about it. I would have liked a little more clarity because I like to know what the author intended, but the end does work for this book. Rose is so unreliable that the implied ending changes depending on what parts of her story one believes. Now that I think back, there were lots of clues and foreshadowing that I missed. I was caught up in the story of the era, which made me think of one of Gatsby’s parties, when I should have been analyzing Rose.
Psychological suspense and an extremely unreliable narrator made for a compelling story that put this historical fiction high on my recommended list.
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Source: Review copy
© 2013 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
Almost wordless: Garage weather vane seen on a recent birdwalk at St. James Farm.
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More Wordless Wednesday. © 2013 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
Mailbox Monday was created by The Printed Page. It is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their home last week.
Mailbox Monday is currently on tour, hosted by a different blog each month. The June host is Bellezza @ Dolce Bellezza
Here’s last week’s new arrivals plus a couple of audio downloads to keep me reading while in the garden:
Print Books:
The Original 1982 by Lori Carson, a win from My Friend Amy.
The Original 1982 is the wise and memorable debut novel of love, regret, music and motherhood, by singer and songwriter Lori Carson of the Golden Palominos.
William Shakespeare’s Star Wars by Ian Doescher from Quirk Books.
Inspired by one of the greatest creative minds in the English language-and William Shakespeare-here is an officially licensed retelling of George Lucas’s epic Star Wars in the style of the immortal Bard of Avon.
Audiobooks:
Two downloads for review from Penguin Audio:
The Tao of Martha by Jen Lancaster.
By immersing herself in Martha’s media empire, Jen will embark on a yearlong quest to take herself, her house, her husband (and maybe even her pets) to the next level—from closet organization to craft making, from party planning to kitchen prep.
No One Could Have Guessed the Weather by Anne-Marie Casey.
When Lucy Lovett’s husband loses his job, she is forced to give up her posh life in London and move their family to a tiny apartment in Manhattan, where her husband has managed to secure a lowly position.
Last Week’s Reviews:
Review and Giveaway:
If You Were Here
Reviews:
The Resurrectionist
Gardening for the Birds
What are you reading?
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© 2013 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
Gardening for the Birds
How to Create a Bird Friendly Backyard
by George Adams
Genre: Gardening
Publisher: Timber Press
Publish Date: June 25, 2013
Format: Paperback | 444 pages
Rating: 5 of 5
From the Introduction:
By establishing a bird-friendly ecosystem around your home, arresting color, birdsong, and antics of our native birds will add to the splendor of native trees, shrubs, and wildflowers to create a spiritually uplifting garden environment.
Creating a native landscape
Several years ago I began adding more native perennial plants to my garden in an effort to save myself some work and at the same time help the environment. Native plants require a lot less maintenance than non-native species. Once established many are drought-resistant and need little watering, fertilizing or pest control. As a bonus, many are distasteful to the local bunnies who would feast on the garden center annuals I had been planting. I have never seen a bunny try to eat a coneflower but they would devour my petunias.
Last year I began ripping out sections of the front lawn and replacing it with wildflowers such as Coneflower, Joe Pye Weed, Blazing Star and Spider Wort, and small shrubs that flower or make berries such as Viburnum, Dogwood and Butterfly Bush. As I chose new plants I would research whether or not they would make seeds or berries that birds would eat. My efforts have already made a difference in the variety of birds that visit my yard.
Attract birds to your own yard
Which brings me to this new book from Timber Press, Gardening for the Birds, a wonderful resource that has everything one needs to know to create a bird friendly environment, all in one volume.
The book is divided into four sections:
• Planning for the food, water, shelter and nesting sites the birds need
• Designing for your region
• A plant directory
• A bird directory
Do as much or as little as you want to create your bird friendly space. Whether you want to create a tiny oasis with only a birdbath and a few plants, attract a few favorite birds, or landscape a large area and create a bird sanctuary, this book is a wealth of information. You don’t need to be a master gardener or have a green thumb to be successful.
In the first two parts we learn about providing food, water, shelter and nesting sites for the birds you hope to attract. There are loads of photos, charts and designs to assist the reader in creating their garden and learning about the habits of the birds who will use it.
Tall Yellow Coneflower in my backyard. Can you see the Goldfinch? (Click for larger view)
The third part of the book is an extensive plant directory including full-color photos of the plants and the birds that inhabit them. It is arranged alphabetically by botanical name and includes the common name, a general description of the plant and the birds that are attracted to it. Different species are listed along with cultivation tips and hardiness zones.
And finally the last sections is a guide to the birds most likely to visit North American gardens. There is an introduction to each bird plus information on behavior, nesting habits, feeding habits and the types of plants the bird uses for food and shelter. Photos and sketches of each bird are included along with a range map.
Gardening for the Birds is a treasure trove of information and handy reference guide to be referred to again and again. With this book you can’t help but design a bird friendly yard.
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Source: Review copy provided by NetGalley and Timber Press
© 2013 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
The Great Crested Flycatcher is another fairly common North American bird that is rarely seen but often heard. They spend much of their time perched in treetops and prefer to fly from place to place rather than walk or hop on the ground.
This is a bird that is seldom in range of my camera and usually hiding behind some leaves. I found this bird a few blocks from my house at the local park. Just as I entered the trail I heard him call, looked up and there he was!
The Great Crested Flycatchers are migratory birds and spend their winters in the Yucatan Peninsula and the West Indies south into the tropics of South America. In the summer they return to southeastern Canada, the Midwest and eastern US states down through Florida.
Saturday Snapshot was originated by Alyce at At Home With Books. For the summer it will be hosted by Melinda of West Metro Mommy. Visit her blog to see more great photos or add your own.
© 2013 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
The Resurrectionist:
The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black
by E.B. Hudspeth
Genre: Dark Fantasy
Publisher: Quirk Books
Publish Date: May 21, 2013
Format: Hardcover | 192 pages
Rating: 4½ of 5
Publisher’s Synopsis:
Philadelphia, the late 1870s. A city of gas lamps, cobblestone streets, and horse-drawn carriages—and home to the controversial surgeon Dr. Spencer Black. The son of a grave robber, young Dr. Black studies at Philadelphia’s esteemed Academy of Medicine, where he develops an unconventional hypothesis: What if the world’s most celebrated mythological beasts—mermaids, minotaurs, and satyrs—were in fact the evolutionary ancestors of humankind?
My Thoughts:
The Resurrectionist is two books in one. The first part is an imagined biography, a fictionalized account of the life of Dr. Spencer Black, beginning with his childhood and ending with his mysterious disappearance. The second part is a series of illustrations, an anatomic reference manual, of eleven extinct species.
Spencer Black was the son of a surgeon who resorted to grave robbing in order to obtain bodies to practice and learn surgical skills. Young Spencer and his brother spent time assisting his father in these graveyard expeditions eventually becoming a practicing physician himself.
His approach to anatomy and medicine changed dramatically after encountering people with profound deformities. At first they were only a curiosity but eventually he was forced to abandon conventional medicine due to his extreme beliefs. His reputation with scientific community fell and his views were criticized.
Dr. Black had become a mad scientist gone extra mad. He was obsessed. To earn money he joined carnivals and circuses, displayed his specimens and told stories on how they descended from mythological creatures, many of which he created himself. He he believed that genetic mutations were manifestations of the ancient past, evidence of a genetic code that was not completely eradicated.
A child born without arms may be a confused body that lacked the information to produce wings, of a harpy perhaps. — Spencer Black
While I enjoyed the story and the concept, the execution could have been a little better. It was written as a biography interspersed with journal excerpts and correspondence to and from Dr. Black. The style was a little dry for my tastes but that could be because I read a little too much Stephen King horror and was expecting to be shown more grotesque and macabre scenarios, a livelier story.
Where this book really shines is in the second part, The Codex Extinct Animalia, A Study of the Lesser Know Species of the Animal Kingdom, presented as an anatomy book along the lines of Gray’s Anatomy.
The drawings are gorgeous with exquisite detail; original, creative and a little creepy. Each creature is displayed in multiple drawings showing skeleton, muscle and various anatomical features from different angles along with a written introduction. I found them fascinating.
Enchanting and at the same time macabre, this is a beautiful volume and would make an excellent coffee table book. For those who enjoy dark fantasy and stories in the style of Edgar Allan Poe, this is not to be missed.
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Source: Review copy provided by Quirk Books
© 2013 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
Almost wordless: The tops of tall prairie grass waving in the breeze at McKee Marsh.
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More Wordless Wednesday. © 2013 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
Under My Apple Tree 