WWW Wednesday - July 31

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading: 

I have been reading Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (2022) for what seems like forever but is probably just a week. It is clever but so depressing and seemingly endless; it’s like being trapped in a room with J.D. Vance.

A friend was having surgery today and was saving it for her recuperation: I told her she will be addicted to her painkillers before she knows it!

I’m listening to The Truth About the Devlins by Lisa Scottoline (2024). This is very different from the early books I enjoyed about an all-women law firm. I think I read those before I went to law school! The Devlins are a family of lawyers, except for younger son TJ, a recovering alcholic, who is drawn into a dangerous sitation when his brother John calls for help, saying he murdered a client.

Just Finished: 

I did take a break from Demon Copperhead to read Pony by R.J. Palacio (2021) for the NY Betsy-Tacy Group discussion on Monday. It is very different from Wonder, a contemporary which is her best known book – it’s set in 1860 about a boy whose father is kidnapped by gangsters. With the help of a ghost and a supernatural pony, he follows the bad guys to rescue his father.

I also just read two adult historical novels: Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane (2023), set during the Boston busing crisis in 1974, and The Song of Hartgrove Hall by Natasha Solomons (2015) about brothers in love with the same woman after WWII.

Up Next: 

The Dance of the Dolls by Lucy Ashe (2023) tells the story of identical twin ballerinas rehearsing for Coppélia at the recently opened Sadler’s Wells Theatre. This is a thriller set in the 1930s in London that was just recommended to me.

Don’t tell Lory but I’m a little behind with Ozathon! Tik-Tok of Oz and Rinkitink in Oz are the next in the series.

RIP to Francine Pascal, who died July 28th at 92. She was the creator of the Sweet Valley High books, and one of my first assignments in publishing was to answer SVH fan mail (without a computer!) for Bantam Books. An arrogant young marketing guy gave me the assignment as if he couldn’t think what else to do with me and I hid my annoyance for several days (but never got over it and, annoying, he had a great career). By the third day, I was impatient with the letter-writers’ pleas for information on SVH’s location so they could persuade their parents to move. “Sweet Valley High is not real!” I wrote sternly. “And even if it were, Jessica and Elizabeth only hang out with cool people! Here’s a bookmark.” While I read a handful of SVH (Elizabeth was the good twin and Jessica the bad one), I thought Pascal’s best books were Hanging Out with Cici and its sequel (heroine Victoria Martin). The series and spinoffs sold more than 200 million. She did not write all the SVH herself; after the first handful, she wrote the outlines and work-for-hire writers cranked out the stories, without the royalties that made Pascal rich.