just books

No sewing this week.

Some weeding.

A lot of shifts at work and a good chunk of a day spent doing odds and ends, waiting for the plumber to arrive.  A task I am doing again today because they did not fully fix the slow drain.  (The fact that it runs slow sometimes and not others makes it hard to know if it's truly fixed, but also annoying because maybe I didn't need to call them after all?)

So mostly reading.  With a companion some days - see photo above.

Set around the turn of the last century in New Orleans, particularly in the "red light" district, this is a murder mystery.

A prostitute turns up dead in a brothel and the main character, a private investigator who was formerly a cop, decides to investigate because he knows the authorities won't.  Of course more prostitutes end up dead and the plot thickens.

Pretty much every character is shady: involved in gangster-style government policy, crooked cops, church men of questionable character, early jazz musicians and, of course, prostitutes and the women who run the houses they inhabit.

So pretty much everyone is suspect.

There are some twists and turns and the ending is a surprise, but we all knew it would be considering it's a mystery, right?!

It was pretty good and I enjoyed reading some about the development of jazz, though that was pretty much a side note.  And the blurb mentions Jelly Roll Morton, though he has like zero to do with the book and appears maybe twice for about as many sentences.  (But a quote attributed to him is where the book got its title, so...)

This one I don't know if I read the blurb or just giggled at the title and stuffed it in the bag?

Published 100 years ago, it's set starting about that time, but spans about 40 years.

A young woman, raised sort of with money and definitely around it, in the bigger cities, takes a teaching job in a very rural community south (I think) of Chicago, after her father passes away when she is 19.

Culture shock, of course.  But she viewed it as a grand adventure and planned to spend a few years there and then transfer to a school in a big city to resume her life.

Then she meets a man and marries him and ends up a vegetable farmer like all the rest of the community she had been teaching.  Anyone see that coming?

They have a son, who ends up nicknamed "Sobig."

The husband dies when the son is young, but she refuses to give up on her new dream of being a fancy vegetable farmer.  She works hard and, thanks to her city upbringing, doesn't let the country men tell her she can't do things.

The story shifts mostly to Sobig about midway through and takes some large leaps in time, but you do see how she and her farm are faring as well.

I feel like this fits well with the Great Gatsby somewhat.

The ending is just done, though.  Leaves you hanging a little.  But overall an interesting book and not bad.  It took a little to get into since the writing style is older, but not quite as stiff as some of the even older classics.

Lots of Toby today - this cube is a cat thing...it's a PVC frame that has fabric stretched over it, so the top is kind of like a hammock and the bottom a cave.  It was in high demand a few years back and then fell out of favor.  When we put up the catio, it was moved from the wall under the window entry and suddenly is all the rage again.  Toby climbed in the other day, flipped over like this and proceeded to have a bath.  Sometimes he does weird stuff.

Time to go figure out what else to do while waiting for the plumbers...

Happy quilting and reading and gardening!
Katie