Reading in the Garden

Capable Confidante Mrs. Roosevelt’s Confidante by Susan Elia MacNeal. Maggie Hope, a pretty, young, American working for the British Special Ops Executive is on assignment as Winston Churchill’s typist.   The year is 1941, December, to be exact. The U.S. recently suffered an attack on Pearl Harbor.   Churchill and his entourage are meeting in Washington, D.C. with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to discuss the U.S. entering WWII.   While there, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt’s secretary fails to show up for work. A no-show, no-call isn’t like the professional Blanche and that has Mrs. R. worried.   She takes the offered help of Maggie, who accompanies the First Lady to her assistant’s apartment.   And there they discover that Blanche has a good reason for playing hooky.   And if the shock of Blanche’s condition isn’t enough for concern, Maggie also finds a notepad with incriminating information against Eleanor herself.   It’s an ugly scene anyway you look at it. If Mrs. Roosevel

What Creates a Curmudgeon? Ove is a 59-year-old man forced into early retirement.   Now his life seems to have no purpose.   He’s as sour as a lemon, as irritable as a raging rash.   As new neighbors move in, Ove is forced into something else he doesn’t want—interacting with other people.   S lowly, w e learn Ove’s personal history and find out that retirement is not the only reason he’s bitter.   And slowly we also see Ove change. This book is an amusing, heart-breaking, insightful look into what shapes a man’s life, his heart, and personality.   Very touching.   Very good. I can’t imagine that anyone would not love this book as much as I did.   A real gem. This book met one of my 2016 reading challenges:   Read a book with a person’s name in the title. Happy Reading, Annette