THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS

No one is ever going to say that this doc was predictable. Every time you think you see the thesis, it changes in weird and wondrous ways. Trips separated at birth find each other at age nineteen. And their similarities is just the jumping off point. Nature v. nurture and so much more.

What documentaries have you enjoyed?

Things That Are Making Me Happy

Cried my way through WON'T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR (Film about Mr. Rogers) . I am wondering if the fictional version with Tom Hanks can possibly do more justice to him than the doc. Kindness is what he was teaching.

I am reading DARE ME again. I think Megan has changed it a lot for the pilot. Certainly she has  added more adults and more boys. She said a lot of old Mad Men actors are auditioning. I guess we have seen a lot of Jon Hamm in the three years since but not many of the others. So odd to hear about her hiring a musical supervisor, a lighting guy, etc. How mind-boggling it must all be. And, of course, she starts her book tour tomorrow at BOOK ARE MAGIC in Brooklyn so her co showrunner, Gina Fattore, is handling a lot of it in Toronto.When did the term showrunner get started?

It was certainly nice to hear her on NPR Sunday morning.

Grateful for the friends who are getting me out to movies and lunches and such.

LEAVE NO TRACE was a very good movie. Good acting, directing, sets. There were no villains-people were doing their best...except for what war does to the men and women who fight it. And the families they bring their PTSD home to.

I hold in my hand, my "perhaps" father's service registration card from 1940. At that time, he worked for Yarnall-Waring Co. in Philly. He lived in North Hills, Pa, which was very near where I grew up. So odd. If it is him, he was so close and yet so far. 

What about you?

Friday's Forgotten Books, July 13, 2018

Chris Knopf, Dead Anyway (2012), (review from the archives by Jeff Meyerson)

People always ask (I know, I ask too) how you decide what to read next.  Might as well ask, how do you decide what to read, period?  I have a list of favorite authors whose books I read when they come out but for newer writers or ones I don't know I tend to lean on recommendations from friends, reviews here or on other blogs, plus newspaper and magazine reviews.  If they sound interesting to me, I'll check them out.

Chris Knopf had two earlier series set in the Hamptons but this is the first in a new series.  

Apparently Bill Crider reviewed it when it came out last year but somehow his review did not make enough of an impression on my brain until I read his review of the sequel a few weeks ago, linking back to his Dead Anyway review.  Then I thought, this sounds good. And it is.

How's this for starting with a bang?  Arthur Cathcart, an overweight 40ish guy working at home doing market research and other high end computer research, married to a gorgeous woman who owns a real estate firm near their home in Connecticut, comes home from a walk to find his wife sitting on the couch and a man holding a gun on her.  The man insists she answers five questions written on a paper, and to emphasize his seriousness, he shoots her husband in the thigh.  She answers the questions only to have the man, clearly a hired killer, shoot her in the head and kill her.  Then he shoots Cathcart, who somehow doesn't die.

Now you may be able to resist seeing what happens next, but I sure couldn't. Cathcart is gravely injured and decides (with the help of his physician sister) to stay dead and use his computer skills to discover who killed his wife and why, not easy in the post-9/11 world.  But first he has to recover enough physically and mentally to be able to act.  Along the way he gets some help from a woman named Natsumi Fitzgerald, who throws her lot in with his.

I really enjoyed this one and will be reading the sequel as soon as it comes in to the library.  Definitely recommended.

Mark Baker, THE DEATH OF AN AMBITIOUS WOMAN, Barbara Ross
Les Blatt, MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE, Craig Rice
Brian Busby, ROUGHING IT IN THE BUSH, Susannah Moody
CrossExaminingCrime,  The Family Affair (1980) and Breakaway: The Local Affair (1980) by Francis Durbridge 
Martin Edwards, LAURA, Vera Caspary
Curt Evans, DEATH GOES TO SCHOOL, Q. Patrick
Richard Horton,  The 13th Immortal, by Robert Silverberg/This Fortress World, by James E. Gunn
Jerry House, THE PLAGUE OF SILENCE, John Creasey
Margot Kinberg, DEATH ON DEMAND, Carolyn Hart
George Kelley,  YEAR’S BEST SCIENCE FICTION STORIES: 1954 Edited by Everette F. Bleiler T. E. Dikty
Rob Kitchin, STRAIGHT MAN, Richard Russo
B.V. Lawson, AN AMIABLE CHARLATAN, E. Phillips Oppenheim
Evan Lewis, YOU  ONLY LIVE TWICE, Ian Fleming
Steve Lewis/Barry Gardner, AH TREACHERY, Ross Thomas
Todd Mason,  THE BEST FROM FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION 11th Series edited by Robert P. Mills; THE GHOUL KEEPERS edited by Leo Margulies
J.F. Norris, THE DEVIL AND Ben Franklin, Theodore Mathiessen
Matt Paust, GORKY PARK, Martin Cruz Smith
James Reasoner, THE BRONZE AXE, Jeffrey Lord
Richard Robinson, WEST OF GUAM: THE COMPLETE CASES OF JO GAR, Raoul Whitfield 
Gerard Saylor, THE 57 BUS, Dashka Slater
Kevin Tipple, Barry Ergang, POLITICALLY CORRECT BEDTIME STORIES, James Finn Garner
TomCat, FOUR CORNERS, Theodore Roscoe
TracyK, THEY DO IT WITH MIRRORS, Agatha Christie

GIVE ME YOUR HAND

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/7-books-to-read-this-summer/

Things That Are Making Me Happy

Another week that it is hard to come up with much. Phil's UTI has not gone away and may not as long as a fistula (sp?) continues to pump bacteria into his bladder. Between the antibiotic, the UTI and recovering from the chemo, he is so darned tired. Now is when I wish we lived in an apartment because darn we have a lot of outside maintenance even though we do have the lawn mowed. I should not have let him plant so many pots because all 45 of them must be watered ever day. Also two trees look ailing and I am waiting for a tree guy to come. Lots of these chores were things Phil did once and I am playing catch up with learning how to do them. I oversaw the rescreening and painting  of our porch this week. Luckily that went well.They picked four hot days to do it though.

Enjoyed the absurdity of the local Fourth parade. The entire city lines the streets to watch the worst parade I have ever seen. They do have a few marching bands but it is mostly elected officials riding in their cars. No floats. And many people have picnics along the way. The big treat is for the kids having candy tossed at their heads.

Enjoying RAIN DOGS by Adrian McKinty. I loved his Sean Duffy series. This is the book that beat out SHOT IN DETROIT for an Edgar and it is easy to see why. It is a classic locked room and a classic police procedural. And the writing is superb. If you really need to relax, (I almost go into a zen state listening), try SEINCAST, which looks at every Seinfeld episode for about 90 minutes. I only listen to podcasts when I walk but I walk for about an hour most days so this works out well.

Just started DCI BANKS on Amazon Prime and watched the first episode of  THE TUNNEL, VENGEANCE. Phil is enjoying SILENT CITY on Netflix and we are looking forward to SHARP OBJECTS on HBO tonight.

What about you?

How It Works: DNA TESTING

My brother is responsible for what I have found out from my DNA testing. The tests, introductory ones only, showed me where my ancestors came from. And that, of course, was our first inkling that something was amiss. Although Ancestry.com and Family Finder differed somewhat, both showed my father's DNA was mostly from the UK and Ireland. My brother's paternal DNA was Western European, or in his case, Germany. For most people, this is enough unless they are looking for lost parents or children or genetic diseases.

The rub beyond this is that you will only find cousins among those people who are registered on each site. Mostly people who have bought their tests. There was no close cousins on the paternal side at all on Family Finder. Just a big fat zero. Whereas my brother was linked to the entire Nase family.

More possibilities showed up on ancestry.com but if they choose not to answer your query, that is that. And so far only the second cousin wrote back. And what I learned from her was basically information Jeff had already found. He has invested in access to information beyond what I get for my hundred bucks.

So there are three families linked by a turn of the century link to Scranton, PA. They came from Cheshire and Staffordshire all about that time. I need the men to turn up in Philly around 1947. One is a certainty, the other two a little more tenuous. I may have reached the end of the road. I can live with that. More to say about my mother later.