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“Memorial Days,” by Geraldine Brooks. (Viking\/TNS)<\/p>\nEditor\u2019s note: The opinions of the smart, well-read women in my Denver book club mean a lot, and often determine what the rest of us choose to pile onto our bedside tables. So we asked them, and all Denver Post readers, to share their mini-reviews with you. Have any to offer? Email bellis@denverpost.com. \u2013 Barbara Ellis<\/p>\n
\u201cMemorial Days,\u201d by Geraldine Brooks (Viking, 2024)
\n“Memorial Days,” by Geraldine Brooks. (Viking\/TNS)<\/p>\n
Following the sudden death of her husband, author Tony Horwitz, Brooks soldiers on, completes her award-winning novel \u201cHorse\u201d and doesn\u2019t take the time to grieve.\u00a0 Some three years later, she presses the Pause button and moves to a remote Australian island to take that time. Nice, but who among us has that luxury? I guess I expected to learn about Brooks\u2019 grief journey, the actual, hard work of grieving. Instead, what I found was a narrative largely recounting what happened in the days following her husband\u2019s death and a parallel narrative, in alternating chapters, of the natural wonders of her remote island. Nice, but not very enriching. \u2014 2 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver<\/p>\n
\u201cPapyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World,\u201d by Irene Vallejo, translated by Charlotte Whittle (Knopf, 2022)<\/p>\n
I read the library hard copy of this book two years before the paperback came out this year, and had no intention of reading it again. But soon I was deep into it, underlining passages, making notes in the margin, shaking\u00a0my head. How could one book do so much \u2014 entertain, transport, amaze, touch? Do you want to experience unfurling a scroll with the right hand and rolling up the previously read columns with the left, \u201ca deliberate, rhythmic, internalized movement \u2026 back slightly rounded, body hunched over the words\u201d? Learn what happened when we\u00a0shifted from muttering words out loud to reading silently inside our heads? Do you want\u00a0to explore connections between Plato and George Orwell, Aristophanes and Charlie\u00a0Chaplin? I especially appreciated revisiting Umberto Eco\u2019s \u201cName of the Rose\u201d and Ray Bradbury\u2019s \u201cFahrenheit 451,\u201d and reconsidering tattoos as \u201ca remnant of magical thinking, a leftover trace of ancestral faith in the aura of words.\u201d\u00a0If you want to luxuriate in a carefully woven tapestry of early books and those who revered them, I highly recommend this one. \u2014 4 stars (out of 4), Michelle Nelson, Littleton<\/p>\n
\u201cMorning and Evening,\u201d by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls (Dalkey Archive, 2022)<\/p>\n
This novella, first published in 2000, is, on the surface, the story of a Norwegian fisherman. The \u201cMorning\u201d section is about his birth, told from his father\u2019s perspective, and presents the father\u2019s aspirations for his son. The \u201cEvening\u201d section surrounds the fisherman\u2019s death, with a series of recollections of important life moments and memories of significant persons in his life unspooling in a stream of (ever lessening) consciousness.\u00a0 Fosse\u2019s novella illuminates what can create meaning in anyone\u2019s life. (Winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature.) \u2014 3 1\/2 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe Maid\u2019s Secret\u201d uses Gran\u2019s diary to give readers the story of her privileged life before she became a housekeeper, alongside a present-day Molly adventure involving the taping of an \u201cAntiques Roadshow\u201d-type TV show at the hotel and a rare-beyond-rare artifact that is stolen. (Ballantine\/TNS)
\n\u201cThe Maid\u2019s Secret,\u201d by Nita Prose (Ballantine Books, 2025)<\/p>\n
(Third in Prose\u2019s \u201cmaid\u201d series.) Molly the maid, by now promoted to head maid at her posh hotel, is on the spectrum, and her literal understanding of the world makes for both funny moments and good insights. Molly discovers a Faberge egg of her gran\u2019s and decides to have it evaluated on a \u201chidden treasures\u201d show. During an auction where the highest bid is in the millions, the egg disappears. The search is on. Chapters alternate between the search for the missing egg and excerpts from Molly\u2019s gran\u2019s diary, which unlocks the key to everything. An entertaining read, though the plots of the books in the series have become a bit formulaic. \u2014 2 stars (out of 4); Jo Calhoun, Denver<\/p>\n