Friday 5ive- June 16, 2023

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly post featuring five things that caught my attention this week.

1)  Monday evening I attended a book talk with Fiona Davis in conversation with Susie Orman Schnall at Rizzoli Bookstore. Fiona was there to launch the publication of her newest historical fiction 

The Spectacular. The book is set in 1956 New York City at Radio City Music Hall. Marion is a young dancer who becomes one of the famous Rockettes. She teams up with a psychiatrist who is helping the police in their search for the Big Apple Bomber. Fiona Davis has carved out an interesting niche for herself- she sets her novels in famous New York City buildings. (The Lions of Fifth Avenue was set in the New York Public Library main branch, Magnolia Palace was set in the Frick Museum.) She does an incredible amount of research for her novels, and for this one she interviewed Rockettes from the 1950s, two of whom were sitting in the audience. The discussion was fascinating and now I can't wait to read The Spectacular. (Side note- I got to meet Amy Poeppel, who is one of my most favorite authors, and tell her how much I love her books. The Sweet Spot is her current novel, and Limelight is my favorite. Do yourself a favor and read all of her books. They are full of humor and heart, and she was as lovely as I hoped she'd be.) 

Susie Orman Shnall and Fiona Davis

2) I continued my Tony Award-winning shows roundup with Good Night, Oscar. Sean Hayes (of the TV show Will & Grace and the podcast Smartless) won the Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play on Sunday. He portrays Oscar Levant, a raconteur and brilliant classical composer and pianist, who made frequent appearances on the Tonight Show with Jack Paar in the 1950s and 60s. He also had a serious mental illness. In the play, Oscar's wife June helps his "escape" from the hospital where she had him committed to make an appearance with Jack Paar on The Tonight Show. Oscar is accompanied by an unwitting orderly who did not know where they were going, and Jack Paar did not know Oscar was in the hospital. I did not even recognize Sean Hayes, he looks so different and his voice was unrecognizeable. He becomes Oscar Levant before our very eyes. The show is filled with Levant's witticisms and cutting remarks that had the audience laughing out loud. The show ends with Hayes playing George Gershwin's jazz/classical masterpiece Rhapsody in Blue, a 7 1/2 minute song. It is as if Hayes was possessed by Levan's spirit as he plays and the audience jumped to their feet in applause when he finished. It is a virtuoso performance, one of the best I've seen and Hayes clearly deserved that Tony Award. The show is a limited run, so if you get to NYC soon, go see this one. 

Good Night, Oscar set

3) I made fried eggs for breakfast the other morning, and two of the eggs had double yolks. Is that like seeing two double rainbows? Should I have played the lottery that day?

4)  Speaking of Fiona Davis, she was a guest on Adriana Trigiani's Adriana Ink Facebook Live this week, talking about The Spectacular so if you didn't make it to Rizzoli, you can still hear Fiona speak about her book. Helen Ellis, another of my favorite authors, was on as well that day talking about her book, Kiss Me in the Coral Lounge: Intimate Confessions of a Happy Marriage  which I cannot stop
raving about. I was so happy to get my copy of the book this week so I can re-read it and read all the hilarious parts out loud to my husband. You can listen to the discussion here, and there are seven more (!) authors on that day's chat. 

5) I read a delightful novel this week- Matthew Norman's Charm City Rocks. Set in Baltimore, Billy is a single dad to high school senior Caleb, whom he shares custody with his former girlfriend Robyn. Billy teaches music to young people and lives over  Charm City Rocks, a music store. As he and Caleb watch a documentary on rock and roll of the 1990s, he admits to a crush on Margot, drummer for a popular all-female band who scored big and then imploded on live TV. Caleb does something crazy that brings Margot to Baltimore in the hopes that his Dad will tell Margot of his crush. Things don't go as planned. The story is wonderful, and the characters are good people. I always enjoy Matthew Norman's novels, going back to his debut Domestic Violets because his characters are so interesting and his books have heart and humor. My favorite scene is the car scene with Robyn and Lawson, Margot's former movie star husband. That scene was fabulous! If you liked Taylor Jenkins Reid's Daisy Jones & the Six, but wished it was a little lighter, you'll love Charm City Rocks. 

Have a safe and healthy week, and Happy Father's Day to all the great dads out there. I know a lot of them!

The Friday 5ive- August 7, 2020

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly blog post about five things that caught my attention this week. While it seems like we are caught in an endless time loop (like the Hulu movie, Palm Springs, I wrote about last week), this week had a new twist- a tropical storm that led to a week-long power outage!

1) On Tuesday, tropical storm Isaias hit New York. I spent most of the afternoon trying to keep the chairs on our balcony from flying away, and I was successful, although a little bit soggy. I did see a small table whip by our balcony from one of neighbors' balconies. I hope no one was injured when it landed. We are renting a house in Westchester on the weekends, and they got hit pretty badly. Trees down all over the place, and the power will be out probably until Monday. At least we have another place to stay, so many people there, on Long Island, and in New Jersey and Connecticut will be suffering for almost a week.

2) While running errands here in the city, I saw a lovely exterior display on a new day spa, Upkeep. It's nice to see something so pretty on a city side street. I wish them the best of luck. 

3) I also saw this popup Liitle Free Library on the sidewalk. I guess someone wanted to share their books and thought this was the best way. It does appear that some of the books were claimed. There's some good ones left- Ragtime, The Color of Water, The Things They Carried.

4) The New York Public Library hosted a discussion of Fiona Davis' new historical mystery novel, The Lions of Fifth Avenue, with Zibby Owens of the podcast Moms Don't Have Time To Read Books. I read Davis' book and really enjoyed it. Part of it is set in 1913, where the superintendent of the main branch of the NYPL and his family live in an apartment inside the library. When rare books go missing, who is the main suspect? I have taken the guided tour of the library a few times, and got so much more out of the book because I did that. It was interesting listening to Davis talk about her research for the book. It was chosen as Good Morning America's August Book Club read. Click here to watch the discussion.

5) Buckle up, because I read five books last week. In addition to The Lions of Fifth Avenue, I read Allison Winn Scotch's novel, Cleo McDougal Regrets Nothing, about a congresswoman who is planning a run for President when her best friend from high school pens an op-ed piece about why she is a horrible person. If you have Amazon Prime, it is a free read on Kindle, and well worth it. It has a lot to say about women's roles today. 

 For a different kind of political novel, The Day That Lincoln Lost by Charles Rosenberg is an alternate history political thriller about the election of 1860, and the trial of a female abolitionist whose lawyer is none other than Republican nominee for president, Abraham Lincoln. History and politcial junkies will enjoy it. My full review is here. 

Fans of Christina Baker Kline's The Orphan Train and Lisa Wingate's Before We Were Yours will want to read Ellen Marie Wiseman's The Orphan Collector. Set in Philadelphia during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, it's the story of a 12 year-old girl who loses her mother to the pandemic and then must find out what happened to her twin baby brothers. It's a riveting story, and I read it in one day. I couldn't put it down. 

Lastly, Helen Cullen's novel, The Dazzling Truth is about a family living on an island near Galway off the Irish coast. The mother has crippling depression and anxiety, and her illness impacts the entire family. It's beautifully written, and your heart will break for all of them, but especially Maeve, the mother. I highly recommend it, and my full review will publish on Tuesday.

Stay safe,socially distant, wash your hands and wear a mask everyone, I hope we don't have to dodge swarms of locusts next week.