WPLongform

History, mystery, and beyond

A Good Reed Review Book Review , , ,

By Ande Jacobson

Bury Your Dead is the sixth book in Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Armand Gamache (of the Sûreté du Québec) series, first released in 2010. This time, there are three separate, yet strangely related cases at hand. One is a case that happened between books and has caused Armand’s team serious harm. The details in the aftermath seep out throughout the book, bringing to light more of Armand’s and Jean-Guy’s inner fears and strengths. One is the case from the previous book, The Brutal Telling. Armand, never satisfied with the outcome of their last Three Pines murder asks Jean-Guy to return to Three Pines to re-investigate quietly to see what they might have missed. The third and primary case is a new mystery that brings into question aspects of Canadian history. Penny did a great deal of research for the main story this time delving much deeper into her nation’s history and various assumptions about the clashes between the Francophones and Anglophones who live side-by-side in Québec. Continue reading →

Tax time choices

A Good Reed Review Commentary & Pubs , , , ,

By Ande Jacobson

For close to 30 years or so, I’ve been a faithful TurboTax user. Prior to that I still did my own taxes, but I did them the really old fashioned way – i.e., I got my forms from the library, wrote everything by hand and mailed them in. Although TurboTax has been around since 1984, I finally got around to trying it in the late 1990s. The software made filing my taxes easy and was initially pretty inexpensive. As time went on the software evolved to a very robust package. Also over time, it got more expensive, especially after Intuit segregated which forms were available through the interview in each version. The more complicated the return, the more expensive the package became. The H&R Block software, TaxCut, is much the same thing, although since I was in the TurboTax realm I never explored that one. Still, I’ve been considering looking for a less expensive option for some time. We have to file our taxes, but we shouldn’t have to pay an exorbitant fee to do so if we choose to do them ourselves. Continue reading →

On the edge

A Good Reed Review Commentary & Pubs , , ,

By Ande Jacobson

Here I sit at my computer at the start of a very consequential week. I have much to be thankful for in my life, and I try to focus on the good things. My friends. My family. Even the state where I live. I have challenges as most of us do. In my case, I’ve been dealing with some serious medical issues all of my life, and they’ve gotten worse over the last several years. Even so, I’m still able to take care of myself and even provide an ear to my friends and family to discuss the things that concern us. Continue reading →

Where do old spies go?

A Good Reed Review Book Review , , , ,

By Ande Jacobson

Kate Quinn’s The Alice Network is a masterful look at the heroic efforts by a female spy ring during WWI and beyond. While a work of historical fiction, she weaves in a lot of history following two timelines. The first is WWI and the efforts by the women of The Alice Network, a real underground network of British spies operating in foreign territory gathering huge amounts of crucial information that ultimately helped win the war. The parallel timeline in the “present” is just after the end of WWII. The story follows Charlotte (Charlie) St. Claire on her quest to find her missing cousin. On her travels, she connects with Evelyn Gardiner, a cranky, eccentric old woman with gnarled hands and a mysterious past, and her driver and protector, Finn Kilgore. The trio make their way through Europe first to help Charlie with her quest, but also to satisfy an old score of Eve’s. Continue reading →

Thoughts as 2024 draws to a close

A Good Reed Review Commentary & Pubs , , , ,

By Ande Jacobson

I used to write a holiday letter each year to share with friends, mostly those who were far away. At first I sent them in holiday cards via the mail, but over time I started writing them as emails, and later as articles on my website. They detailed my big events through the year. Sometimes they noted my personal accomplishments. Other times they covered my struggles. Over time though, I stopped writing them. Instead, I started writing an end of year essay thinking about what had happened over the year in broader terms. My individual exploits no longer seemed all that important in the grand scheme of things, either to me or to those I cared about. Continue reading →

A bit of medical history and a mystery

A Good Reed Review Book Review , , , ,

By Ande Jacobson

Tess Gerritsen’s last standalone medical thriller was The Bone Garden, first released in September 2007. This one is a departure from her previous works in that it’s more a work of historical fiction concerned with the study of medicine, a couple of love stories, and a murder mystery built-in. As always, the introduction is a flashback, this time a letter dated March 20, 1888 signed O.W.H. who is a well-known historical figure. The letter is short, and it offers an intriguing introduction to a family history of note. The reader is then immediately transported to the present (at the time of book’s writing), and its present-day protagonist, Julia Hamill. Recently divorced, she set out to start a new life for herself purchasing a country estate outside Boston for a steal because its elderly previous owner had died on the premises. While working hard to rejuvenate her garden, Julia happens upon some remains which opens up an excavation, first by the local police and ME (a cameo by none other than Maura Isles, but this isn’t part of the Rizzoli & Isles series), and later by a well-known forensic anthropologist from Harvard once the remains are determined to be rather old. And so begins the main story. Continue reading →

When ET lands, the unexpected happens

A Good Reed Review Book Review , , ,

By Ande Jacobson

Tess Gerritsen continues her medical thrillers with Gravity, first released in September 1999. This time, she explores the unknown both on earth and in space. As she often does, she starts the book with a seemingly disconnected event, a deep sea researcher encountering an unknown life form on the ocean floor. It’s known that the fauna in the deep waters is not seen anywhere else on Earth, and many of the creatures living and even thriving there have unusual properties such as being able to live in super-heated, poisonous waters near volcanic vents. Gerritsen has done her homework on this one melding deep sea biology with space biology in a riveting story of what happens when life forms are thrust into alien environments. One of the biggest dangers to humans living in space is encountering a pathogen that threatens their existence, and this is a story of such an occurrence aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Continue reading →

What does Briarwood House know?

A Good Reed Review Book Review , , ,

By Ande Jacobson

Kate Quinn’s latest book, The Briar Club, while historical fiction in the broad strokes, leans into fantasy a bit with an interesting central character – a sentient house! Briarwood House, so named because it’s at the corner of Briar and Wood streets in Washington, D.C., is a boarding house for single women. It’s owned and run by Mrs. Nilsson, a crusty woman with two children, Pete – her teenage son, and Lina – her young daughter. The story of how and when Mrs. Nilsson’s husband left seeps out slowly as the plot develops. Before that though, the prologue jump starts the story with a murder, and most of the rest of the book is a series of flashbacks just a few years before as the various boarders are introduced. Interludes where the house reports on the current situation pop up in between, and once all the pieces are in place, readers are treated to a wonderful resolution of the mystery at hand. Quinn’s masterful weaving of each boarder’s backstory is riveting. The sentient house is a charming way to meld all of the stories together in this work that takes place in the 1950s during a rather tumultuous time in U.S. history. The Korean War is a factor as are the Cold War and Joe McCarthy’s witch hunts. Continue reading →

The first Foothill Band Review

A Good Reed Review Commentary & Pubs , ,

By Ande Jacobson

It’s October. I’ve been so preoccupied by the biggest general election of my life, I completely forgot about another huge event that hits its 50th anniversary this year on 26 October 2024 – The 50th Annual Foothill Band Review in Pleasanton, CA. I was there for the first one back in October 1975 when our band, The Capuchino High School Marching Band, won sweepstakes in the parade competition. The six foot sweepstakes trophy from that competition graced the band room for decades after that. Our band director, Ralph Bredenberg – fondly known as “Mr. B,” retired after that school year, but what a final year it was. Continue reading →

Our votes matter

A Good Reed Review Commentary & Pubs , , , , ,

By Ande Jacobson

Most of my friends have made up their minds for this contentious 2024 election, and the vast majority are voting Democratic up and down the ticket for the good of the country as a whole even if they aren’t completely in line with some specific policies or even registered as Democrats. This makes sense to me. I’m never completely in line with any politician’s policies, but I learned a long time ago that with politics you never get everything exactly the way you want it. I learned that you should vote based on the overall good of a given candidate and whether they want to help us all or not. This election, I agree with most of the Democratic Party’s policies such as:

  • Enacting fair taxation where everyone pays their fair share including the wealthy and corporations
  • Lowering prescription drug prices not just for seniors but for everyone
  • Stopping price gouging, especially for essentials like food, housing, and healthcare
  • Protecting Social Security and Medicare without raising the retirement age or cutting benefits
  • Producing more clean energy
  • Enacting initiatives to address climate change
  • Enacting sensible gun safety laws
  • Protecting reproductive choice and freedom by codifying the protections of Roe v. Wade nationwide
  • Enacting bipartisan legislation to tighten border security and enact humane immigration policies
  • Continuing job growth and strengthening unions
  • Making education affordable and accessible
  • Continuing to improve the ACA to make healthcare available to all without the threat of financial ruin
  • Protecting voting rights so that every eligible voter can cast their ballot – a bedrock principle of democracy
  • Appointing judges and justices who will uphold the Constitution and rule of law, not shred it
  • Strengthening our democracy
  • Maintaining the separation of church and state enshrined in our Constitution

VP Harris recently announced that she also supports expanding Medicare to cover long term care at home to help the disabled and our seniors when they need it most without the threat of financial ruin.

Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, and the Democratic Party understand that we have to work together and support making things better for all Americans through the above initiatives and the rest of the platform and policies they support. As such, I am very enthusiastically supporting Democrats up and down the ballot in this election along with most of my friends. Continue reading →