Wonderings - Michelle Richmond

Great books to read in 2012

Under the tree on Christmas morning, a swell stash of books that my personal Santa picked up from Green Apple Books on Clement Street in San Francisco

The Jokers, by Albert Cossery
I know nothing about this book, which is precisely why I love Green Apple: Santa will always find something he didn’t know he was looking for.

A House with No Roof, by Rebecca Wilson
A memoir by the daughter of labor leader Dow Wilson, who was murdered when the author was 3. Wilson writes about growing up with and later caring for a loving but mercurial mother, in the shadow of Rebecca’s violent and much older brother, Lee, in Bolinas, California. With an introduction by Anne Lamott. I’m not sure why, but I read this book in one day. It is a coming of age tale that focuses not on the murder itself but rather on the repercussions of the father’s death on the individual members of the author’s family.

The Ice Princess, by Camilla Lackberg.
A few years ago, my husband bought me The Man on the Balcony, a Martin Beck mystery from the crime writing husband and wife team Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. I’d never read crime thrillers before, and my husband thought some easy reading might be relaxing. Well, I was hooked, and I quickly made my way through all of the Martin Beck mysteries. At the time, I thought of them as a guilty pleasure, but I’ve since dropped the “guilty” part and have come to consider a good thriller to be simply a great pleasure, guilt-free. Now, for every birthday, anniversary, and Christmas, along with a couple of novels in translation by writers I’ve never heard of , my husband gives me a crime thriller, and it’s usually the first in the stack to get read. Good writing is good writing, no matter the genre.

The last great crime thriller I read, by the way, was The Boy in the Suitcase, by Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis. I’ve also become partial to the Icelandic writer Arnaldur Indridason, who has created a wonderful character in Inspector Erlandur Sveinsson.

The Year of the Hare, by Arto Paasilinna
I haven’t started this one yet, but any book that the wonderful travel writer Pico Ayer wants to “live in” piques my curiosity.

If you go in for an element of surprise, join the Green Apple Book Club, whereby you receive a new book i in the mail each month, handpicked by the excellent Green Apple Guys, Pete & Kevin.

Merci!

French booksellers and librarians have been wonderful to L’annee brouillard, the French translation (by Sophie Aslanides) of The Year of Fog. My latest thanks goes out to the library Villeurbanne, for naming L’annee brouillard as one of their favorite books.

the little seahorse

Today at Daily Snapshot, Juliann Wetz has a lovely post about the seahorse-shaped hippocampus and its role in memory making. Check out her blog for a cool picture of seahorses at the Georgia Aquarium.

What happened to the McStay family?

The McStay family went missing from their home in Falbrook, CA, in February of 2010. Joseph McStay, 40, and his wife Summer, 43, apparently left home in their Isuzu Trooper on the night of February 4 with their two children–Gianni, 4, and Joseph, Jr., 3. Aside from a call Joseph made to one of his co-workers that night, the family has never been heard from again.

There was no sign of forced entry or struggle at the home, which the family had only recently moved into. On February 8, the Trooper was towed from a strip mall parking lot within walking distance of a pedestrian crossing into Mexico. The police scoured video footage from the crossing that night, and concluded that one group of people walking across the border–a man holding the hand of a small boy, followed by a woman holding the hand of another small boy–could very well have been the McStay family. The woman is wearing boots and jackets similar to ones owned by Summer, but family members say the man is too tall and thin to be Jospeh McStay.

While detectives believe the family may have willingly traveled to Mexico–based in part upon an internet search conducted at the home about children visiting Mexico–the fact that they did not return seems to indicate foul play. The family left $40,000 in their personal checking and savings accounts, money which has not been accessed since their disappearance. Joseph also had $65,000 in a business account, and the small withdrawals that have been made from that account are business expense withdrawals conducted by employees. The McStays maintained close relationships with Joseph’s parents, his brother, and Summer’s sister, and Joseph was also very close to his 14-year-old son by a previous marriage. Family members insist they would never abandon their loved ones intentionally. They also left behind two dogs, beloved family pets.

Joseph’s brother Mike maintains a website with information and updates. Anyone with information about the case is being urged to call deputies at 858-974-2321 or 858-565-5200 after-hours. Tips can also be called in anonymously to CrimeStoppers at 888-580-TIPS(8477).

Their story was featured in May on Vanished with Beth Holloway. View the episode here. View family photos here.Joseph’s youtube channel, last updated in January of 2010, includes cute family videos of the kids experimenting in the kitchen while the parents look on encouragingly, among other ordinary family happenings. The impression one gets in the videos is of a loving, ordinary family–certainly not parents who plan to abandon their lives, bank accounts, and home for a new start South-of-the border.

RELATED: Read A Stolen Life, Jaycee Dugard’s honest and deeply moving memoir of her captivity with Phillip Garrido. Read my review of A STOLEN LIFE here.

Read The Stories We Tell: how a random encounter with a girl on a foggy San Francisco beach inspired The Year of Fog.