All the Walls of Belfast

 

Shirley J.      Young Adult Fiction          Belfast Northern Ireland, Past & Present Attitudes and Skirmishes

All the Walls of Belfast by Sarah Carlson    272 pages

Good story about an Irish-American girl named Fionna, who was born in Belfast but whose mother absconded with when she was 2 years old to move to the United States.  It is now 14 years later and after little or no communication her father writes to say he wants very much to be in Fionna's life (be careful what you wish for, Pop).   Fionna planned to work all summer to save up for a field study she would love to take that would make her a shoo in for her dream to go to M.I.T.   Long story short, Fionna ends up going to see her Da and her two step-brothers none of whom she remembers.  Her family life is sort of a mystery.   She is 16 now and it has always been her Ma and her without much chatter about what went before, till now that is.   Now all of a sudden she finds out she has step brothers and why is there so little conversation about her Da?   She decides to take a short visit, then come home, still work toward that field study then M.I.T. here she comes.   The best laid plans.   Northern Ireland still seems to be fighting the fight and holding grudges and that peace wall designed to separate the Irish Catholics from the Protestants who consider themselves British citizens only seems to spur more skirmishes with signs, slogans, posters, etc. for each sides point of view posted on their side of the wall.  There are things tossed over the wall, teenagers sneaking over and urinating and/or wreaking general destruction and desecration of the other sides' ideals.   Fionna finds this a bit of a culture shock but thinks it could be sorted out with tolerance.  She comes in to her father's house on the Catholic side of the wall,  with total attitude and disrespects him every chance she gets.   She is a hateful thing and needs to be put in her place but her father carries her like a princess and gives in to her all along the way.   He does his best to be kind, loving and fatherly to her but she comes and goes like anything he says doesn't matter and she is boss.   He never corrects her just keeps trying to win her affection while she treats him like dirt.  She meets a Protestant boy named Danny who is constantly abused by beatings from his Da.   Danny's dream is to join the British Army and become a nurse to help people.   His mother had been killed when he was small by the IRA so there is no love there for the Irish Catholics and he too picks on "taigs."   Fiona and Danny fall for each other, though, Fionna has just learned her father went to prison for murder for his part with the IRA which after learning that she considers her father a murderer and calls him so and wants to go home.   The story is a good one and tells a lot of what went down during the "troubles" and aftermath.   I recommend this story to middle schoolers on up.

SLPL February totals

This month two people read 28 titles with a total of 6779 pages.  Shirley wins again with 22 books and 4984 pages.

 

Stalin's War

Stalin's War: A New History of World War II by Sean McMeekin, 666 pages

Sean McMeekin's provocative thesis in Stalin's War is that it is Stalin, not Hitler, who should be regarded as the central figure of World War II.  In proposing it, he is defying decades of Western historiography which has centered the war on Hitler's showdown with the French and British empires, as well as the Russian perspective in which the USSR is portrayed as the victim of Western perfidy and German aggression.  In McMeekin's persuasive retelling, neither the European nor the Pacific wars would have happened absent Stalin's active encouragement, and even Barbarossa was just as much a consequence of Stalin's ambitions in Central Europe as Hitler's.  Even more importantly, Stalin received from the war more than he could ever have hoped for, not only a mostly free hand in Central Europe and East Asia, but immense subsidies from US taxpayers to help build the Soviet military-industrial base.

The book is necessarily long and repetitive, yet McMeekin writes in a way that saves it from becoming ponderous.  Some may find the seemingly endless catalogues of lend-lease material supplied to an ungrateful mass murderer tiresome, but this is more than compensated for by the foregrounding of information which will be new even to those generally well-informed about the Second World War.

The Wish

 Shirley J.           Adult Fiction                   Stage 4 Cancer, Teen Age Pregnancy, Okracoke Island, N.C. 

The Wish by Nicholas Sparks   416 pages

Excellent book.     Nicholas Sparks has still got it.    The man can put magic on a page.  This is a beautiful story told by a woman who has Stage 4 Cancer.   She is telling an employee about a very emotional time in her life when she was 16 and pregnant.  Her parents send her away to stay with her aunt in North Carolina until the baby is born.   Her parents are Catholic and do not condone abortion but they convince (insist) she put the baby up for adoption.  This is her story and it is as brilliant as a shiny bauble on a Christmas tree.  I loved it.  I would recommend this book to middle schoolers on up.   

Eighty Days

 

Shirley J.       Adult Non-Fiction             Women newspaper reporters taking the Jules Verne challenge on

Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World                         by Matthew Goodman      496 pages

Female newspaper reporter for Joseph Pulitzer's World newspaper in New York, Nellie Bly pitched a story idea to her editor, that she would take on Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days adventure and that she would do it in less than 80 days!  At first the idea floundered but then the powers that be in the World's offices decided what a great advertisement for the paper it would be.  Why they would increase circulation following her adventures as she wrote about them and submitted ongoing articles along the way.  The idea proved so successful that the Cosmopolitan magazine decided to launch its own adventurous female to sensationalize the trip and increase sales magazines by racing against Nellie Bly to try to beat her to go around the world the fastest.  The reporter for the Cosmopolitan was coerced into doing it.   The reporter was refined Elizabeth Bisland, a daughter of southern wealth who had no desire to make the trip nor compete but was eventually persuaded to do so.  Nellie Bly loved the idea of sensational journalism, a girl who had come up in Pennsylvania's coal country, scrappy and competitive with enough guts to go up against the male dominated field of newspaper reporting and willing to do whatever it took to come up with great investigative reports.  (ie. she went undercover and disguised every chance she got to expose political corruption and ill treatment of the poor.)  Two very different ladies each going in opposite directions, one going west the other east to become the first woman to travel completely around the world and do it in less time than it took the fiction character Phileas Fogg in the book "Around the World in 80 Days" by French author, Jules Verne.   An excellent fast paced true historical adventure that will please most any reader I think.   I would recommend this book to middle schoolers on up.   Well written an enjoyable read.

White Mischief

White Mischief by James Fox, 288 pages

January 1941.  While German bombs fell on England, a very different act of violence took place in the British colony of Kenya.  Josslyn Hay, the Earl of Erroll, was found murdered in his car on the road leading away from the home shared by his lover and her husband.  Said husband was swiftly arrested, but eventually acquitted of the crime, which came symbolically to mark the end of a wild, hedonistic era in the colony's history.  The question of who had actually killed Erroll, and why, remained unanswered for decades despite widespread curiosity and an in-depth investigation by the journalist and critic Cyril Connolly.

James Fox worked closely with Connolly during that investigation.  His account of the goings on amongst the British colonists may not have much in the way of literary merit, but it is fine journalism.

Nostos

Nostos by John Moriarty, 698 pages

"Nostos", I am told, means "homecoming", in particular referring to the homecomings of the heroes of the Trojan War.  In John Moriarty's poetic memoir, his particular home is an impoverished farm in the Irish countryside, a shadowy place of earth and blood, far from the seemingly well-ordered certainties of modernity.  He is exiled from this place by Darwin and his companions, whose arrival was as fatal to the old European mythos as that of Cortes was to the Aztecs.  His restless wanderings take him first to England, then to Greece, and finally to the New World, through myths both ancient and modern, before he is allowed to return at last to that still point he left in his beginning.

It is natural to compare Nostos to Finnegan's Wake, not only because the authors are both Irish, or because both delight in wordplay and allusion and repetition, or because the Liffey features in both works, or even because Moriarty explicitly references Joyce repeatedly.  Both attempt to describe something that eludes description, to discover or recover something mysterious yet fundamental, although Moriarty's commodius vicus of recirculation begins and ends upriver of Howth Castle and environs, and even beyond Eve and Adam.  Nostos is a unique and unforgettable work, full of beauty and wonder and (best of all) hope.

How Not to Die: Surprising Lessons on Living Longer, Safer, and Healthier from America's Favorite Medical Examiner

 

Shirley J.     Adult Non-Fiction       Medical tips on how not to end up early on a slab in the morgue

How Not to Die: Surprising Lessons on Living Longer, Safer, and Healthier from America's Favorite Medical Examiner by Jan Garavaglia     288 pages

Excellent book!  You will learn so much about how your body parts and how your body responds to various diseases, accidents, infections, stupid people tricks, internal/external bleeding, horrific vehicular accidents, gun shots/stabbings, tumors, enlarged hearts, hypertension, you name it, you will likely find it here.   She explains autopsies, both whole and partials, she explains medical procedures, she will open your eyes to multitudinous manners of death and how she goes about reasoning out exactly how a person died and how she helps solve cases with law enforcement agencies as to whether there is guilt or innocence - whether a murder or not.   She also has a t.v. show - which from reading this book ought to be fascinating to actually see the things she discusses here.   You will never look at things the same way again.   She discusses the hazards of alcohol abuse, smoking, over eating, drug use both accidental and purposeful,  and she tells you how the organs of the body are affected and exactly what they look like in each stage from healthy to extremely damaged/ravaged.    This is an excellent book on perhaps a brutal subject but you will learn so much here.   And yes, she goes into the gross parts of her job, too, (Smells, maggots, bloated bodies pulled from water, etc. )    You will reconsider some of your own behaviors when she shows you what your seemingly innocent acts or ignoring signs there might be an issue with your health and how feeling fine isn't always fine.   GREAT BOOK!  I am so glad I read it.   If the younger set are of a bent to be interested in medicine, science, anatomy then I say go for it, this stuff can never be taught too early, but, if you are at all squeamish avoid this one like the plague because she is honest and open and tells it like it is so be prepared for sincere sharing of facts here even the unpleasant ones, especially the unpleasant ones.   I would say budding scientists/doctors at any age beyond that probably mature teens through senior citizens - she also talks about breaking hips - she works in Orlando, FL. after all, with the state of Florida being the senior citizen capital of the world.

The Unknown

 

Shirley J.                                Adult Fiction                       Ghosts and Paranormal Investigators

The Unknown by Heather Graham   336 pages

Excellent book.   Sienna Murray's grandmother dies when she is 14, but, she continues to appear to Sienna and watches over her and others are helped by Grandma's letting Sienna know  to go save them.   Turns out there are other people in the world with the ability to see and talk to ghosts and reader, you will surprised by who that turns out to be.   Really well done story, good plot and good character development.  I recommend this book to all who have a bent for the paranormal - ghosts in particular - and anyone looking for a good read that includes firebugs, murder and mystery solving.   I recommend this one to middle schoolers on up.  

The Unveiling of Polly Forrest

 “The Unveiling of Polly Forrest” by Charlotte Whitney 310 pages  

Readers get ready to block off some to when you start reading this historical mystery! Definitely a page-turner. 

Polly Wolcott is only twenty years old when she marries the much older Sam Forrest. She marries him because she doesn’t want move from rural Michigan to Connecticut to help her mother take care of her grandmother.  And, it doesn’t hurt that Sam appears to be wealthy. He has his own thriving farm. 

But it is 1934; the Great Depression has gripped America. Even Sam is affected. Crops and farm animal’s prices are at the lowest anyone has even seen. Then Sam is killed in a freak farm accident that is brutal. Polly isn’t mature enough to, nor does she want to, take over the farm by herself. So what will happen? 

Author Whitney’s novel is narrated by three individuals: Polly, Polly’s sister Sarah, and Sarah’s husband, the local preacher Reverend Wesley Johnson.  Three distinct voices in short chapters that tell the story from all three points of view. 

In the beginning, Polly is not accused of murdering Sam. After all it does appear to be an accident. However, the Sheriff’s Office is looking into his death. He and his deputy question Polly, Sarah and Wesley for what seems like an eternity. The novel is set from February 7 to December 25, 1934. The questions last through the summer. 

The two strangers claiming to be White House Police show up at Polly’s door, demanding answers to their questions and thoroughly search the house and all the outbuildings. Seems like Sam was involved in some pretty shady dealings that left me reading the pages as fast as I could.  

During the course of the story, Polly’s unveiling comes in many ways---from her views and days as a flighty young woman to a more wizened, experienced woman. I thoroughly enjoyed this who-dun-it set in the glories of rural Michigan and the hardships of farm life. “The Unveiling of Polly Forrest” is a thrilling read and receives 6 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

 

Rose Royal: A Love Story

“Rose Royal: A Love Story” by Nicolas Mathieu (translated from the French by Sam Taylor) 96 pages  

This dark gem of a novella packed a powerful punch. Rose is almost fifty years old, divorced and has had it with men. Her favorite thing to do after work is to head to her favorite bar, the Royal, where she loves to drink beer, gin and vodka (but not together). One of the fascinating things about Rose is that she carries a .38 caliber handgun with her at all times. Like I said, she’s had it with men and their tendencies toward violence. 

Her friend, Marie-Jeanne, joins her every night and two nights a week, she sets up a small hair salon in the bar’s corner. Personally, I wouldn’t want anyone cutting my hair after they have had a few. 

On this night, the bar is basically empty. Near closing time, a group of teenagers, “seniors at a local private school,” come in to celebrate that they are only one hundred days from final exams. After Fred, the bartender, clears them out, the place is quiet until a man stumbles in carrying a dog that has been hit by a car. Rose helps him with the animal.  

His name is Luc and he drives a very expensive car. Luc and Rose are attracted to each other and soon begin dating. Despite the problem that they incur, neither one walks away. Instead Rose moves into his country house. But things don’t get any better. 

The story roars to a shocking conclusion. I was so shocked, I went back and re-read the entire novella.  I’m not sure that I truly understand why what happened, happened. And I don’t fully understand the title. Rose is the protagonist and Royal is the name of her favorite bar. Other than that, “Rose Royal” is a thrilling read and receives 4 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles

 

Shirley J.                  Adult Fiction          Murder Mystery, Philanderers, Wealthy Widows, Step Heirs

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie 224 pages

A 70 year old wealthy widow with grown step-children she has raised and who think of her as their mother suddenly remarries a man much her junior.   No one believes it was for love.   Her step sons are resentful.  Suddenly when the widow turns up dead likely from poison, the suspects are crawling out from the woodwork.   Could it be from her husband who even she suspected, or her long time companion?  Every one begins to speculate and point fingers as to why someone else might have done it.  Thank goodness Poirot is on the scene nearby and can come sort it all out.   The servants are possible suspects, as is the attending doctor who just happens to specialize in poisons....hmmmmm.  Gotta love dame Agatha, she knows how to paint all of her suspects into corners and like rats come fighting their way out, but, someone had to do it,  but, why?   So many motives, so many suspects, it will keep you guessing all the way to the end.   I recommend this one to adults.   It has that old school who dunnit vibe that I think the younger crowd might not care for.  

A Deadly Affair

 Shirley J.                           Adult Fiction                           Murder mysteriously wrapped in love stories

A Deadly Affair: Unexpected Love Stories from the Queen of Mystery by Agatha Christie   272 pages

The game is always afoot in Dame Agatha's stories but even more so in these short stories that are true gems.   I can't get enough of them each is excellent and the whole host of Dame Agatha's sleuths are hear at the ready to solve the murders.   There are stories featuring Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Tuppence and Tommy, Harley Quin and Parker Pyne.   I thoroughly enjoyed every one of them.  If you have not been introduced to Agatha Christie's excellence this would be a great book to start.  Each story is so well thought out and the clues are all there but it is amazing how the mysteries all come together.   I recommend these stories to adults, just because I think adults will appreciate them for their nostalgic whimsy and non-technological attributes.

Ms. Marvel: No Normal

 

Shirley J.                   Young Adult Graphic Fiction               Teenage Muslim Superhero!

Ms. Marvel Vol. 1: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson   120 pages

Really well done story about a teenage Muslim girl named Kamala Khan who lives in Jersey City, New Jersey.   Through unusual circumstances she becomes a superhero.   Really well done story.   Her parents are very traditional so you can imagine how hard it must be for a young Muslim woman to sneak out of the house to save the world.   Well worth the read.  I recommend this one to elementary schoolers on up. 

Aunt Dimnity and the Heart of Gold

 

Shirley J.                          Adult Fiction                  England, winter, ghost communicating, mysteries

Aunt Dimity and the Heart of Gold by Nancy Atherton  240 pages

Excellent story!   The story itself is a good one and the ghost communication with Aunt Dimity is almost a footnote rather than a major part of the story but that is o.k. because the story is such a good one.  Christmas time in England current day and the story is so alive and real seeming you can picture the whole thing as if you are right there.   The friends are so funny and fun, the countryside covered in ice and snow and all the yuletide events going on.  Then there is the dinner party that ends up a search and rescue mission, with new friends and blooming romance a foot.   The weather is almost another character in the mix and the new mysterious lady so full of knowledge but so introverted any info the gossipy folk can dig out of her is like pulling teeth!   One mystery leads to another then to another but it is fascinating and you reader, will learn so much along the way.  History abounds and what could possibly tie all the loose ends together?   Will they ever solve what is up with that strange room and what its purpose might be?   Whoa!  Wait a minute, what is that stuff insider there?  Yikes!  More mysteries!   Excellent story, excellent dialogue.  This too, I find is part of a really big series all involving the ghost Aunt Dimity.   I will likely check out the rest of the series because I like the people so much.    I recommend this to mature middle schoolers on up.  

The Confession Club

 

Shirley J.                            Adult Fiction                                Friends sharing their secrets over dinners

The Confession Club by Elizabeth Berg  320 pages    

What starts out as a group of local ladies in Macon, MO, getting together to swap recipes and enjoy pot lucks together, soon turns into secret swapping, they start confessing their sins and hopes and dreams, lusty desires, secret shames, regrets find out they aren't judged but commiserated with and helped by the advice and knowledge that gets shared along with the rest.  For some it is spurring them on to do things they want to but are afraid to, for others it is getting long held burdens off their consciences.  As the saying goes true friends are the ones that know everything about you and like you anyway.   This is a fun inclusive book that makes the reader feel like a part of the group even if you are only hearing others' stories, you feel a real kinship with these gals.   Come to find out this too is a part of a series about women in Mason, MO so I plan to read the other two books since I enjoyed this one so much.  I recommend this one to adults, I'm not sure young people would get as big a kick out of it as older ladies might.  There are so many things ladies of a certain age can relate to that the young are just far too young to worry about, yet, or appreciate in the same way an older gal will.

That Summer

 Shirley J.                   Adult Fiction                                  clandestine romances from the past 

That Summer by Lauren Willig    352 pages

A well told tale of an American woman in 2009 who inherits a house in England from a great aunt she doesn't remember.    A lusty tale of clandestine love becomes a must solve mystery when while staying at the house getting it ready to sell portraits are found that allude to far more than family history lets on. The tale goes from present day putting the pieces together on why this aunt gave her house to a niece so far away when plenty of relatives lived near her English manse.   Really good plot and super characters, from snobby English cousins rooting for a lordship to raise the family position to catty romantic notions.  It is hard for an American to trust exactly what is going on when new found relatives pretend to be friendly only so they can get a chance to make away with everything they can through deception.   And then the one person she thinks she can trust is made out to be the worst of all.   It will keep you turning the pages just to see what happens next and then when it takes you back centuries to a torrid love affair going on under the nose of an undemonstrative husband, well....I recommend this one to mature teens on up.  Good story.  

       

The Magnolia Palace

 “The Magnolia Palace” by Fiona Davis    352 pages 

One of the things that I like about Fiona Davis’s novels is that she uses setting as character. If you haven’t read any of her books and don’t know what that means, think of Tara in “Gone With the Wind.”  Tara is as much a character in the book (and movie) as Scarlett and Rhett. In Davis’s books, she writes about famous buildings in the New York City. In her other books, she has written about Grand Central Station, The Dakota (the apartment building where John and Yoko lived), the Barbizon Hotel, the Chelsea Hotel and the New York City Public Library.  Davis sets this novel in the Henry Clay Frick Mansion (currently closed for renovation, but the massive Renaissance to the twentieth-century  art collection is still available for viewing at Frick Madison).  

As in her other books, Davis wrap a historical mystery in dueling timelines. This story is set in 1919 and 1961. 

In 1919, Lillian Carter (based on the real-life artists’ model Audrey Munson) must support herself after her mother dies in the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. She becomes renown as “Angelica,” a model, often posing nude, or nearly nude. Statues of Lillian’s classical image dot Manhattan landmarks. Behind on her rent, Lilly tries to sneak out of the apartment she shared with her mother, leaving all her belonging behind. On her way out, she becomes entangled, albeit minimally, in a murder. Still she manages to sneak away and spends a few days on the streets. She winds up at the Frick Mansion, inadvertently interviewing for the position of private secretary to Frick’s daughter, Helen. 

In 1966, Veronica Weber arrives from England for a photo shoot at the Frick Mansion. She manages to do everything wrong and is fired from the set. Humiliated, she retreats to a part of the Mansion and gets lost. When she decides to leave, she learns that the house is empty except her, and she is trapped.  She settles down to wait out the night, but a snowstorm creates a blackout, leaving her stranded in the dark, heatless mansion for gosh who know how long. 

Veronica explores the best she can, even the pipe organ room, which house forty-seven hundred pipes. There she finds some papers stuck between the pipes that send her on a scavenger hunt. Soon Veronica learns that she is not alone in the mansion, but the intern, Joshua, had fallen asleep in the basement and was also stranded for the duration. Together they manage to make life bearable until the storm abates. 

As always, Davis vacillates between the two time periods with ease. She knows instinctively when to end a section that leaves readers wanting more, only to be wrapped up in the other time period, causing readers to stay up way past their bedtimes. Based on the buzz I’ve heard about this book, Davis did not disappoint; she certainly didn’t this reader. The only problem that comes from this novel is that I have to wait about another year before a new novel is available. I wonder what she’ll write about next.  I can’t wait!  “The Magnolia Palace” receives 6 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

 

Fortitude: American Resilience in the Era of Outrage

 

Shirley J.                Adult Non-Fiction                      Navy Seals, politics, attitude of outrage

Fortitude: American Resilience in the Era of Outrage by Dan Crenshaw   256 pages

While this book starts off a little all over the place as though it can't decide exactly what it is going to settle on to be about, once it gets going Crenshaw finds his groove and delivers an impactful teaching tool.   He brings insight from his Navy Seal training, his life post Seals, his political career and his deep abiding faith in God.     I'm glad I persevered because this actually turned out to be a very good book.  I would certainly recommend this to all military affiliated folk, and also to mature teens on up.  A study in dealing with adversity with willpower to overcome and faith in God to get you through.  Much good information here and life lessons.   

The Liz Taylor Ring

 “The Liz Tylor Ring” by Brenda Janowitz  384 pages 

If y’all follow my reviews, y’all know that I’m often drawn to a book by its title and cover. Well, let me tell you, this book has both: an awesome cover and an equally awesome title. While I might not be the biggest Elizabeth Taylor fan, I am a huge fan of Old Hollywood glamor. 

There are two alternating timelines in this wonderful novel: 1968-69 and present day. It doesn’t even matter that Liz Taylor plays a tiny role in the novel. 

In 1968, Lizzie Morgan starts to date Ritchie Schneider. Lizzie’s parents are against the match as Ritchie dated Maggie, Lizzie older sister, several years prior. But no one can keep Lizzie and Ritchie apart. Their loves grows deep and passionate. This timeline follows the couple’s relationship through both the good and the bad, but the fire cannot be extinguished…even after a nine-month separation. 

The separation is where the ring comes into the picture (no pun intended). To facilitate the end of their separation, Ritchie buys Lizzie an 11-carat, flawless diamond ring, much like the one Richard Burton bought for Elizabeth Taylor, but much smaller (Liz’s was 33- carats.). The ring has disappeared and each of their three children is sure they know what happened to it. 

The oldest, Abby, and her husband, Gary, work in the clothing story that Ritchie founded. Its survival can be attributed to Abby’s creative ideas and marketing skills, taking the store into the 21^st century. “Addy was sure (the ring) had been stolen, back in 2008.” 

The middle child, Nathan, is having a domestic problem of his own. He isn’t sure he wants to be married to Diego any more. “Nathan is convinced that Lizzie, her Alzheimer’s rapidly progressing, placed it in Ritchie’s casket when he died in 2015.” 

The youngest is Courtney, twelve years younger than Abby and Nathan. Abby is jealous of Courtney, and Nathan seems indifferent. She has even bigger problems than her old siblings. Courtney knows “for a fact the ring had been gambled away in the fall of 2006.” 

The siblings are contacted by a bank in the Cayman Islands. Ritchie had a secret safety deposit box. The three fly down, unsure of what, if anything, they will find. And to all three’s astonishment, the ring is in the box. And yes, it is real. Each sibling has definite ideas of what should be done with it that wildly contradicts the others. 

This was an easy read, a quick “beach read” if I may, about family relationships. “The Liz Taylor Ring” receives 6 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.