Excellent Reading

I'd been seeing intriguing ads for The Vanishing Half and was thrilled to find it in the bag 0' books my local book pusher left me.

 Identical twins grow up in a rural Black community then run away together. Eventually one of them decides to 'pass' and leaves her twin. What happens next kept me reading till I finished (after midnight.) It's a page turner but NOT a soap opera--though the setup might suggest such. Instead, it's a profound look at racism in America, and in the Black community as well as others. It's an important, beautifully written novel. Highly recommended.

And then there's Spook Street. I thought I was tired of spy novels, but a very good friend insisted I read this. I'm glad I did. A retires intelligence agent is slipping into dementia. He knows where all the bodies are buried. So who was sent to eliminate him and whose is the body in the bath? Dry British humor at its best. Intelligent, cynical, and highly enjoyable. I'll be looking for the others in this series.