"Instruments of Darkness" by Imogene Robertson ****

●  Audiobook
●  British author
●  Originally published in 2009
● 1st in the Crowther/Westerman series
●  Review:  I really like this investigative pair!  Harriet Westetman, the wife of a ship captain who is absent, and the inquisitive,  quirky Mr. Crowther.  Set in the1700s, the two protagonusts use their wits and varied life experiences to bolster one another in a murder investigation.  The story has interesting intrigue and engaging characters.  I will definitely read the next installment of this series.

"Tom Jones" by Henry Fielding

●  Audiobook
●  British author
●  Originally published in 1749
●  Review:  Bored out of my mind!  This is the 2nd time I have tried reading this novel. I give up!

"Mystery" by Jonathan Kellerman. ****

•  Audiobook
•  Mystery/Suspense
•  US author
•  Originally published 2010
•  Alex Delaware series
•  Review:  I really enjoyed this installment of the Alex Delaware series.  There is a sort of Sunset Boulevard thing happening which really enhances the plot.

"The Canvas" by Benjamin Stein *****

• Open Letter Series
• German author
• Originally published 2010
• Vocabulary:
• mashgiach:  guardian of souls, supervises kashrut in community institutions
• demantoid:  a brilliant green variety of andradite garnet, used as a gem.
• Epigraph (Amnon):  "We do not know what is true, you say.  We can only say what counts"
• Epigraph (Jan): "Do you want to take the ravine or the river? (no one pays the ferryman with love)"
• Quotes:
• p.W8..."No one knows better than I that the boundary between reality and fiction in every story runs meanderinly through the middle of language, concealed and incomprehensible--and movable."
• p.W20..."Emotionally and intellectually, it was impossible for me to fee full."
• p.W48..."The lottery is a tax on people who can't do math...".
• p.W98...."I am what I remember.  I don't have anything else."
• p.W122..."I am experienced at giving up one life for another.  On that point, there's a connection between Wechsler's story and my memories."
• Z.3....."It's the melange of all the touches, smells, sounds, images, and tastes that our senses have encountered over time, the ones that haven't been forgotten.  It is our memories that make us what we are.  Our minds are where our selves truly reside."  the essence of a person
• p.Z4...."And every gift...contains both a streak of good and of evil, and in the end it's up to the recipient to make that gift into a blessing or a curse."
• p.Z8..."All dreams follow the mouth.  The wise men taught that no matter what we may see in a dream, it only obtains meaning through interpretation.  Once it was spoken, however, the interpretation would endure and come true."
• p.Z21..."He  was firmly convinced that one had to combine the feeling for holiness, and the awe of it, with a proper bit of the unholy world.  In short:  secular education and a profession, skill in several languages and intimate knowledge of philosophy and art were in his opinion, indispensable if one's life were to sanctify Hashem."...Uncle Nathan
• p.Z60..."The real purpose of our education, he said, was to indoctrinate us, stuff us to the brim with ideology, but in a way that seemed natural to us, so that we would absorb everything they taught us with the feeling that we were drinking directly from divinely inspired sources, and that nothing but pure, unadulterated truth was being jammed into our heads.".....Eli, school friend
• p.Z69..."H would always be more likely to prefer an interpretation that went beyond the obvious, therby revealing the poetry in divine action--a poetry that could likewise be a poetry of horror."...Eli
• p.Z144..."H exorcised the horror by assigning it a space on the canvas of his self, a space where it seemed to belong.  Who would have been better able to treat his sorrow than Minsky himself.?"...Amnon about Minsky
• Comments:
• mention of the East German approach to scientific determination of future Olympians
• recurring dreams of headless duck.....symbol of those he hurt?
• transmigration of souls....a "candle flame that jumps to another wick.  It's still fire, but it's no longer the same flame."
• Ferryman dream....ferried until boat sank...like submersion in a mikvah to become a new person?
• p.W155....Ancient ritual treatment of psychotics...."Pieces of bread and honey were laid on top of their stomachs--provisions for the ferryman who would take them across the River of Forgetfulness in a rotting boat."...like his dream...like the mikvah experience with Amnon
• Uncle Nathan would make Amnon's "secular inclusions shimmer."
• Fascinating about the tying of the tzitzes....the secret symbolism
• Amnon's ability to see the memories of people, a gift and burden the concept of the mikvah, water untouched by humans....."has the power to absorb all traces of destruction, particularly traces of death, like a filter that binds and neutralizes destructive energy, even transforms it into something constructive, as it changes from tumah to taharah, impurity to purity."
• Reference to "The Master and Margarita" and the spilling of sunflower oil which sealed the fate of the one who slipped and died on it....Amnon felt he was on a path not to be altered
• Reference to the "apathy or aggression, their compulsions and delusions--as strategies that their psyches had chosen, so they could at least maintain a fragile emotional balance?"...excellent
• Amnon's view of psychiatry akin to Jung, which he saw as "meditative and creative at the same time"...like this
• Title Reference: p.Z123..."In analysis, you could put the reins back in their hands--or rather, the pallet and the paintbrush, so they could set a new tone on the canvas of their memories.  You could ev en become a canvas yourself, a projection screen where the patients could sketch possible alternative drafts and try out new ways of entering into relationships with other people again.  In the process, they roamed around thousands of possible worlds, just as people do when they become immersed in books or music."...immersed as in a mikvah?
• Was this book about trying on selves?
• Were Amnon and Jan one and the same?
• 
  
• Review:  Mind-boggling, complex, mystical, creative.....these are just a few of the adjectives that come to mind after reading this novel...or should I say novels?  This novel has two first pages, two epigraphs, and two protagonists.  The reader can begin at either end of the physical book and read to the center, then flip the book over and read to the center again.  I know, sounds gimmicky, but it works on many levels. The primary themes in this tale are memory and identity.  Memories can change, identities can be forgotten.  Identities can be chosen, memories can return. Memories can be shared, memories can come in dreams.  Identities can be forced upon one, identities can be faked. Two characters, Amnon and Jan, struggle to live their lives and the intersection of their lives in this psychological novel.  The backdrop for the book is Orthodox Jewry, with a touch of Kabbalah mysticism.  
  
  
  I am left with the profound desire to discuss this book with someone else who has read it, because I do not think I can fully grasp its meanings without some shared conversation.  I think anyone who reads this will have a similar experience.  

"My Song: A Memoir" by Harry Belafonte **

• Audiobook
• Autobiography
• Originally published in 2011
• Review:  Never let it be said that Harry Belafonte is a modest man!  Certainly this memoir is interesting, but to me, only because of the time period in which he has lived and his participation in the Civil Rights movement.  I have always loved Mr. Belafonte's music and have seen him perform in concert.  He is an amazing performer and entertainer!  However, to hear his version of history he is the unsung hero, the mover and shaker, behind the most powerful figures in the Civil Rights movement.  I have no doubt that he was deeply involved and committed, but the egocentrism with which he tells his tale is incredibly off putting.  Lord knows what would have happened if he hadn't been there to influence Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy!  Love the music, but not impressed with the man.  Disappointed!