Fict - Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

Anyone who has worked in an office setting, and especially anyone who has faced layoffs, can relate to this book. The paranoia, the office politics and awkward social situations. The author did a great job getting in the heads of the various characters. The descriptions of office social situations were on point. They were laugh out loud funny, cringe inducing, sad, but definitely relateable.

I did have some trouble keeping track of all the characters, especially the ones who were were introduced, or just mentioned, and then never heard from again. The timing of the book was also a little hard to follow since it jumped back and forth. Both of these resolved about halfway through when the story followed a more linear path. This was about the time that I really started to enjoy the book. All in all, I'd recommend it.

Fict - Glassblower of Murano by Marina Fiorato

This review has a spoiler so I'm saving you from reading this annoying book that promised to be a good historical mystery/thriller.  Where to start?
Englishwoman goes to 60's Venice to study art.  Meets Italian Adonis vaporetto driver (who looks like a painting), & is descended from the most famous glass blower in Murano:  Corradino Manin.   Woman gets pregnant, returns to England, never hears from Adonis again & becomes a bitter feminist.
Fast forward 20 yrs: their daughter Leonora Manin, now a divorced women artist in search of her own roots, goes to Italy. The story alternates between Leonora's life in Italy and her ancestor Corradino Manin's life in Venice in the 1600s.  This was the only interesting part of the book - where you actually learned something of the ancient glassworks and how that society functioned.
Improbable coincidences/plot turns:
- Despite having received divorce proceeds of an English manor grand enough to have its own name, Leonora promptly runs out of money.
- She lands an impossible job at the ancient prestigious Murano glassworks, which for hundreds of years has only hired native male Venetians.
- Enter another Italian Adonis - a policeman this time (who also looks like a painting), who proceeds to find her an oh-so-cute, affordable (impossible to find) apartment in the heart of Venice.  Leonora makes an enemy at work, a descendant of a rival glass blower to Corradino Manin. Think Hatfield-McCoys, except these people hold grudges for CENTURIES! Then, surprise? Leonora gets pregnant to Adonis, who has a stiletto heeled, hell-on-wheels ex-girlfriend/reporter who writes a damning article about Lenora's ancestor. Leonora spends the rest of the book, (and pregnancy) trying to clear her ancestor's name and wondering why Adonis won't become her baby-daddy.
- You would think that Corrado Manin not having fingerprints, which the author emphasizes several times, would be crucial to the plot at some point?
- And why focus on the feminist mother at the beginning, when that fact is never again relevant?
- I also anxiously waited (in vain) for the reporter ex-girlfriend to wreak havoc on the relationship, as promised.
Incipid, with inconsistent time sequences, improbable events, and annoying stylistic tics (italic "thoughts" direct from the characters' brains.)
Yawn . . . . zzzzz