All the Ms: Manderino to Manyika

John Manderino: Reason for Leaving: Job Stories is actually quite fun. It reminded me of a scene in NCIS where Abby and Tim compare all their worst jobs, from porta-potty cleaner to burned-potato-chip-picker-out-er. 

Og Mandino: The Greatest Salesman in the World starts with a well-written chapter about a man in the ancient world preparing to give away his fortune…and I would likely take it more seriously if the cover didn’t read “This book is destined to influence countless lives.” Such blurbs remind me of Hollywood proclaiming a movie a "cultural phenomenon" before it comes out. 

Resoketswe Manenzhe: A number of fiction books take place in South Africa. That is, although France and Australia and Russia make occasional appearances, South Africa pops up on a regular business. Scatterlings is based around the 1827 Immorality Act. So not a pleasant topic though lyrically presented. 

Christine Mangan: In Tangerine, a woman in Tangiers is obsessing about someone or someone is obsessing about her. I completed the first chapter.

Sarah Manguso: Very Cold People is one of those novels that doesn’t indent the first line of every paragraph. I generally consider that unless one is Jack Kerouac, the lack of proper formatting is just lazy.
  
Manhattan Noir is a collection of, well, noir stories. The stories are presented by place–Greenwich Village, Clinton, Battery Park and so on. I read about a story about a female serial killer by Lawrence Block. It was suitably chilling! 

Sarah Ladipo Manyika: While I enjoyed the beginning of Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun, I didn’t continue reading. An elderly women whose faculties and memory are fading hits a bit too close to home these days. (My 95-year-old mother is in memory care.)