CBL looks for balance in 2022 - Part 2

I'm Carrie, and I've lost track of how many years I've been participating in the category challenges. I know it's been at least since 2010! Welcome to my second thread!

I haven't been around as much the last couple of years. In an effort to be more fit, I've been walking a lot, with and without my dog Adrian. The walking has paid off in my fitness level, but it's cut into my reading and LT time. As I enter 2022, I'm looking to find a balance between reading, posting, and keeping fit that works for me.

The reading challenges in this group and in the 75 Books group are still working for me. They provide me with opportunities to tackle some of my TBR stash as well as to discover new authors, they provide enough variety to keep me interested, and they provide social opportunities for shared reads. With that in mind, my categories this year will be much the same as last year:

American Authors (75 Books group)
British Authors (75 Books group)
Asian Authors (75 Books group)
Non-Fiction (75 Books group)
AuthorCAT
CATWoman
ShakespeareCAT
Group Reads
Reading Projects
Everything else

American Authors (75 Book Group)

JANUARY - Graphic novels and/or non-fiction
Love, Loss, and What I Wore by Ilene Beckerman (3.5) - completed 1/1/22
To the Heart of the Storm by Will Eisner (4) - completed 1/1/22

FEBRUARY - Wild Card
The Body Farm by Patricia Cornwell (4) - completed 2/20/22

MARCH
Bernard Malamud - The Fixer (4) - completed 3/29/22

APRIL - Wild Card
A Familiar Wilderness: Searching for Home on Daniel Boone's Road by S. J. Dahlman (3.5) - completed 4/15/22

MAY - 19th century authors
Life in the Iron Mills by Rebecca Harding Davis (3) - completed 5/13/22

JULY
Gish Jen - Typical American (4) - completed 7/29/22

AUGUST
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. - The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song (3.5) - completed 8/28/22

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER
John McPhee - The Pine Barrens (4) - completed 10/20/22

NOVEMBER - Native American authors, themes, and history
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann (4) - completed 11/13/22

British Authors (75 Books Group)

JANUARY - Children's Classics
A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley (5) - completed 1/9/22

FEBRUARY - Wild Card
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle (5) - completed 2/2/22

MARCH - Interwar Period
Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield (3) - completed 3/20/22

APRIL
Kamila Shamsie - Broken Verses (3.5) - completed 4/30/22

MAY - Comic books/graphic novels & audiobooks
Ethel & Ernest by Raymond Briggs (4) - completed 5/1/22
Richard II by William Shakespeare (4) - audio completed 5/8/22

JUNE
E. F. Benson - Miss Mapp (3.5) - competed 6/22/22

JULY - Georgian era
The Vicar of Wrexhill by Frances Trollope (4) - completed 7/18/22

AUGUST - Espionage
Destination Unknown by Agatha Christie (4) - completed 8/8/22

SEPTEMBER - Retellings, continuations, and non-series prequels & sequels
Jane Fairfax by Joan Aiken (3) - completed 9/29/22

OCTOBER
Aminatta Forna - Happiness (4.5) - completed 10/31/22

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER - Books about books
How to Be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis (3) - completed 12/26/22

Asian Authors (75 Books Group)
JANUARY - Turkish authors
Last Train to Istanbul by Ayse Kulin (4) - completed 1/15/22

FEBRUARY - Israeli & Palestinian authors
The Property by Rutu Modan (4) - completed 2/11/22
Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari (2.5) - completed 2/27/22

MARCH - The Arab World
The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf by Mohja Kahf (3.5) - completed 3/24/22

APRIL - Persia - Iranian authors
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi (4) - completed 4/2/22

MAY - The Stans
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (4.5) - completed 5/29/22

JUNE - The Indian subcontinent
Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai (4) - completed 6/30/22

JULY - Chinese authors
Red Mandarin Dress by Qiu Xiaolong (3.5) - completed 7/9/22

AUGUST - Japanese authors
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa (4) - completed 8/21/22

SEPTEMBER - Korean authors
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (3.5) - completed 9/21/22

OCTOBER - Indochina
Paradise of the Blind by Duong Thu Huong (4.5) - completed 10/29/22

NOVEMBER - The Malay Archipelago

DECEMBER - The Asian diaspora
The Family Chao by Lan Samantha Chang (4) - completed 12/23/22

Non-Fiction (75 Books Group)
JANUARY - Prizewinners and nominees
Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro (4.5) - completed 1/16/22

FEBRUARY - Welcome to the anthropocene
Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari (2.5) - completed 2/27/22

MARCH - Espionage
The Nazi Hunters by Neal Bascomb (4.5) - completed 3/12/22

APRIL - Armchair traveling
A Familiar Wilderness: Searching for Home on Daniel Boone's Road by S. J. Dahlman (3.5) - completed 4/15/22

MAY - From Wars to Peace
The Liberators: America's Witnesses to the Holocaust by Michael Hirsh (5) - completed 5/22/22

JULY - Books by journalists
Around the World on Two Wheels by Peter Zheutlin (5) - completed 7/5/22

AUGUST - Cross-genre
Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball (4) - completed 8/17/22

SEPTEMBER - Biography
The Lady from the Black Lagoon by Mallory O'Meara (3) - completed 9/8/22

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER - Books about books
Shakespeare Basics for Grown-Ups by E. Foley & B. Coates (3.5) - completed 11/30/22

DECEMBER - As you like it
How to Be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis (3) - completed 12/26/22

AuthorCAT
JANUARY - Indigenous Authors
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (4) - completed 1/31/222

FEBRUARY - 19th century authors
The Perpetual Curate by Margaret Oliphant (4.5) - completed 2/18/22

MARCH - Authors first published at age 40 or later
The Doctors Blackwell by Janice P. Nimura (4) - completed 3/9/22
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder (4) - completed 3/15/22
Unto Us a Son Is Given by Donna Leon (4) - completed 3/15/22

APRIL - Debut authors
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi (4) - completed 4/2/22

MAY - Author from your own country
The League of Frightened Men by Rex Stout (4) - completed 5/27/22

JUNE - Nonfiction authors
Imagined London by Anna Quindlen (3.5) - completed 6/5/22
The Stranger in My Genes by Bill Griffeth (4) - completed 6/24/22

JULY - Asian authors
Red Mandarin Dress by Qiu Xiaolong (3.5) - completed 7/9/22

AUGUST - Prize winning authors
Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball (4) - completed 8/17/22
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa (4) - completed 8/21/22
The Dragonfly Pool by Eva Ibbotson (3.5) - completed 8/24/22

SEPTEMBER - African authors
Life & Times of Michael K by J. M. Coetzee (3.5) - completed 9/19/22

OCTOBER - Authors in Translation
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (3.5) - completed 10/7/22
Paradise of the Blind by Duong Thu Huong (4.5) - completed 10/29/22

NOVEMBER - Authors who set their books against real events
The American Agent by Jacqueline Winspear (4.5) - completed 11/15/22

CATWoman

JANUARY - Biography/Autobiography/memoir by women
Love, Loss, and What I Wore by Ilene Beckerman (3.5) - completed 1/1/22
Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro (4.5) - completed 1/16/22

FEBRUARY - Women in translation
The Chalk Circle Man by Fred Vargas (4) - completed 2/6/22
The Property by Rutu Modan (4) - completed 2/11/22

MARCH - Women pioneers
The Doctors Blackwell by Janice P. Nimura (4) - completed 3/9/22
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder (4) - completed 3/15/22
Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart (4) - completed 3/24/22

APRIL - Women of color
All That She Carried by Tiya Miles (4) - completed 4/9/22
My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me by Jennifer Teege (4) - completed 4/24/22

MAY - Classics by women
Life in the Iron Mills by Rebecca Harding Davis (3) - completed 5/13/22

JUNE - Books set in cities or about cities by women
Imagined London by Anna Quindlen (3.5) - completed 6/5/22

JULY - Women in science

AUGUST - Children's/YA/Graphic novels
The Dragonfly Pool by Eva Ibbotson (3.5) - completed 8/24/22

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER - Women and crime
Light Thickens by Ngaio Marsh (4) - completed 10/20/22

ShakespeareCAT
JANUARY - King Lear
Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac (3.5) - completed 1/30/22

FEBRUARY
Much Ado About Nothing (4) - completed 2/5/22

MARCH - Book based on a Shakespeare play
The Storm by Frederick Buechner (3.5) - completed 3/31/22

APRIL - Hamlet
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell (4) - completed 4/25/22

MAY - Shakespeare's kings/medieval history
Richard II (4) - completed 5/8/22

JUNE - Ancient history
Coriolanus (4) - completed 6/30/22

JULY - Justice
Measure for Measure (3) - completed 7/31/22

AUGUST - Lesser known works
The Comedy of Errors (4) - completed 8/19/22

SEPTEMBER - Sonnets/Poems
The Wit and Wisdom of Shakespeare by Darrel Walters (4) - completed 9/28/22

OCTOBER - Macbeth
Light Thickens by Ngaio Marsh (4) - completed 10/20/22

NOVEMBER - Books about Shakespeare/the Globe
Shakespeare Basics for Grown-Ups by E. Foley & B. Coates (3.5) - completed 11/30/22

DECEMBER - A Winter's Tale
Winter's Tales by Isak Dinesen (4) - completed 12/30/22

Group Reads
The Resistance Man by Martin Walker (3.5) - completed 1/26/22
A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life by Allyson Hobbs (3) - completed 2/11/22
The Children Return by Martin Walker (3.5) - completed 2/19/22
The Doctors Blackwell by Janice P. Nimura (4) - completed 3/9/22
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson (4) - completed 3/12/22
Unto Us a Son Is Given by Donna Leon (4) - completed 3/15/22
All That She Carried by Tiya Miles (4) - completed 4/9/22
The Patriarch by Martin Walker (3.5) - completed 4/20/22
The Women of the House by Jean Zimmerman (3) - completed 5/8/22
Fatal Pursuit by Martin Walker (3.5) - completed 5/12/22
Miss Mackenzie by Anthony Trollope (3.5) - completed 6/16/22
Trace Elements by Donna Leon (3) - completed 6/17/22
Around the World on Two Wheels by Peter Zheutlin (5) - completed 7/5/22
The Templars' Last Secret by Martin Walker (3.5) - completed 7/26/22
They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the Civil War by DeAnne Blanton & Lauren M. Cook (4) - completed 8/9/22
A Taste for Vengeance by Martin Walker (3.5) - completed 8/21/22
Transient Desires by Donna Leon (4) - completed 9/3/22
The Lady from the Black Lagoon by Mallory O'Meara (3) - completed 9/8/22
All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner (4) - completed 10/9/22
Miss Marjoribanks by Margaret Oliphant (4) - completed 10/21/22
The Body in the Castle Well by Martin Walker (4) - completed 11/2/22
The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken by Laura Schenone (3.5) - completed 11/13/22
The Shooting at Chateau Rock by Martin Walker (3.5) - completed 12/3/22
Give Unto Others by Donna Leon (3) - completed 12/29/22

Reading Projects

Holocaust Reading
Last Train to Istanbul by Ayse Kulin (4) - completed 1/15/22
Hana's Suitcase by Karen Levine (4.5) - completed 2/3/22
The Property by Rutu Modan (4) - completed 2/11/22
The Nazi Hunters by Neal Bascomb (4.5) - completed 3/12/22
My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me by Jennifer Teege (4) - completed 4/24/22
The Liberators: America's Witnesses to the Holocaust by Michael Hirsh (5) - completed 5/22/22
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (4) - competed 6/15/22
Summer by Ali Smith (4) - completed 6/30/22

1,000 Books to Read Before You Die
Love, Loss, and What I Wore by Ilene Beckerman (3.5) - completed 1/1/22
Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac (3.5) - completed 1/30/22
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (4) - completed 1/31/22
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder (4) - completed 3/15/22
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll (4.5) - completed 3/18/22
Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield (3) - completed 3/20/22
Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart (4) - completed 3/24/22
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (3.5) - completed 4/5/22
Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt (3.5) - completed 4/27/22
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett (4.5) - completed 5/21/22
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (4) - completed 6/15/22
Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai (4) - completed 6/30/22
The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant by Jean de Brunhoff (3) - completed 8/1/22
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (5) - completed 8/3/22
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (4) - completed 8/3/22
A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad (4) - completed 8/31/22
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (3.5) - completed 9/5/22
Company by Samuel Beckett (3) - completed 10/2/22
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (3.5) - completed 10/7/22
Winter's Tales by Isak Dinesen (4) - completed 12/30/22
Grimms' Tales for Young and Old translated by Ralph Manheim (4.5) - completed 12/30/22

Agatha Christie
Spider's Web adapted by Charles Osborne (3.5) - completed 7/10/22
Destination Unknown (4) - completed 8/8/22
Hickory Dickory Dock (3.5) - completed 9/23/22

Rex Stout
The League of Frightened Men (4) - completed 5/27/22
The Rubber Band (4) - completed 7/24/22
The Red Box (4) - completed 9/11/22
Too Many Cooks (3.5) - completed 11/24/22

Reading Projects: Sherlock Holmes
The Adventure of the Cardboard Box (short story) (3) - completed 1/1/22
A Scandal in Bohemia (short story) (5) - completed 1/3/22
The Adventure of the Abbey Grange (short story) (4) - completed 1/4/22
The Man with the Twisted Lip (short story) (3.5) - completed 1/5/22
The Valley of Fear (4) - completed 1/7/22
Silver Blaze (short story) (4) - completed 1/8/22
The Adventure of the Red-Headed League (short story) (4) - completed 1/9/22
The Adventure of the Empty House (short story) (3.5) - completed 1/10/22
The Final Problem (short story) (3.5) - completed 1/11/22
The Adventure of the Yellow Face (short story) (3) - completed 1/13/22
The Adventure of the Dying Detective (short story) (4) - completed 1/16/22
The Adventure of the Norwood Builder (short story) (3.5) - completed 1/18/22
A Case of Identity (short story) (4) - completed 1/20/22
His Last Bow (short story) (3) - completed 1/23/22
The Sign of the Four (3.5) - completed 1/24/22
The Adventure of Black Peter (short story) (3) - completed 2/1/22
The Hound of the Baskervilles (5) - completed 2/2/22
The Five Orange Pips (short story) (3) - completed 2/6/22
The Boscombe Valley Mystery (short story) (3.5) - completed 2/12/22
The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge (short story) (3) - completed 2/13/22
The Adventure of the Red Circle (short story) (4) - completed 2/19/22
The Reigate Puzzle (short story) (4) - completed 2/21/22
The Adventure of the Priory School (short story) (4) - completed 2/23/22
The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor (short story) (4) - completed 2/24/22
The Adventure of the Second Stain (short story) (4) - completed 2/25/22
The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle (short story) (4.5) - completed 2/26/22
The Adventure of the Three Students (short story) (4) - completed 2/27/22
A Sherlock Holmes Devotional by Trisha White Priebe (2.5) - completed 3/1/22
The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb (short story) (4) - completed 3/3/22
A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro (3.5) - completed 3/6/22
The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet (short story) (3.5) - completed 3/12/22
The Adventure of the Stockbroker's Clerk (short story) (3.5) - completed 3/12/22
The Adventure of the Gloria Scott (short story) (3.5) - completed 3/17/22
The Musgrave Ritual (short story) (3.5) - completed 10/28/22
The Resident Patient (short story) (3.5) - completed 11/2/22
The Greek Interpreter (short story) (3.5) - completed 11/14/22
The Naval Treaty (short story) (4) - completed 11/21/22

Everything Else
So Many Beginnings by Bethany C. Morrow (3) - completed 1/2/22
I Could Chew on This: And Other Poems by Dogs by Francesco Marciuliano (3.5) - completed 1/15/22
A Market Tale by Martin Walker (4) - completed 2/23/22
Reflecting the Glory by N. T. Wright (3) - completed 4/24/22
Heaven and the Afterlife by James Garlow and Keith Wall (3.5) - completed 4/30/22
The Bodies in the Library by Marty Wingate (3.5) - completed 5/12/22
See the Cat: Three Stories About a Dog by David LaRochelle, illustrated by Mike Wohnoutka (4) - completed 6/23/22
The Chocolate War by Martin Walker (3.5) - completed 7/26/22
The Other Girl by Erica Spindler (3.5) - completed 8/27/22
A Better Man by Louise Penny (3.5) - completed 9/16/22
Oystercatcher by Martin Walker (3) - completed 12/13/22
A Birthday Lunch by Martin Walker (4) - completed 12/14/22

Asian Reading Challenge; AuthorCAT Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi

This graphic memoir tells the story of the artists’ childhood in Iran starting just before the 1979 revolution, when Marjane was 10, to her departure from Iran at age 14 to study in Vienna. Marjane’s parents allowed her as much freedom as they could, and she felt empowered to stand up for her beliefs. As a 10-year-old, she was reading comics about dialectical materialism, with conversations between Descartes and Marx. She bonded with her uncle, who had been a political prisoner for his communist beliefs. She also loved pop culture like jeans, makeup, and pop music (Iron Maiden and Kim Wilde were favorites). These pleasures provided an outlet from the constant threat of bombs from the Iran/Iraq war and from the revolutionary government and its strict enforcement of Islamic behavior, which for women meant being properly veiled, among other things.

The Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis were a part of my teenage years. My knowledge of these events mostly comes from the daily news broadcasts as the events unfolded. It was interesting to view these events from an insider’s perspective. The bold black and white illustrations perfectly suit the story Satrapi tells. Recommended.

4 stars

>13 cbl_tn: This one is now on my WL!

Happy new threads, Carrie!

>15 MissWatson: Thank you!

>14 Tess_W: You might want to try The Complete Persepolis instead. There is a sequel to what I read, Persepolis II: The Story of a Return that I now want to read, but my library doesn't have that one. The Complete Persepolis includes both books.

>17 cbl_tn: Thanks for the heads up! I've updated my WL!

>18 Tess_W: :-)

Reading Projects
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

In this story-within-a-story, a group of travelers sits on a boat on the Thames waiting for the tide to turn for their departure. While they wait, Charles Marlow tells his companions about his time as a steamboat captain on an African river in the employ of a trading company. Things go wrong from the outset, and the charismatic Kurtz dominates the tale long before his “on stage” appearance.

The framing of the story as a tale told at night to a captive audience gives it the feel of a ghost story. I usually do well with audiobooks, but it was the wrong choice for this book. This could be due partly to the distractions I faced during the time I listened to the audio (wildfires within 6 miles of my home), but Conrad’s dense prose could be a factor. I thought I was paying attention, but I missed a lot of important points. I’ll need to go back and read this in print at some point.

3.5 stars

CATwoman; Group Reads
All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles

My great grandmother Rose
mother of Ashley gave her this sack when
she was sold at age 9 in South Carolina
it held a tattered dress 3 handfulls of
pecans a braid of Roses hair. Told her
It be filled with my Love always
she never saw her again
Ashley is my grandmother
Ruth Middleton
1921

From these few lines embroidered on a nearly 200-year-old cotton sack, historian and Harvard professor Tiya Miles opens up a depth of story and collective memory. I thought this book was going to be about Rose, Ashley, and Ruth. It is about much more than that. It’s about the history of slavery and enslaved women, particularly in and around Charleston, South Carolina. It’s about material culture, especially textiles and women’s history. It’s about historiography, about the historical method for researching and writing about the lives and experiences of enslaved people in the absence of documentary evidence.

If I had it to do over, I would read “Little Sack of Something: An Essay on Process” first. If I had understood how and why the book came to be before I dug into it, I don’t think I would have been as disappointed at the outset when I realized that the book I was reading wasn’t the book I thought I was going to read. I was also annoyed by some repetition of ideas and expressions from chapter to chapter, until a friend pointed out that the book probably originated in chapters that were presented on different occasions. The footnotes indicated that my friend’s observation was correct.

I am drawn to biographies and books about historical events. While the author tells readers about Rose, Ashley, and Ruth, their stories are told in support of a broader and more abstract thesis. The research and use of source material is exemplary. Unusually for a trade publisher these days, this book includes numbered footnotes, and they take up roughly a quarter of the space. I do wish it also included a bibliography, which would have made it easier to add references to my reading wishlist.

4 stars

>20 cbl_tn: I need to do a re-read of this. The first time I was annoyed and don't think I gave it due diligence. Thanks for reminding me!

>22 Tess_W: Glad I could help!

Nonfiction Challenge; American Author Challenge A Familiar Wilderness: Searching for Home on Daniel Boone's Road by S. J. Dahlman

Not long after his wife’s death from Huntington’s disease, the author set out to walk Daniel Boone’s Wilderness Road from Sycamore Shoals park in Elizabethton, Tennessee, to Boonesborough, Kentucky. His conversations with people he met along the way provide a snapshot of Appalachian life and culture in the early 21st century.

Although the author has lived in Appalachia for the better part of two decades as a professor at a small liberal arts college, he is not from Appalachia. His perspective tends more toward that of an outsider rather than a local. His route passed through several college towns – Barbourville, Berea, and Richmond, Kentucky – and his descriptions of these towns and their inhabitants make them seem like oases in a cultural desert.

Dahlman’s observations are incisive. However, he doesn’t offer readers an overarching analysis of his journey and its lessons. Another author might have framed the journey as a grief memoir, but this author avoided that kind of internal focus. For the most part, he kept his gaze outward.

3.5 stars

>24 cbl_tn: as I'm interested in history, this goes on my WL!

>25 Tess_W: It's as much social history as U.S. history. It's an up-close look at present-day Appalachian life and culture.

Group Reads
The Patriarch by Martin Walker

St. Denis town policeman Bruno Courrèges is thrilled with an opportunity to meet his childhood hero, a World War II pilot known as “The Patriarch”. The Red Countess has asked him to be her escort for The Patriarch’s party, probably because he’ll look good while handling her wheelchair. When one of the guests is found dead the next morning, Bruno is called in to take part in a cursory investigation. A doctor quickly rules the death as due to natural causes, but Bruno has a kernel of doubt that keeps growing as the story progresses. Meanwhile, an eccentric local with too many deer on her property finds herself in trouble after one of her deer causes a tragic accident. Per usual for the series, cases that seem completely unrelated share common actors.

I’ve come to enjoy this series as a pleasant diversion from day-to-day life, with its idyllic setting and
Bruno’s close-knit circle of friends. I try to overlook most of the flaws, but I found it hard to swallow that, after more than a decade as the town policeman, Bruno had not met any of The Patriarch’s family previously. There was a point in the book when I was searching for something, anything, to throw at Bruno. Despite his suspicion of The Patriarch’s daughter-in-law, Madeleine, he didn’t put up any resistance to her seduction, even though it was obvious she was playing him. And Pamela voiced what all readers have been thinking when she observed that, although he says he wants a wife and children, he is attracted to women who don’t want that.

Readers new to the series should be aware that this book contains lengthy spoilers for earlier books in the series. The spoilers and Bruno’s constantly evolving love life are reasons to start this series from the beginning and read it in order.

3.5 stars

CAT Woman; Reading Projects
My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past by Jennifer Teege & Nikola Sellmair

Jennifer Teege spent her earliest years in a Catholic orphanage. Teege’s German mother had a brief relationship with Teege’s Nigerian father, but they were no longer together by the time Teege was born. At that time in Germany, it was common for single mothers who had to work to place their children in an orphanage. They still had visitation rights and often the children would spend weekends with their mothers or other family. When she was a toddler, Teege was taken in by a foster family. She still saw her mother and grandmother regularly until she was adopted by her foster family.

Teege’s sense of identity was upended at age 38 when she picked up a random book off of a library shelf. She found she was holding a book about her mother and her mother’s father, the Nazi war criminal Amon Goeth, the concentration camp commandant known to many from the film Schindler’s List. Teege sought out a therapist to help her deal with this new knowledge as well as the abandonment issues stemming from her relationships with her birth mother and grandmother. Also, Teege had lived and studied in Israel for several years in her twenties, and she didn’t know how to tell her Israeli friends that her grandfather had been a mass murderer of Jews.

This book is an odd mix of memoir and biography, with parts written by Teege interspersed with more objective commentary by her co-author, Nikola Sellmair. Teege contextualizes her individual psychological trauma with that of other descendants of Nazi war criminals, descendants of average Germans who sympathized with the Nazi party, and descendants of Holocaust survivors. She also reflects on generational differences between the children and the grandchildren of war criminals and Holocaust survivors. Teege’s personal journey is an example of how one reckons with one’s past and the weight of family secrets in order to contribute to a better future.

4 stars

>21 cbl_tn: I'm taking a BB for All That She Carried. I've done a lot of needlework myself and have always found needlework samplers interesting in that they often provide a small glimpse of the crafter's life.

>29 mathgirl40: It's a worthwhile read!

>21 cbl_tn: I already have this on my Kindle in preparation for a book club read later this year. I am looking forward to reading it. Thanks for your review.

>31 beebeereads: I read it for a book club as well. I hope your discussion is as good as ours was!

Everything Else
Reflecting the Glory by N. T. Wright

This collection of Lenten meditations includes readings from 2 Corinthians 2-6, 1 Peter 2, Revelation 4-5, the gospel of John (with particular emphasis on chapters 13-17), and 1 Corinthians 15. I’ve noticed that New Testament scholar N. T. Wright tends to publish his works for lay readers as Tom Wright. Since he’s credited as N. T. Wright in this book, I was expecting “meatier” content, and I was disappointed that many of the meditations seem to be little more than paraphrases of that day’s passage. A few of the meditations helped me to view familiar passages in a new, more meaningful way, and for that I am grateful.

3 stars

ShakespeareCAT
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

This historical novel about William Shakespeare’s family explores the effects of grief over the death of a child/sibling on a marriage and on a family. The first half of the book leads up to Hamnet’s death in a dual narrative alternating between Hamnet’s last day and his parents’ courtship and early married life. The weight of Hamnet’s absence and the family’s grief dominates the second half of the book.

I expected more from the domestic violence subplot than O’Farrell delivered. It’s implied that Hamnet’s death resulted from a blow to the head when he got too close to his grandfather John. O’Farrell teases readers with all the ways that Hamnet’s death could have been avoided, but what’s the point since Hamnet’s mother and other relatives never suspect his true cause of death?

I usually avoid historical fiction about real people, preferring not to get fiction mixed up with facts. I am happy that I made this book an exception to my rule.

4 stars

Reading Projects
Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

Kindhearted ten-year-old Winnie Foster gets caught up with the Tuck family and their secret. Winnie can hardly believe their story, yet when it leads to tragedy, she comes to their aid in a surprising way. The story seems too dark for its intended audience since Winnie witnesses a murder and helps the murderer escape from jail. Yet is it any darker than the fairy tales I loved as a child?

3.5 stars

British Authors Challenge
Broken Verses by Kamila Shamsie

31-year-old Aasmaani has a new job at a Karachi television studio, and a new apartment next door to her half-sister and her husband. Aasmaani’s life has been defined by her activist mother’s disappearance 14 years earlier, and the death of her mother’s lover, The Poet, two years before that. It seems like an opportunity for a new start, but soon after Aasmaani’s arrival at the television statement, someone starts sending letters written in a code known only to Aasmaani’s mother, The Poet, and Aasmaani. Does this mean Aasmaani’s mother is still alive?

This novel explores themes of grief, depression, love, parent/child relationships, feminism, and politics. Aasmaani has been so preoccupied by the people and relationships she’s lost that she can’t fully embrace the relationships she has now. This novel will speak to individuals weighed down by grief, as well as to those who do their best to provide social and emotional support for bereaved persons. It wasn’t an easy read, but it was ultimately rewarding.

3.5 stars

Everything Else
Heaven and the Afterlife by James Garlow and Keith Wall

What will happen to me when I die? Most of us will wrestle with this question at some point in our lives. Garlow, an evangelical pastor, looks at what the Bible teaches about the afterlife. Heaven is only a part of that teaching. He also looks at biblical teaching on hell, angels, demons, Satan, ghosts and communication with deceased loved ones, reincarnation and annihilationism. Garlow includes a lot of anecdotal evidence from near-death experiences, encounters with angels and ghosts, etc. The stories of other people’s experiences are the major weakness of the book, as readers must decide how far to trust Garlow’s judgment of the validity of these stories and the truthfulness of their original tellers.

I read an ARC that originally belonged to my father, and it included his marginal notes. I learned as much from my father’s notes as I did from the book. It struck me that this is a trustworthy way to receive communication from my deceased father!

3.5 stars

April Recap

American Authors (75 Books group)
A Familiar Wilderness: Searching for Home on Daniel Boone’s Road by S. J. Dahlman (3.5)

British Authors (75 Books group)
Broken Verses by Kamila Shamsie (3.5)

Asian Authors (75 Books group)
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi (4)

Non-Fiction (75 Books group)
A Familiar Wilderness: Searching for Home on Daniel Boone’s Road by S. J. Dahlman (3.5)

AuthorCAT
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi (4)

CATWoman
All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles (4)My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Pastby Jennifer Teege and Nikola Sellmair (4)

ShakespeareCAT
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell (4)

Group Reads
All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles (4)The Patriarch by Martin Walker (3.5)

Reading Projects
My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past by Jennifer Teege and Nikola Sellmair (4)
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (3.5)
Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt (3.5)

Everything else
Reflecting the Glory by N. T. Wright (3)
Heaven and the Afterlife by James Garlow and Keith Wall (3.5)

Books owned: 2
Books borrowed: 3
Ebooks borrowed: 3
eAudiobooks borrowed: 3

Best of the month: My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me by Jennifer Teege & Nikola Sellmair

Some really good reads! I took a few BB's!

>39 Tess_W: Thanks!

British Authors
Ethel & Ernest by Raymond Briggs
Cartoonist Raymond Briggs tells the story of his parents’ marriage in this sweet graphic novel. His parents met in 1928, when his father was a milkman and his mother was a lady’s maid. Together they weathered the changes of the mid-20th century, including the rise of Hitler, World War II, post-war rationing, and the introduction of modern conveniences like refrigerators and television. Raymond was their much-doted-on only child. I think his parents would have been pleased with this loving tribute to their quiet lives.

4 stars

>41 cbl_tn: That book sounds lovely. I'm going to have a look for it. I like Raymond Briggs's books.

>42 VivienneR: It's a very moving story. Briggs was a lucky young man to have parents like that.

Group Reads
The Women of the House by Jean Zimmerman

This biography of four Colonial women of the Philipse dynasty spans more than a century between Margaret Hardenbroeck’s 1659 arrival in New Amsterdam to the loss of her great-granddaughter Mary Philipse Morris’s estates following the Revolutionary War. I have mixed feelings about this book. I hate it when biographers tell us what their subjects thought if there isn’t documentation to back it up like a diary or letters. This author does this repeatedly throughout the book. She tells readers what Margaret thought about as she sat on her stoop, and what Mary and her husband talked about as they rode together in their carriage. There are no diaries or letters in the source list. The source list reveals another weakness in the book, as it does not include archival or primary sources. The author relied almost exclusively on secondary sources. Finally, while it’s presented as women’s history, it’s really more of a history of the Philipse family, as there is as much emphasis on the men of the family as on the women.

Despite its flaws, I am glad that I read the book since I have New Amsterdam and New Netherlands ancestry. The book’s main strength is the social history of Colonial New York and families like the Philipses who built fortunes during that era. My ancestors weren’t in the same social circles as the Philipse family, but it’s likely that they would have done business with them at some point. At the very least, they would have used the Philipse family’s toll bridge that linked Manhattan to Westchester County and the outlying farmland.

3 stars

ShakespeareCAT; British Authors Challenge Richard II by William Shakespeare

“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” might sum up this drama as well as anything. Shakespeare’s play tells the story of Richard II’s deposition by his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, who became Henry IV. There’s a lot of musing on the divine right of kings, as well as on the consent of the governed.

Henry Bolingbroke’s rise begins with a dispute with Thomas Mowbray over the death of Thomas of Woodstock, the king’s uncle (and also Bolingbroke’s uncle), apparently at the king’s behest. The play ends as it began, with Exton’s murder of the deposed Richard because he inferred it was Henry IV’s wish.

4 stars

Group Reads
Fatal Pursuit by Martin Walker

This series installment finds St. Denis’s chief of police, Bruno Courrèges, once again juggling multiple responsibilities. He is called to the scene of the unattended death of a researcher. The man was a heart attack waiting to happen, and his doctor would have no problem signing a death certificate to that effect. But Bruno has doubts, and since he’s been right and the doctor wrong before, Bruno is given time to follow up on his suspicions. The participants in a local car rally include a couple of men trying to trace a nearly priceless Bugatti that disappeared during the Vichy regime, last seen in the Périgord. Bruno also steps in to help a juvenile delinquent who is being bullied by a classmate. And somehow he finds time to start a new romance.

I’m neither a racing fan nor a car enthusiast, so this novel’s setting didn’t have as much appeal for me as most of the other books in the series. Maybe that’s why I had a harder time suspending my disbelief when Bruno solved a decades-old mystery in just a few hours’ time.

Just when I thought we’d seen the last of Isabelle, she’s back heading a Eurojust operation in Bruno’s territory. Of all the women that Bruno has been involved with in the course of the series, I like her the least. With time, distance, and a new relationship, it seems like Bruno is finally seeing the flaws in her character.

Finally, a warning to readers new to the series. These novels usually include spoilers for earlier books in the series, although this one has fewer spoilers than most.

3.5 stars

Everything Else
The Bodies in the Library by Marty Wingate

As the new curator of the First Edition Society in Bath, Haley Burke has her hands full trying to raise the society’s visibility while keeping peace with its secretary, Mrs. Woolgar. The two women are thrown together a lot, as they not only work together at the society, but also live on the society’s premises. Mrs. Woolgar has a basement flat, while Hayley is upstairs from the library.

The society library houses first editions of Golden Age mysteries. One of Hayley’s new initiatives is allowing a fan fiction writers’ group to meet in the library on Wednesday evenings. Mrs. Woolgar does not approve. When one of the writers’ group members is found dead in the society library, Hayley is forced to take an interest in the investigation to clear the society from suspicion. Did I mention that Hayley’s specialty is 19th century literature, and she’s never read a Golden Age mystery? She’ll get a crash course in detection in the course of the novel.

Although it wasn’t too difficult for me to guess the killer’s identity, the author did a decent job of casting suspicion on several of the characters. The plot is nicely paced, and it’s not overly weighted with character development as so many other first-in-series cozies are. The Bath setting will be a draw for many Anglophile cozy fans, so it’s disappointing that the author doesn’t take better advantage of the location. Hayley spends an awful lot of time in Waitrose, and it’s a chain supermarket not unique to Bath.

3.5 stars

CATwoman
Life in the Iron Mills by Rebecca Harding Davis

This short story/novella illustrates the poverty and desperation of iron mill workers in the first half of the 19th century. Its author, Rebecca Harding Davis, sets her story at about the time of her birth. However, she lived in Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia) during her formative years and was likely familiar enough with its iron mills to describe it accurately. Biblical allusions abound, and Davis seems to expect her readers to be familiar with scripture.

The korl statue sculpted by Hugh Wolfe symbolizes the hunger of the poor iron workers for an escape from the hell-like conditions of an iron mill. (The description of the statue made me think of Donatello’s Mary Magdalene.) The name “Wolfe” also evokes the idea of hunger.

I picked this up in order to learn more about the iron industry, since I recently discovered that a branch of my family owned a large iron mill from roughly the mid-18th to the mid-19th century. (My branch of this family were farmers.) I listened to a LibriVox recording, and while their volunteer readers are often amateurs, this one’s reader has many professional audiobook recordings to her credit.

3 stars

>48 cbl_tn: If you are wanting to continue on this theme, I might suggest Out of This Furnace: A Novel of Immigrant Labor in America by Thomas Bell. It tracks 2-3 families of Slovaks from immigration to their times spent working in the Pennsylvania steel mills. I found it very interesting and the writing was superb.

>49 Tess_W: Thanks so much for the recommendation! I will keep it in mind. I am also interested in the industries my Pennsylvania ancestors worked in - mining, canal boats, and silk mills. Please let me know if you come across anything on those subjects!

>50 cbl_tn: Being a history professor, I have come across a few, although this is not in my area of expertise:

Remembering Lattimer: Labor, Migration, and Race in Pennsylvania Anthracite Country (Working Class in American History) This is the story of the Lattimer Massacre, a little known incident of the 1890's, I believe. There are many books written on this incident as well as trial coverage with artist renderings.

The Homestead Strike of 1892 by Arthur Burgoyne is about the Carnegie Steel Mill strike.

My husband and his family are from Pennsylvania, specifically the Meadville and Conneaut Lake areas, with a few in Erie. Many of them worked at the Talon Zipper Company and the Erie Lackawana Railroad.

>51 Tess_W: Thank you for all three recommendations! The library where I work has all of them in ebook format. :-)

My grandfather was born in Columbia County, PA, near Bloomsburg. His ancestors were in Columbia and Montour counties and other regions along the Susquehanna for at least 100 years before his birth in 1908. Two of his brothers worked in the silk mills. One of his uncles died in the Nanticoke mine disaster in the 1880s. His grandfather was a miner at the end of his life. A great-grandfather and other relatives were canal boatmen.

>47 cbl_tn: You liked that one better than I did.

>53 thornton37814: Yes. I hadn't read a cozy in a while and it was a nice change of pace.

Reading Projects
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Sara Crewe’s mother died when Sara was an infant, and Sara has been brought up by her Army captain father in India. As soon as she’s old enough, Captain Crewe makes arrangements for Sara to enroll in Miss Minchin’s boarding school in London. The wealthy Captain Crewe spares no expense to make Sara comfortable at the school, where she will have a private room with its own sitting room, beautiful clothes, and her own pony and carriage. Sara is a kind and generous girl, and she befriends the girls that the other girls shun. Sara has a vivid imagination and she entrances the other girls with her storytelling. Sara imagines that she is a princess, and she tries to behave as a princess would do. This attitude serves her well when her father dies after losing all his fortune, and Sara becomes an unpaid servant relegated to an attic bedroom. Even in these unpleasant circumstances, Sara is still kind and generous. Things eventually work out for Sara in a way that even her vivid imagination can’t conceive.

Sara seems a little too perfect, especially for a child, yet her attitude is one that I aspire to for myself. Sara’s riches to rags to riches story brings to mind the Apostle Paul’s words in Philippians 4:11-13:
11 Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. 12 I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. 13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. (KJV)

I am very familiar with the Shirley Temple movie, which changed the plot somewhat. I love the movie version and the book equally, and Shirley Temple was perfect for the role of Sara.

4.5 stars

Non-Fiction Challenge; Reading Projects
The Liberators: America's Witnesses to the Holocaust by Michael Hirsh

In the first decade of the 21st century, author Hirsh interviewed many of the surviving U.S. veterans who liberated concentration camps in Germany and other parts of Western Europe. Most of the interviewees were in their eighties and nineties at the time of the interviews. For some, it was the first time they had ever spoken about what they had witnessed. My takeaways from this book:

There were many more camps than I realized. The main camps like Dachau and Auschwitz had dozens of sub-camps.

Camps kept springing up through the final weeks of the war in Europe, as the Nazis were determined to exterminate the Jews and other “undesirable” populations in the camps rather than allow the Allies to liberate them.

Many veterans recalled smelling a terrible odor beginning several miles away from the camps and getting stronger the closer they approached. The veterans who spoke of the odor nearly to a person rejected claims of the local Germans who said that they had no idea what was going on in the camps. The stench made it impossible for them to believe those claims.

Most of the veterans still suffered from PTSD more than sixty years after these events. I agree with the author that the U.S. needs to provide more and better mental health services for veterans.

This book preserves eyewitness testimony from some of the first witnesses to the horrors of the Holocaust. It’s not easy reading, but it’s important reading, and it should be widely available in libraries to keep these memories alive and prevent this evil from being repeated.

5 stars

>55 cbl_tn: That book is on my 2nd on my TBR pile!

>57 Tess_W: It's a lovely book, and if you're familiar with the film, it still holds surprises.

AuthorCAT
The League of Frightened Men by Rex Stout

What does a good private detective do when clients are scarce? He uses his skills to find clients! A newspaper article about an obscenity case in which the book’s author claims to have committed a murder leads to a potentially very lucrative case for Nero Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin. The author in question had been injured in a hazing incident at Harvard. The group of men responsible for his injury had formed a league to atone for their youthful sin. Two league members had died recently, and other league members received threatening poems following the deaths. All of the men are edgy, and their nervousness increases after another of their number disappears. Wolfe will match wits with a very clever suspect who has managed to commit murders while being closely watched without leaving a trace of evidence.

Wolfe’s esoteric eccentricities and Archie’s sarcasm are a great combination. Depression provides a backdrop for this case, as does New York City. Several of the league members are hard up for work, as are Wolfe, Archie, and several of the detectives they frequently employ to assist with the leg work. It may read like a period piece now, but it probably seemed very modern to Stout’s contemporaries.

4 stars

I am sorry for neglecting my thread for so long! I had COVID at the beginning of the month, which I experienced as a cold, and I didn't feel like reading while my head was congested. Then I had a virtual conference last week, and I've been catching up on other things this week.

My 14th Thingaversary was the 13th, and I've ordered 15 books to celebrate. Most have arrived, but I'm still waiting on three or four more to get here.





By the Grace of the Game: The Holocaust, a Basketball Legacy, and the American Dream by Dan Grunfeld (ebook)
Around the World on Two Wheels: Annie Londonderry's Extraordinary Ride by Peter Zheutlin
They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the American Civil War by DeAnne Blanton & Lauren M. Cook
The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken: A Search for Food and Family by Laura Schenone
Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball
The Pine Barrens by John McPhee
Soon by Morris Gleitzman
A Meditation on Murder by Robert Thorogood (ebook)
The Killing of Polly Carter by Robert Thorogood (ebook)
The Stranger in My Genes by Bill Griffeth
100 Bible Verses that Made America by Robert J. Morgan (ebook)
The Listening Road: One Man's Ride Across America to Start Conversations About God by Neil Tomba
Seeking Whom He May Devour by Fred Vargas
The Unanswered Letter: One Holocaust Family's Desperate Plea for Help by Faris Cassell
Constable on the Hill by Nicholas Rhea (ebook)

Happy Thingaversary, and I hope you're fully recovered now!

Happy Thingaversary! Looks like some interesting books.

Happy Thingaversary! Glad you didn't suffer too much from Covid. What a great haul!

Missed you! I'm sorry to hear you had COVID and hope you're feeling better :)

>61 christina_reads: >62 dudes22: >63 Tess_W: >64 rabbitprincess: Thanks, everyone! I am fully recovered and doing great. Hopefully I can catch up on my reviews over the weeked!

Congratulations on your Thingaversary, Carrie! My 14th Thingaversary is tomorrow and I have 15 book to add to my library as well. Here's to another 14! :)

Happy Thingaversary, Carrie! I'm glad Covid didn't bother you too much.

>66 DeltaQueen50: So we are nearly twins then! Happy Thingaversary!

>67 MissWatson: Thank you!

Asian Authors Challenge
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Several decades of Afghanistan’s history provide the backdrop for this memorable novel. Amir and Hassan were inseparable as children, but their friendship was not equal. Amir’s father was wealthy, and Hassan’s father was his servant. Amir went to school, while Hassan did not. When Amir and Hassan were twelve, everything changed, and Amir lived with his guilt long after Hassan was no longer a part of his life. Then Amir is offered a chance to redeem himself. Will he overcome his fear to do the right thing, or will his desire for self-preservation once again prove too strong to resist?

This moving novel explores grief and loss on many levels, from personal to cultural. Its themes include friendship, fathers and sons, coming of age, failure, love, and kites. I flew kites as a child, and even made a few. I had no idea that fighting is a thing.

4.5 stars

May Recap

American Authors (75 Books group)
Life in the Iron Mills by Rebecca Harding Davis (3)

British Authors (75 Books group)
Ethel & Ernest by Raymond Briggs (4)
Richard II by William Shakespeare (4)

Asian Authors (75 Books group)
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (4.5)

Non-Fiction (75 Books group)
The Liberators: America’s Witnesses to the Holocaust by Michael Hirsh (5)

AuthorCAT
The League of Frightened Men by Rex Stout (4)

CATWoman
Life in the Iron Mills by Rebecca Harding Davis (3)

ShakespeareCAT
Richard II (4)

Group Reads
The Women of the House by Jean Zimmerman (3)
Fatal Pursuit by Martin Walker (3.5)

Reading Projects
The Liberators: America’s Witnesses to the Holocaust by Michael Hirsh (5)
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett (4.5)

Everything else
The Bodies in the Library by Marty Wingate (3.5) – completed 5/12/22

Books owned: 2
Books borrowed: 3
Ebooks borrowed: 1
eAudiobooks borrowed: 4

Best of the month: The Liberators: America’s Witnesses to the Holocaust by Michael Hirsh
Worst of the month: Life in the Iron Mills by Rebecca Harding Davis

AuthorCAT; CATwoman
Imagined London by Anna Quindlen

Quindlen’s memoir pays homage to a city she loved for decades before she ever visited in person. For most of her life, she knew London only through its rich literary heritage and the description of authors like Dickens and Doyle. London is the city I called home for several years in my early twenties, so it’s a city I knew well once upon a time. I enjoyed revisiting it through Quindlen’s memoir, but, sadly, Quindlen’s memoir didn’t leave a lasting impression on me.

3.5 stars

Reading Projects
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

When Jewish teen Josef Kavalier needs to escape Prague in the 1930s, his training as an escape artist proves invaluable. He makes his way to the New York apartment of his grandmother, aunt, and cousin, Sam Klayman. Sam dreams of making it big in the world of comics, and Joe is a talented artist. Together they create an action hero who will shape their destiny.

This epic novel brings mid-twentieth century New York to life, as well as the early years of the comic book industry. However, I was most drawn to the first section of the book that describes Josef’s life in Prague, the increasing danger the Jews faced during Hitler’s ascent, and the legend of the Golem. Chabon is a masterful storyteller, and he’s at the top of his game here.

4 stars

>72 cbl_tn: Glad you liked that one. I will put it on my list. I heard this author speak at the Thurber House (Columbus, Ohio) about 10 years ago. Following that I read Wonder Boys, but was not overly impressed; however, I think it was the type of book (parody).

>72 cbl_tn: I think this is the fourth of his books I've read, and they've all been very different. The only one I didn't like is The Yiddish Policemen's Union. I haven't read Wonder Boys.

Group Reads
Miss Mackenzie by Anthony Trollope

Until her brother’s death, Margaret Mackenzie’s world had been limited largely to the house she shared with her invalid brother and serving as his caregiver. Her brother’s death opens up a new world to Miss Mackenzie, as she inherits his modest fortune. There’s enough for her to set up a household in Littlebath, with one of her nieces as a companion. Although Margaret is long past the first blush of youth, she is not quite middle aged, and she soon finds herself with several suitors. It doesn’t take Margaret long to realize that her suitors seem to be more interested in her money than in herself. Nothing in her prior life has prepared her for the circumstances in which she finds herself. Then another abrupt change in Margaret’s fortune reinforces just how alone in the world she is.

I find Margaret to be one of Trollope’s most interesting heroines. Her courage and determination to face her problems head on seem to balance her lack of experience and social awkwardness. Several familiar faces from the Barsetshire and Palliser novels provided a pleasant surprise.

3.5 stars

Group Reads Trace Elements by Donna Leon

Venice’s Commissario Brunetti and his colleague, Commissario Griffoni, are called to the bedside of a dying woman. They see the tragedy in the situation, as the woman’s husband has recently died in a motorbike accident, and their two school-aged daughters will soon be orphans. The dying woman is worried about “bad money”. But what does she mean by that? The husband’s death seemed accidental. Is it possible that he was murdered?

Leon weaves environmental concerns into the plots of many of her novels, and this one is no exception. At this point in the series, I feel like Leon has overused the water pollution theme, and consequently the novel feels as stagnant as the water. I had a long and unexpected interruption to my listening time, so it took me several weeks to finish the audio version. It seemed like it was never going to end.

3 stars

British Authors
Miss Mapp by E. F. Benson

Miss Mapp takes advantage of the fortuitous placement of her house to keep an eye on the comings and goings of Tilling. She has a couple of rivals for pacesetter, and she takes advantage of every opportunity to one-up her rivals. She is a proud woman, and will manipulate the truth without a twinge of conscience in order to save face. Occasionally she suspects that her neighbors see through her ruses, but her suspicions are fleeting.

I alternated between the Project Gutenberg ebook and the Librivox recording so that I could listen while I finished a knitting project. I don’t often do that, but it worked OK with this book. I didn’t find any of the characters sympathetic, but I enjoyed the book anyway. It’s really well done. The chapters are episodic, yet they serve a larger story arc.

3.5 stars

Happy belated Thingaversary, Carrie!

>78 RidgewayGirl: Thank you!!

Everything Else
See the Cat by David LaRochelle, illustrated by Mike Wohnoutka

This early reader book includes three short stories about Max the dog. Max talks back to the book when it says things he doesn’t like. The playful humor is just the sort of thing that delighted me as a child and still does as an adult.

4 stars

AuthorCAT
The Stranger in My Genes by Bill Griffeth

Genealogy is a serious hobby for CNBC news anchor Bill Griffeth. A number of years ago, he wrote By Faith Alone, which explores the history of his Griffeth forebears through the lens of their religious faith. A genealogical DNA test shook his sense of identity when it unexpectedly revealed that he was not, in fact, a Griffeth. This memoir chronicles Griffeth’s journey from denial through acceptance of the stranger who provided half of his DNA.

This book shares many similarities with Dani Shapiro’s outstanding memoir, Inheritance. Griffeth and Shapiro’s DNA surprises are not uncommon, and both of their memoirs might be helpful reading for others who’ve suddenly found themselves in the same boat.

4 stars

Reading Projects
Summer by Ali Smith

The final novel in Smith’s seasonal quartet unites and completes the set. Like the previous three novels in the set, its themes include politics, immigration, family, love, loss, language, and the visual arts. It’s the first fiction I’ve read that speaks to the COVID-19 pandemic. Each novel in the quartet reflects on the work of a 20th-century female visual artist, with Italian filmmaker Lorenza Mazzetti as the featured artist in this book.

The elderly Daniel Gluck is a recurring character who first appeared in Autumn, and readers learn much more about his family and his personal history during World War II and the Holocaust. His young neighbor, Elisabeth, also reappears. Charlotte, Art, and Iris return from Winter. Summer introduces teen siblings Sacha and Robert Greenlaw and their mother, former actress Grace. A series of circumstances brings all of these characters together, yet Smith gives her readers the sense that their destinies were already intertwined.

4 stars

ShakespeareCAT
Coriolanus by William Shakespeare

Roman Caius Marcius is a successful soldier but a terrible politician. After defeating the Volscians at Corioles and earning a new surname, Coriolanus, the tragic hero refuses to pander to the plebeians and wins their wrath rather than their electoral support of his appointment as consul. As the audience sees how the tribunes Brutus and Sicinius manipulate public opinion to their own ends, Coriolanus does not appear as entirely unsympathetic.

4 stars

Asian Authors; Reading Projects
Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai

Tara’s visit to her childhood home in Old Delhi triggers memories of the past for both Tara and her older sister, Bim. The sisters’ different personalities different life choices have set them at odds, but by the end of Tara’s visit they will work through their painful memories to find forgiveness, acceptance, and peace.

This novel transcends the genre of domestic fiction in ways that remind me of authors like Jane Austen. The family home in Old Delhi and the family circle are central to the plot. The action travels no farther than next door, except in memory. The social milieu is confined to the small Old Delhi neighborhood. However, the neighborhood was irrevocably changed with India’s partition in 1947, and the effects of change reverberate in the novel’s present.

4 stars

June Recap

American Authors (75 Books group)

British Authors (75 Books group)
Miss Mapp by E. F. Benson (3.5)

Asian Authors (75 Books group)
Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai (4)

Non-Fiction (75 Books group)

AuthorCAT
Imagined London by Anna Quindlen (3.5)
The Stranger in My Genes by Bill Griffeth (4)

CATWoman
Imagined London by Anna Quindlen (3.5)

ShakespeareCAT
Coriolanus (4)

Group Reads
Miss Mackenzie by Anthony Trollope (3.5)
Trace Elements by Donna Leon (3)

Reading Projects
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (4)
Summer by Ali Smith (4)
Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai (4)

Everything else
See the Cat: Three Stories About a Dog by David LaRochelle, illustrated by Mike Wohnoutka (4)

Books owned: 2
Books borrowed: 1
Ebooks owned: 2
Ebooks borrowed: 2
eAudiobooks borrowed: 3

Best of the month: Summer by Ali Smith
Worst of the month: Trace Elements by Donna Leon

>85 cbl_tn: I loved Miss Mapp and have read it, and the rest of the Lucia series, many times.

>86 pamelad: I look forward to continuing with the books! I have put off watching the TV series until after I've read them.

Nonfiction Challenge; Group Reads
Around the World on Two Wheels by Peter Zheutlin

In 1894, Jewish wife and mother Annie Kopchovsky, for reasons known only to herself, undertook to circumnavigate the world on a bicycle within fifteen months. She became known to the world as Annie Londonderry. More than a century later, her great-grandnephew, a freelance journalist, reconstructed her story, largely from the newspaper accounts that followed her around the globe. Annie left widely conflicting accounts of her experiences and her personal life. Zheutlin’s reconciliation of numerous inconsistencies no doubt represents countless hours of organizing material and comparing details. This enterprising Victorian woman’s story gives readers a glimpse of late Gilded Age popular culture, as Zheutlin provides context for Annie’s journey with information about early bicycle manufacturing and cycling clubs, the women’s movement of the era, and contemporaries who undertook similar challenges.

5 stars

>88 cbl_tn: I'm making good progress on that one. I'm about 1/3 through the text and will probably be halfway or better by the time I go to bed.

>88 cbl_tn: A BB for me!

>89 thornton37814: I hope you're enjoying it as much as I did!

>90 Tess_W: :-)

Asian Authors
Red Mandarin Dress by Qiu Xiaolong

When Shanghai’s Chief Inspector Chen is asked to look into a politically charged corruption case, he begs off with the excuse that his studies for his literature course won’t give him enough time for it. He’s been meaning to enroll in a literature course, so what better time than now? Chen’s course also keeps him away from headquarters as his colleagues investigate a serial murder case in which the victims are found wearing red mandarin dresses. Even though he is officially on leave, Chen works behind the scenes to help his partner Yu identify and catch the serial killer.

I didn’t enjoy this series installment as much as I’ve liked earlier books in the series. It’s been several years since I read the last book in this series, but Chen seemed more impulsive than the Chen I remembered. It seems surprising that Chen could decide to take a leave of absence or go on vacation without letting his employer know what he was doing. This book didn’t include as much poetry as I remember from previous books in the series, but classical Chinese literature is more prominent in this one. I didn’t enjoy the descriptions of food, particularly the “cruel dishes”. There wasn’t enough of Yu’s wife, Peiqin, a sharp woman whose insight is often helpful in investigations, and Yu’s father, Old Hunter, only appears at the other end of a telephone and readers don’t even get to hear his voice.

I liked the historical antecedents of the crime in China’s Cultural Revolution, and what amounts to an insider’s perspective of that era. Chen’s reflections on the differences between between Chinese culture and philosophy and Western culture and Freudian psychology were also interesting.

3.5 stars

Reading Projects
Spider's Web by Agatha Christie; adapted by Charles Osborne

The disposal of a corpse holds a lot of comedic possibilities, and it’s been used in memorable films such as The Trouble with Harry, plays such as Arsenic and Old Lace, and even in the staging of the opera Gianni Schicchi. It should be no surprise that Agatha Christie would take a stab at this plot. This is one of Christie’s original dramas that wasn’t based on an earlier novel or story. Charles Osborne provides a readable novelization of Christie’s play, but while the plot is obviously Christie’s, it doesn’t read like a novel Christie would have written. Christie had a knack for conveying action through dialogue. Osborne’s novelization is heavy on description, and it reads as if he turned stage directions into prose without much editing (which is probably exactly what he did).

3.5 sta

British Authors
The Vicar of Wrexhill by Frances Trollope

The Mowbray family was part of the gentry of the English village of Wrexhill. To the great misfortune of his family, Charles Mowbray died just weeks after Reverend Cartwright became the vicar of Wrexhill. Mowbray made an unusual will, leaving most of his estate to his youngish widow instead of to his son. This led to a rift with the will’s co-executor, which in turn led to the widow’s growing reliance on the new vicar. The Machiavellian vicar uses the trappings of religion to gain control over the widow and many of the young women of Wrexhill, and to inflict suffering on those who are canny enough to see through his pretenses.

Trollope’s dialogue is overly flowery and doesn’t ring true. She evidently didn’t have Austen’s gift for authentic dialogue. However, her characterization of the wicked vicar is chillingly realistic. I had a hard time tearing myself away from this novel when I needed to do other things. It seems like the kind of plot that would translate well to screen, and I’m surprised it hasn’t already been done.

4 stars

Reading Projects
The Rubber Band by Rex Stout

Private detective Nero Wolfe takes on two seemingly unrelated cases linked by a beautiful young woman. If Wolfe manages to absolve her of charges of theft, she may end up being charged with murder. Between Wolfe’s brains and his assistant Archie’s leg work, the reader can be sure that the pair will solve both puzzles.

Archie Goodwin’s first-person narration is the key to this series’s enduring appeal. Archie’s sarcastic wit softens the edges of Wolfe’s irritating personality. He’s often irritated by Wolfe’s eccentricities, but his irritation is tempered by respect and even affection for his boss. Readers see Wolfe through Archie’s eyes, and that makes all the difference.

4 stars

Group Reads
The Templars' Last Secret by Martin Walker

The apparently accidental death of a woman spraying graffiti on a cliff below a medieval castle becomes more complicated when the authorities learn that the dead woman was an activist and an archaeologist with a far-fetched theory that suddenly becomes more plausible after her death. Once again, St. Denis municipal policeman and army veteran Bruno is seconded to the Brigadier since the case has international implications. Bruno is also being shadowed by a Haitian lawyer and aspiring politician who is writing a report on municipal policing. Even though she is there only to observe, Amélie’s social media and internet searching skills prove helpful in the investigation. Meanwhile, Bruno is preparing for the wedding of his archaeologist friends, Horst and Clothilde.

This series has settled into a predictable but entertaining formula, where criminals and/or terrorists descend on the Dordogne and divert Bruno’s attention from St. Denis’s minor police matters to international affairs. It walks a fine line between thriller and cozy village mystery, with just enough from each genre to tempt readers out of their comfort zones. It’s nice to see familiar faces from earlier books in the series make an appearance in this book. However, readers, should beware that these appearances generally come with spoilery references to their first appearance in the series.

3.5 stars

Everything Else
The Chocolate War by Martin Walker

The short stories in the Bruno series highlight the town of St. Denis and Bruno’s role as the municipal policeman. The simpler plots showcase Bruno’s conflict management skills in resolving fairly minor interpersonal conflicts. The stories also have something to do with food, one of Bruno’s off-duty interests. In this story, Bruno makes peace between Senegalese market vendors and the local cafe owner who is losing market day business to their cheaper coffee sales.

3.5 stars

American Authors
Typical American by Gish Jen

Yifeng, the only son in a Chinese family, goes to the United States to study engineering, with plans to return to China. After the Communist takeover in China, Yifeng, now known as Ralph, is unable to return to China. He is reunited with his older sister, Theresa, and together they make a new, typically American, life.

This is both a family story and a character study. The family unit of Ralph, Theresa, and Ralph’s wife, Helen, is central to the novel, and the story would be incomplete without any one of them. The author’s quirky writing style resonated with me, and I look forward to reading more of her work, maybe with a reading group.

4 stars

ShakespeareCAT
Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare

When Claudio is condemned to hang for getting his fiancee Juliet pregnant before their wedding, the Duke of Vienna’s deputy, Angelo, offer’s Claudio’s sister, Isabella, a way to save her brother’s life. Angelo will spare Claudio’s life if Isabella, a novitiate preparing to become a nun, will sleep with him. Isabella would rather see her brother die than lose her virtue, but nevertheless she tells her brother of Angelo’s offer. It seems Claudio would rather live than allow his sister to keep her virtue, so Isabella steels herself to do what she must to save her brother’s life. Fortunately, the Duke of Vienna hasn’t actually gone away. He’s disguised himself as a friar, and in this disguise he is able to come up with a solution that will make everyone happy.

In a way, the issue still feels contemporary in these days of MeToo. However, I didn’t find much comedy in this plot, nor many sympathetic characters.

3 stars

July Recap

American Authors (75 Books group)
Typical American by Gish Jen (4)

British Authors (75 Books group)
The Vicar of Wrexhill by Frances Trollope (4)

Asian Authors (75 Books group)
Red Mandarin Dress by Qiu Xiaolong

Non-Fiction (75 Books group)
Around the World on Two Wheels by Peter Zheutlin (5)

AuthorCAT
Red Mandarin Dress by Qiu Xiaolong (3.5)

CATWoman

ShakespeareCAT
Measure for Measure (3)

Group Reads
Around the World on Two Wheels by Peter Zheutlin (5)
The Templars’ Last Secret by Martin Walker (3.5)

Reading Projects
Spider’s Web by Agatha Christie; adapted by Charles Osborne (3.5)
The Rubber Band by Rex Stout (4)

Everything else
The Chocolate War by Martin Walker (3.5)

Books owned: 2
Books borrowed: 1
Ebooks owned: 1
Ebooks borrowed: 3
eAudiobooks borrowed: 2

Best of the month: Around the World on Two Wheels by Peter Zheutlin
Worst of the month: Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare

>99 cbl_tn: I agree with your assessment of the lack of sympathetic characters!

>101 Tess_W: I'm in good company then!

Reading Projects
The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant by Jean de Brunhoff

When a hunter kills his mother, the little elephant Babar is so frightened that he runs away and ends up in a big city. He buys himself some nice clothes and accepts a nice Old Lady’s invitation to live at her house. Time passes, and then Babar has an unexpected meeting with his elephant cousins, who have run away. When their mothers come to fetch them, Babar decides to return to the forest with them, where he will become the king of the elephants.

The story and the lovely illustrations have enchanted generations of children. It doesn’t appeal so much to this adult. There doesn’t seem to be much substance to the story, although I might feel differently about it if I had fond childhood memories of reading it. Also, I don’t like stories where animals die.

3 stars

Reading Projects
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

I watched the movie The Wizard of Oz so many times as a child that I practically had the film memorized, but I had never read the book it was based on. Some of the details in the book were changed in the film version. (For instance, Dorothy’s shoes are silver in the book, not red as in the movie.) There are scenes in the book that were left out of the movie. Despite the differences, the book is just as enjoyable as the film. I enjoyed traveling the yellow brick road with Dorothy and Toto, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion. And I can’t imagine a narrator who could better Brooke Shields’ audio performance.

5 stars

Reading Projects
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

Pretend wolf Max gets a little too rambunctious in his solitary play, so his mother sends him to bed without his supper. In Max’s imagination, his room turns into a jungle full of wild beasts who frolic wildly with him until he tires and turns into a calm and hungry little boy.

As a child, my brother and I didn’t play wildly indoors as Max does in the book. Running and yelling were outdoor activities for us. I have no memory of reading this book as a child, but if I did, I must not have related to Max because I couldn’t picture myself in his shoes.

4 stars

>105 cbl_tn: When I worked at a public library I noticed that Maurice Sendak books were more popular with parents than with children. It seems you were not the only child who didn't relate to Max.

>106 VivienneR: That's interesting! Thanks for sharing that. I feel better now about not remembering it from childhood!

British Authors; Reading Projects
Destination Unknown by Agatha Christie

Top scientists are disappearing from Western nations, among them Thomas Betterton. His young bride insists she knows nothing about it, but British intelligence suspects otherwise. When Mrs. Betterton dies in an accident in Morocco, as fate would have it, a suicidal young Englishwoman with similar features is persuaded to assume Mrs. Betterton’s identity. As Hilary Craven is drawn deeper into danger, she finds a renewed will to live.

This stand-alone Christie is more spy novel than murder mystery. Some readers will likely find the cold war plot dated, yet with a few minor changes it could resemble contemporary conspiracy theories.

4 stars

Group Reads
They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the Civil War by DeAnne Blanton & Lauren M. Cook

Before reading this book, I was aware of one or two women who fought in the U.S. Civil War disguised as men. After reading this book, I now know that there were many more than one or two. It seems like women soldiers were an open secret during the war, and many, if not most, of the combatants were aware that there were women in their midst.

With few surviving letters or journals written by women soldiers, the authors pieced together mentions of women soldiers from official records, newspaper accounts, letters and journals written by men who served, and memoirs and recollections of war veterans. The bibliography and end notes show evidence of extensive research, yet much of the evidence is indirect. The authors accepted at face value the account of Melverina Elverina Peppercorn’s service as recounted in the 1916 memoir of Elizabeth Avery Meriwether, yet Melverina and her brother Alexander the Great don’t appear in contemporary censuses, Find-a-grave memorials, etc. It seems more likely that Melverina was either a pseudonym for someone whose identity Meriwether wanted to protect or a composite of women who served in the Civil War.

4 stars

Non-Fiction
Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball

Several generations of author Edward Ball’s South Carolina forebears were large slave-holding rice planters. Ball grew up hearing stories about the family’s past, and as an adult he became interested in locating descendants of persons who had been enslaved by the Ball family, at least some of whom were likely related to him by blood. Many of the Ball family papers survive and are dispersed among several archival repositories. Ball was able to trace several slave families back to the first African arrival.

Had Ball written this book just a decade or so later, it might have looked quite different. Genealogical DNA testing companies were in their infancy at the time Ball was writing this book. DNA testing might have confirmed Ball’s suspicions about the paternity of some of the persons enslaved by Ball family members. Several years later, Ball wrote The Genetic Strand in which he uses DNA to explore family mysteries. I want to read this book to see if it sheds more light on the lives of those who are profiled in Slaves in the Family.

This is an important book for many reasons. The author wrestles with the legacy of slavery for both descendants of enslaved persons and descendants of their enslavers. It’s also a history of rice plantation culture, a history of Charleston, and a history of South Carolina during the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. I found it a little hard to follow as the structure is only somewhat chronological. The chapters alternate between a chronological history and contemporary memoir of Ball’s meetings with descendants of Ball slaves. I noticed quite a bit of repetition in the narrative that ought to have been edited out of such a long book. I read the paperback edition, from which the author’s account of his visit to Africa has been removed.

4 stars

ShakespeareCAT
The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare set this farce about identical twins in the ancient world. Early in the play, the father of one set of twins explains how the pairs were separated in a ship wreck. This background prepares the audience for scene after scene of mistaken identity as the Syracusan and Ephesian pairs move about Ephesus. I read along as I listened to the Arkangel audio production and laughed aloud at the characters’ confusion. It doesn’t pay to think too deeply about the plot. The Syracusan pair had been traveling for several years in search of their lost twins, so why didn’t it occur to them that their twins were living in Ephesus when all these strangers thought they were someone else?

4 stars

>110 cbl_tn: Do you remember trips by the books you bought on them? I bought this book at a bookstore on a trip to Savanah when it first came out in 1998. It was a great trip that I had pretty much forgotten about. I liked the book a lot when I read it and still have it on the shelf, it's signed. My intent for a few years now has been to reread it and see what I think now. As you said, the ability to match DNA is a whole new ballgame!

>112 clue: That's a great story! I like to browse the local or regional section of bookstores when I travel and I'll sometimes buy a book to remind me of the place. I also associate books with the places I read them. For instance, I first read Emma while visiting a friend in Austria, and I was just telling someone yesterday about listening to The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs on a plane.

Group Reads
A Taste for Vengeance by Martin Walker

At the request of his friend Pamela, St. Denis municipal policeman Bruno Courrèges looks into one of Pamela’s cooking school guests whose failure to arrive at the appointed time worries her. Bruno, the newly appointed head of the Vézère Valley police, calls on his new colleagues for assistance. It’s not long before they find the missing woman and her Irish lover dead. On first appearance it seems to be a murder-suicide, but things don’t quite add up. Since the case appears to have ties to international terrorism, Bruno once again partners with his old lover, Isabelle, to solve the case. Meanwhile, Bruno is excitedly optimistic that the captain of St. Denis’s girl’s rugby team will be named to the French national team. However, news of Paulette’s unplanned pregnancy throws this into doubt.

Long-time series readers have by now come to expect Bruno’s major case to involve terrorists and for Bruno to be seconded to the Brigadier. Bruno’s new appointment adds a twist to the series formula as Bruno tries to figure out his chain of command. I didn’t care for the unplanned pregnancy plot line. It seems to be a plot device to force Bruno to reevaluate his attitude toward abortion and the rights of fathers, paving the way for a reunion with Isabelle. Their relationship had ended when Bruno learned that Isabelle had aborted their child without telling him she was pregnant. Bruno recognizes that he and Isabelle want different things, so I wish he would move on and find someone who wants the same things he does out of life. Maybe someone like Florence?

3.5 stars

Asian Authors challenge; AuthorCAT
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa

A single mother working for a housekeeping agency is assigned to keep house for a retired mathematics professor with memory problems. Due to an accident he suffered years earlier, his short-term memory lasts only eighty minutes. Each morning when the housekeeper arrives, it’s as if the professor is meeting her for the first time. Despite these limitations, the housekeeper and the professor form an unlikely friendship, strengthened by the professor’s affection for her 10-year-old son, whom he nicknames Root, the language of mathematics, and their shared love of baseball.

This novel beautifully depicts how someone with a mental disability can affect someone else’s life for the better. The housekeeper and her son were both transformed by their relationship with the professor. I’d love to read this with a book group. I think it would spark meaningful discussion.

4 stars

AuthorCAT; CATwoman
The Dragonfly Pool by Eva Ibbotson

As Europe seems headed toward another war with Germany, 11-year-old Tally’s family decides to accept an offer to send her to a boarding school in Devon. Tally soon gets over her homesickness at Delderton, a progressive school where children thrive. Kindhearted Tally easily makes friends with the other children. When an opportunity presents itself for the children to participate in a folk dancing festival in the European kingdom of Bergania, Tally wills it to happen. There she meets Karil, the young prince of Bergania, and their friendship changes both of their lives.

I would have loved this book as a child. As an adult reader, I found the children’s worldview too idealistic. It seems to me that the Delderton contingent would be right at home in Lake Wobegon, where “all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.”

3.5 stars

Everything Else
The Other Girl by Erica Spindler

After a life-changing incident when she was a troubled fifteen-year-old, half a lifetime ago, Miranda Rader has made something of herself. Now she is a police officer in small town Louisiana. Then the gruesome murder of a college professor dredges up the past, and it has Miranda questioning herself and her relationship with her friends and colleagues. When evidence found at the crime scene points to Miranda as the culprit, she fears for her safety. It seems like her partner Jake is the one person she can trust. Or can she?

This thriller is short enough to read in a single evening, and that’s a good thing, because most readers will want to keep reading until the truth is revealed. Seasoned readers of this genre will likely guess the murderer’s identity pretty easily, and they probably won’t be fooled by the halfhearted red herrings the author throws in at the last minute. The sense of place isn’t as strong as I would have liked. It could have been set in a small town just about anywhere in the U.S. However, the characters are interesting, and it’s satisfying to see Miranda’s growth through the course of the novel.

3.5 stars

>117 cbl_tn: Going on my WL. Sounds like a good one to read between door-stoppers!

>118 Tess_W: I thought it would make a good airplane read!

American Authors
The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

This companion book to a PBS series looks at the history of the Black church beginning with the arrival of the first Africans in what is now the United States. Not surprisingly, the text is comprised of quotes from scholars and other eminent persons interviewed for the series. I really like Dr. Gates’ interviewing style, and I think I would have appreciated this content more in the television format.

This book’s strength is its close examination of the social, cultural, and political significance of the Black church in American culture. Its influence extends to all segments of the U.S. population. Gates writes of a tension between the customs that developed in the North, where practices seemed to emulate those of the white churches, and the South, where worship practices grew out of the praise houses of slaves. It seems that this tension still exists, and that there are still a variety of worship preferences within the Black church.

Dr. Gates and most of his interviewees seem to eschew the literal interpretation of Scripture. However, a 2021 Pew Research Center report on the “Religious beliefs among Black Americans” indicates that 44% of Black adults believe that the Bible is the Word of God and should be taken literally, 38% believe the Bible is the Word of God but should not be taken literally, and 16% believe the Bible was written by people. A majority of Black Protestants (56%) believe that the Bible is the Word of God and should be taken literally, while a majority of Black Catholics (57%) believe that the Bible is the Word of God but should not be taken literally. Education makes a difference as well. Nearly half (49%) of Black Americans with some college or less believe that the Bible is the Word of God and should be taken literally, while just 32% of Black American college graduates believe that the Bible is the Word of God and should be taken literally. Dr. Gates and most of his interviewees would seem to fall into the Black American college graduate category.

Dr. Gates writes from the perspective of a religious observer rather than an active church member. (In the epilogue he describes himself as an “avid spectator”.) It would be interesting to compare an “insider’s” (active churchgoer’s) view of the Black church and see how it might differ from the perspective offered here.

3.5 stars

117. A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad

Readers who are curious about how Joseph Conrad went from sailor to novelist will appreciate this brief memoir. Stream of consciousness might be an apt description of its style, as one recollection leads to another, then another, and another. Conrad gives readers a glimpse of his childhood, his decision to go to sea (rare for a young man from land-locked Polish Ukraine), his choice of the English language, the writing of his first novel (Almayer’s Folly), and his friendship with Stephen Crane.

4 stars

August Recap

American Authors (75 Books group)
The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (3.5)

British Authors (75 Books group)
Destination Unknown by Agatha Christie (4)

Asian Authors (75 Books group)
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa (4)

Non-Fiction (75 Books group)
Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball (4)

AuthorCAT
Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball (4)
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa (4)
The Dragonfly Pool by Eva Ibbotson (3.5)

CATWoman
The Dragonfly Pool by Eva Ibbotson (3.5)

ShakespeareCAT
The Comedy of Errors (4)

Group Reads
They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the Civil War by DeAnne Blanton & Lauren M. Cook (4)
A Taste for Vengeance by Martin Walker (3.5)

Reading Projects
The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant by Jean de Brunhoff (3)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (5)
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (4)
A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad (4)
Destination Unknown by Agatha Christie (4)

Everything else
The Other Girl by Erica Spindler (3.5)

Books owned: 4
Books borrowed: 4
Ebooks owned: 1
eAudiobooks borrowed: 4

Best of the month: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Worst of the month: The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant by Jean de Brunhoff

Group Reads
Transient Desires by Donna Leon

Venice’s Commissario Guido Brunetti almost ends up out of his depth in this installment in the long-running series. As Brunetti and his colleague Claudia Griffoni look into a nighttime accident on the laguna in which two American young women were badly injured, they soon identify the Italian young men who abandoned them near a hospital. As they learn more about the young men, they see that one of them is extremely frightened of his uncle/employer. Brunetti eventually discovers the reason for the young man’s fear, and it’s worse than he imagined. He calls in favors with other agencies to try to put a stop to the criminal activity he uncovered.

Most of the time, Brunetti must be satisfied with learning the truth rather than seeing justice served. This time, the criminals are caught in the act, but it may be a Pyrrhic victory. This case seems to be out of Brunetti’s jurisdiction, and Griffoni is his only colleague who makes more than a brief appearance in the novel. I missed Signorina Elettra, Vianello, and even Vice Questore Patta. And where was Lieutenant Scarpa? I hope he’s not quietly plotting more trouble for my favorite Commissario!

4 stars

Reading Projects
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

In this post-apocalyptic novel, many humans have left Earth for Mars and other colonies to escape Earth’s inevitable decay. Androids assist with off-Earth colonization, but they aren’t supposed to be on Earth. Rick Deckard is a San Francisco-based bounty hunter who tracks down and destroys rogue androids. The new Nexus-6 android are challenging the bounty hunters’ techniques for identifying androids.

The one quality that distinguishes humans from androids is empathy, yet it seems to be a quality that humans are in danger of losing. Every home has an empathy box, where individuals can fuse with other humans through the person of Wilbur Mercer. Mercerism seems to be a rough allegory of Christianity, with Mercer as a Christlike figure in an endless loop of suffering, ascending a desert hill, then descending to the netherworld where he brings the dead back to life, then repeating his suffering ascent and descent ad infinitum.

There’s a lot to unpack in this novel. I have not watched the film Blade Runner, but from what I’ve read and heard about it, I think the message of the film is fundamentally different from the book’s essence. It’s too bad the author died just before the film was released. I’d love to know what he would have thought about the film and how far it might have strayed from his vision.

3.5 stars

Nonfiction Challenge; Group Reads
The Lady from the Black Lagoon by Mallory O'Meara

Artist, background actor, and model Milicent Patrick left her mark on the film industry with her design for the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Patrick worked in special effects and makeup design before film credits started acknowledging the contributions of special effects teams. She was also a woman in a man’s world. As a result, Patrick’s contribution to the design of the Creature had been all but forgotten until author O’Meara made it her mission to give Patrick the credit she deserves.

Author O’Meara writes passionately about her subject, but the telling suffers from O’Meara’s inexperience as a researcher. (O’Meara worked as a veterinary technician before changing careers to film production.) She relied mainly on interviews to gather information. Occasionally someone would steer her toward archival material, but she admits to spending only a few hours in libraries and archives. Since O’Meara is challenging the historical narrative, she should have supplied source notes to back up her claims. (There is a bibliography, and there are endnotes, but the endnotes are commentary, not source notes.) Several times she mentioned that she was unable to find information about some of the people who surrounded Patrick. I was able to quickly find information about several of these individuals using sources O’Meara said she had used - Ancestry.com, Newspapers.com, and FamilySearch. O’Meara will likely regret not discovering that Patrick’s first husband Paul’s first wife was an animator at Disney. That tidbit adds a new dimension to their relationship triangle, and could explain Paul and Milicent’s abrupt departure from Disney. Guardedly recommended.

3 stars

Reading Projects
The Red Box by Rex Stout

Nero Wolfe has a plethora of clients in his latest case involving the death of a fashion model from eating a poisoned chocolate. Llewellyn Frost hires Wolfe, even managing to lure him out of his brownstone to interview suspects in their natural habitat. Frost wants to protect his cousin Helen, another model who witnessed the death. After a second murder, Frost gets cold feet, so Helen hires Wolfe to carry on with the investigation. At a certain point, it becomes clear that a red box holds the solution to the murders. But where is the box?

Wolfe’s exceptional powers of deduction exasperate his assistant Archie, Inspector Cramer of the police, and perhaps most readers. He holds his cards close to his chest, yet there are enough clues for a perceptive reader to guess the motive for the murder and the murderer’s identity. Wolfe, Goodwin, and Inspector Cramer make references to the cases in the earlier books in the series, but not in a spoilery way. It’s savvy marketing that might nudge readers to buy the earlier books to find out what they missed!

4 stars

Everything Else
A Better Man by Louise Penny

After a demotion, Armand Gamache is back where he started, as chief of homicide in the Sûreté. But not quite, because there is another chief of homicide for two more weeks. Gamache’s son-in-law, Jean Guy Beauvoir, is leaving in two weeks for a new job in Paris, taking Gamache’s daughter, Annie, with him. They’ll work together on one last case, with Beauvoir in the lead and Gamache as his second in command. As too-rapidly melting ice threatens catastrophic flooding, the small homicide team looks for a missing pregnant woman, the wife of an abusive husband. Just as ice can be deceptive, this case may not be what it appears to be on its surface. Meanwhile, artist Clara Morrow is the subject of a Twitter storm over her latest series of miniatures. The critics who built up her reputation as an artist are now tearing it down.

This novel isn’t paced as well as I’ve come to expect of Penny. The flooding crisis peaks too early in the novel. However, the biggest problem with the book is that not one, but two police officers end up as prime suspects for the murder for completely unrelated reasons. I could buy one, but two is really a stretch.

3.5 stars

AuthorCAT
Life & Times of Michael K by J. M. Coetzee

Michael K thinks his life and his mother’s will be better if they can leave their unnamed South African city for the rural town that was his mother’s childhood home. He was wrong, as his situation goes from bad to worse. Michael K wants only to be left alone to live off the land, but he can’t escape notice from warring factions. It doesn’t seem to matter which side will come out on top, as neither side has anything to offer Michael. This novel explores questions of social marginality and human existence in a way that reminded me somewhat of The Grapes of Wrath. Both novels left me with a similar feeling of desolation.

3.5 stars

Asian authors
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

This family saga follows four generations of a Korean family through most of the 20th century, first in Korea under Japanese occupation, and later in Japan, where the Japanese discriminated against Korean immigrants. Teen-aged Sunja becomes pregnant by an older Korean businessman who, as the adopted son of a wealthy Japanese family, maintains ties in both Korea and Japan. Rather than become Hansu’s mistress, Sunja accepts an offer of marriage from a kind and gentle minister, Isak. Despite their differences in personality and temperament, Noa, Sunja’s son by Hansu, and Mozasu, Sunja’s son by Isak, end up in similar circumstances in the world of pachinko.

I was immersed in the setting and the characters’ lives from the very beginning. I found the religious aspect of the novel intriguing, and the status of Korean immigrants in Japan was new to me. This book will appeal to readers who enjoy family sagas and historical novels with a strong sense of place.

3.5 stars

Reading Projects
Hickory Dickory Dock by Agatha Christie

When his paragon of a secretary makes several mistakes on a single page of typing, Hercule Poirot is concerned. As it turns out, Miss Lemon is worried about her sister and the student boarding house she manages, which has been plagued by a string of petty thefts and other mischief. Since Poirot is at loose ends, he pays a visit to the boarding house, where he senses something very wrong beneath the surface. When one of the students dies, apparently by her own hand, Poirot deduces it was murder. Poirot serves as a sounding board for Inspector Sharpe as he investigates the sudden death.
I wish Christie had given readers more of Miss Lemon when she had the chance in this novel. I did enjoy meeting her sister, who shares some of the same no-nonsense qualities that make Miss Lemon such a valuable secretary. Unusually for Christie, this book also suffers from a surfeit of characters who share too many similarities of age and circumstance. I do enjoy the audio recordings of this, and other Poirot novels, read by Hugh Fraser, who played Hastings in the British TV series. David Suchet is the definitive Poirot for my generation, and Fraser seems to model the voice of his Poirot on Suchet’s portrayal.

3.5 stars

>129 cbl_tn: I really liked this book. My only negative comment was that I felt the time period from 1960's-1990's was hurried and rushed.

>131 Tess_W: I agree with that! It was a long book, but it had my full attention from beginning to end.

ShakespeareCAT
The Wit and Wisdom of Shakespeare by Darrel Walters

After engaging with retired university professor Walters’s analysis of 32 of Shakespeare’s sonnets, readers should have confidence to tackle the remaining sonnets on their own. Walters presents each sonnet in the same format – the text of the sonnet, Walters’s single sentence summary of its essence, a diagram of the sonnet including definitions of archaic words and expressions, and a two-page description and interpretation.

Walters warns readers not to “miss the forest for the trees” by getting caught up in speculation about the identity of the young man or the dark lady for whom Shakespeare wrote the sonnets. Critics have filled books with theories about their identities without reaching a definitive conclusion. Controversies about such things as the identities of the original recipients may distract readers from appreciating each sonnet on its own merit.

4 stars

127. Jane Fairfax by Joan Aiken

Jane Fairfax is a secondary character in Jane Austen’s Emma. Aiken imagines a back story for Jane, with only the last third of this novel occupying the same chronological space as Austen’s Emma. I found it entertaining, yet I couldn’t completely buy into Aiken’s characterization of Jane Fairfax. Aiken has Jane settling for Frank Churchill after forming an impossible attachment to Matt Dixon and after realizing that Mr. Knightley is out of her reach. The Jane I imagine never loved anyone but Frank.

3 stars

September Recap

American Authors (75 Books group)

British Authors (75 Books group)
Jane Fairfax by Joan Aiken (3)

Asian Authors (75 Books group)
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (3.5)

Non-Fiction (75 Books group)
The Lady from the Black Lagoon by Mallory O'Meara (3)

AuthorCAT
Life & Times of Michael K by J. M. Coetzee (3.5)

CATWoman

ShakespeareCAT
The Wit and Wisdom of Shakespeare by Darrel Walters (4)

Group Reads
Transient Desires by Donna Leon (4)
The Lady from the Black Lagoon by Mallory O'Meara (3)

Reading Projects
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (3.5)
Hickory Dickory Dock by Agatha Christie (3.5)
The Red Box by Rex Stout (4)

Everything else
A Better Man by Louise Penny (3.5)

Books owned: 1
Books borrowed: 1
Ebooks borrowed: 5
eAudiobooks borrowed: 3

Best of the month: Transient Desires by Donna Leon
Worst of the month: Jane Fairfax by Joan Aiken

>134 cbl_tn: I agree with you on Aiken's characterization of Jane Fairfax. My reading of Emma is that the whole idea of a romance between Jane and Mr. Dixon was all in Emma's head and had no basis in reality.

>136 christina_reads: Yes, mine too. I think Austen intentionally had Emma miss the real romance between Jane and Frank Churchill.

>137 cbl_tn: For sure!

Reading Projects
Company by Samuel Beckett

A man lies alone in the dark thinking thoughts. I’d rather think my own thoughts than read Beckett’s. I enjoy my own company more.

3 stars

Reading Projects
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

In 19th century France, a bored doctor’s wife has affairs with two men, and in the process, she runs up debts she can’t repay. I was as bored as Emma at some points in the book. I had little sympathy for her because her troubles were largely of her own making. I did feel sorry for her naïve husband, and really sorry for the daughter whom both parents largely neglected. Simon Vance’s outstanding narration made the story more interesting than I otherwise would have found it.

3.5 stars

Group Reads
All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner

American expat Mildred Harnack and her husband, German economist Arvid Harnack, formed a Nazi resistance movement in Berlin and paid with their lives. Drawing from Mildred’s letters, various interviews, and archival documents, Donner pieces together an account of the rise of the Nazi party and the beginning of the Second World War. The use of present tense adds intensity to the narrative. While this approach feels fresh, it also lacks some context of parallel events and personalities who were unknown to Mildred. As Mildred’s great-great-niece, Donner had access to Mildred’s letters and other family material not previously available to other researchers.

4 stars

American Authors
The Pine Barrens by John McPhee

McPhee explores the natural history and culture of New Jersey’s Pine Barrens in this book developed from articles originally published in The New Yorker. Although the Pine Barrens is not geographically in Appalachia, its local culture seems very familiar to this southern Appalachian native. I was drawn to this book when I learned through family history research that a many-times great-uncle and cousins operated the Batsto Furnace from the late eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century. Batsto gets a couple page mention in this book.

The New York Times revisited the Pine Barrens in a 1985 article, speaking to the son of McPhee’s local guide, Fred Brown. In the twenty years between McPhee’s book and the NYT article, tourists and industry discovered the Pine Barrens. Did the attention from McPhee’s book hasten the inevitable “wheels of progress”?

4 stars

ShakespeareCAT, CATwoman
Light Thickens by Ngaio Marsh

Director Peregrine Jay and his management team have put together a superior cast for a run of Macbeth at the Dolphin Theatre. Tension builds as the cast rehearses for several weeks before opening night, with a prankster taking advantage of the superstition surrounding the play to sow discord. A few weeks into the play’s run, the unthinkable happens, and one of the actors is found dead at the end of the performance. Scotland Yard’s Chief Superintendent Roderick Alleyn is in the audience that night. Despite being on the scene when the murder was committed, Alleyn is as baffled as anyone. Alleyn knows as well as anyone that this isn’t the first time that death has visited the Dolphin.

Marsh takes her time setting the stage for the murder, which doesn’t occur until more than halfway through the book. She treats readers a Cliffsnotes-like summary of Macbeth, with much focus on the interpretation and staging of the play during rehearsals. How the reader feels about Shakespeare may influence how much the reader enjoys this book.

4 stars

Group Reads
Miss Marjoribanks by Margaret Oliphant

Lucilla Marjoribanks is still at school when her mother dies. From that point on, Lucilla claims her life’s goal is to “be a comfort to papa”. It’s Lucilla herself who defines what “being a comfort” means. Dr. Marjoribanks is known for the hospitality of his dinners, with his guests being mainly the men of Carlingford. Upon Lucilla’s return from school at age 19, she organizes Thursday evenings for the ladies, with the men joining them after their dinner. Lucilla determines to devote ten years to being “a comfort to papa” before marrying, thinking that she’ll probably have “gone off” in ten years’ time. She has no lack of potential suitors during this time, including her cousin, Tom; Mr. Cavendish, whose ability to flirt is so useful to Lucilla’s Thursday evenings; and archdeacon Mr. Beverly.

Lucilla is an unconventional heroine. She knows it, Carlingford knows it, and her author surely knows it. Her high opinion of herself and her abilities could easily come across as arrogant, yet time after time events and circumstances prove that she accurately judges her own value.

4 stars

>143 cbl_tn: This is my favourite Alleyn novel because I love the theatre production aspect and the fact that it’s a production of Macbeth!

Some really good reading, lately! I took a few BB's from the 4-stars!

>145 rabbitprincess: I enjoyed that aspect of it, but it will never be my favorite because Troy isn't in it. I'm a big Troy fan!

>146 Tess_W: Glad to oblige! I'm glad I'm having a better reading month since September's books were mostly so-so.

Reading Projects
The Musgrave Ritual by Arthur Conan Doyle

In this story, Holmes recounts to Watson one of his earliest cases presented to him by his old schoolmate, Reginald Musgrave. The family butler had disappeared after being caught rummaging among family papers containing the Musgrave Ritual, a strange rite that has been observed in the Musgrave family for some 200 years. Holmes took great satisfaction at the beginning of his career of succeeding where the police failed. This story has some similarities to the adventure stories of Robert Louis Stevenson and others during the period, although using the intellectual Holmes as narrator reduces the emotional suspense.

3.5 stars

Asian Authors
Paradise of the Blind by Duong Thu Huong

Hang, a Vietnamese woman, came of age in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Hang never knew her father, a teacher driven into exile during the land reform era by a local Communist party leader who was also his brother-in-law. Hang’s Aunt Tam, her father’s sister, lavishes affection on her young niece as the sole member of her generation to carry on the family line. Hang’s mother increasingly devotes her meager resources to support her party member brother and his family. Hang embodies the tension between the two sides of her family.

This novel depicts a beautiful but broken country. A great loneliness permeates the novel. Hang’s mother and her Aunt Tam pull her in different directions, trying to force her to choose between the two sides of her family. As she tries to do her duty to both families, Hang’s isolation grows, yet she is still young enough to dream of a different future.

4.5 stars

British Authors
Happiness by Aminatta Forna

Ghanian psychiatrist Attila is in London to deliver the keynote address at a professional conference. Wildlife researcher Jean is in London to study the urban fox population. A chance meeting on a London bridge develops into a new friendship, and perhaps something more, as the two strangers bond over the search for a missing boy.

I love the community that forms in this urban novel. Jean has developed a network of service workers – hotel doormen, street sweepers, and traffic wardens among them – who band together in the common cause of searching for the lost boy. The actions and interactions of these characters challenged me to pay closer attention to my surroundings and the people I encounter on a daily basis.

I am intrigued by the psychological aspects of Forna’s writing. As in The Memory of Love, one of Forna’s main characters is a psychiatrist specializing in post-traumatic stress in the aftermath of war. Forna acknowledges the influence of Boris Cyrulnik’s Resilience in shaping her story. I would love to explore this novel with a reading group. I think it could spark a great conversation about resilience and overcoming past trauma.

4.5 stars

October Recap

American Authors (75 Books group)
The Pine Barrens by John McPhee (4)

British Authors (75 Books group)
Happiness by Aminatta Forna (4.5)

Asian Authors (75 Books group)
Paradise of the Blind by Duong Thu Huong (4.5)

Non-Fiction (75 Books group)

AuthorCAT
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (3.5)
Paradise of the Blind by Duong Thu Huong (4.5)

CATWoman
Light Thickens by Ngaio Marsh (4)
ShakespeareCAT
Light Thickens by Ngaio Marsh (4)

Group Reads
All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner (4)
Miss Marjoribanks by Margaret Oliphant (4)

Reading Projects
Company by Samuel Beckett (3)
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (3.5)
The Musgrave Ritual by Arthur Conan Doyle (3.5)

Everything else

Books owned: 3
Books borrowed: 1
Ebooks borrowed: 1
eAudiobooks borrowed: 2
eAudiobooks owned: 2

Best of the month: Happiness by Aminatta Forna
Worst of the month: Company by Samuel Beckett

>150 cbl_tn: Great review! This goes on my ever-growing wishlist.

>150 cbl_tn: definitely a BB for me!

>152 MissBrangwen: Thank you! I really love this author's writing.

>153 Tess_W: I hope you enjoy it!

Group Reads
The Body in the Castle Well by Martin Walker

When Bruno’s friend Florence calls to voice her concern for a missing American graduate student who had quickly warmed her way into their circle, he sets out to look for her at the last place she had been seen. The night before, Claudia had been among a couple of dozen attendees at a program held at a local castle. Bruno’s dog, Balzac, leads Bruno to a well in the castle courtyard, where it seems the young woman fell to her death. To all appearances, this was a tragic accident, but since Claudia’s family were politically connected, Bruno’s superiors want to leave no stone unturned. What if Claudia didn’t fall, but was pushed into the well? Who might have wanted her dead?

This series installment is more like the cozy mysteries I love than many of the other series books since the suspects don’t include international terrorists. No terrorists meant no need for Isabelle to be a part of the investigation, which also made me happy. (Bruno really needs to forget about her and move on with his life.) I’m always drawn to mysteries involving art and art history, and I wish that aspect of the plot had been developed more than it was. I liked Amélie when we met her in The Templars’ Last Secret, so I was glad to see her again in this book. The subplot of Bruno organizing a Josephine Baker concert for Amélie suited the cozier feel of this series installment.

4 stars

Reading Projects
The Resident Patient by Arthur Conan Doyle

Holmes takes on a case from a doctor with an unusual financial arrangement. The doctor has a patron, Blessington, who pays for his consulting rooms and other expenses in exchange for a part of the doctor’s earnings and the comfort of having a doctor nearby. The doctor has a new patient, a Russian nobleman, who suffers from catalepsy. The Russian’s son goes with him to his appointment and stays in the waiting room while the doctor examines his father. After their second visit, Blessington accuses the men of having searched his rooms in his absence. The doctor takes Holmes and Watson to see Blessington. Holmes, being Holmes, suspects what’s behind Blessington’s fear, but he is unable to prevent what happens next.

This case is similar to several others in the Holmes canon, where a person’s past finally catches up with them. It’s not the best of its type. I listened to it a few days ago and I’ve already forgotten most of the details.

3.5 stars

American Authors
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann

When the United States government created the Osage reservation, it was unaware of the extensive oil reserves underneath the surface. The oil boom brought great wealth to the Osage. It also brought great trouble. The powers that be viewed the Osage as an inferior race, incapable of managing their own wealth, and they appointed guardians to manage the Osage’s oil riches. It wasn’t uncommon for guardians to exploit their ward’s property for their own benefit.

During a period of several years in the 1920s, many Osage died violently during a “Reign of Terror.” No one knew who would be struck down next. Those who knew who was responsible for the murders weren’t talking. The corruption of local and state officials provided an opportunity for J. Edgar Hoover’s fledgling FBI to demonstrate its effectiveness on its way to becoming a national law enforcement agency.

The evidence and testimony uncovered by the FBI is disturbing enough. The added details Grann uncovered nearly a century later are even more disturbing. This is a story that could only be told from this distance in time. Would-be writers of that era would have risked their lives by probing as deeply into the evidence as Grann has done.

Until six weeks ago, I had never heard of FBI agent T. B. “Tom” White, and now he seems to pop up everywhere I turn. After his success with the Osage murder investigation, he went on to become the warden of Leavenworth prison, where he crossed paths with my distant cousin.

4 stars

Group Reads
The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken by Laura Schenone

Food writer Schenone documents her quest to discover the Genoese roots of her great-grandmother’s ravioli recipe. After interviewing several aunts, uncles, and cousins, Schenone makes a couple of trips to Genoa to look for ravioli makers who still use traditional methods and ingredients.

The food history is great, but the memoir is awkward. Schenone seems reluctant to probe too deeply. It feels like she’s allowing readers into her living room, dining room, and kitchen after she’s tidied them up for guests, while keeping the doors to her living space firmly shut.

3.5 stars

Reading Projects
The Greek Interpreter by Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes introduces his friend and associate Watson to his brother, Mycroft, in this adventure. Holmes and Watson have a “nature vs. nurture” conversation in which Holmes expresses his belief that Mycroft has the superior intellect but is too lazy to make any effort to test his conclusions. That makes it all the more remarkable when, after telling Holmes and Watson about an unusual problem faced by an acquaintance, a Greek interpreter, Mycroft actually leaves his club to aid a woman in distress.

The first of Mycroft Holmes’s rare appearances makes this story memorable. Mycroft makes his eccentric brother Sherlock seem normal by comparison.

3.5 stars

AuthorCAT
The American Agent by Jacqueline Winspear

When a young American female journalist is found murdered, Maisie’s friend Robert MacFarlane of Scotland Yard asks her to investigate the case. Maisie will be working with American Mark Scott, whom she first encountered in Hitler’s Germany in Journey to Munich. Maisie has to use her time wisely. The Blitz is underway, and Maisie and her friend Priscilla spend several evenings a week driving an ambulance. Maisie spends long weekends at home in Kent with her father, her stepmother, and the girl Anna she hopes to adopt.

I love listening to the audio version of this series. Reader Orlagh Cassidy is perfect for the voice of Maisie, and her performance adds extra depth to the experience. The series transition from the aftermath of the First World War to the beginning of the Second has had its ups and downs. This novel succeeds, I think because Maisie seems much more at home investigating a murder than she does spying for the government.

4.5 stars

>157 cbl_tn: - Our book club read this last year, but I only made it through half. I thought it was interesting, but slow reading. So it sits in my Currently Reading collection and I will get back to it.

I admire your Doyle reading project. I'm having a Pearl S. Buck "reading project" in 2023!

>161 dudes22: It was a little slow to start, but once it picked up, it was hard to put down!

>162 Tess_W: Let me know if you'd like company! I have several of her books in my TBR stash.

>143 cbl_tn: I'm taking a BB for Light Thickens. I really like the Inspector Alleyn series, and the connection to Macbeth makes the story even more appealing.

>164 mathgirl40: I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Reading Projects
The Naval Treaty by Arthur Conan Doyle

An old schoolfriend of Watson’s turns to Sherlock Holmes to clear his name after the disappearance of important papers in his custody. Percy Phelps was copying the treaty in his office after hours. He left his office for a few minutes to find the commissionaire, and when he returned, the treaty was missing. When all the other suspects were cleared, suspicion fell on Phelps, and he collapsed under the mental strain. His fiancée has been caring for him in the home she shares with her brother. Naturally, Holmes succeeds where others have failed, discovering the location of the missing treaty and thus restoring his client’s honor.

I enjoyed the mix of national security and domestic elements in this story, and I like it better than Doyle’s later and similar story, “The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans.” The circumstances surrounding the missing treaty seem to be an unsolvable puzzle, yet it barely challenged Holmes’s powers of deduction. His explanation is so logical that it’s a wonder the solution wasn’t obvious to everyone!

4 stars

Reading Projects
Too Many Cooks by Rex Stout

Although private detective Nero Wolfe rarely leaves his New York brownstone, his reputation as a gourmand leads to an invitation to deliver the keynote address to an intimate gathering of the world’s greatest chefs. The book opens with Wolfe and his assistant, Archie Goodwin, on a train headed for the Kanawha Spa in West Virginia. From conversations on the train and at the spa after their arrival, it’s apparent that chef Philip Laszio is universally disliked. When Laszio is murdered while supervising a tasting contest, all clues point to one suspect. However, Wolfe realizes that there is more to this case than meets the eye. Will he survive long enough to expose the real killer?

This is the kind of impossible crime that made Wolfe such a famous fictional detective. The book was written in the Jim Crow era and set in the southern U.S., and several of the spa’s African American staff are crucial witnesses. While other characters in the book use highly offensive racial slurs for the African American service workers as well as for other ethnic minority characters, Wolfe never uses this offensive language, and he treats the African American staff with respect.

3.5 stars

ShakespeareCAT; Non-Fiction Challenge
Shakespeare Basics for Grown-Ups by E. Foley & B. Coates

For an introduction to Shakespeare’s works, you could do worse than this non-exhaustive overview by Foley and Coates. The chapters cover Shakespeare’s life and times, Shakespeare’s language and style, the comedies, the histories, the tragedies, and the poems. Each of the three chapters on the plays features three or so plays as representative of that genre. Added content includes a family tree of the characters in the histories, one-sentence summaries of each of Shakespeare’s plays, a chronology of the plays, a brief thematic index of the plays, brief biographies of famous Shakespearean actors, and other trivia about the bard and his works. It’s a useful refresher for readers who haven’t spent time with Shakespeare since their school days.

3.5 stars

November Recap

American Authors (75 Books group)
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann (4)

British Authors (75 Books group)

Asian Authors (75 Books group)

Non-Fiction (75 Books group)
Shakespeare Basics for Grown-Ups by E. Foley & B. Coates (3.5)

AuthorCAT
The American Agent by Jacqueline Winspear (4.5)

CATWoman

ShakespeareCAT
Shakespeare Basics for Grown-Ups by E. Foley & B. Coates (3.5)

Group Reads
The Body in the Castle Well by Martin Walker (4)
The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken by Laura Schenone (3.5)

Reading Projects
Too Many Cooks by Rex Stout (3.5)
The Resident Patient by Arthur Conan Doyle (3.5)
The Greek Interpreter by Arthur Conan Doyle (3.5)
The Naval Treaty by Arthur Conan Doyle (4)

Everything else

Books owned: 2
Ebooks borrowed: 2
eAudiobooks borrowed: 2
eAudiobooks owned: 3

Best of the month: The American Agent by Jacqueline Winspear

Group Reads
The Shooting at Chateau Rock by Martin Walker

After talking to the son of a local farmer whose sudden death left his children disinherited, Bruno looks into the circumstances surrounding the death. The man was being treated for a heart condition, so his death was no surprise to his doctor. However, shortly before his death, the farmer had taken out an insurance policy and sold his farm to finance life in a luxury retirement home that seemed out of his league. Meanwhile, Bruno is spending time with the expat owners of Chateau Rock – an aging rock star and his much younger wife, who are planning to sell their property as part of an amicable divorce. Bruno has coached their two young adult children, one of whom is also a musician. The musician son, Jamie, arrives home for a last visit accompanied by other musicians, including his soon-to-be Ukrainian fiancée. Eventually Bruno discovers a connection between the insurance company and the Chateau guests.

The sub-plot about Bruno’s dog, Balzac’s, first mating experience is superfluous. It mainly serves as an excuse to bring in Bruno’s on-again/off-again lover, Isabelle. I have an inverse liking for Isabelle. I like her less and less as Bruno becomes more and more attracted to her. The spoilery title signals exactly where this story is heading. After giving readers a break in the last book, Walker returns to the international crime angle. So far in the series, we’ve had Basque terrorists, Arab terrorists, Irish terrorists, and now Ukrainian/Russian terrorists. Bruno’s Dordogne sounds lovely, but perhaps not the safest place to visit!

3.5 stars

Everything Else
Oystercatcher by Martin Walker

This short story in the Bruno series takes Bruno out of his familiar territory to the Bay of Arcachon, where he’s part of a team trying to catch oyster thieves. Oysters are a staple for French Christmas and New Year celebrations, and the team expects the thieves to be active during this season. Bruno uses the trip as an excuse for a getaway with his lover, Isabelle. Naturally, Bruno and Isabelle end up at ground zero for the capture of the thieves.

I didn’t enjoy this as much as I have enjoyed the other Bruno short stories. The short stories usually feature St. Denis, its food, and Bruno’s close circle of friends. The food and friends are missing, and we just have Bruno and Isabelle, who is my least-favorite character in the series.

3 stars

Everything Else
A Birthday Lunch by Martin Walker

In this short story, St. Denis policeman Bruno is planning a birthday lunch for his friend, Florence, and searching for the perfect gift for her. Food and friends are at the heart of this story. For once, Bruno isn’t working in this short. The element of mystery is provided by the artifacts of the region’s earliest cultures. Like most of the Bruno shorts, it will be appreciated most by readers who are already familiar with the series and its recurring characters.

4 stars

Asian authors
The Family Chao by Lan Samantha Chang

In the days leading up to Christmas, three brothers, the children of Chinese American immigrant restaurateurs, are home for the holidays. The mother, Winnie, has moved into a Buddhist nunnery, and a special lunch in her honor presages the disaster that will soon befall the family with the death of father Leo. Leo’s death could have been a tragic accident, or it could have been murder. The subsequent trial of one of the sons brings to light the prejudice lurking below the surface in this small Wisconsin town.

This book explores the Chinese American immigrant experience from several perspectives – Chinese born immigrants, their first-generation American born children, and Asian children adopted by white parents. The characters have made different choices regarding assimilation into the broader regional and national culture. The trial brings a measure of cohesion to the immigrant community as they perceive the racism that drives the course of justice. It’s easy to forget that this is a murder mystery, until an unexpected twist at the end of the book brings the mystery to the forefront again.

4 stars

British authors; Non-Fiction challenge
How to be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis

The author, a playwright and a first-generation Iraqi Jew raised in London, views her life history through the lens of fictional heroines. I gleaned some new insights from the literary criticism at the heart of this book, but I couldn’t get past the gimmicky vibe of a grown woman searching for a role model in the pages of fiction. I can accept that the author may have experienced a delayed adolescence as a result of her sheltered upbringing. However, adults in their mid- to late-thirties should be past the stage of life where you try on different personality traits until you find your niche. I suspect that’s true for this author, and that her life story is retrofitted to the pitch for this book.

3 stars

Group Reads
Give Unto Others by Donna Leon

Commissario Guido Brunetti agrees to do a favor for a former neighbor because her mother had been kind to his mother. Her daughter has confided in her that some unspecified danger threatens her husband and, by extension, herself. Her concern for her only child motivates her to seek out her old acquaintance in the Questura. Guido enlists the help of his colleagues Griffoni, Vianello, and Signorina Elettra to do some unofficial exploring. Their research soon leads them to a dodgy charity founded by the former neighbor’s husband. Will Guido and his colleagues finally pay the price for their off-the-books investigative methods?

I found this latest Brunetti novel less satisfactory than most of the series books that precede it. First of all, it’s not a homicide investigation. Secondly, Brunetti has had back-of-his-mind worries about his team’s unorthodox investigations throughout most of the series without these fears being realized, so why would it be any different this time? The tension feels exaggerated. The main thing this book accomplishes is to show that Brunetti is fallible, since he takes his old acquaintance’s story at face value and doesn’t suspect until very late that she’s been manipulating him all along.

3 stars

ShakespeareCAT; Reading Projects
Winter's Tales by Isak Dinesen

Most of the stories in this collection kept me spellbound. Most stories are set in Dinesen’s native Denmark, with occasional ventures into France, Germany, Norway, and other European countries. One story-with-in-a-story is set in Tehran. Dinesen was a master of short story literature. I happened to read this collection as I reached the end of a months-long read of Ralph Manheim’s translation of Grimms’ fairy tales, so I noted the influence of fairy tales and legends on Dinesen’s work.

4 stars

Reading Projects
Grimms' Tales for Young and Old translated by Ralph Manheim

As a child, I loved to read fairy tales more than anything else. My grandmother had a collection of Grimms’ fairy tales and Andersen’s fairy tales, and I grabbed one or the other off of her bookshelf at the first opportunity on each visit. I had never read anything like Ralph Manheim’s translation of Grimms’ fairy tales. It reads like exactly what it is – a transcription of oral stories and legends, with the voice of the teller unobscured by an editor. Some stories have multiple variations with slight differences between them. This collection makes it clear that the stories had a social purpose and were used to encourage positive character traits and discourage negative character traits. Manheim’s translation belongs in the libraries of all readers with more than a casual interest in fairy tales and legends.

4.5 stars