I finished the following books in November:
Two Short Stories
In the leadup to the election, on BlueSky we diverted ourselves by reading two short stories: Edgar Allen Poe's Murder in the Rue Morgue and Arthur Conan Doyle's A Scandal in Bohemia. I had read both of these long, long ago. While I'm not much of a short story reader it was good to re-visit them. I knew that Poe somewhat invented the murder mystery but I had not remembered (or maybe did not know) that his characters were precursors of Homes and Watson. I vaguely remembered the direction that the story took (which is a crazy direction) but was amused by it all the same. I enjoyed re-reading the Sherlock Homes story because Irene Adler was the only person to outwit Sherlock (although this is more because he underestimated her, perhaps because she was a woman).
The Dark Wives by Ann Cleeves
This is the book I read in the aftermath of the election, my library hold came in just in time for me to escape into Ann Cleeves' next Vera Stanhope mystery. This one finds Vera still trying to deal with the sad aftermath of the last case, dealing with a new team member named Rosie Spence and trying to change her ways at work and be more open with feedback to her subordinates. All with mixed success. The main mystery is a young volunteer at a local home for troubled teens who is found murdered at the same time that one of the teens disappears. So it is a mix of a murder mystery and a missing teenager case. I enjoyed this mystery, it was just what I needed at the time. I did think that all of the detectives were missing a blatant clue throughout most of the book that I thought of at the beginning, but I still didn't guess whodunnit. I recommend all the Vera Stanhope mysteries and, while you don't necessarily have to start at the beginning, I do think you get more out of the character development if you do.
Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel
Who would have guessed that a novel about girl youth boxers would be just what I needed after the election? But it was. The novel is set up in accordance with the grid for a boxing tournament and each match gets its own chapter. Bullwinkel tells the story in the third person where we know what the girl is thinking in the moment, we know about her past and she even tells us what the girl grows up to be. This is a fairly short novel but I thought it was exquisitely written and she made the characters come to life. There is also a certain amount of page turning plot as you wonder which girl will win the match and the tournament. Recommended.
Agony in Amethyst by A.M. Stuart
This is the latest, and perhaps the last (?), of the Harriet Gordon mysteries. The story is set in colonial Singapore circa 1911. Harriet assists in solving a murder that takes place at Government House. Stuart based the story on a true story involving a high diplomat who was a known pedophile. In the afterward she says that "she is not going to say that this is the last you will see of Harriet and Curran but I do feel that this series arc is concluded." I enjoyed this series mostly for the sense of place, although I liked the characters too. The mysteries were always fine but weren't the real draw for me.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
This was a BlueSky read-along that began the day following the election. I'm not sure I was in the right frame of mind to read about a man who abused women but it was a very good book. At first I wondered if it was intended to be a series of vignettes about village life in Africa but eventually I realized these vignettes were important in order to understand what was lost to colonialism. It is the first in a trilogy but I'm not in the frame of mind right now to read the others.
Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon
An interesting first novel set during the Peloponnesian Wars in ancient Syracuse. Three years earlier Syracuse had been invaded by Athens but, in the most unlikely turn of events, they defeated Athens. The prisoners of war were put in chains and lived outdoors in a quarry where they were basically starving to death. Two out of work Syracusians decide to put on performances of Medea and The Trojan Women using the prisoners, giving them extra food in exchange for acting in the performances. It is in some ways a difficult story to read because of the brutality of the situation but it is also is a tribute to the power of theater. Recommended.
Orbital by Samantha Harvey
The winner of this year's Booker Prize this is a very short novel about one 24 hour period on the International Space Station. Harvey follows the astronauts and cosmonauts, American, Russian, Italian, British, and Japanese, through their day. It isn't clear what year it is (on this day there is the liftoff of a manned flight to the Moon) but it is clear that the ISS is on its last legs. This is a beautifully written little novel in which nothing much happens but you get a clear idea of the characters and their lives before they went into space and on the ISS. I've seen people call this a science fiction novel but I think it is meant to be a realistic novel that incorporates the everyday science of the space station. It is her writing and the sense of place that elevates this novel rather than any kind of plot or even the characterizations.
Tell me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
All of Strout's novels (that I've read) are set within the same fictional universe and this one is no different. We return to Crosby Maine where Lucy Barton is still living with her ex-husband William and is still friends with Bob Burgess. Bob introduces her to Olive Kittredge who is living in the local retirement home and Lucy and Olive begin to share stories of "unrecorded lives". Bob, although mostly retired, represents the defendant in a local shocking crime. But plot is not the point of Strout's novels. She, as usual, has ideas she wants to explore and in this novel the idea of loneliness and the nature of love are front and center. Bob often reflects that you can tell people your story but they don't care "except for one minute. It was not their fault, most just could not really care past their own experiences." And who, asks the omniscient narrator, "who, who, who in this whole entire world -- does not want to be heard?" How rare, then, to find a friend who truly listens to you. And Strout also seems to explore the When Harry Met Sally question: Can men and women ever truly be friends without the sex part getting in the way? Whenever I start a Strout novel I'm not sure if it is for me. The conversational tone always throws me. But I soon get beyond that and end up truly enjoying each novel and this one was no different.
