July 2026 Reading

July for me is usually split in two as far as reading goes. There are the first three weeks that are "normal" and there is the last week when I am usually out of range for much of wifi and the internet. So I usually combine July and August into one (very long) post. This time I'm switching things up and doing most of July in this post and will include the books I read during the last week of July in my August post. 

I recently decided that I wanted to start visiting the library in person rather than mainly getting books through Libby. I belong to two separate library systems so I have a good choice of branches to seek out (and of course I could always order books from the central locations if I really wanted to). Because some of the branches are small I decided I would visit a different branch each time to see what was on their "new fiction" shelves and what books the staff at that branch chose to highlight. I've only managed to visit two branches so far but it has worked out pretty well.  

These are the books I finished in July.

Mysteries

Holy Island by LJ Ross

This was something I found on the "new mysteries" shelf at the library. Despite the fact that it said on the front of the book that she was "the Multi-Million Copy Selling Author"  I had never heard of her. Looking at the copyright page it seems that she self-published this on Amazon UK back in 2015 and it was picked up by a publisher to be "reprinted" in hard copy in 2026. Since 2015 she has written at least 23 sequels to this series plus a couple of other series. Not to denigrate self publishing, but putting out that many books in 10 years makes one wonder about the quality. If she originally tried to get this published in the traditional way I can see why it was rejected, it definitely needed some editorial advice. But I guess you can't argue with success if you simply want to make money. This novel, the "first" in the DCI Ryan mystery series, is (as are most mysteries) plot driven. She introduces DCI Ryan who is a fairly uninteresting detective. She tries to give him a tragic back story but mostly it sounds like a writer giving a character a tragic back story. He does a lot of yelling, especially at the love interest the author gives him, Dr. Anna Taylor. Their  story is written like a romance novel (lots of arguments followed by make-up sex, although it is not particularly spicy).  All of which would be ok, but she also introduces secret satanic sects operating on Holy Island (which, by the way, only has 200 residents so it seems hard to believe that they could really be kept secret). In order to make her plot work she relies on a whole lot of coincidences occurring. There's more I could say but I think I've made my point.  Not recommended. 

A Bitter Cut by Anna Lee Huber

The latest in Huber's Lady Darby mystery series set in the 1830's, this installment finds Lady Darby at her father-in-law's estate together with her husband and baby. It is a country house party and Lady Darby, who has much social anxiety, is expected to hostess. Included in the party is the family of her brother's "intended" although they are not formally engaged. Unfortunately, this is a very difficult family. When the private secretary of one of the guests is found murdered, suspicion falls on this family. The mystery must be solved! I always love a country house party setting and enjoyed the story. I suspected the solution to the mystery early but wasn't sure until the end. These novels can be read alone but are better if you start at the beginning. 

Murder in Belgravia by Lynn Brittney

This was a serendipity pick from my trip to the library. It was labeled as a "Mayfair 100" mystery and was the first in what I supposed was or would be a series.  The blurb said it took place during WWI and I am a sucker for anything set during WWI. It turns out that "Mayfair 100" is a telephone number.  A murder has occurred (of course) and detective inspector Beech is fairly sure that the wife is innocent. But she won't talk to any man or be examined by a male doctor. So, Beech calls on his friend Dr. Caroline Allardyce at the Women's Hospital to assist. He then explains to his superior that, given the fact that the war has caused London to be filled with women holding down jobs and doing duties that before the war were done by men, crimes involving women have increased and they need women to assist the police (no women are allowed to join the police). His superior agrees to an "off the books" team that Beech assembles to solve the crime, including Dr. Allardyce and his longtime friend and war widow Victoria Ellingham, who studied law for three years before her marriage. Their base of operations (since they can't use a police station) is Victoria's mother's home in Mayfair (hence the telephone number).  I enjoyed this book. Although the author had previously written children's and young adult books, this was her first adult novel and she did a decent job. She is a good writer and her plot made sense and had a lot of action and tension (involving brothels, gangs and the underworld).  My only complaint is that she decided that all the peripheral characters who were poor and powerless should get a happy ending, which is completely unrealistic. So I guess you could class this as a cozy mystery even though most of it isn't particularly cozy.  I see that the library has one sequel which I will eventually read. 

Five Found Dead by Sulari Gentill

Another library serendipity find. I'm a big fan of Sulari Gentill's Rowland Sinclair mystery series so I was willing to try one of her stand-alone novels and this was (I think) her latest. Gentill is an Australian mystery writer and in this mystery the story is told in the first person by Meredith Penvale, an Australian lawyer who has stepped away from her practice for a year or so to take care of her twin brother Joe while he went through cancer treatment. Joe is a best selling mystery writer and, now that he is on the mend, she is taking him on the trip of a lifetime aboard the Orient Express. Things don't go well however as there is a new Covid variant on the rise in Paris and shortly after the train leaves it is determined that a number of passengers tested positive and have to be quarantined in a separate car.  Then the man in the compartment next to Joe and Meredith disappears, presumed dead because of the blood that is all over his compartment. Then other murders begin to occur. Joe and Meredith join with a number of other passengers to try to solve these modern day Murders on the Orient Express while Joe uses the events as the start of a new novel. I enjoyed this novel even though I found it completely unrealistic. Because of the COVID positive tests the train is not allowed to continue to Venice and is forced to return to Paris (at gunpoint) but they are stopped at the France border because the borders have closed due to the variant and fear of the passengers on the train. In the original Murder on the Orient Express the train is isolated due to heavy snowfall so Gentill had to think of a reason for this train to be isolated. But a few years after 2020 it makes no sense that the authorities would not simply transport the COVID positive people off the train to be quarantined and treated somewhere. It makes even less sense that France would not allow the train to return to Paris since the variant started in Paris - it's not like they are bringing something NEW into France. There were other issues, but none of them really mattered. It was a fun read especially if you know Agatha Christie. 

Literary Fiction

Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford

In 1944, during the London Blitz, a bomb falls on the Woolworth's in Bexford High Street obliterating all the people inside, including five school age children. Apparently this concept is based on a real event. Spufford takes this as his starting point and imagines if these five children were NOT killed by a bomb. What would their lives be like? He picks up their story a couple of years later and then throughout the novel makes 15 year jumps to show us where they are in life. I am a big fan of Spufford's writing at the sentence level. He has the ability to put into words complex ideas in simple language. As I've said before, he has a way with a perfectly ordinary phrase that doesn't seem at all special and yet completely sets the scene or describes the character.  This novel is no different. He also has the ability to create fully developed worlds, historical and otherwise.  In this novel the readers can immerse themselves in the London of many different time periods. He also develops the five characters very well. Where this novel didn't completely work for me was in the story and that's mostly a result of my personal reading preferences. I don't particularly like short stories and I seldom like novels that are linked short stories. While that is not exactly what this novel is in form, it is in result. Each section (corresponding to a time period) is made up of separate chapters about each character. The characters seldom interact. Each section is like a set of short stories about the characters. For me, this structure lacks propulsion and I found myself putting the book down and forgetting to pick it up again or picking it up again because I felt I "ought to".  If I had to rank Spufford novels I would put this one last behind Golden Hill, Cahokia Jazz and Nonesuch all of which I've written about. My thoughts on those are linked.

Vigil by George Saunders

Jill "Doll" Blaine may have died but she still has a job. 343 times she has ushered souls into the afterlife, usually bringing them comfort. But her latest charge, a multi-millionaire oil tycoon, is turning out to be a bit of a challenge. She cannot console him because he regrets nothing.  And that challenge is making her consider her life (or her former life) more than she has in the past. The blurb for this novel all seem to focus on K.J. Boone, the dying man and tell us that this is a tale of corporate greed and global warming and capitalism. But this novel really isn't, in my opinion, about Boone; it is about Doll who must consider life and death and the question of atonement. This is a very short novel, written exquisitely. The subject matter may not be for some people. Personally, I liked Lincoln in the Bardo better but this is a good companion piece. 

General Fiction

The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau by Kristin Harmel

This was a choice by my book club. By all rights this is a novel that I shouldn't have liked all that much. It is (partly) set during WWII and I'm not wild about WWII novels. It is also one of those novels that takes place in two time periods (2018 and WWII) and the author switches back and forth in each chapter between time periods. I am so tired of this structure and wish that publishers would tell authors to get beyond it. Surprisingly, however, I did enjoy the novel despite the structure. The saving grace here is that the character in each time period is the same: Colette Marceau. We meet Colette in Boston in  2018 when she is an elderly woman. Colette is interesting because the world sees her as a sweet old lady but in reality she is a jewel thief. She learned to steal jewels from her mother Annabel but there are rules: steal only from bad people and use the proceeds to help those in need. Colette has anonymously used proceeds from some of the jewels to found a center for the remembrance of Holocaust victims, although Colette herself is not Jewish. We learn early on that, during the War, Colette lost her mother (killed by the Nazis) and her little four year old sister (found dead floating in the Seine). She has been searching for answers about her sister's murder for her entire life. A novel utilizing this structure can often, in my opinion, lack propulsion as the story switches between time periods. But since this is completely Colette's story Harmel does create a propulsive plot. Those people who only like historical fiction if it is a page turner would probably be fine with this novel. She also creates very interesting characters.  Harmel is a competent writer but there is nothing particularly special about her writing and it takes, in my opinion, a large suspension of disbelief to find that the ending hangs together. It's not the kind of ending I enjoy but I also know that what isn't for me often works for other people.  

January 2026 Reading

It is always good to start the year with books you enjoy and so in December I decided to save for January a number of books that I wanted to read. It worked. I started the year off on a good reading foot.  

I finished my read of the 2025 Booker Prize short listed novels. I read a book of poetry that I enjoyed (which was a relief after not finding enjoyable poetry last year). Surprisingly I also read three nonfiction books this month, all memoirs. That puts me half way to my goal of reading 6 nonfiction books this year. 

I also carried through on my resolution to write more, individually, about books I read. I didn't do a "Short Take" for each of the books I read but I have provided a link for where I did.  

These are the books I finished in January. 

The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovitz

The last of the 2025 Booker short listed books that I read, I enjoyed this one.  After learning of his wife's affair Tom Layward makes a decision. He will leave her but only after their youngest child leaves for college. Years later the time has come. Tom considers his options as he drives his daughter to college in Pittsburgh. Once in Pittsburgh he decides to continue the drive cross country to Los Angeles to see his son, stopping along the way to visit old friends. He is in ill health, suffering from what his doctor has said was "long COVID". Told in the first person, we are in Tom's head the entire novel. This is a character driven novel that focuses mostly on the one character.  My Short Take is here. Recommended.

My Beloved: A Mitford Novel by Jan Karon

Yes, yes, yes. Jan Karon's Mitford series is kind of hokey but that's ok. Sometimes in dark times you need to read the heartwarming hokey books. How great that she published her 15th Mitford book now. This one takes place at Christmas time and I read it during the 12 days of Christmas. My Short Take is here. Recommended only if you have read and are a fan of the other Mitford novels. 

All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me by Patrick Bringley

A memoir of loss, grief, joy and finding calmness through surrounding yourself with beauty. In his twenties Patrick Bringley quit his job at the New Yorker after his brother died and took a job as a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where he worked for ten years. This memoir is a love letter to the Met but also a story of how he dealt with his grief by surrounding himself with beauty and stillness.  Another book to read during hard times. My Short Take is here. Highly recommended.

The Snow Lies Deep by Paula Munier

The latest in Paula Munier's Mercy Carr mystery series, this one takes place at Christmas time and where better to celebrate Christmas than in Vermont's Green Mountains? But someone is killing Santas, which puts a crimp in the local holiday festival. Former Army MP Mercy and her husband, game warden Troy Warner, just want to celebrate their daughter Felicity's first Christmas in peace. Instead they are called on to help solve the mystery with their dogs Elvis, a retired bomb sniffing Malinois, and Susie Bear, a search and rescue Newfoundland. In addition, they have to deal with both sets of grandparents who have their own ideas about how to celebrate the holidays. I really like this series because the author clearly understands dogs and the dogs are integral to solving the mysteries. But the mysteries are also usually good and Munier does a good job developing her characters. And you can't beat the beautiful location. This one had a fairly convoluted plot but it all came together at the end. You can read this as a stand alone mystery but as always I recommend you start at the beginning of the series.

What We Can Know by Ian McEwan

I know that some people dislike when an Ian McEwan novel has a twist that reminds the reader that s/he is reading fiction. But I don't mind it. This novel is set in a dystopian future in the year 2119, and the humanities are still under siege at the university level. Thomas Metcalfe specializes in the literature of the early years of the 21st century, specifically  the poetry of the poet Francis Bundy (a sort of lesser Seamus Heaney). Bundy is reputed to have written a long poem for his wife Vivien and given the only copy to her. Thomas is determined to find it even though the geography of the world has changed immensely. Through the archive of emails, text messages and social media posts, he traces Vivien's days, especially the date of her birthday when the poem was given to her, and draws what conclusions he can. Through this research he creates a narrative that seems to fit the facts. But does it?  There are always things about people that remain unknown because neither the person nor anyone in the person's life ever refers to it in any kind of writing. The novel is divided into two parts:  the search and Vivien's actual story. Truthfully, I thought the second part, the shorter of the two, dragged a bit. Too much narrative, not enough action. But on the whole I enjoyed this novel.  My Short Take is here.  Recommended with reservations.

Doggerel by Reginald Dwayne Betts

After a disappointing year with poetry in 2025 I was glad to start off 2026 with a collection I enjoyed. I admit I would have understood it better if I had read a bit of the poet's biography before finishing the collection. When he was 16, Betts, otherwise an honors student, committed armed carjacking and was sentenced to 9 years in prison as an adult. While in prison he began to write poetry and after his release and receiving his GED he went to graduate school and received a number of degrees. It would have been very helpful to have known that in prison he received the name Shahid because through the collection he refers to Shahid. This collection examines his life both in prison and after prison using primarily (but not exclusively) his relationship with dogs. Sometimes as a person puts their lives together only their dog is a witness. Sometimes their dog reminds them to live in the here and now. Sometimes other people's dogs allow connection with other humans. This is not necessarily a light hearted collection and, as with most modern poetry, it is very personal and therefore not always understandable to a third person (my major complaint about modern poetry). It is a tribute to man's best friend although in the acknowledgements he thanks "Fiesty, the cat, a rescue, that circles my legs whenever I sit near her, & purrs that doggerel is kind of incomplete without a cat." Recommended.

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

This memoir has been on my TBR list since it was released more than 10 years ago. Since there is a feature film of the book being released this month it seemed to be the right time to pick it up. Helen Macdonald tries to deal with her grief over the sudden death of her father by retreating from the world and raising and training a goshawk she names Mabel. Helen was an experienced falconer but goshawks are supposed to be difficult to train. Over the first year with Mabel she learns as much about herself as she learns about Mabel. The memoir is interspersed with memories of her father (who seemed to have been a lovely man). She also becomes somewhat obsessed with a memoir by T.H. White in which he describes how he (badly) tried to train a goshawk. Although filled with information about birds of prey and the woods around Cambridge, this actually reads more like a novel than the usual memoir. Macdonald seamlessly integrates facts into her narrative so that it doesn't feel like a digression but an essential part of the narrative. My Short Take is here. Highly recommended.

Honey, Baby, Mine by Laura Dern and Diane Ladd

I listened to this joint memoir on audiobook and I'm really glad I did. The book arose out of a series of walks that Laura Dern forced her mother to do when her mother was diagnosed with a life threatening illness. The doctor said that increasing her lung capacity by walking would be good for Diane. To distract her mom during the walks Laura asked her questions. That led to Diane asking Laura questions. The book is a transcript of the conversations (clearly also edited) but in the audiobook each of Laura and Diane read their own "parts" and, being actresses, that makes the whole book sound like it is taking place in real time. There is a lot of interesting information about working in Hollywood but the personal parts (especially when they disagree over their memories) are equally entertaining.  My Short Take is here. Recommended.

The Last Children of Mill Creek by Vivian Gibson

Six months after she retired, Vivian Gibson joined a creative writing class and began writing about her childhood. That turned into this memoir of her life growing up as a Black child in the 1950's in segregated St. Louis. Vivian lived in a segregated area called the Mill Creek Valley, a section of the city containing over 5,000 buildings and inhabited by 20,000 citizens, 95% of them black. My book group picked it for next month's discussion and the Missouri History Museum currently has an exhibit called Mill Creek: Black Metropolis which runs until July 12.  The Mill Creek Valley neighborhood was demolished in 1959 for "urban renewal". Almost no trace of it remains today.  Vivian remembers the community that lived there and the details of her life. This book was not only informative but nostalgic for me. Even though Vivian is black and I am white and I did not grow up in Mill Creek I remember many of the things she remembers including the Charlotte Peters show on television that my mom watched at noon every day, going to Soulard Market for fresh fruit and vegetables, making cornbread (with my grandma) and being allowed to play in other kids' backyards but being told not to go in their houses. I did not, however, grow up in a house infested with rats. I enjoyed this book. I'm not sure it would have the same effect on someone who wasn't from St. Louis. 

Moby Dick or The Whale by Herman Melville

This was a month long read-along with my usual BlueSky reading group. I think most of the people in the group (at least the ones that were posting the most often) had read it before but I hadn't. You might expect more "action" in a book about a whaling ship searching for and trying to kill the Great White Whale but most of the book is more like a treatise on whales, whaling ships and whalers. Fortunately Melville writes with humor, and his descriptions are vivid and every time I would think that I was bored out of my mind he would pop in with some quip that made me laugh. Also, the sections on whales and whaling included most of the "deep thoughts" that Melville had (or seemed to have). While I'm glad I read this book (finally) and I appreciated the writing, it was my least favorite book that I read this month. I don't need a novel to be plot-heavy (this isn't) but I do like my novels to be character-driven and through most of this novel (really, until the last part) it isn't. Even though the plot (such as it is) is driven by Ahab's obsessive search for the White Whale, Ahab himself isn't really much in the novel until toward the end. I will say that Melville created a good sense of place - being on a whaleship hunting for and processing whales - which is usually a plus for me but I found that I really wasn't that interested in whaling ships and whales.  My Short Take is here.

In some ways it is a shame I chose to read "Moby Dick" and "H is for Hawk" in the same month. "H is for Hawk" could be read as a treatise on hawks and hawking but Macdonald's digressions into hawks and hawking were integrated into the greater narrative and were necessary for her character arc (even though it was a memoir and not a novel). On the other hand Melville, who was ostensibly writing a novel, did not integrate his information about whales and whaling into his narrative but put them into (many) separate chapters. This was, I think, partly because of the age in which the novel was written but also the digressions may have been his way of showing how time slowly passed on a whaling ship where you might have nothing to do but reflect on life. Either way, I have to say that in my opinion those sections went on much too long.  

My Beloved: A Mitford Novel

 

The Book: For Christmas, Father Tim's wife Cynthia tells him she wants a letter from him. But after writing a deeply personal love letter from his heart, Father Tim finds that it has somehow gone missing! Through a comedy of errors the letter ends up being passed around (although not necessarily read) by the community, causing unexpected revelations. This is Karon's 15th novel in the Mitford series, which is set in the fictional small mountain town of Mitford, North Carolina. By this time, Father Tim is retired but still active in the community and Cynthia is still creating her children's books. The characters that started as children are now grown with children of their own. Characters that were middle aged to start with are now old. But as usual in a Karon novel, although the characters have (sometimes very bad) problems, they still get through life by believing in the power of "love thy neighbor" and they believe in the power of prayer. 

The Author: Jan Karon

Genre: General Fiction (Christian Fiction, Southern Fiction, Holiday Fiction)

Length:  406 pages in hardback

One good thing:  For those who have read all the Mitford novels, this is like catching up with old friends during the holidays. Reading it is like sitting down for an episode of Gilmore Girls. It is heartwarming without being too saccharine because Karon makes sure that there are enough realistic problems that her characters deal with that are never completely solved (just like in real life). But they make progress in solving them. 

One not-so-great thing:  Even though I have read all the Mitford novels, it has been a while since the last one. I had trouble remembering who many of the "side" characters were and what problems they were dealing with. Karon gives some background without resorting to a lot of exposition but I wonder if someone who just picked up this novel without reading the earlier novels would be lost. 

Nancy Pearl's "Four Doorways":

    Story: As usual in a Mitford novel, the incident that instigates the plot is very mundane and isn't of the type that moves a story along. It is mostly a device to move the story between characters. This is not a page turner by any means. 

    Characters: There are a multitude of characters, most of them introduced in previous novels.  Karon is very good at giving each character an individual "voice" that I find easy to hear in my mind. But even if you like character-driven stories that meander through plots you may be frustrated unless you started with the first book in the series. This book was clearly written with existing fans in mind.

    Setting:  While I think many people read the Mitford novels for the characters I'm convinced most people read them for the setting. While Karon doesn't shy away from showing that rural America has many problems, Mitford is the small town that everyone who ever dreamed of living in a small town wants to move to.  

    Writing:  Nobody buys the Mitford novels for the writing itself but Karon is very good at dialog. And her descriptions of food will make you hungry. (By the way, OMC stands for Orange Marmalade Cake, which should be avoided by anyone diabetic!)