I had good intentions to blog all my reading in 2019. I didn't make it through February. Oh well.
The grand total this year was 36 books - which is a low number for me. But my work schedule this year was brutal and when I would get home I often found I didn't want to read. I read only one book in each of May, June and October and I read no books in September. I only read two books in each of February, April, November and December.
Mysteries - 15 Books.
As usual my reading this year was heavy on mysteries. My go-to relaxation genre is historical mysteries but I sometimes branch out to the present day. And I love mysteries that are part of a series.
I started out the year with the new Ian Rankin novel, "A House of Lies", which continues his series set in Scotland featuring (now retired) detective John Rebus. I actually managed to blog about that one.
One of my favorite authors, Charles Todd, sets his novels in the years immediately following World War I. He published two books this year: "The Black Ascot", a continuation of his Inspector Rutledge series, which I read in February and "A Cruel Deception", a continuation of his Bess Crawford Series, which I read in October. I usually enjoy Inspector Rutledge more than Bess, but this year I found Bess's case, set in France while the Paris peace talks are occuring, more interesting.
April brought me the next book in Jacqueline Winspear's "Maisie Dobbs" series: "The American Agent." I like this series but am still disappointed it moved into the World War II era rather than stay in the 1920s post-World War I period. I also read "The Golden Tresses of the Dead" by Alan Bradley, part of the continuing saga of Flavia de Luce and her family. As Flavia gets older, she is finding that perhaps her sisters are not quite as bad as she imagined.
Another of my favorite series is the Amy Leduc series by Cara Black. Set in Paris in the 1990's, each novel takes place in a different portion of Paris. This one was "Murder in Bel-Air" and I read it in July. Any worries that making Amy a single mother would stunt her style have come to naught. Her adventures are just as enjoyable. And she still wears her Chanel red lipstick.
August was a big month. I read (i) "A Better Man" by Louise Penny, the next book in her Inspector Gamache series that takes place in Quebec, (ii) The Stone Circle" by Elly Griffiths, whose main character is an archaeologist, and (iii)" Invitation to Die" by Lindsey Davis, who sets her stories in the Rome of the Emperor Domitian. August also saw the return of Kate Atkinson's detective, Jackson Brodie, in "Big Sky." I am a big Kate Atkinson fan and have loved her recent stand-alone literary fiction. But it was nice to see Jackson again. Denise Mina's "Conviction" is probably more of a crime novel than a mystery but I'm including it here. And while Laura Lippman writes mysteries, I think "Lady in the Lake" was more of a straight novel than a mystery or a crime novel. But I put it here. And I really enjoyed it.
Amy Stewart's "Miss Kopp" series is another favorite. Stewart bases her novels on a real person who lived and worked in New Jersey. In November I finally read "Kopp Sisters on the March", set in the United States during World War I. It was very much a transition book and I hope that Miss Kopp will be able to transition to war-intelligence work as she wants to. That would be a great next book in the cycle.
In December, I read another of the Lindsey Davis series, " A Capitol Death" which involved deaths near the Capitoline Hill in Rome. I finished the year with John Le Carre's latest novel, "Agent Running in the Field" which is technically a spy thriller but I'm lumping in with the mysteries. No better end to the year than Le Carre's prose.
All in all, it was a good year for mysteries. There wasn't one that I didn't enjoy.
Other Fiction - 18 Books
My year in literary and other fiction was a little more mixed.
I started my year with "Early Work" by Andrew Martin, "Assymetry" by Lisa Halliday and "Milkman" by Anna Burns. I blogged about them. I still think "Milkman" was one of the best books I read all year.
In March I read "The Friend" by Sigrid Nunez, a story about a woman, her ex-lover and his dog. It didn't have nearly enough dog. I also read "Where the Crawdads Sing" by Delia Owens. I enjoyed it but wasn't as wowed by it as everyone else seemed to be. It definitely seemed like a first novel for the author. Her secondary characters seemed thin and sometimes she seemed to be stretching things for plot-purposes. But her descriptive prose is unmatched. I also read "Hild" by Nicola Griffith which is a work of historical fiction that takes place in the seventh century. I think it is part of a planned trilogy. I had mixed feelings about it (good writing about a period I knew little about but undeveloped secondary characters) and I'm not sure I would read the sequels.
In May I read "Queenie" by Candace Carly Williams, the story of a young black woman in London who keeps dating white men (it's more complicated than that). I enjoyed it but I really think I was too old for it. I kept thinking how glad I was to be past the angst of my 20s.
"Night Film" by Marisha Pessl was my June reading. What a weird novel. I read to the end but I didn't like it.
July found me reading "Once Upon a River" by Diane Setterfield which was a ... strange ... story. This is the second novel by Setterfield I've read and I like the way she writes but I never quite believe her ... strange ... stories. I also read "Little Fires Everywhere" by Celeste Ng, which may have been my second favorite book this year. I should have read it when it came out in 2017. I also read Rachel Kushner's "The Mars Room" of which I remember next to nothing. (I'm shocked by that, but even googling to read a summary doesn't refresh much of my memory). And then there was
"The Whole Town's Talking" by Fannie Flagg. It was typical Fannie Flagg but I didn't hate it.
August was my big reading month. My favorite read of the month was "Evvie Drake Starts Over" by Linda Holmes. It combined a nice writing style with baseball. I feel sure it will be made into a movie. Which I will go see. "Fleishman is in Trouble" by Taffy Brodesser-Akner was another good read, although I didn't care for the story as much as the writing style. "There There" by Tommy Orange was a critics pick but I didn't enjoy it at all. Maybe there was too much real life gun violence this year for me to want to read about fictional gun violence. I don't know where I got the recommendation to read "Everything Under" by Daisy Johnson. I'd probably read another of her books even though I didn't care much for the plot of this one (which is based on the plot of Oedipus). I finished the month with Jane Gardam's "A Long Way From Verona." You can never go wrong with Jane Gardam.
The last book of literary fiction that I read this year, which I finished in November, was "Inland" by Tea Obreht. I don't know what to say about this. It had really good reviews and I continually felt that I SHOULD like it, but every time I put it down I would not pick it up again for days, sometimes weeks. Part of the problem was that I was so busy at work. But part of it was that I just didn't really care what happened to the characters. So I'd say it was a "fail" for me.
Miscellaneous - 3 Books
"The Misunderstood Mission of Jean Nicolet" by Patrick J. Jung, which I blogged about it.
"The Oddysey" translated by Emily Wilson. I read this very slowly and finished it in March. Of course I already knew the story but it was nice to read a woman's translation.
"I Love to Watch" by Emily Nussbaum, a collection of essays about TV.
That's it for 2019. I could make a resolution to read more (and blog more about the books I read) but I don't want to promise myself more than I will really do. But I do hope that I find more time to read in 2020.
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
February 2019 Reading
I didn't get a lot of reading finished in February - in fact I only finished two books this month, although I have a pile of books that I am continuing to read but couldn't get through by the end of February.
The Misunderstood Mission of Jean Nicolet: Uncovering the Story of the 1634 Journey by Patrick J. Jung. This is a slim little book that I wanted for Christmas and received. Jung thoroughly debunks the myth that Jean Nicolet was sent by the French to Green Bay to search for the Northwest Passage, that he expected to find Chinese colonies living there and that he brought along and wore a Chinese robe when he met with the Indians there. He uses French written sources, archaeological evidence and the oral histories of the descendants of the Indians who lived in the area. In the course of it he goes into a lot of the story of Samuel de Champlain. If you are interested in Samuel Champlain and the exploration of the Great Lakes area in the 1600s, you will enjoy this.
The Black Ascot by Charles Todd. Another in the Inspector Ian Rutledge series of mysteries. This time Inspector Rutledge, of Scotland Yard, is given a tip that a wanted man, thought to have escaped England ten years before, has returned. Traveling around England in his motor car, Rutledge solves the years old case. A survivor of World War I, Rutledge suffers from PTSD and "hears" the voice of a former comrade in arms in his head. Time moves slowly in these novels and only two years have passed since the end of the war. Rutledge is slowly getting better, but is still a very damaged man. I always enjoy the Inspector Rutledge novels (more than the companion series featuring Bess Crawford). This one had a somewhat convoluted plot line with a lot more characters than usual (who I sometimes had trouble keeping track of from chapter to chapter). Not my favorite, but still very enjoyable.
The Misunderstood Mission of Jean Nicolet: Uncovering the Story of the 1634 Journey by Patrick J. Jung. This is a slim little book that I wanted for Christmas and received. Jung thoroughly debunks the myth that Jean Nicolet was sent by the French to Green Bay to search for the Northwest Passage, that he expected to find Chinese colonies living there and that he brought along and wore a Chinese robe when he met with the Indians there. He uses French written sources, archaeological evidence and the oral histories of the descendants of the Indians who lived in the area. In the course of it he goes into a lot of the story of Samuel de Champlain. If you are interested in Samuel Champlain and the exploration of the Great Lakes area in the 1600s, you will enjoy this.
The Black Ascot by Charles Todd. Another in the Inspector Ian Rutledge series of mysteries. This time Inspector Rutledge, of Scotland Yard, is given a tip that a wanted man, thought to have escaped England ten years before, has returned. Traveling around England in his motor car, Rutledge solves the years old case. A survivor of World War I, Rutledge suffers from PTSD and "hears" the voice of a former comrade in arms in his head. Time moves slowly in these novels and only two years have passed since the end of the war. Rutledge is slowly getting better, but is still a very damaged man. I always enjoy the Inspector Rutledge novels (more than the companion series featuring Bess Crawford). This one had a somewhat convoluted plot line with a lot more characters than usual (who I sometimes had trouble keeping track of from chapter to chapter). Not my favorite, but still very enjoyable.
Sunday, February 3, 2019
My January 2019 Reading
This month I finished the following books:
In a House of Lies by Ian Rankin. There is no better way to ring in the new year than with a new Ian Rankin book. I started this on New Year's Eve (the day it was published in the U.S.) and finished it on New Year's Day. John Rebus is back (and up to all of his old tricks). Siobhan Clarke is called in to assist when a long dead corpse is discovered in the trunk of a car lying abandoned in a gulch (or whatever the Scottish word for gulch is). It turns out that this is an old missing persons' case that had been handled (or mishandled) by Rebus' team back in the day. That brings in Malcom Fox to review all the old case files. I love the "team" of Rebus, Siobhan and Malcom. This time there is also a new character, DCI Graham Sutherland, who is a good addition and I hope Rankin keeps him around for more cases. I was particularly struck by how Rankin managed to include a warning against Brexit by the end of the story without being preachy.
Early Work by Andrew Martin. If this novel hadn't been short I wouldn't have finished it. In my opinion the world doesn't need any more novels about men thinking with their dicks - John Updike perfected that genre. I'm making a note of the people who gave this novel good reviews so that I remember that we don't agree on what is good and I don't take their reading advice in the future without looking into the recommendation more. I was reminded, yet again, how boring I find novels about people who are drunk or stoned most of the time (which also reminds me of how good a writer I found Edward St. Aubyn despite the fact that his main character was a drug addict.) Anyway ... not recommended by me.
Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday. A somewhat odd little book, in three parts where the second part seems unconnected to parts one and two (except it isn't). I really enjoyed part two - I liked the characters, I liked the writing and the plot took me in an unexpected direction. I found part three entertaining because I like to listen to the BBC's Desert Island Discs and it was a riff on that. But part one left me cold. I really never understood the main female character and, worse, I just didn't care about her. And I had no real interest in the writer she was involved with. But it is a small novel so that part doesn't go on for very long. And I do like the way that she writes, even in part one. The first paragraph is an homage to Alice in Wonderland and the main character is called Alice. And as she slips down the rabbit hole into her relationship with this man, there is a lot of "eat this" or "drink me". I found that amusing. The problem is that, just like the "real" Alice, this one is very passive. That's ok in a little girl but I found it tedious in a grown woman. As a side note, this book should carry a trigger warning for St. Louis Cardinals fans - it will bring back your memories of the 2004 World Series.
Milkman: A Novel by Anna Burns. I loved, loved, loved this book. It was chosen by my reading group (although I planned to read it anyway) and from what I can tell, no one loved it but me and most people didn't get through it. (I missed the meeting.) Burns sets her story in an unnamed place with unnamed people (the time period appears to be the 1970's). With just a little effort it's easy to identify the locale as Belfast, Northern Ireland during "the troubles". The characters are the narrator, her family, "sometime boyfriend" and the people who live in her neighborhood. Oh, and a character known only as "Milkman" who has taken an interest in the narrator and is sexually harassing her - but without touching her or saying anything. The plot is not the point of this novel (and in some ways it is tied up far too neatly at the end) and the characters are somewhat secondary. Burns was trying to evoke what it felt like to live in that kind of situation and I think she handled that perfectly. The thing that struck me was how brilliant it was to not name the characters or the locale - because it was so easy to analogize the situation to many OTHER situations: the #metoo era, what life must have been like in Beirut back in the 1980's, what life must be like in parts of many American cities in the 20th century if you were black and living in the midst of the drug war.
Here are some representative lines that seem to me to evoke the ideas of the novel, but could be applied to many different stories, not just this one - I could put most of them as a lead-in to a tweet about a news story of the day somewhere:
I could go on and on. I was constantly highlighting phrases in this novel, stopping to think how the thought applied to more situations than simply a girl living in Belfast in the 1970's being stalked by an older man who was part of the IRA.
A lot of people have said this book is difficult to read because it has an almost stream of consciousness style. I didn't find it difficult, but maybe because when I read I "hear" specific voices very clearly and this character had a very distinctive voice. The two people in my reading group who made it through the book both listened to the audio version. That may make a difference.
In a House of Lies by Ian Rankin. There is no better way to ring in the new year than with a new Ian Rankin book. I started this on New Year's Eve (the day it was published in the U.S.) and finished it on New Year's Day. John Rebus is back (and up to all of his old tricks). Siobhan Clarke is called in to assist when a long dead corpse is discovered in the trunk of a car lying abandoned in a gulch (or whatever the Scottish word for gulch is). It turns out that this is an old missing persons' case that had been handled (or mishandled) by Rebus' team back in the day. That brings in Malcom Fox to review all the old case files. I love the "team" of Rebus, Siobhan and Malcom. This time there is also a new character, DCI Graham Sutherland, who is a good addition and I hope Rankin keeps him around for more cases. I was particularly struck by how Rankin managed to include a warning against Brexit by the end of the story without being preachy.
Early Work by Andrew Martin. If this novel hadn't been short I wouldn't have finished it. In my opinion the world doesn't need any more novels about men thinking with their dicks - John Updike perfected that genre. I'm making a note of the people who gave this novel good reviews so that I remember that we don't agree on what is good and I don't take their reading advice in the future without looking into the recommendation more. I was reminded, yet again, how boring I find novels about people who are drunk or stoned most of the time (which also reminds me of how good a writer I found Edward St. Aubyn despite the fact that his main character was a drug addict.) Anyway ... not recommended by me.
Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday. A somewhat odd little book, in three parts where the second part seems unconnected to parts one and two (except it isn't). I really enjoyed part two - I liked the characters, I liked the writing and the plot took me in an unexpected direction. I found part three entertaining because I like to listen to the BBC's Desert Island Discs and it was a riff on that. But part one left me cold. I really never understood the main female character and, worse, I just didn't care about her. And I had no real interest in the writer she was involved with. But it is a small novel so that part doesn't go on for very long. And I do like the way that she writes, even in part one. The first paragraph is an homage to Alice in Wonderland and the main character is called Alice. And as she slips down the rabbit hole into her relationship with this man, there is a lot of "eat this" or "drink me". I found that amusing. The problem is that, just like the "real" Alice, this one is very passive. That's ok in a little girl but I found it tedious in a grown woman. As a side note, this book should carry a trigger warning for St. Louis Cardinals fans - it will bring back your memories of the 2004 World Series.
Milkman: A Novel by Anna Burns. I loved, loved, loved this book. It was chosen by my reading group (although I planned to read it anyway) and from what I can tell, no one loved it but me and most people didn't get through it. (I missed the meeting.) Burns sets her story in an unnamed place with unnamed people (the time period appears to be the 1970's). With just a little effort it's easy to identify the locale as Belfast, Northern Ireland during "the troubles". The characters are the narrator, her family, "sometime boyfriend" and the people who live in her neighborhood. Oh, and a character known only as "Milkman" who has taken an interest in the narrator and is sexually harassing her - but without touching her or saying anything. The plot is not the point of this novel (and in some ways it is tied up far too neatly at the end) and the characters are somewhat secondary. Burns was trying to evoke what it felt like to live in that kind of situation and I think she handled that perfectly. The thing that struck me was how brilliant it was to not name the characters or the locale - because it was so easy to analogize the situation to many OTHER situations: the #metoo era, what life must have been like in Beirut back in the 1980's, what life must be like in parts of many American cities in the 20th century if you were black and living in the midst of the drug war.
Here are some representative lines that seem to me to evoke the ideas of the novel, but could be applied to many different stories, not just this one - I could put most of them as a lead-in to a tweet about a news story of the day somewhere:
"I did not want to get in the car with this man, I did not know how to say so though, as he wasn't being rude and he knew my family for he'd named the credentials, the male people of my family, and I couldn't be rude because he wasn't being rude."
"I did not like twentieth-century books because I did not like the twentieth century."
"...if no physically violent touch was being laid upon you, and no outright verbal insults were being levelled at you, and no taunting looks in the vicinity either, then nothing was happening,, so how could you be under attack from something that wasn't there?"
"If we were in a proper relationship and I did live with him and was officially committed to him, first thing I would have to do would be to leave."
"I said this was because of the twisting of words, the fabrication of words and the exaggeration of words that went on in this place."
" 'it's not about being happy, he said, which was, and still is, the saddest remark I've ever heard."
"They killed it because it liked them, because they couldn't cope with being liked, couldn't cope with innocence, frankness, openness, with a defencelessness and an affection and purity so pure, so affectionate, that the dog and its qualities had to be done away with."
"This was why you didn't get many shining people in environments overwhelmingly consisting of fear and sorrow."
"No one has ever come across a cat apologising and if a cat did, it would be patently obvious it was not being sincere."
"... because no information could be forthcoming that wouldn't be perceived by at leats one party to be a distortion of the truth."
"... their survival as an armed guerrilla outfit in a tightly knit, anti-state environment depended upon local support in that environment."
"Hard to define, this stalking, this predation, because it was piecemeal."
"...the only time you'd call the police in my area would be if you were going to shoot them, and naturally they would know this and so wouldn't come."
I could go on and on. I was constantly highlighting phrases in this novel, stopping to think how the thought applied to more situations than simply a girl living in Belfast in the 1970's being stalked by an older man who was part of the IRA.
A lot of people have said this book is difficult to read because it has an almost stream of consciousness style. I didn't find it difficult, but maybe because when I read I "hear" specific voices very clearly and this character had a very distinctive voice. The two people in my reading group who made it through the book both listened to the audio version. That may make a difference.
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